The MeidasTouch Podcast - Texan TikToker EXPOSES Gov. Abbott’s Border Stunt (Exclusive Interview)

Episode Date: April 19, 2022

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, we have an extraordinary guest. We speak with megaviral Texas-based TikToker Paul Schroder (AKA @PaulTX890 on TikTok) about how he, as a regular citizen, exposed Gov. Greg Abbott's stunt at the border, which crippled the American supply chain, spoiled hundreds of millions of dollars worth of produce, and drove up prices for everyday Americans. The Texas native pulls no punches & I promise you will NOT want to miss his first-ever interview since his video took the Internet by storm! The remainder of the episode, the brothers break down some of the most important issues of the week, including Mike Lee’s leaked text messages with Mark Meadows, Tucker Carlson’s “testical tanning,” and lastly, the GOOD news that Dems need to be loud & proud about! If you enjoyed today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! As always, thank YOU for listening! Follow Paul on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@paultx890 DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: AG1 by Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/meidas Better Help: https://betterhelp.com/meidas Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. The Republican big issue of the week has been testicle tanning. Texas Governor Greg Abbott engages in economic terrorism on the border of Texas performative garbage. Republican Senator Mike Lee text messages to Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, are revealed showing him begging for help to message fraudulent election claims. Compare and contrast. On the Democratic side, unemployment is down to 3.6%. Ukrainians are armed in defense of their nation. The first black woman has been appointed as a Supreme Court justice.

COVID deaths are now down 75%. Home tests are free and easy to get. Weekly job losses are at the lowest in 50 years. And healthcare coverage is up for families more than ever. This is the Midas Touch Podcast. Ben, Brett, and Jordy delivering the truth as we just did. How are you guys doing? Brothers. Fantastic. I mean, what a weekend, everybody. First, I want to wish all of our listeners, all of our viewers, happy Passover, happy Ramadan,

happy Easter to all those who celebrate. What a big weekend of holidays when they all land on the same date. I know I had a fun weekend. I had a great Passover Seder on Friday. Oh, you did a Seder? Did the Seder? Of course I did the Seder. Wow, good for you. You didn't do a Seder? Is that something you want to say?

Mom is watching the chat. I just wanted you to not do the Seder. We did Easter. I did Easter with Alexi's family this year. You're supposed to do Pister. You're supposed to do both, Jordy. But I did the Seder. Then I went to actually the Universal Studios, which was my first time

going to the theme park since pre-pandemic. And it was pretty wild to actually go to Universal Studios. Now it was really cool. A lot of fun. Wait, you're going to give me shit for doing Easter this weekend while you did Passover and then went to Universal Studios. I don't think that mixes. I paid my dues. I read, I did the Seder, Jordy. I did. So there was a really funny story that has nothing to do with politics. But when I was at Universal Studios, you know, super fun. The rides are super fun. So we did the, we went to the animal show when these animals, these are like the celebrity animals who they have that are in the movies and they show the tricks and stuff. And for whatever reason, the animals that day were acting up and they were not listening to

the trainers. I've never seen it just be like so chaotic. And so while some of the animals were truly incredible, some of them just seemed like they had enough. And one of the animals was a dog who they came out and they brought down a young girl as a volunteer from the audience. And they had her like sit in tabletop position on the stage. And what was supposed to happen was that the dog was supposed to happen was that the dog was supposed to jump over this little girl and then like run through a bunch of little hoops and then come back and like jump back over her. And so the first dog does it and everybody applauds. And the second dog, instead of jumping over her, goes around her, lifts his leg up like it's going

to pee on her face. And I've never seen such horror. I've never seen such terror from the workers at this place run over and go, no, no, stop. And they stopped. And the audience, I think, was just kind of appalled. And I think each of the animal trainers, I think, kind of saw their employment and the lawsuits flash flash before their eyes of what happened. And thank God the young girl didn't know what happened. She didn't even see it because she was looking down in this tabletop position and they were like, oh, she didn't see anything. I guess we're all good here. But it was like, I'm telling you, it was like a half a second away from being like a disaster. And I've just never seen anything like it. I studied the news this weekend for

the Midas Mighty. I was highly focused on delivering political commentary in ways the Midas Mighty understands and doing deep research. I did a Legal AF podcast this weekend. It was great. Brett was doing animal shows. Jordy was on a vacation. I was doing Easter with my family here and I helped produce the Legal AF podcast. Let's get into the pod. We have incredible guests today. We have Paul Schroeder, who you all probably know by his video, maybe not know by his name yet.

Paul went mega viral last week after posting a video on TikTok exposing Greg Abbott's blockade on the Texas border as economic terrorism. And you saw the video of Paul. Paul's the Texan who was there, who called him out. That video has gotten what? We played it on the last show. Massively viral. You probably know him as Paul TX 890 on TikTok.

The foul mouth Texan who is talking no bullshit to Republicans in Texas and to Greg Abbott. It's a bit redundant. Foul mouth Texans. He's just speaking Texas, but he's speaking the truth. He's speaking direct. He's speaking to the people. And that is what, you know, that is what's representative of Texas, though, you know, and calling out the Greg Abbott bullshit. That's what needs to be done. And Ben, I think, you know, it's it sums it up when we speak about this performative bullshit of the Republican Party, their performative antics versus the actual accomplishments of Democrats. And you can look at that in the resumes of our candidates. And you can look at thatott did over the past week, which was purposely cause a blockade on the Texas border, ramping up the prices of produce around the country. And according to a CNN investigative report, caused more than $240 million in fruit and vegetables to go bad, all to try to score political points. And perhaps the most craven

