The MeidasTouch Podcast - The Biden Boom with Michigan AG Dana Nessel

Episode Date: December 10, 2021

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast we have a very special guest, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel! During the interview, we discuss a variety of topics including what can be done about the credible threats made against public officials, the importance of certifying free & fair elections regardless of political affiliation, how Michigan can protect residents if Roe V. Wade is overturned and much more. The remainder of the episode, the brothers break down the latest in the Mark Meadows January 6 committee saga, the Biden economic BOOM as well as the Republican Party's open support of Vladimir Putin. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! As always, thank YOU for listening. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: RAYCON EARBUDS: BuyRaycon.com/meidas and use code HOLIDAY QUIP: GetQuip.com/meidas SOLE: yoursole.com/meidas and use promo code MEIDAS WONDERY: Listen to BUSINESS WARS: CHRISTMAS MOVIE WARS on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. 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 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The new BMO VI Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card. And then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO VI Porter MasterCard. And get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months.

Terms and conditions apply. Visit bmo.com slash theiporter to learn more. Discover the magic of Bad M. Jam Casino, where the excitement is always on deck. Pull up a seat and check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer. From roulette to blackjack, watch as a dealer hosts your table game and live chat with them throughout your experience to feel like you're actually at the casino. The excitement doesn't stop there. With over

3,000 games to choose from, including fan favorites like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz, and more. Make deposits instantly to jump in on the fun and make same day withdrawals if you win. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. You don't want to miss out.

Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. 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. Welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Ben, Brett, and Jordy joining you today. We have an incredible guest on today's podcast. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel will be coming on the podcast. Let's go.

I'm going to be asking her. Yeah, I want to talk to her about Roe v. Wade, particularly, I don't know if you know this, Brett, but Michigan has on its books, as do many states, felony laws relating to those who assist in any way in furtherance of a woman and a childbearing person's right to choose that criminalizes many years in prison. And so what would happen, the practical effect, if the Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade, which it appears poised to do, for those wondering, oral argument was early December. Usually it takes May, June, July-ish, where you'll probably get a ruling based on the

oral argument, a written opinion, but immediately effective. Those old anachronistic, horrible laws that Roe addressed, that Roe v. Wade addressed, all those laws then come back into effect. And so the 1930s Michigan law criminalizing abortion and the right to choose, and based on the way the statutes interpreted, would have doctors and women and childbearing persons go to prison. That's enforced in effect. It's one of the wild things because we hear a lot about now how so-and-so state is moving

to implement a law to ban abortion. The fact is a lot of these states actually already have these laws on the books from the 1920s, from the 1930s. And they haven't been able to actually enforce those laws because of Roe v. Wade. And it's one of the side effects. It's one of the things that we're going to see happen if and when Roe v. Wade is appealed, which it looks like is going to happen. I mean, best case, I guess, right now, as you guys spoke about on Eagle AF, as we spoke about on the Midas Touch podcast, is that there's some sort of compromised reach and that there is a week, a 15 week period in which you could still get an abortion. That's kind of the best case we could compromise. It would be that the Mississippi statute banning abortions after 15 weeks, that would go into effect. The question is,

does the Supreme Court go further than that? Go all the way. And completely say, Roe v. Wade is overturned. And that's where the Supreme Court seems poised to do. Let's talk about the Biden boom. Biden boom! Really excited to talk about the Biden boom. So a huge economic report this morning out. You gotta do that. I gotta do talk about the Biden boom. So a huge economic report this morning out. You got to do that. I got to do this for the Biden boom for you. All the listeners love, I'm punching the air. That's what Jordy wants me to do right now for some reason. Biden right, boom left. So the listeners could do it with us.

Biden, boom. I think we just started a new TikTok dance. There you go. This could be a new TikTok trend. Biden, boom. Biden, boom. The new report out this morning shows that jobless claims have hit a new 52-year low. 52-year low. It's just silly to even say that out loud. Weekly claims for unemployment were 184,000, the lowest since September of 1969, when it stood at 182,000. Guys, I've been watching the Beatles Get Back documentary. I know you can't get enough of me talking about the Beatles Get Back documentary, which is so fantastic. These economic numbers mean that we have not seen economic reports like this since the footage in that documentary was taken, just to give it a

little bit of perspective there. So based on the data, President Biden and the Democratic Congress are now set to preside over the strongest two-year performance on growth, jobs, and income in decades. Not only that that but pay is expected to increase by 3.9 next year the biggest one-year wage increase since 2008. let's put it in perspective for everybody at the beginning of 2021 under trump there were over 900 000 weekly jobless claims there was no plan for a vaccine rollout and the country was basically on the brink of collapse today we have over 200 million amer vaccinated. We have the lowest unemployment rate in history. And we're starting to see other things in terms of kitchen table issues. We're starting to see a lot of

progress. Gas prices steadily decreasing over the past few weeks. Projections say they'll drop below $3 per gallon in 2022. And the funny thing that I've been seeing now is there were a couple articles out today, including one by The Hill that said, Biden is delivering the fastest economic recovery in history. Why hasn't anybody noticed? I love how the media creates their own stories. They just talk about all the bad and they try to hype up all the bad things when the Biden economy is actually incredibly strong, when they've added 6 million jobs, when unemployment

is down to historic lows, and they have not been reporting on this at all. Then they go, why hasn't anybody noticed that the economy is doing so good? The worst is too, and I don't know if the hell did this, so I'm not criticizing them for this, but sometimes these publications will say, no, people are saying, and then they'll reference like bot tweets on Twitter that get zero traction. That's the laziest form of journalism on the planet. People are saying, people then they'll reference like bot tweets on Twitter that get zero traction. That's the laziest form of journalism on the planet. People are saying, people are really mad. People are really upset. And it's like, Brian, four, five, seven, five, four, five. First name, bunch of

numbers said. Well, I agree, Brett. It is important to reflect and have these conversations, though, about what is good with the economy. And when there are issues, I like that we have a president who fixes them. You know, he's taking structural steps to fix if gas prices are high, you know, confronting the root causes about why they're high and getting them lower. The problem with the crazy fanatical radical GQP isms is that they ignore all of the facts. They ignore the reality. They have this view. They don't change policies. And you saw that basically with their policies towards COVID. You saw this about their policies toward the economy. The GQP still talks about trickle-down economics. If you look at all of the studies, when you have Democratic administrations and Republican

administrations, and you see where is unemployment the lowest, where is the stock market the highest, all the economic indicators, and we've showed chart after chart are always higher when the Democrats are in charge because they're actually investing in people. What you do when you create these tax cuts, you can literally see it. It's not even complex economics that what the tax cuts did is it made people worth $30 billion, now worth $230 billion. They didn't give that $200 billion back to the economy. They created offshore accounts and they created other types of tax safe harbors, and they basically created an end run around it. And none of that money has reached the hands of Americans. Ben, that's a point that we need to be

hitting every single day, right? That there are going to be problems with any president. There are going to be problems no matter who's in power. And at the end of the day, it's about who is most equipped to handle those problems. Now, if the Republicans come to power, what will they do? They will continue to remove COVID restrictions. They will continue to try to make the economy worse in order to sabotage President Biden, as they've been trying to do this entire time. They will try to do anything to hinder the economic output of this country. They will give more tax cuts to billionaires. That's their only solution to these problems, making things worse. That's how they handle these things. But the Democrats in there are trying to pass things which are actually going to put more money back in the pockets of Americans, like the Build Back

Better Act, like the Jobs Infrastructure Act. These are things that are actually putting Americans to work. And it's showing, it's proving. So we need to message that every single day. Washington Monthly wrote, they wrote a piece today titled, It's a Biden Boom and No One Has Noticed Yet. They noted that if the current high levels of economic, job, and income growth continue, the 2022 midterms could look much different than most are predicting. They note that the future paths of inflation and the pandemic are large and important unknowns, but if they break right, everything else points to a Biden boom through 2022. And something I noticed then, I'm just going to just start this off by saying I despise polls. I hate polls. I wouldn't trust polls, but I think polls are a good indicator of trends. And I've seen a lot of polls out lately. The most recent polls are actually

trending strongly in favor of Democrats for the first time in a long time. I mean, we all see those horrible polls of Democrats like down 10% to Republicans in a general matchup. Well, the latest Morning Council political poll has Democrats leading 44% to 41%. The latest You Gov America, the Economist poll has Democrats leading 42% to 39%. The latest Public Opinion Strategies Conservative Energy Network poll has Democrats leading 42% to 40%. So like I said, fuck polls. Never go out and do anything with polls in mind. But I think they are important indicators of things moving in a certain direction. It's a nice turnaround to what we've been seeing in these past couple months.