aspect of this is when he was caught doing this, when he was called out. And we'll get to Beto O'Rourke in a second, because Beto O'Rourke called him out to his face. Beto O'Rourke brought the national media cameras down there, and he made a big spectacle of it, as he should, because that's what Democrats should be doing in the face of actions like this. What does Greg Abbott do? Greg Abbott tries to reverse course. He tries to blame Mexico for the problems. And then he tries to take credit for solving a crisis that he himself caused. He is the arsonist who lit the building on fire, then put the fire out despite all the damage that was caused to that building and said, hey, everybody, look at what a great job I just did. Everybody want to give me some applause,

want to give me some love for putting out that fire? Sure, your house is destroyed now, but look what I did. I'm so great. Governor Greg Abbott helping you with your supply chain. And that's what Republicans are doing around the country. And people are calling him out. As we said, we had Beto O'Rourke call him out. We had the American Trucking Association call him out. You want to talk about these fake Republicans pretending they are friends of truckers and running these fake trucker convoys where most of the people in them were not even truckers, but paid activists who they did just to literally try to cause more economic terrorism on our northern border in Canada. You want to talk about support for truckers? The American Trucker Association called Abbott's plan wholly flawed. They called it a border-clogging inspection scheme. They called Greg Abbott senseless

and misguided. That's what truckers think, the actual real truckers. That's what they think about these Republican policies. When you actually think about what he did, he had his Department of Public Safety, which is not even authorized. They don't even have the ability to inspect the vehicles. So what they actually were doing was they were inspecting the tire pressure and then lying to the public that by inspecting the tire pressure that Abbott was basically using his own Department of Public Safety to keep the border safe when he was doing no such thing at all. Literally, he was checking tire pressure. Not only was he not keeping the border safe, as Brett said, he was clogging the border and preventing the produce from getting into the United States and thus destroying the produce. So then that he could later say when he removed the Department of Public Safety Officers

to then claim that he fixed it. We've covered it here, obviously, just now. And politicians like Beto O'Rourke, the Truckers Association, are covering it. But the main headline that I've seen from the media is, is Greg Abbott going to run for president? This seemed like this was a move that he was going to run for president. The horse race aspect about it. And again, that's where they lean in the horse race aspect of it versus what he did there, that eco-terrorism, economic terrorism is what should be covered every single day and it should not just be covered like even as a one-off like there needs to be investigations there needs to be accountability he just destroyed 240 million dollars i mean think

about that like if someone stole 240 million dollars40 million, it'd be one of the most massive criminal cases. And here's someone who did it for what? To score fake political points and to make up this fake persona of trying to make the border safer when you're checking tire pressures. I mean, again, we saw Greg Abbott do this. I mean, the message has to resonate with people of texas though over and over again if you didn't have fox news spreading the false propaganda which fills a void and then the void is filled by other media not actually talking about issues so if regular media just talked about issues we would still be talking about i mean mean, it seems like Greg Abbott, he just gets a pass for last year by not, by not, by not making sure that the, you know, wind turbines and, and other kind of, you know, things that powered there. The state's been a disaster under his leadership. You can't deny that.

Their politicians are flying to Cancun. I mean, it's horrible. Absolutely. And look, and the reason why he puts out his own video, his fake victory lap video, I mean, such a weird move, but it's actually, you know, it serves a purpose because Fox is going to pick that up. The right wing media is going to pick that up. And now all of a sudden you have that messaging going out to all the right wingers, all across Texas, all across the world. Look how great Greg Abbott's being. Look what he's doing. He's helping. We always have to figure out a way to break through and that's why we're going to play the beto response to exactly what was happening these dps troopers who are posted at reports of entry can check the pressure in the tires on the 18-wheeler they can do an engine inspection but they are prohibited from looking inside the cargo hold to determine if there are illegal drugs or human beings who are there along

with whatever else is being crossed. So this provided no additional security or safety benefit to the people of Texas. It only added more chaos to our communities and to the border. It only caused more inflation, more job losses, and made our communities less competitive for businesses, businesses that are going to go to other parts of the world when they find out how hard it is to do business here in the state of Texas. Yeah. And Beto's spot on. And that is what all democratic politicians need to be doing. Yeah. This is how you own a moment. And this is how you really capitalize on a political mistake of the

other side. You need to go out and you need to be rubbing it in their face every single day. And you need to get the attention. You need to get the cameras on you to let everybody know that this is going on. And that's exactly what Beto O'Rourke is doing there. And I think his campaign should be studied by really all Democratic campaigns right now, because he is hustling every single day. He's on the ground out there treating every single day like it is election day. And I think that sort of drive, that sort of hustle is what Democrats need to win in Texas and across the country. And the thing that I really don't get here, and Ben, I'd love your commentary on this with your legal background, is how is Greg Abbott even allowed, or is he not allowed? Is this

completely illegal for him to be negotiating contracts with foreign governments, to him being able to negotiate deals with Mexican governors? It just doesn't make sense to me. It seems to run completely contradictory to anything that's in the constitution. He's not doing it. He's lying. There's really not much more to it. So he's either not doing it or he's engaging in illegal activity. Yeah, he's not doing it. I just I'm he's not having negotiations with governors in Mexico while he's checking their tire pressure of trucks. That's not just not something that's happening. You know, there are you know, there are communications that can take place with

governors or mayors like you, they can take kind of diplomatic trips across the country, or they could be invited to other places and have conversations, but they can't enter into like treaties, they can't enter into like actual policy on behalf of the United States government. So that would be unlawful and illegal. he was doing that. They could have a conversation where he can say, hey, can you stop doing this? Where they could have informal understandings, but you can't have any formal agreements. And he's lying about this.

He's not having conversations with anybody. It's the whole aspect. Every aspect of this is a total lie by Greg Abbott. And we need more truth tellers out there. That's why I'm excited to have Paul Schroeder join our podcast. Paul Schroeder's video went mega viral. He's a Texan. He's going to tell us how it is in Texas. And I just hope there are more Paul Schroeder's out there in Texas who can speak up because what he says is common sense. It's no BS. And I'm excited to

speak to Paul and ask Paul. Well, although I'm excited to speak to Paul, I am just getting a message right now that I have a court appearance I have to do right now. Let's do this. Let's do this then. Okay. Here's what we're going to do. Let's play Paul's video to remind everybody of how incredible Paul's video is. And on the other side of Paul's video, Jordy and I will continue with our interview with Paul Schroeder, American patriot, Texas legend, mega viral TikTok star. Here's the video. Here's Paul's video. And we will be back with Paul right after this. And this is your only warning. There's going to be cussing because I'm fucking mad as hell. I am telling you right now, Republicans are intentionally working to drive up

inflation and intentionally working to cripple our supply chain. Right now, Governor Abbott here in the state of Texas is forcing the DPS, which is our version of the state troopers, to stop every single truck coming out of Mexico, every single truck, and do a safety inspection on it, safety inspection on it. What they're doing is they're backing up shipping for dozens and dozens and dozens of miles. Normally, a Mexican driver will bring a truck over across the border. They'll drop it at a depot and an American driver will pick it up and drive off. They usually do about four a day. They can't get one through.

They can't get one fucking truck through. They're backed up for fucking miles. Why? Because they want to drive up inflation. They think it's going to help them in the midterms. They want to cripple our fucking supply chains because they think it will help them in the fucking midterms. They're doing it on purpose to hurt you, your family, your wallet. So you saw the video, everybody. Now we are here with the man himself. You may know him as PaulTX890 on TikTok or the badass Texan who called out Greg Abbott and went mega viral.

But I like to call him Paul Schroeder, Texas man, incredible patriot. Paul, it's such a pleasure to have you on the Midas Touch podcast. Welcome to the show. Oh, it's a pleasure to be here. I've followed you guys on Twitter forever. I love the work that you do. Like I've always told people is we need more people like you guys out there swinging and fighting because I don't know if you feel this way. I hate to just run off with this, but I don't feel this way. But you you know, I hair's a little gray.

I've been following politics for a while. And one of the things that has always eaten me up is that we we really haven't been. And it's not in our nature. We're Democrats. We we think a little differently. We do. You know, Democrats and Republicans are different people. We really are. But we just haven't been in the culture war. Yeah. You know, we have been sitting here watching folks that look like me, my age, guys my age, wouldn't know what the hell a Democrat or a liberal is because all they've ever heard it from is guys like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and all those nutballs and right wing

radio. And they live in a damn fantasy land. Yeah. They have no idea what we are, who we are, what we stand for. And you guys being out there is exactly what we need. I appreciate that. But I'm going to throw it right back on you and say that you are exactly what we need as a party. Somebody like you who's speaking truth to power, who's standing up and saying, hey, everybody, guess what? You are being lied to by one party. And this other party here

is at least trying to help you out. So first, let's talk about the video first. How long have you been making these videos? Were you surprised that that video in particular went viral? What compelled you that day to be like, all right, Greg Abbott, enough is enough. I'm speaking out against this action. You know, it actually all started out with my granddaughter hooked me up with TikTok. She really did. God bless her. I've always followed what's going on. You know, I try to stay in touch with what's going on. And I know when I'm being bullshit, I do. And I have, there's been several issues through the years that have just gotten to me. And I just use TikTok at first as a way just to scream out into the void. This is bullshit. This is, I know what's going on. I'm not an idiot. And quit lying to me, quit bullshitting me. And people said, hey,

I can't believe you said that out loud. I've been thinking that for years, you know, depending on which issue we were talking about. So I just started following the news of the day and throwing TikToks out. This is what I think about it. And, you know, we're about 85,000 strong and the ride or die Democrats on TikTok. And people are, you know, that's exactly it. I'm not inventing this. People come to me in the comment sections and they say, hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? And I just digest it and say, okay, as a normal average

guy, this is what I'm looking at. And you mentioned the ride or die Democrats, which is your little political movement that you are starting. I want to get to that shortly, but first I just want to get some more context on you, Paul. Where in Texas do you live? What are sort of the demographics of the area? Is it a redder area? And if so, how did you, Paul, become a Democrat and such a passionate Democrat? Well, I'm in East Texas now. My wife and I have retired and we had moved out here to be closer to her parents. You know, I've lived in both the city and in the country. So I've been urban and rural. I try to see both sides of everything. And fortunately, the experiences I've had in life, you know, I used to own a little

fabrication company. I mean, I don't know what it's like trying to hustle with a small business. And it's just, I got where I was at. I would say the journey started my freshman year in college because my dad was a diehard Republican. But he didn't preach it or anything like that. It's just, you know, you just he voted Republican. And so the things we talked about in the house, I took to school with me. And I sat down with a professor and we had a political discussion in class one day. And she humiliated me. I was saying things that I thought were just gospel. And she turned around and pulled out of her back pocket. Oh, no, it's not.

And I was so angry. I'm like, oh, she's lying to these people. She's lying to these people. I am going to show her. And I went and checked out everything we talked about. And I'll be damned if she wasn't telling the truth. And that opened my eyes. And then the second event that really opened my eyes was the whole Iran-Contra affair. Interesting. You know, and that started me on the path. That's where I went from coming out of Republican household to looking at Democrats. When I started looking at who was trying to help people. You know, if you if you have a problem like we just had down at the border. Yeah. You know, if you know, we've got an inflation problem going on.