And remember, all these polls, even the Virginia race itself, these are all a snapshot in time to a very specific moment. Think about how much has happened since January 1st until now. Think about how much is going to happen between now and November 2022. The only poll at the end of the day that's going to matter is the actual poll in... What are you laughing at? How many times do you think you've said poll during the segment? Because I'm up to 30. Poll, poll, poll, poll, poll, poll, poll, poll, poll, poll. We are talking about polls. What do you want me to call you? Do you want me to come up with synonyms for poll while I'm talking about this show? No, I love it. It stays in the pot. Oh, God. The only poll that will matter is the one that's on election day. So just continue to

do the work. I don't want anybody to buy into this aspect that Democrats can't win. But at the same time, I don't want you to get complacent. We need to work every day like we're 10 points behind because we need to be getting these polls. I want Democrats to be leading by 10%. And while I'm happy that Democrats are now leading by 2% or 3%, it's still kind of in the margin of error. We need to increase those gains. We need to continue to show Americans that Democrats are the party that's actually going to be helping you. Democrats are actually having incredible economic success and that the economy is doing great and is going to put more money in their pockets. Here's the one thing I think Democrats need to also do,

though. As you have the Biden boom, what Democrats still have to focus on is just some kind of kitchen table issues. What Democrats have to be sensitive about our issues like the price of groceries and the price of milk and the price of gas. And they just have to let people know how these broader concepts of infrastructure and build back better and the economic policies, how those are actually translating into better conditions or that Democrats are simply fighting for better conditions, you know, in the home, in the households and apartments and wherever people live. And I do think we have a great opportunity also, not just because you have the Biden boom and those economic indicators, you know, the GQP, we always call them the GQP,

but their leadership, you know, the Matt Gaetz's of the world, the Marjorie Taylor Greene's, the Lauren Boebert's of the world, even Representative Massey, you know, with these guns, these photographs of perverting the holidays by fetishizing these weapons and putting them in the hands of children is really at odds with most, you know, setting aside, you know, there's, there's a, obviously there's a legitimate debate on gun, on certain gun reform issues, about whether there's private rights to handguns in certain circumstances. But the broader kind of conversation has been for Republicans, we need to have our children having weapons that were intended for war to be able to possess these guns unfettered without parental guidance or

chaperoning, really, really without anything. And then we want to joke and laugh about it right after school shootings by plastering our five-year-old kids holding these weapons. And I'll tell you what they look like. They look like fucking terrorists. If you compare the photographs of the Boeberts and the representative Massey's with the type of terrorist propaganda that exists, you know, in other places of the world, it's the same photographs of Al Qaeda, like it just is. And the opportunity here that we have as a messaging opportunity is to make it clear that that is the face of who the GOP is, that they're really perverted, sick, disgusting human beings who are at odds with what the American people is, and that Democrats are

responsible people. But here's the thing, Brett, I want to get your take on it. And Jordy, maybe I want your take on it, which is, you know, the GQP is doing all this gerrymandering across the country, but in the Democratic controlled states, like whether it's Colorado or New Jersey or Washington, we see this throughout, which is Democrats in their states. They're like, look, we need to focus on redistrict fairness and how we draw the maps. Meanwhile, and all the GQP states, they're gerrymandering the shit out of these districts that are making it impossible for Democrats to be elected. And so it's like Democrats are taking the high road here, but how do you take the high road when the GQP and the people in the Senate, the Republicans in the Senate are blocking legislation, SB1,

that would, for the People Act, that would create election fairness. I mean, to me, as long as that bill is not being passed, I don't think I think we have to gerrymander also. We can't we're going to lose. We're going to give the Republicans into 15 seats. I'm with you 100 percent. I mean, it's akin to unilateral disarmament, which is when you basically renounce your weapons and surrender without getting equivalent agreements from the other side in your battle. And that's what Democrats are doing here. They are just allowing Republicans to continue to gerrymander. It's not like Republicans are going to be like, oh, well, Democrats are being the good guys. So let's also play fair. Let's also play nice here. No, they're doubling down. They're doing this in every state while

the Democrats are going, OK, we're going to do these fair maps in our states. I know all of us are against gerrymandering. And so it's a little hard for us to admit that we want Democrats to be gerrymandering at this time. But Ben, I agree 100%. And what we need to do is Democrats need to grow a backbone here. And we need to be pushing our representatives. We need to be pushing governors in our states to not unilaterally disarm against Republicans while they're doing this. Hey, once we pass voting rights legislation, fair districts for all. Okay. Let's make the maps fair across the country. That's what the point of the legislation is. Until then, fight like hell and protect our majorities in the house because you are just going to hand it to the Republicans

for no reason out of fairness. I'll tell you, here's the fairness. The fairness is that we want to pass SB1. If you want to show people that we care, the compromise is, hey, we wanted fairness across all of the states. But if you're not going to allow fairness in all the states, then we need to be fighters and we need to protect what's going on in Democratic-controlled states. Jordy, any thoughts about that? Or you want to tell us about Sol and Quip before we bring in the Michigan Attorney General, because I see their communications director in the lobby, and I want to make sure that we speak with her. All right, knowing that, let me just jump into our fantastic advertiser, Sol. So today's program is brought to you by Sol, the sustainable orthopedic footwear company that seeks to bring peace where the ground meets your feet.

What's a footbed? Insul, insert orthotic. Why are orthotics so expensive? What's the fuss anyway? Well, 85%, that's 85% of the population will have one or more foot related ailments in their lifetime. Big percentage. That's a big percentage.

Plantar fasciitis. A couple other medical terms that frankly, I can't pronounce. Shin splints. A lot of these unsexy ailments can be helped with a footbed. Sol has created a foot bed as in a great place to rest your soul that is affordable, customizable, and improves people's everyday foot comfort. Now, millions of customers rave about this product and two thirds of sole customers have two or more pairs of footbeds. Wow. Once you know the comfort, pain relief, performance enhancement, and injury prevention benefits of sole footbeds, you will want them in every shoe you own. What's more is that sole

created its own recycling program, guys. ReCork. Really cool. And what they do is they collect and upcycle used wine corks to make its products. So far, ReCork has collected over 125 million wine stoppers that get ground down and reused into the company's footbeds and shoes. Guys, circularity exists. Soul has an amazing offer for first-time customers of 50% off through yoursoul.com slash Midas. That's M-E-I-D-A-S. So you can try Soul for yourself. Use promo code Midas. We are so confident that you'll love them. We'll also offer a 90-day money-back guarantee.