You look at two parties. You've got one party that's working on solutions and you have one party trying to figure out how are actively trying to make things worse for the people. And you just witnessed that firsthand on the border in Texas, in your home state. Tell us about what Abbott is doing down there. I know a lot of our listeners do know about it. We've been speaking about it quite frequently, but from the perspective of a Texan, what is Greg Abbott doing down in Texas? Thank God for better going down there. I mean, what I did and what you and I do, we're doing from the comfort of our studio where you're at. I'm in the comfort of my home. Beto got his butt down to the border and did what a leader does. And he showed people, he got national cameras down there to look and say, look, we've got a

supply chain issue that we have been overcoming. And a lot of my videos that really piss off, oh man, makes right-wingers heads explode. I would do videos inside grocery stores because you remember the narrative, oh, the shelves are empty. The shelves are empty. We can't get this. We can't. Well, I would walk around my store saying, well, there it is. And they're like, well, I had one guy commenting, just blowing up my comment section. Brisket, sir, twelve dollars a pound. I went down to my store. Oh, no, they're not. They're three seventy five. And then I would actually take people and that would say,

oh, well, in my area, that's not true. The bots and trolls did not give up. So I would say, I would bait them. Where are you from? Where are you from? I guess they didn't know I can look up a sales circular online. I would literally post their sales circular.

Here's your sales circular. I know exactly what you're paying. You're a damn liar. Prices are coming down. So what did Abbott do? He took a problem that was being solved and he intentionally tried to make it worse. That's all this was about. This was not about safety.

I had a conversation with a Republican yesterday who tried to run with that narrative. Oh, well, they have to check these vehicles for safety reasons. No, you don't. You check every 12th vehicle. You check every 20th vehicle. You don't stop every truck coming across the border. That is shutting down trade. That is as bad as what they

did in Canada. And not only did he really single-handedly destroy the supply chain and drive up prices, but Abbott then, when he ended up reversing course, took a victory lap and he started celebrating himself and saying, look at the great work I just did on the border. I did what the federal government couldn't do. What did you make of Abbott going out there and giving himself a pat on the back for what should be one of the biggest scandals in political history? You know, and that's typical and it's disgusting. It's disgusting. This is why I don't pull punches with Republicans. I don't. It is disgusting. A quarter million dollars in produce gone, just gone. Who pays for that? Do you think their produce producers are just going to eat it?

No, you're going to pay for it. I'm going to pay for it. I'm not an idiot. It's like Trump's tariffs. Who paid for those? Who paid Trump's tariffs? You did. I did. Anybody that wanted to build anything or make anything. The same thing with the timber coming out of Canada. A lot of people don't know a lot of our timber comes out of Canada. When they slowed shipping down up there, we paid for it. It was a billion dollars a day that they estimated was lost during this Operation Lone Star, which by the way, I'm old enough that Operation Lone Star used to be a beer run to go get Lone Star, which by the way, I'm old enough that Operation Lone Star used to be a beer run to go get Lone Star beer at the convenience store. That was the good old days, Paul. That was the good old days.

This Operation Lone Star that he calls it was a billion dollar a day tax on you and me. Who's going to pay that? That's the thing that's so disgusting about that is he's just slapped a billion dollars a day tax on the American people. You know, people don't know. Do you like Toyotas? Well, we build them out here in Texas. You know, they were waiting on part. You know, they may build the Toyota in Texas, but the damn alternator comes from Mexico. It's absolutely insane. And you speak about, though, part of this is that the Republican Party views this as yet another culture war issue, another wedge issue to fight in. And one of your frustrations, which you mentioned earlier, is that Democrats historically have not been willing to engage in these culture war battles. And so what happens is we have this entire group of Americans who may look like you be from where you're from,

who have been so steeped in the GOP culture wars that have not, the attacks that have not even been rebutted one bit by Democrats, that they buy into all that stuff. So why aren't Democrats punching back? Or rather, what would you do if you were in charge of the party right now? How would you be hitting Republicans on these culture war issues? Well, to be quite honest with you, we have to be frank about this. People follow strength. They do. People follow strength. We have always been high minded. You know, we always have. Look, Michelle Obama, executive, well-educated, extremely well-educated, worldly, wonderful human being, beautiful lady says when they go low, we go high. No, no, my friend.

No. When they go low, you jump in the damn ditch, you stomp on their neck and you beat the piss out of them till you win. You know, if you allow the Republican Party to call us pedophiles and you don't call out the fact that they are literally trying to pass a bill in Tennessee where they can legally be fucking pedophiles. Pardon my language. No, please. You know, that's the way you win. That's how you win. You tell people that. People want to hear that. People don't want to hear, you know, I'll give you a perfect example. One of my favorite people in Congress is Katie Porter. She is brilliant. And she is the kind of person that you need

doing the deals. You need her because she is so, so smart, but you also need a guy like Tim Ryan. You need a bruiser out there. You need a guy that's swinging. You need a guy that's calling them out. You need a guy that's saying, Hey, jim jordan you know why the hell weren't you protecting the kids over at ohio state when they were being raped in your locker room don't shy away from that quit trying to be so high-minded get in the dirt you know i do i do it with my own party you know the gun issue you know is one that that that we have very heated debates about on my TikTok, because there's a lot of people, you may feel completely different than I do about it, because your experience with it will be completely different. But let's be realistic. You can't get gun legislation through

our own caucus. Why would you fight over that? Right, right. You're saying in Texas that, you know, even in Texas, even Democrats are, you know, it's hard to move them on the gun issue just because it's so steeped in the culture down there. Texas, Michigan, Ohio, you've got guys, I can tell you, I know guys that have two-year salary in their gun cabinets. Two-year salary in their gun cabinets, two years salary in their gun cabinet. I'm telling you, but they don't carry them around. They're not driving around with them in their trucks. They don't take them to fricking Walmart. Right. They're for sport. They're for fun. They're specific thing. You know what I mean? And I'm trying to tell people, hey, let's not run on gun control because all that does is play into the fantasies. And that's the real difference between Republicans and Democrats is reality versus fantasy. Yeah.