It's very hard to go wrong. The Midas Touch offer is applicable to all items on Soul Store, be it footbeds or footwear. So go do yourself a favor and head to your soul. That's Y-O-U-R-S-O-L-E dot com slash Midas, M-E-I-D-A-S. Use promo code Midas and try Soul for yourself. And Jordy, before we bring in Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, I got to tell you about Quip from celebratory libations to all the sugary treats our mouth put up with a lot at this time of year so treat yourself to quip's line of seek sustainable oral care products when you bundle and save up to 40 online through the holidays plus by encouraging good habits quip products really are the gifts that keep on giving the quip electric toothbrush is loved by over seven million mouths and has time sonic vibrations with 30 second pulses to guide

a dentist recommended two minute clean a lightweight and sleek design for adults and kids with no wires or bulky charger to weigh you down a multi-use travel cover that doubles as a mirror mount for less clutter reusable handles and a range of sleek metal hues including the best-selling all black and all pink as well as bright plastic colors sure to make a pop to your bathroom counter and if you're already keeping your mouth in tip-top shape, why not earn some rewards while you're at it? Upgrade your Quip to a new smart motor to A, track and improve your brushing with a free Quip app, and B, earn amazing rewards like free refills, products, Target gift cards, and more. Beyond just the brush, Quip has a whole line of stocking stuffers for everyone on your list. Two ways to floss, floss string that

expands to clean, reusable floss pick that replaces over 180 disposable picks with every refill, refillable gum that's sugar-free, has long-lasting mint flavor, and comes with a dispenser, refillable mouthwash that's a four times concentrate plus good for you and the planet. In addition to brush heads, Quip also delivers fresh floss, toothpaste, mouthwash, and gum refills every three months from $5. Shipping is free so you could save money and skip the hustle and bustle of shopping in-store during the holidays and into the new year. Even more good news, Quip is running their best deals of the year right now, which means you won't be paying through the teeth when you gift better oral health this year. So here's

what you got to do. If you go to getquip.com slash Midas right now on top of their holiday savings, you'll get your first refill for free. That's your first refill free and up to 40% off bundles at getquip.com slash Midas. That's spelled G-E-T-Q-U-I-P.com slash M-E-I-D-A-S. Quip is the good habits company. Let's say we bring in the Michigan Attorney General, Dana Nessel. Meet Tim's new Oreo Mocha Ice Caps with Oreo in every sip. Perfect for listening to the A-side or B-side or bull-side. Order yours on the Tim's app today at participating restaurants in Canada

for a limited time. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life, but you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. And, of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans,

you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile. Different is calling. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get

delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. What's up? Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. We are joined by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. Attorney General, welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Thank you for having me. I'd be remiss if I didn't start by talking about the courts. I mean, after all, to have the Michigan Attorney General on our podcast about 10 days after we saw oral arguments in Roe v. Wade.

Attorney General, I am a lawyer. I went to Georgetown Law School. Legal precedent mattered. What we studied, especially on fundamental rights, like the right to choose codified in Roe v. Wade and Casey, based on the oral arguments, it does seem that Roe v. Wade is in serious risk of being overturned and that a ruling is going to come out. But the practical effects of that as well in states like Michigan, I know Michigan has a felony clause, an antiquated clause on the books regarding women and doctors who women who avail themselves of abortions and the right to choose and doctors who engage in it and people. So maybe talk us through your view of that oral argument first, and then what the practical effects actually mean to citizens of Michigan. So, you know, in 2016, for those of us that were a bit apoplectic at the results of the presidential election, I remember having a lengthy

conversation with my family about what this would mean if Trump carried out all the policies that he ran on. And I said, you know, almost everything he does can be undone in another election, but not the Supreme Court. And that's the thing I was most worried about. It seemed clear that Trump would likely have at least a couple appointments. I didn't foresee him having three, but I honestly don't know that there's a difference between two or three because we already had such a razor thin majority when it came to right to privacy issues as it was. And I was one of the attorneys that argued the Obergefell case in 2015, the same-sex marriage case. And, you know, I think it's important to remember Roberts dissented on that. So that was

a 5-4 majority. So I knew, you know, two replacements or three replacements might not make a difference. And of course we knew that anybody who made the shortlist had to perform well on this litmus test of whether or not they would be willing to overturn Roe. And otherwise, they never would have been nominated in the first place. So I knew that that was coming. It was just a matter of time and not probably a long matter of time. So as soon as I saw that the Supreme Court had taken the Mississippi case, and this was before we saw even the Texas case, which for a million reasons is the most outlandish case that I've ever seen, because it totally upends the meaning of standing that we have always known about.

But Mississippi being a more traditional type of abortion ban, as soon as they took it, I knew they were prepared to either overturn Roe entirely or gut it to such an extent that for all intents and purposes, it was meaningless to have Roe exist at all. So what will happen in Michigan is this. We have a 1931 law that makes abortion a four-year felony, meaning you can serve up to four years in prison. And, you know, it's interesting the way that it's written. I think it was written before a time where so many women could take medication that would cause a miscarriage. But the way that it's written, anyone who administers either medication or a procedure will be held criminally liable for this.

And so traditionally before Roe, it was read as though you would be prosecuting the medical performer of such a procedure. So a doctor, a health official, maybe somebody who's not a real health official, but who presents as someone who knows how to administer abortion or abortion procedures. But the way that it's written, I would argue that it could also apply to women if they give themselves this pill. So they would be administering it to themselves. 1931 law, I would say obsolete for the time because it could not be prosecuted after that, was that women would still be jailed. They would just be jailed from a finding that they were holding criminal contempt for failure to cooperate with a subpoena. Now they would not maybe honor a subpoena in a prosecution or cooperate with investigators. So they were still jailed,

but they were jailed for different reasons. Now, I think one could argue that they could also be prosecuted under this law as well. So my feeling is what will happen is that not only will you have providers who are terrified and don't want to perform this procedure, even though technically it says it can be performed just for one caveat to save the life of the mother. But then you get yourself into a situation where I could see if you had an attorney general that really wanted to prosecute these cases, and you see that there are more of these procedures coming from a particular healthcare facility, they would start potentially, I don't know, you know, conducting subpoenas or search warrants to get those medical records to find out,

was this really necessary to save the life of the mother? Or would it have just scarred her horribly? Would it have just caused other problems medically, but maybe she wouldn't have died? And then the doctor would have to take the stand, I assume. And it'd be a sort of a contest of experts as to, was it really to save the life of the mother necessary or was it not? So it's going to, all of these issues are going to spring back immediately as soon as Roe is overturned in Michigan. So what steps can be taken to protect women, childbearing persons in Michigan and those who want to be helpful, doctors and others, if Roe v. Wade is overturned? What happens the next day? those listening who don't know this, it has a Republican controlled state house with lots of lawmakers who on the Republican side who are cheering on Roe being overturned, which is at

odds with poll after poll of what the actual people want to happen, which people want the right to choose to be preserved. But what can happen if that you have that dichotomy of lawmakers saying what they're saying in a Republican controlled statehouse? People wanting this. Could anything be done? Well, as long as the Republicans control both chambers, they're not going to repeal the felony law that's on the books. That's for certain. I would say this. I mean, certainly for my office, you know, there are lots of laws on the books that I consider to be unhelpful in that if they were to be prosecuted, I don't think that they would, you know, in order to the benefit of the public. And so to me, I look at it as a public safety perspective.

By prosecuting this law, would I be making the public more safe? Would it help for purposes of health, safety, and welfare? And I actually would argue that by prosecuting this law, it would cost women their lives. I think lots of people would die in back alley abortions. Oftentimes, there'll be people who are not medically qualified to perform these procedures, or they would be performed in such a way as to be secretive in nature so that you would not have everything that's normally available to you in a medical suite to perform the procedure. And sometimes it's more difficult when you have significant problems, say, with a fetus and it's causing great harm or damage to the woman who's carrying the fetus, those can be more complex procedures. I'm afraid that a lot of doctors will be afraid they'll be losing their malpractice insurance or that they'll be stripped of their license so that there would

be, you know, issues with that as well. I will say this, as long as Governor Whitmer is in the governor's office, I don't see her using her state department agencies to strip actors of their licenses if they're otherwise qualified to perform these procedures. And as attorney general, there are a lot of laws in the books that I don't prosecute and no prosecutor in the state or prosecuting attorneys don't prosecute. Adultery is illegal in Michigan. It is a felony offense. And one could argue that it's not really a harmless offense. I mean, it definitely hurts people, but it's just that it's not routinely prosecuted. And there are a lot of different laws. For instance, my predecessors, my two Republican predecessors, even though we've had a hate crime laws on a law in the books for 30 years, never once was it prosecuted by my two Republican predecessors. But I prosecute it routinely because I think that it's important.

And if people go after other individuals and they cause them physical harm or property damage based on the fact that it's a bias-oriented crime, we prosecute it. So you do have a great deal of prosecutorial discretion. And for me, if those procedures are being performed safely and it is the decision of a woman and her doctor, that's what's best for that particular individual, I'm not going to go busting into Planned Parenthoods or into medical facilities to see exactly what procedures are going on in there. But I think that if I lose, any of the three men that I'm running against will happily prosecute the 1931 law. And I think what's been bothering me is that in the media, nobody seems to be asking them. And when they do ask, they just don't answer,

which I think is very telling. Why do you think that is? I mean, that's why we started this platform to ask those questions, to champion democracy. You know, it really isn't so much about political parties. I mean, if democratic leaders were telling people to start injecting bleach in their veins and telling doctors and women that the government was going to get in the middle of that relationship and make the decisions and criminalize private decisions, I wouldn't be a Democrat. Like I wouldn't, but I'd ask the tough questions. And so, but why do you think that is though, that in this day and age you have, you know, on the right wing propaganda networks that are propping up all of these right wing policies and the big lie? But in the center and, you know, on the left, there's no one just holding Republicans accountable for the big lie.

It just seems that they're reporting it like sports announcers. Democrats are this Republican says it's beyond frustrating. Yeah, it's been frustrating for me too. And as Democrats, I will tell you, we are the first ones to eat our own. So when we see something that one of our fellow Democrats does that we don't like, we're very quick to pounce on it. Less so traditionally with Republicans, although there's certainly a lot of inviting amongst the Republican Party right now, the likes of which I've never seen before. But I still think that these are important questions that be asked. And I think the reason they're not answering it is because behind closed doors, I believe they're all saying, yeah, I can't wait to prosecute this law. You know, and but they don't want to say that publicly because they know that's an incredibly unpopular position to take that maybe appeals to their base.

But the vast majority of people in my state do not want to see doctors and their patients going to prison for what has been a legal medical procedure for 50 years. I want to talk about the threats to free and fair elections. Obviously, this is a nationwide crisis that we're facing, but Michigan is particularly ground zero. We saw the lawsuits brought by Sidney Powell and others. They were subject to sanctions for bringing these frivolous lawsuits, putting out the big lie. I don't really want to give Sidney Powell any airtime other than to give you that reference to the larger point here. The larger point here, as you referenced, is you have both chambers controlled, though, by Republicans who don't condemn that lawsuit, who don't condemn the insurrection, who use the insurrection as a learning tool to say, how can we shape these elections in a way and rig the system to suppress votes

and prevent the voters' will from being heard? That, to me, is the more alarming part than these characters and these silly people who don't deserve a law license one bit, in my view, like the Sidney Powells of the world. But it's now being institutionalized by a political party. What's your view about the threat and what could be done? Well, first of all, I absolutely think it's terrifying. And of all the issues that we're talking about, yes, I care deeply about environmental concerns, and I care about reproductive rights, and I care about LGBTQ rights and all the rest of it. But all of that, none of it matters as much

as maintaining a democracy, because if we don't have a democracy, then all of those things are out the window. So, you know, to me, if we're going to focus on one thing, let's focus on preserving our democratic system of government, where, you know, quite simply, but for the electoral college, you know, the person who but for the Electoral College, you know, the person who receives the most votes is the person who wins the election. I mean, it's pretty simple. And I think all of us have sort of subscribed to this notion for the entirety of our lives. But that being the case, it is horribly concerning and terrifying, not just this effort at voter suppression, which we've seen in states all around the country. And we certainly are seeing that effort here in the state of Michigan, which, you know, people tend to think,

well, we have a Democratic governor. She's never going to go for any of that. It doesn't matter what the Republicans, the legislature want to do. And of course, that's not the case because we have this unique system of government here in Michigan, where it just takes three or 4% of the voting public to sign on to a ballot petition. And then it goes right to the legislature and it, and all it has to do is pass by a bare majority and it's veto proof that a governor doesn't get to weigh in at all. So that's very concerning. And certainly the Republicans, you know, are, are, you know, county or township clerks, whether it be those who sit on the boards of canvasser, either at the county level or at the state level, you know, these are ministerial functions that were always performed

irrespective of political party. They just did their job. They did it the right way. The person who got the most votes was deemed to win the election in that jurisdiction. And then it was passed up to the next level. And then it was passed up to the next level. And no matter who the governor was, and no matter what they thought of that presidential candidate, the vote was certified. They signed off on it. The Secretary of State signed off on it. But now we have a situation where I think 2020 exploited for us. I mean, it really allowed us to see all of the various areas where we have always just depended on people doing the right thing and performing these ministerial roles in the right way where they're following the law. Well, that's not going to be the case anymore.

So they've replaced all of the Republicans that were on those boards and they're split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, two of each, who just did the right thing, certified an election, even though it wasn't their candidate or their party that won. That's not going to be the case anymore. And that's why it's even more important than ever in our state that we have Jocelyn Benson get reelected as our chief of elections to oversee elections. And then I get elected, reelected as attorney general, because I'm the top law enforcement official in the state and I represent the secretary of state and I can bring lawsuits. And why that matters is this. Firstly, on behalf of Secretary Benson, if she sees a case like we're seeing right now in Hillsdale County, we have a local clerk there and Adams Township, which is a small township, but she refused because she didn't like the kind of election equipment that was being

used. I don't know if it was Dominion or Smart Matrix or whatever it was she objected to. She refused to perform the regular processes required to update the equipment to make it ready for the 2021 municipal elections. So what happened? The Secretary of State had to remove her and appoint someone else to oversee the elections. Well, if you have someone there who's on board with every township or county clerk running elections, however the hell they want to do it, whether it's in accordance with the law or not, that's going to be a major problem. And of course, you know, Secretary Benson is running against a Trump endorsed candidate who we know will just

do whatever Donald Trump wants, irrespective of how the voting turns out. And as for me, in terms of bringing these lawsuits or defending these lawsuits, I mean, we had dozens of lawsuits that we had to defend in order to ensure that the 2020 presidential election went to the candidate that won by over 154,000 votes in our state. That's not 1,540 votes. That's 154,000 votes. That's not even close. But we had to work like hell just to make sure that the election

got properly certified. And so whether it was the Sidney Powell lawsuits, whether it was being sued by the state of Texas and having an attorney general from Texas sued to decertify our election and the election in three other states, you need someone there who's going to defend how the voters voted and not just roll over and say, all right, you know, AG Paxton, whatever Texas would like to see happen here in Michigan, that's cool by me because I agree with you. So these are critically important roles, but in terms of what we can do with, say, the boards of canvasser, if they don't do the right thing, not only is it a crime, you know, not only can it be misconduct in office or willful neglect of duty, but I can go to, you know, the Supreme Court here and say, you know, you need to order