You know, you've got Republicans that produce these fantasies and this culture war bullshit that they tell their people. And when we turn around and have somebody say, well, we need to enact gun legislation. Their worst fears have just come true. And that's what I'm talking about. That's why I tell people we have to be truthful with ourselves in the Democratic Party. And we have to be a little harsh about it. Politics is a blood sport. Yeah, well, it's a it's a large party. It's a big tent party in a way that the Republican Party is not. That consists of many different locales. And of course, the needs of a rural area would be different from the needs of an urban area in terms of gun control and really all legislation. So that makes sense. One of the things that you've spearheaded that you mentioned quickly at the top is you have your own political movement that you

started on TikTok that has a ton of followers. And we hope we could keep adding to your followers. You call them the ride or die Democrats. I want to hear all about the ride or die Democrats. Really simple. People ask me all the time, hey, how do I become a ride or die Democrat? What do I got to do? Where do I send my membership piece? There isn't one. All you have to do is one, be a Democrat. Two, during the primaries that you have to follow or get the hell out. We Democrats, especially right of die Democrats, we fight like hell in the primaries. I want you to work within this party to get your ideas pushed as far as you can, because people really do care about what's good for themselves and their fellow Americans. But that primary is over.

You walk in that booth and you vote Democrat all the way down. If my guy loses, I will do that for you. I will do that for you. I may not agree with him. I'm not going to shut up. Yeah. But I will vote all the way down Democrat, because I know at the end of the day, there is one party that is working for the American people and one party that is working for their own self-interest. taxes. Right now, the Republican platform is a $4,500 a year tax increase on everybody that's not freaking Jeff Bezos, Neal, and Musk. And Democrats need to be screaming from the rooftops that they, we didn't say that about them. They said that about them. Yeah. Rick Scott, Mr. Billionaire wants to get in my pocket for $4,500 a year. Well, Rick Scott, I want to put a boot in your ass. Paul, Paul, Paul, you are too much, man. Where are folks? I mean, I think I know, for example, where you get your news from, but where are folks sort of in your area that you run in similar circles with? Where are they getting their news from? Is it Fox News?

Is it right wing radio? Is it a culmination of everything? And then that's how you determine your position? That is a huge problem that we have. There's a huge disconnect. When I say that your average guy that looks like me, that votes Republican, has no freaking clue what a Democrat is, it's because he gets every bit of his information from Fox News or Alex Jones or those weirdos that produce. And you know it, it's nothing but fantasy. Greg Abbott should pull the stunt to try to cover up for this Operation Lone Star bullshit.

He didn't want us to know about those trucks being backed up. He was not proud of that. He tried to act like he was proud of it, but he wasn't. So he sends a busload of immigrants to D.C. Well, if that was real policy, he would have coordinated with the feds in D.C., but he didn't. He sent buses to Fox News Studios in D.C. so that they could shoot pictures of immigrants coming off the buses in D.C. It was a stunt. It was a political stunt. Is there any hope for us to break through to those people and show them, hey, you guys are watching fantasies. This is reality. How do we bridge that?

This is where I differ from a lot of people, especially Democrats, because like I say, we're always very high minded and we think that we can be together. We think that we, you know, people will just say, hey, for the good of the country, we need to, you know, no, we can't. There is not a hope right now for that. There really isn't. We have to get our asses to the polls. Every single person. I guarantee you right now in the midterms, Trump is on that ballot. He is on that ballot because they have not stepped one inch away from that agenda. I'm telling you, Trump is on that ballot. And you need to vote like your life and your country depends on it because it does. Because think about it. If Republicans win, democracy is over.

They have been pulling some flagrant shit down here in Texas. Did you know one in five requests for mail in ballots were rejected? Yeah. Are you telling me there's any way that one in five requests for ballots were in error? No, no, no. They simply found a way to, and you know how they did it? That they're one of the big ways they're doing it. And we need to be screaming about this is the signature loss. Do you ever sign on those little rubber pads? When you go someplace, when you pop your credit card in, you sign on, is your signature the same as the one that you use on a legal document? Yeah. Everyone knows sometimes they do a little half-assed sort of

squiggly line. And let me have those squiggles on the pass. And let me ask you this. If you're in a hurry, is your signature the same signature you use when you're in a hurry to get the hell out of CBS as when you're sitting down with your lawyer, signing your contracts, and you're taking your time to make sure? Right. Okay, so which signature do they choose to compare? They rejected 20% of mail-in ballot requests. So I'm telling you, I'm telling you, this is how we do it. This is how we do it going forward.

We get off our asses, okay? We go to the polls and we win because there are more people. There are more of us than there are them. If they weren't terrified, they wouldn't be pulling the obvious panicky shit they're doing. You know, they wouldn't do it. You don't gerrymander when you're winning. You know, I mean, you're winning. They know and they're scared. So show up at the polls and win. And at that point, when you're running the government, they're having our conversation, not the other way around. As far as reaching people, the guy I talked to yesterday

had no clue that trucks were backed up at the border because Fox didn't tell him. So how do you reach somebody like that? Do you have time to talk to every human being? No, we reach as many as we can, but they've got to want to hear it. And for the most part, the reason they believe the lies is because the culture war we've been losing, they want to believe those lies. We need to get out there. Guys like you, three sharp looking brothers, man. Successful. You need to be screaming. I'm a Democrat, three sharp looking brothers, man, successful. You need to be screaming. I'm a Democrat and I'm a liberal. That's right. I'm a leader. That's who I am.