this board of canvassers to certify that is their job. And, you know, it is likely that that's what the Supreme Court would do. They'd say, you don't have a choice here. You have to certify that election. But if you don't have me, and if you have, for instance, the guy I'm running against, a guy by the name of Matt DiPerno, again, endorsed specifically by Donald Trump, because Donald Trump knows that Matt DiPerno will do anything and everything that he would like to see done, then you can be assured that that's not going to happen. So I guess the best thing to say is make sure that we have, you know, Democrats who hold these important offices so that we can be here to do the right thing. And I can assure everybody this. I don't like Donald Trump. I've made that very clear. I didn't support him in 2020. I didn't support him in 2016. But if we have a scenario like we had in 2016, where he legitimately wins the popular vote in Michigan, and he receives 10,000 more votes than whoever

the Democratic nominee is, then I will fight like hell to make sure that the election is certified so that Donald Trump gets our 15. Now, it was 16. Now it's 15 electoral votes, even though I don't like it, even though I can't stand them, even though I might move to another country afterwards, I will make sure that he gets our electoral votes because that is how democracy works. Yeah, I mean, that's what's having a person who has integrity in power versus somebody who is just willing to completely overturn the will of the voters. And that's why we emphasize so much to our listeners that elections matter. You know, we need Attorney General Dana Nessel there. We need Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson there. We need these protections because at the end of the day, we can't rely on these two Republican-controlled chambers to do the right thing in the state of Michigan or frankly anywhere else because now there's a litmus test and we've seen this ongoing

coup attempt since January 6th where they'd moved it from the streets basically into these state houses and that's where the battle for democracy is happening. I would love to now just talk about a few kind of local issues. Local but they also have national implications. They are things of national importance. One being the Oxford Township shooting. I know that you are not the prosecutor of this case. The prosecutor is Karen McDonald who I think has been doing a fantastic job. But I saw that the Oxford Community Schools actually rejected the offer to have you conduct an independent review of the shooting, and they instead hired an outside private security firm. What's that about? Can you just explain that to our listeners? Well, I mean, let's be honest. They want to shield themselves from civil liability. That way, whoever they hire, you know, they are the client. They're paying for it.

And that firm and whatever their results are, whatever their review shows, they're just accountable to the Oxford Community Schools. And, you know, that's what I was concerned about. And that's why, and these are lessons learned. I mean, my department has handled some of the biggest investigations conducted by any state AG, any place in America. So the MSU Nassar investigations, the Flint water crisis investigations, our clergy abuse investigations, one of the largest in the country. Same thing with our Boy Scouts of America investigation. We know how to do this, but it's not just about finding criminal liability. That's what the Oakland County Sheriff's Department is doing. That's what the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office is doing, and they do it very well.

But what we do in these investigations is not just look for what went wrong from the perspective of did any crimes occur, but what went wrong in a way that we can learn from it to create better policies. And, you know, is it, was it the case that the Oxford Community Schools did not follow proper procedures and policies that were in place? Or did they do everything that they should have done in accordance with law and policy, but we just need better policies? And for instance, I have an elder abuse task force in place. And one of the things we do is we identify best practices for protecting seniors in the state. And then we try to codify that into law. We should be doing the same thing. We should be taking a step back from this horrific tragedy

and to say, how can we do better to protect our kids? Because there are kids all over the state of Michigan, not just in Oxford, that are terrified to go back to school and their parents are afraid to send them. And we want to be able to say to the parents of the state of Michigan, it's safe to send your kids to school. You don't have to be worried about this happening in your school. And here's why. And so we want to do an independent analysis that is a full report. And again, we have from my department, not just criminal attorneys, we have civil attorneys, we have special agents. And we have people in other departments like state operations. We represent the Department of Education. We represent the school superintendent for the state of Michigan. So we can really dig in there

and find out, you know, how do we use this as a learning tool? But unfortunately, when you have a private security firm that goes in that doesn't have that breadth of experience and really is not there to protect the public. And it isn't there necessarily to protect that particular school system in terms of the children that attend, but is there to protect the people who are in positions of authority there. You're not going to get all that. There's no way. And it's not going to stop me from doing my job. I'm going to work with Prosecutor McDonald to get as much information as I possibly can about what occurred. I'm going to go to Oxford and meet with the kids, their parents, stakeholders in the community, educators there,

and I'm going to proceed forward so that we can find out exactly what happened and do our best to put really the best policies and procedures in place to ensure it doesn't happen again. And why does this private security, why do they even have the authority to take that from you? Well, they're not taking it from me, but here's the problem. entity in the state where there is a criminal case pending and I can issue, you know, search warrants and investigatory subpoenas and things of that nature. And that's what's happening right now. That is what Oakland County is doing. But for me to do it from a civil perspective, one, I need to file a case in order to get discovery. And it's very hard to do when you don't have the cooperation

of the school district because they can hide things from you. Like for instance, anything that's attorney-client privilege. We saw this in the MSU Nassar investigation. They said, hey, we want this to be totally transparent. We want everyone to know what happened that led to this horrific set of events where hundreds and hundreds of young girls and women were sexually violated by this guy, seemingly right under the noses of university officials. How did this happen? We want you, Department of Attorney General, to conduct this investigation. And so when we got in there, we're like, great. And I'm like, oh, but we're not going to show you everything because a lot of this stuff is protected. So there's over 6,000 emails that you're not even going to get to see.

And we're like, well, it's hard for us to do an investigation when you're hiding so many things from us. So that's why we wanted their cooperation, because then they wouldn't be able to hide anything from us. And it wouldn't be so difficult to find out exactly what occurred. Again, it's not going to stop us. We are going to do our best to find out what happened and to do our best to ensure that best practices can be applied statewide. But it sure would have been helpful to against the parents of the shooter. I'm not sure if I'd even seen that done before. What do you make of that approach?

Do you think that sets a new standard going forward about how to prosecute these sorts of cases? Well, it's not actually new. It has been prosecuted before. Certainly, it's been prosecuted in Genesee County, where there was a man who left access available to a firearm for his elementary school child, who then went to school and shot another kid with it. Kim Worthing routinely actually issues these types of charges when she thinks there are really egregious sets of circumstances. So it's not that it's never

happened before. It just happens rarely. And it happens mostly when there are specifically egregious sets of circumstances, as there seem to be in this set of circumstances. And I absolutely support Prosecutor McDonald in issuing these charges. that there's so much pushback, but where, you know, people who own firearms have to keep them safe and secure from their children so that their children do not have unfettered access to a deadly weapon. And I don't know why this is so controversial. But, you know, we will be unlikely to get that, even though there's such a bill pending, we'll probably be unlikely to get that through the legislature so long as we have Republicans as the majority in both chambers. And, you know, these laws exist in states all around the country, and they're largely effective. You have a lesser rate of children accessing those weapons because it's against the law for them to do so.

But not in Michigan. And again, I don't see this as a Second Amendment issue. We're not saying you can't have a firearm. We're not saying you can't keep that firearm in your home as long as you're otherwise legally permissible for you to own a weapon, like you don't have a felony conviction or something, we're just saying, keep it away from your kids. And I just, again, I don't understand why that's so controversial, but for some reason with today's Republican party, it is. I want to go back to something that we had touched on earlier in this interview, and that's that there's been a rise and frankly, glorification of hate groups online and in this country. And I know you led the charge specifically establishing the first ever hate crimes unit in Michigan. Can you tell us about

that and the importance of establishing such a unit? Yeah, well, by the time I got into office, we had seen an exponential rise in hate crimes in the state of Michigan and all around the country. And Michigan was really highly ranked, I think like third, fourth, or fifth over a course of a number of years in terms of the most threats that had been issued. And when I say threats, I mean credible threats or they are actual crimes. Again, they're property damage related crimes, maybe burning a cross on somebody's lawn or, you know, spray painting somebody's synagogue with swastikas attacked because of their race or their national origin or ethnicity or their gender or so forth. So I thought it was really important to establish, but it was really in 2020 where I had to amend the title of the office and the work of it. Instead of having a hate crimes division, we had to alter it to a hate crimes and domestic terrorism division because of the rise in domestic terrorist groups and their membership.

Largely in 2020, when you had sort of, I would say, this perfect storm between, you know, COVID and Trump's rhetoric was really escalating. And then we had, of course, the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota, and everything sort of came together in the worst way possible. And we saw a significant rise in hate groups, domestic terrorist groups. And so that's why I put it together. And, you know, now, I mean, we have a number of cases that we are handling. But one of the things that we're using it for is to go after all these individuals that are terrorizing government officials. And so whether it be school board members or, you know, health officials, local health officials, you know, legislators of both parties, by the way, not just one party, but both parties. We've had threats against judges. We've had threats certainly against our governor. As you know, we're handling over half of the Wolverine Watchman cases, threats against our United States senators. And really the list goes on and on. But I will say one thing we've noticed is that female electeds or appointed officials tend to get far more threats than their male counterparts.

So just for instance, if you have, in our case, two United States senators, well, I guess for every state, two United States senators, one in our case is a female, one is a male, it's Debbie Stabna that gets far more threats than Gary Peters. And I think it's one of the reasons why, you know, we've elected more women officials in Michigan than at any other time. And I think that's why we're seeing, in part, more threats. It does seem to be related. I will tell you right now that Rashida Tlaib and Alyssa Slotkin and Debbie Dingell get far more threats than Andy Levin or Dan Kilby do. It's really scary. And I just want to thank you for establishing that unit because we live in just the craziest time. And it's courageous to really stick up for your counterparts, no matter where they stand on the political spectrum on that particular issue. On a much lighter note now,

I have to come clean about something. I did graduate from The Ohio State University. Please don't X out, Chad. Please don't X out. Thank you for saving this for the end of the show, Jody, because this would have been a disaster if we started. I just wanted to congratulate you on kicking our butts over the Thanksgiving holiday. Congrats on the Big Ten championship.

What are the predictions for those Wolverines as we head into the college football playoff? Well, naturally, I think that Michigan is going to win at the Orange Bowl. And then I think they're going to go on and win at the National Championship. There you go. But I will say I have high hopes to attend the Orange Bowl. But if I do, I'm going to have a healthy breakfast, followed by no Bloody Marys at all. Just to prove to everyone that I can't watch a Michigan game completely sober, I may actually put fertilizer on Facebook Live. Just to prove it.

We'll be on the lookout for that. Has the prime minister of Finland called you back and take you up on your offer? I have not heard from her, but I mean, she's amazing. And I mean, yeah, I would like to party with her. She seems fun. I tell you, I think even in my prime,

I don't know that I could stay out clubbing till 4 a.m. I just don't think it's in me. And also, as we know from Tailgate gate, I'm kind of a lightweight. So it might be, you know, maybe a couple of drinks and I'm out of commission. So and for those that don't know what we're talking about, the Finland's prime minister went out clubbing till 4 a.m. This was on Twitter, left her work phone at home and was unreachable. And then you responded to her.

Do I just call to let her know I might have an extra ticket to the Orange Bowl or should I go through the State Department? Because Santa and I should definitely hang. He could probably teach me a thing or two. I don't know. I don't know if he's a Red Bull or just like a whole lot of coffee. I don't know. But I want to know. Well, you've definitely taught our Midas Mighty audience more than a thing or two. We're grateful to have you on, Attorney General Dana Nessel. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. Thanks so much for having me.

Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. For those watching this visually, I've now been relegated to the back corner of a hotel lobby. I have to record the Midas Touch podcast before I was in a great location where I wasn't around anybody. So I was able to take off my mask. And right now they started like a group of people were there and they started like banging pots and pans really loud. And you know what this is?

I think this is a DeSantis op. Ben is in Florida. All of a sudden, while you're recording the podcast, people come out and start banging pots and pans and you have to change locations. And now Ben is inside a, it looks like the world's smallest closet I've ever seen. I'm right in a stairwell. I'm recording this podcast from a stairwell because there's no one in Miami who wears masks around here. And so anyway, that's why I'm talking. So what you're saying is we could potentially get another guest. If someone comes down that stairwell, just bring them to the show. This potentially could be a new guest on the Midas Touch podcast. Any second at any moment. All right. Well, let's get into it.

Attorney General Dana Nessel was absolutely amazing, fellas. Yeah, she was fantastic. She's a true fighter for democracy. And, you know, when she speaks like, you know, I think one of the most, I think something that really shows her character, she was like, you know, if Trump won the election, you know, I'd have no problem acknowledging that he won the election and making sure that that was certified. And you have Republicans on their side who have just gone full fascist than are basically just saying at all costs, we will not certify a Democrat who wins elections. That right there is the difference between Democrats and Republicans. It's the difference between democracy and fascism. And that's what we're up against. And so it's great that we have fighters like Attorney General Nessel out there who are actually committed to preserving democracy.

It shouldn't be a hard concept. And look, that's exactly what Chicken Perdue, David Perdue, said recently. He said if he was governor, for those listening to David Perdue, the loser senatorial candidate who lost against Ossoff in the race, Chicken Perdue, governor at the time. And this is what he said, quote, not with the very clear. There was 70 plus cases, cases filed init to be governor of a state in the United States of America. It's absurd that there's someone who would actually say that. And the Republican Party at this point just has no spine. In order to be a Republican in 2021, you have to be a conspiracy theorist and you have to be a fascist. You have to go all in on the big lie. And that's what we're seeing with these candidates. And all I can hope right now is that Purdue entering this race to go against Kemp, that there's such animosity there between those two candidates that it tears apart the Republican party from within. And as we mentioned on the last podcast, I think a lot of our big win

in the January Georgia special elections was also due to the fact that there was a fractured party with Trump and Linwood and all these people actually telling people not to vote. And now we have a candidate who is a big lie pusher who is going against Kemp. They are fighting. There is a GOP civil war happening that we are witnessing. And I hope that we're able to take advantage of that and elect an incredible candidate who believes in democracy, who believes in helping people, who believes in voting rights in Governor Stacey Abrams. I want to see Governor Stacey Abrams so bad. And I think the more we see this craziness from the right, the more likely that we are to do that. So we all got to keep pushing. We all got to

keep fighting and we got to do everything we can every single day to elect great leaders like Stacey Abrams. This is a very winnable 2022. The Republicans are basically waging a psyops against everyone else to try to chill their vote and try to make them think it's a foregone conclusion that just because you have a Democratic president, well, it's always the case that you lose the house when there's a president from know, a president from that party, the other house, the other party always, you know, you know, takes over the house. That's not necessarily the case. These GQPs with the Boeberts and the Marjorie Taylor greens of the world lead again, Americans don't like that stuff. And we need people to push back to that. And speaking of that craziness, have you seen Mark Meadows just sued the house January 6th committee to block his, these people are spineless chicken shits

and just they're losers. They're just so off on all of the legal issues. So Brett, the first question that I'm sure you'd probably ask is what, what chance is there? You're going to ask. I was going to ask what chance, but I was also going to say like, I feel like Mark Meadows tried to play every side of this issue. And I feel like he's ending up screwing himself over even even more because he did that. Because it would have been one thing if he took the stance at the very beginning. But the fact is, he's already handed over troves of text messages. He's already handed over a very incriminating 38-page PowerPoint that went step by step as to how they were planning to overturn the results of the election. So at this stage in