You know, that's what a Democrat is. Not this fantasy and bullshit that they're talking about. I love it. I love it. And you know who got a free pass during this whole interview? And Paul, I know you're probably short on time, but I got to get your thoughts on him. Ted Cruz, AKA Cancun Cruz over here. I just can't get over the fact that the guy fled during one of the biggest crises Texas ever was facing. What do you make of his quote unquote leadership in a moment like that? What does that say about him? How does he keep getting elected? I'll tell you how he got reelected. And I was fortunate enough to have a conversation with one of Beto's staffers. We had just had that mass shooting right before the election. And Beto O'Rourke spoke from the heart. And in the middle of Texas, he talked about gun

control. And he lost the election by that much. That's what happened. That's how Ted Cruz is in office right now. You know, you're not going to reach a guy that goes in and pulls the lever for Republicans. He's not getting your information. But you talk about gun control. I guarantee you Fox News is showing that. Right. We have to be aggressive in our messaging. We have to talk about the issues that people really, really need. We need to tell everybody. Greg Abbott just taxed you a billion dollars a day.

He just taxed you a billion, took it right out of your pocket. Because I guarantee you Toyota's not eating that. I guarantee you every factory that they held parts from is not. You know how business works. They can't eat it. They have to make a profit. That's how we do it. Let me tell you something.

Ted Cruz is an asshole, and I put a video up. Y'all can go take a look at it. I am completely confused about obscenity rules on television. I am completely confused. They blur out titties, but they show Ted Cruz's face. I mean, what the hell? Someone explain that to me. Paul, I think you're my new favorite human on this planet. I just got to get a simple answer. Can Democrats win in Texas in 2022? Absolutely.

Absolutely. This midterm election, we are going to stomp ass. I guarantee you. And I'll tell you why. It's been 30 years of Republican rule. Okay. And they have, Texas used to have the best infrastructure in the country, bar none. That infrastructure was built in the 80s.

We were building like crazy in the 80s. They have done crap with this country, with the state, for the last 30 years. I mean, they've done nothing but cronyism. Look at our electric grid. Look at our electric grid. They privatized it. They formed their own little electric grid here in Texas so that they wouldn't be regulated. Well, why wouldn't you want to be regulated?

You know, because you want to stick the money in your pocket and you don't want to take care of your electric grid. And people know this. People know this. And they're sick of this shit. And who are you going to blame? You going to blame Democrats? We haven't run shit in this state for 30 years. Yeah.

I mean, the damn dog catchers are Republican. That's changing. The last election, there was a five point difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Five points. Believe me, we have 30 percent left to tap here easily. And all you got to do is look at the trends. That 5% a few years ago was something like 15%, which was like 25%. The momentum is moving in the right direction. And that's why I really wanted to speak with you, Paul, because I think your voice, you being a true Texan who knows exactly what is going on on the ground, who is calling

out the bullshit, who is unafraid to get in the mud. That is exactly what we need. And if I'm in the Beto O'Rourke campaign right now, I'm picking up the phone and I'm giving you a call and I'm making you a spokesperson for our campaign. And I'll say that to Democrats nationally, pick up the phone, give Paul a call, get his thoughts, get him out there on TV. Paul, you are the guy who could really transform things for Democrats because you understand people. You understand the bullshit and you understand what's going on. So I want to thank you for joining us today on the Midas Touch podcast. Can I take 20 seconds to put in a plug for Beto? Let me tell you, he is a sincere human being. He is a real decent human being. He is not somebody that is just a political animal. You know, Rick Perry used to be a Democrat.

You know, John Kennedy over in Louisiana is Princeton educated. He speaks with a Harvard mouth, but when you put him in front of a crowd, he turns into foghorn leghorn. That is not Beto O'Rourke. He is a real decent human being. And he listens. He listens. I mean, we started screaming at him, a bunch of us Democrats started screaming at him, stop talking about gun control. And he did because he knows the state. He knows the state. He was speaking from the heart. He was heartbroken to see these events happen. But he knows as a leader, he has to lead his people and he knows what's good for us. And he cares. I mean, he legitimately cares what happens to the state.

Greg Abbott, all he cares about is his ambitions. That's it. He has a payday waiting for him when he leaves office. If he can't roll it into, he thinks he's going to be president. Nobody's going to make Greg Abbott president. He's a freaking idiot. But anyways, thanks for letting me put in a plug for Beto. I sincerely believe in my heart he's a good man. Us too. And we've had him on the podcast before and we are huge supporters of Beto O'Rourke. And I know so many of our followers are huge supporters of Beto as well and are working on

the ground every day as well to get him elected, knocking on doors right now, treating every day like it's election day. You know, let's play. Let's play quick game of word association. How about that? We'll give you a name. You tell us one word that comes to mind when we say the name. Let's start. Greg Abbott. Dickhead. Ken Paxton. Walleye, crooked motherfucker. Louie Gohmert. He's my freaking congressman. Apologize. Girl, this guy's a freaking moron. I mean, I swear to God, he is the dumbest person you've ever talked to.

They hand him a card and say, say this. And he's saying, and that's what he does. I mean, he couldn't think himself out of a wet paper bag full of dog shit. He is just the dumbest human being. You need to have him on the show, man. I'm telling you, invite him on the show. He'll never come on. All right. Let's end it on a positive note. Last one, Beto O'Rourke. I love the guy. He's wonderful. He really is. He's a good human being. He really is a good human being. And I have to tell you, even the political mistakes he's made, you know,

the cost in that last election, he was coming from the heart. He was reacting emotionally to a horrible situation. And, you know, he's just a good human being. Right there with you. And Paul, you are a good human being yourself. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Midas Touch podcast. This has been a real pleasure. And I just thank you for everything you're doing and getting the word out. Remember to follow Paul on TikTok. That's PaulTX890. Get out the word, join the ride or die movement, folks, and let's win Texas. Let's win the midterms in 2022. Paul, thank you for joining us today. Please keep up the good work, guys. I love you guys. Follow you all the time. I really appreciate everything you do. Thank you so much. We'll be

right back. Welcome back to the podcast. Great interview. You guys did a great job there. Thank you, Ben. Paul is a legend. I'm telling you what I said to him at the end. If the DNC, if the O'Rourke campaign, if everybody is not picking up their phones right now and calling this guy and putting him on TV to spread the word about what Democrats are doing. I mean, he is the perfect messenger for all this stuff. And he's given us the path to win. I really love getting the perspectives of just, you know, real people on the ground. And there's a reason his video resonated so well. It's because it's a real person who isn't censored, who isn't bound by poll testing or any other sort of garbage speaking his mind. And that's what we all need to be doing more of, whether it's you listening or a Democratic politician listening, whoever it is, we all need to be doing that.