the game, after he releases a book to the public that expresses these very personal interactions between him and Trump, how do you then go and claim that you have this executive privilege? How do you then sue the committee that you were previously starting to cooperate with and actually provided a lot of evidence to already? I mean, I feel like this guy's going to get laughed at at court, but that's my layman's opinion, but I'm curious to get your expert opinion. Let's talk about what he's already turned over. A 38-page PowerPoint titled Options for January 6th, which detailed how he and Trump envision they would declare a national security emergency, have the vice president delay Biden's certification, declare the votes fraudulent, and basically install Trump as a de facto dictator. It didn't specifically say it like that, but that's the thrust of the 38-page PowerPoint. There are text messages between him and members of Congress about how they would

appoint alternate electors in certain states and Meadows responds. I love it. There's also texts between Mark Meadows and individuals who are part of that stop the steel insurrection. There are texts about the need for Trump to issue a statement and him not issuing a statement about the insurrection. Like there's a ton of information, you know, right here. But at the heart of this issue is the doctrine of executive privilege and executive privilege, like other privileges in law, attorney, client privilege, marital privilege, patient doctor privilege, says there are certain communications that should be confidential unless there are exceptions, because we want to foster confidential communication so people can speak candidly and not fear everything they say is going to be used in a litigation. So the idea, the same way an attorney and their client would have confidential

conversations, the law says we want the president of the United States to be able to speak about national security issues and things like that to their chief of staff without that being made public. Well, what the January 6th committee said, okay, you could say that those things are subject to executive privilege. If we think that the executive privilege doesn't hold here, if it's not a confidential communication like that, we'll challenge that later. But clearly, if you're engaged in conversations with third parties, for example, if you were having communications with members of Congress, that's not executive privilege. You've now extended that relationship outside of the White House to third parties. If you wrote a book about it, you are telling the public that. If you're giving interviews,

you're releasing those things to the public. So we want to question you just on those things. And so the January 6th committee was very sophisticated in what they did because like with a scalpel, they baited him and they said, you could focus on those non-issues. We'll let you assert executive privilege, but here are the areas where you can't. And so he was too chicken shit to even go in front of him and talk about that. He has no legitimate claim to that. He has no legitimate claim on the executive privilege grounds. As Merrick Garland said in a Justice Department memo said, that insurrection has nothing to

do with the functioning of the executive office. The fact that a president leads an insurrection should not be subject to an executive privilege, the overthrow of our government. Nonetheless, you could assert the privilege. We'll challenge that later, but testify on all these other topics. And so he's refusing to testify on all these other topics. And he turned over the records. I just think what he wants to do here is delay, delay, delay, and hope that he

could delay this out until another administration where he hopes that the Trump model holds where the criminal GQPs pardon each other or whatever. So the whole thing, the whole name of their game is delay. And guys, let me ask you this. Is it wait until another administration or is it a wait? And it's a big if, if Republicans take the House in 2022, and do they have the authority then to just disband the committee? I'll say this. Yes, they will. If the Republicans take the House, and this is one of the reasons why the elections are important, they do and they will have the power to end the committee. And it's something I expect them to do. But the January 6th committee, they're not stupid. They know that that's a possibility. So they're going to do everything in their power to wrap up their investigations

by the time that happens. And also what everybody needs to remember is that the DOJ is going to be the same DOJ regardless of what happens in 2022 or not. So that means even if there are indictments ongoing, what's not going to happen is if Republicans were able to actually take power in 2022, then they wouldn't have the control over what the DOJ does. The DOJ gets to still pursue indictments and gets to still pursue their case. So I expect that the January 6th committee is going to wrap up well ahead of that being a possibility. I think that they were hoping, I think, to wrap up over the summer, which is why

the Steve Bannon news about his court case being delayed into July, I think is so harmful personally. And I understand that everything is a process and this was actually a compromise. The prosecutors wanted to set this trial in April and Bannon was trying to push back to, I believe, December. And so they met in the middle in July. But I think to me, that is incredibly irresponsible. I think we need to have these trials quickly. We need to be moving as quick as possible at this moment. And so they met in the middle in July. But I think to me, that is incredibly irresponsible. I think we need to have these trials quickly. We need to be moving as quick as possible at this moment. And we cannot give any of these people a chance to delay, delay, delay, delay, delay. Brett, I agree wholeheartedly. And what I hope is the prosecution of Bannon, which has now been delayed, the trial will be around July. I don't really know why that trial needs to go July. Bannon was asking that it be even kicked further down the road, but now that's

set for July. I mean, it seems to be one of the most simple trials ever. He didn't show up. And even when this trial happens, it's not a trial that is going to even be about getting information from Bannon, but it's just going to be about holding him criminally accountable for not answering a subpoena. Yeah. That's what it would be about. So it's just also silly. But I mean, at least there are hundreds and hundreds of people have already come before the January 6th committee. They have a lot of information and they probably have a lot of those other text messages and much more of the correspondence that Meadows is withholding. They probably already have a lot of that on their side. So they don't need any one person to get to the bottom of this. And something I also want

people to consider as you see news about the January 6th committee is they're a fact-finding committee. They're a research committee. So don't expect them, they don't have enforcement power. They don't have the power to go out and start arresting people. And I see people be like, why isn't the January 6th committee put anybody under arrest yet? They're going to produce a research document like the 9-11 committee commission produced a research document. That's the end game of this. Information, detail, research. That's what's going to come out of this. And then the DOJ will then have an opportunity to decide if they're going to pursue charges based on that information, based on any criminal referrals that they may have. But the January 6th committee, their job is to get to the bottom of January 6th.

I agree. And Brett, maybe tell us a little bit about Raycon, will you? I would love to tell you about Raycon because by now you've probably seen about a thousand gift guides for the holidays. Gift for moms, gift for guys, gift for your neighbor's cousin's dog. These lists are absolutely, they're crazy. But you could study all those gift guides. You didn't get your neighbor's cousin's dog a present this holiday season yet, Brett. You are missed. Come on, man. Listen, Jordy, you could get your neighbor's cousin's dog a present this holiday season. You are missed. Come on, man. Listen, Jordy, you could shop at 10 different places or you could start shopping at Raycon and get a gift that everyone will actually use the Raycon wireless earbuds.

I love the Raycon wireless earbuds. I wear them when I run. I wear them when I'm just walking around the house so I don't disturb the rest of the family. These are incredible in-ear earbuds and they give you amazing audio quality wherever you go, whether you use them to pump up, wind down, to work or work out. And they'd be useful for anyone on your list. Even better for you, they start at half the price of other premium audio brands. With their latest model, you get three new sound profiles to make sure everything you're listening to sounds its best. With just the right amount of bass, you got pure mode, which is great for like podcast listening, instrumentals, blues music, balance balance mode which is also great for podcasts and rock and heavy metal and then you've got bass mode this is my favorite mode of them when i when i'm listening because you get to listen to hip-hop and edm and

reggae on them and the bass is fantastic raycons are available in five stylish colors so you can pick a perfect one for everyone on your list and with free shipping and returns gifting is easier than ever the hey the holidays are coming up faster than you think they're like right around the corner now is the time to knock out that gift list and avoid the last minute shipping scramble, especially because right now our listeners are going to get 15% off site-wide with code HOLIDAY if you go to buyraycon.com slash Midas. So go to buyraycon.com slash Midas, M-E-I-D-A-S, and use code HOLIDAY to get 15% off your entire Raycon order. That's B-U-Y-R-A-Y-C-O-N.com slash Midas. Trust me, like everyone in your family, all your friends, your neighbors,

cousins, dog, they're all going to love your Raycon earbuds. Yeah. No, I just want to say, I mean, I love the Raycon earbuds, man. They are just, oh, they've been a godsend. I am still currently trapped in a stairwell recording this podcast. What I like about it, Ben, though, is you're very measured right now. So you could say some very serious things about the threats to our democracy, but somehow you're still lowering my blood pressure because you're speaking so smoothly. It's kind of our...