And guess what? Like, you know, I disagree with a lot of his stances about gun control that he was saying, you know, like I straight up disagree that Democrats shouldn't be fighting for gun control. But I think it's important that we hear the perspectives of people on the ground. And also it's important that our messages are tailored towards local audiences, right? Like if he says Democrats should be highlighting A, B, and C, and not X, Y, and Z in Texas, that's something that we all should be listening to very closely because he knows voters down there better than most people around the country. And so I think it's very important to get this perspective and to build a big tent party around this. And that's why I love this whole notion of this ride or die Democrats group that he's organizing, which basically says, guess what? In the primaries, let's duke it out. Okay. Let's put your policies against my

policies and let the best policies win. Okay. But after that, you know what we're going to do? We're going to vote blue every single time, no matter who is on that ballot, we're going to vote blue because we know how important it is. And we know how much Republicans have screwed working people. And I love that. I love that perspective. I love his openness. I'm so appreciative that Paul came on the show. And I hope, I mean, come on other media, get this guy on your TV. This is a superstar right here. Get him on TV. Let's go democratic campaigns. Get him on your social channels. Have him start speaking out for working people in this country. Who is booking these guests? Great, great booker, Jordy. But I want

to tell you about our partners, Athletic Greens. This podcast is sponsored by Athletic Greens. This product is something I literally use every day. And I started taking Athletic Greens because I was taking these different gummies and these different vitamins that I thought were working, but they clearly weren't working. We don't have to keep showing the before and after photo of me, Brett. We've done that a ton of times. But the bottom line is, is that I thought I was doing the right stuff for several months ago, but I wasn't. Then I took athletic greens. It was super easy. I took a scoop of the green powder. I put it in a cup. I shake it up and then I drink it. That's it. And in that drink, I'm absorbing 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, whole foods,

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for me. I didn't want to always have to drive in and see a therapist and wait in the waiting room, which is great for a lot of people for my busy schedule. I wanted to try something that may be a little more convenient and I do all my podcasts through the internet anyway. So I figured, let me give BetterHelp a try. And it's been an incredible, incredible new thing in my life. So go to betterhelp.com slash Midas today. What a great pod we had today. We got Paul Schroeder. When you have messengers like that in the Democratic Party, I feel very confident. Again, I will continue to go back with my critique, though, of the media for not amplifying those voices. And that's what we strive to do here on the Midas Touch podcast. As I talked about on Legal AF,

the problem with the media right now is you have one side Fox News injecting fascism into the veins of its audience. On the other hand, you have a media that just the framework is completely foundationally incorrect. They have an hour of broadcast time, let's say per show, and then it's broken down into three minutes per issue. Whatever the issue is, is dealt with at such a surface level. You have people, many of which who are not even really experts in the topic, but purport to be experts, just whoever the booker could find that day. But sometimes you get good experts, but even when you get the good experts, you don't let them talk. So basically, as I've described the framing of it,

you have two chihuahuas barking at each other. You know, all right, we'll see you on a commercial break. And then we don't actually have any knowledge or any information. And then they just move on to the next topic while Fox is consistently, you know, hitting and hammering these fascist talking points without any any resistance.

There is no other real voice there that's taking place. One of the things that was notable, and Aaron Rupert pointed this out, was Mike Lee wasn't mentioned once, a single time, on CNN's State of the Union, NBC's Meet the Press, ABC's This Week, or CBS Face the Nation, or Fox News Sunday, but I would expect it not to be on Fox News Sunday. But it was nonetheless not mentioned in any of these other shows. You have a sitting senator from Utah, Mike Lee, who was having text messages with the chief of staff of the White House saying, we need your help, Mark Meadows. Help give me talking points because your theories about the insurrection are so wacky that I, a Republican senator in Utah, can't even message this to my people.

Please help me. Get me my talking points now. The obsequiousness, the traitorousness, all of that in there. And that's not even a story? Like we're done covering that? That we could go back to, well, what's going on with the Ginny Thomas things? What's going on? We could go back with all of these issues. But that in a microcosm is what's

problematic. We're going to keep mentioning it on each and every Midas Touch podcast, but this Mike Lee story doesn't even get airtime. Doesn't even get airtime. I giggled really quickly just as a brother watching this, seeing when he asked, please tell me what to say. Because for those who don't know, we're always in like a Google doc here and I'm frequently asking the brothers, hey, what should my next question be in order to get better questions? So I laughed from that perspective, but from an overall democracy perspective, yeah, I mean, just not funny at all and totally fucked up And the media needs to put these guys on a serious blast. But you see, Jerry, what I mean, the entire framework is what's wrong.

Yeah. Is that the format would not even allow information to be permeated. And then you have the issues, the deeper, more systemic issues in the networks being beholden to kind of billion dollar corporations, which have their bottom line and want tax cuts. And so they're not going to push on things that may be economic problematic to a billionaire class, but that could actually be helpful to the workers. But this just goes to why we need to have a new form of media. And that's what Midas Media is pioneering. And of course, you need to have a new form of media when you see things like either it's fascist things in the veins on Fox News or just like completely bizarre,

you know, things. But they do serve a purpose. Like when you think about what Tucker Carlson was talking about, he was talking about testicle tanning. And there was this whole rant about how we're going to talk about it. No, it's just it's a hairy situation. So I wasn't sure. Well, the whole thing about how men should get their testicles tanned and how that actually increases testosterone levels, but there's this whole part of this, the right wing view that's

tied to a lot of their anti-women, anti-LGBTQ plus policies, those types of policies, is this view of masculinity and hyper-masculinity from, let's just say, less than hyper-masculine men who are the ones who are out there talking about hyper-masculinity. So you got people like, who's the little guy, Brett, who he's always on Facebook and he talked really fast, but he doesn't really make it. Yeah. Ben Shapiro and his kind of views of hyper-masculinity Tucker Carlson. Should we even play this clip of Tucker Carlson talking about testicle tanning or should we

just have our people take our words for it? I think we have to play it just so they think like, so they know that we're not even like like crazy exaggerating anything, but let's, let's, let's, let's play this quickly. You saw on the clip there, um, if you want to optimize and take it, uh, to another level, expose yourself to red light therapy. Um, and the juve, um, that we were using in the documentary, there's a massive amount of testicle tanning. It's testicle tanning, but it's also full body, uh, red light therapy, which has massive amount of that. Which is testicle tanning. It's testicle tanning, but it's also full body red light therapy, which has massive amount of benefits. And there's so much data out there that isn't being picked up on or covered.

So obviously half the viewers right now are like, what? That's testicle tanning? That's crazy. But my view is, okay, testosterone levels crash and nobody says anything about it. That's crazy. So why is it crazy to seek solutions? It's not crazy to seek solutions. And I think I was recently exposed to a term called bromeopathy. And I think there's a lot of people out there right now that don't trust the mainstream information.

Bromeopathy. Bromeopathy. You can't take the words that you say in front of your fraternity and then bring it here into science and just make up something called Bromiopathy. There's a lot to unpack here. Let's just unpack. Why is nobody talking about this? Why is nobody talking about the data here? Because none exists. That's why no one's talking about it. Bromiopathy isn't a thing. That's not a thing, first of all. There's no data to back this up, but I'm just going to, I'll just tie up my thoughts in this. If Tucker Carlson viewers

would like to blast their testicles with radiation, have at it. Have at it. I'm going to say for the listeners of this podcast. You're nuts. You're nuts.

Oh, brother. If you this podcast, you're nuts. You're nuts. Oh brother. Right. If you do that, you're nuts. For the listeners of this podcast, please do not do that. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Do not do that. But you know, in all seriousness, as we talked about at the top of the podcast, the unemployment's down, NATO's never been as strong. We have the first black woman as a Supreme Court justice. COVID deaths are down. Healthcare rates of people having healthcare is up for families more than ever. That's really what we need to be focusing on. We need to be messaging that. And if the media is not going to be the ones covering the things that we've been covering or we're talking about, you are the messenger. And the reach that we all have together

as the Midas Mighty is significantly larger than even a CNN or an MSNBC if we can stick together, if we can message together, and we can actually be active and get these things out. You know, we get all these great messages of different groups that have been started. We got one recently of a group that was started in middle America with, and I don't want to give too much of the facts until she gives us the okay to, but, you know, she started a swing left letter writing campaign in her hometown and she's been doing rallies and organizing amongst friends and just spreading the message and spreading the word. And I often hear from people, hey, my friend just sent me a Midas video or a friend posted a Midas video on Facebook. It was so great to see that. You are the messenger at the end of the day.

We can't rely on the media. We realize that at Midas Touch. We have to create our own media. I don't want to perpetuate bad media doing bad conduct and furthering the dynamic. The whole media needs to change. And that is what we're pioneering here. And we need your help in doing that. So what are ways you can help in doing it? The most simple ways is by spreading the messages that are here, by forwarding the podcast links to your friends, by telling your friends to download the podcast. If you're a YouTube watcher, also download the audio of the podcast because that helps with the podcast algorithms. If you're just an audio listener, subscribe to the YouTube channel that helps with the YouTube views as well and helps us continue

to be in the top 50 of the charts on both. So that's one way that you could help there. You could help by organizing and doing things in your community as well, like the individuals we just talked about there across the country. I spoke at an event in California recently with a group that was organizing in their backyard. Organize with friends and get these messages out immediately. That's another way that you can help.

And just make sure you're out there registering voters and doing the hard work. Make sure that if you have children, if you know children who are just turning 18, then make sure they're registered to vote. That's an easy one. You know, and reach out to anyone you know who have kids. Get them to vote as soon as they turn 18. Those are basic, simple things that you can do. And we so appreciate your support. And of course, leave a five-star review of the podcast. That helps us a lot. And actually give a written

review. That's also very helpful to the podcast. And check out store.midastouch.com, store.midastouch.com, where you can get all of the new Midas merch as a way that you could be helpful as well. And I think we have some of the coolest merch out there in general, not just in political. And more on the way. And more on the way. Jordy, what are you doing? You know what? We didn't even plan this. I'm so happy Ben just brought that up. I got the passwords again. 10% off all items in the Midas Touch Store right now, 24, 48 hour sale, only for our audio and visual listeners only.

Will not be busted out on social media. Okay, well, what's the code? Oh, that's a great point. Oh, what should the code be? Code is Ben. All right, use the code Ben. You get 10% off. Thank you for that, Jordy.

And thank you to our guests. Thank you, Paul Schroeder. Thank you to our sponsors, Athletic Greens and BetterHelp. Use those codes Midas on both Athletic Greens and BetterHelp. We'll see you next time on the Midas Touch podcast. What a great episode. We'll see you next time on the Midas Touch podcast. Shout out to the Midas Midas.