Maybe, because it's kind of like when we joked about how we're going to whisper on the podcast going forward. You're kind of just doing that. You're committing so kudos to you for committing to it's my it's my first time listening to the Midas Touch podcast this is not how it normally goes I just want to make sure that you know it may go sometimes I wind up in just random staircases, but in any event, did you see that this is what the Senate finds a bipartisan way to vote on? The Senate voted Wednesday night to overturn President Joe Biden's COVID-19 vaccine or testing mandate. That's the most important to me.

I mean, the or. It's a testing mandate, really. And if you don't want to get tested. That's the weirdest part about this whole thing. You know, the, the, the not getting vaccinated part, I totally don't understand, but I want to at least recognize that they're in certain circumstances. If you're not like a healthcare worker and you have some serious, legitimate, serious, either religious view, not the fake ones that they, that they try to use, or there's legitimately a health reason. I could, I understand it, you know, whether I agree with it or not, I want to be sympathetic and understanding of it. But see, the thing is,

it's not just that they're anti-vax. They're also pretending that COVID isn't a real thing. And then they're also anti-mask and then they're also anti-testing. So it's the combination of all those factors, which just drives me absolutely nuts here. And what the Biden vaccine or testing mandate is, is okay. If you don't want to get the vaccine and get tested and there's opposition to being tested for a pandemic, I mean, is one of the strangest things in the world to me. And I'll tell you being here in Miami, one of the reasons I'm in this stairwell is because there's not a lot of great places in public settings to have conversations with without wearing a mask. But they straight up don't, they act like COVID isn't a real thing. Yeah, it's so wild. And I want to be clear also that it's really just all appearances at this point. This is not going to become law. Chances of

getting a vote in the House are uncertain. It's likely not to pass in the House, but Biden is 100% going to veto this. But it does demonstrate that there is a little bit of bipartisanship when it comes to removing these mandates. And it seems like there are some senators in the Democratic Party, and there may be some members of the House who are afraid to keep mandates going because they're afraid what that means for people voting for them. I mean, they're afraid of public perception of keeping these mandates going. But I mean, hey, the fact is that these mandates are the reason why we have such a robust economy right now. These mandates encouraging people to get vaccinated, making people get vaccinated. This is a reason why the economy is bouncing back at the quickest rate

in the history. And all this, on the Republican side, it's all to try to derail that effort. They want fewer people vaccinated. They want to screw up the economy. They want the economy down. They really do. They want to cheer on the worst economy. And look, you know, when Biden came into the presidency, you know, and early on, I mean, I think that Democrats believed we probably didn't need a mandate at first. Like they thought Donald Trump is so incompetent. He couldn't get the vaccines out. So we're going to get the vaccines out to all Americans. We're going to mass produce these and people are going to take the vaccines.

Nobody accounted for one, the more potent strands out there, number one, and number two, the level of disinfo out there and people not acting like COVID is a serious thing. And people being Fox, the right wing, spreading disinfo about it to the point where you have no other choice. No one wants to treat people like, hey, you have to do something. But at some point, if people are out there trying to infect others with a deadly pandemic, what other option do you have? And it's brought to you by the same people at Fox News, at Newsmax, your right-wing Congress members who straight up worship Vladimir Putin, who straight up want Russia to invade Ukraine. You literally see a concerted effort on Fox,

on Newsmax, spewed by Republican Congress members to hoist up Vladimir Putin. I bet you, and I'm not even saying this facetiously, if you were to say to the Republican Party, who would you rather have as the president of the United States, Joe Biden, who would you rather have as the president of the United States, Joe Biden, or would you rather have Vladimir Putin as a dictator over Joe Biden as a president? I guarantee you, I guarantee you the polling result would be in the Republican Party, 70 to 80% in favor of Vladimir Putin, 20 to 30% to have President Joe Biden, hands down. Do you disagree with that? No, I don't disagree for a second. And it's just nice in general to have a president who, when they meet with Vladimir Putin, you don't have to worry about, okay, what are they going to give Russia? And so President Biden had the conversation with Putin

the other day. He didn't accept any of Putin's red lines on Ukraine. And if you want to learn more about the whole Ukraine-Russia crisis, I recommend you listen to the latest episodes of Kremlin File. It's an incredible podcast where you do a real deep dive into this specific issue. But here we have President Biden standing up for democracy around the globe. This is something that Trump did not do. Trump basically wanted to hand Ukraine to Russia, let them just completely take over it. And as you said, Ben, it's just crazy how the right-wing echo chamber has kicked into gear full support of Vladimir Putin and full support of Russia. They are not even hiding it anymore. It's a coordinated effort across the board. You see Laura Ingraham leading her show saying, why should we be

responsible for Ukraine's safety with a big no symbol behind President Biden that says no more war, trying to act like President Biden is being an aggressor against Russia and not the other way around. Tucker Carlson, same night, said, how would intervening in Ukraine help us? And pushed a very pro-Putin narrative saying that Russia was actually just trying to defend their borders. I told you there'd be a guest on the minus 10 podcast. We called it. We knew there was going to be a guest. For those listening, somebody just walked into Ben's staircase. No, Ben's studio. It was only a matter of time.

I'm honestly shocked you haven't been kicked out. You're in a stairwell recording a podcast. You should be thrown out of the hotel by now. Ben, he was wearing a mask, which I think was a big surprise. The funniest part about the person who just came through the staircase is he came in and he saw this and he went, oh shit, I should be recording a podcast. You were in the right, he was in the wrong. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's get back into it. So then let's move to the even more radical right news stations, which they're all indistinguishable at this point. But Newsmax literally gave the cover to their magazine to Vladimir Putin, calling him Vlad the Great. Not even Russia Today goes this far in their praise of Putin. Vlad the Great with a picture

of Putin holding a champagne glass saying, post-Trump, Putin becomes master of the world. Are you getting kicked out? I'm badly kicked out. There's a security here. I'm almost kicked out. I'm going to finish up the show. Keep going. Oh, no.

So post-Trump, Putin becomes master of the world. That's the headline that Newsmax decided to run with. So you have this coordinated effort by the right to prop up Putin over America's interests, over Ukraine's interests. And that's where we are with the GOP in 2021. They're a fascist party. They're an authoritarian party. And there's a big difference between the parties. And I hope people are able to see through this and understand that this is not a normal battle of just two sides of the same coin. This is a existential battle for democracy across the world. I'm getting kicked out of the staircase

by a security guard. Jordy, you want to do a final ad read? Let me do a quick ad read. Don't get arrested. And it was great seeing you today, Ben. Man, it's a good thing he's a lawyer. I know. Tell us about Wondery. I'd love to tell you about Wondery.

Christmas. Tis the season to deck the halls and exchange presents with loved ones. But over the past 10 years, a new tradition has emerged. Binge watching, low budget, made for TV, holiday movies, and the battle to have the highest rated Christmas movie gets more intense every year. The newest season of the Business Wars podcast from Wondery drives into the competition between Hallmark, Lifetime, and Netflix. While their films may be full of goodwill and cheer, the war for ratings is downright hostile.

That's an incredible concept. It really is. I love that. Listen to Business Wars, Christmas Movie Wars on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free, joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app. Okay. So Ben's been literally kicked out by, I don't know by who,

I still think this might be DeSantis PSYOP going on right here. And we, and we say that all joking around. So Politico doesn't write a fucking story about how we spread this rumor. No, we are, we are,

we are joking, but like I said, really did get kicked out of the hotel and we are a little bit scared that he might be, I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to try and text him and see if we could. Ben, after the show, please try to get in touch with us and let us know that you're

okay. Well, I think this has been a great show. I think we could hit just a couple of other interesting pieces of news before we go out. I thought it was interesting to see that Biden is directing the federal government to become carbon neutral by 2050. I think this is showing his commitment to green energy, which is so important. All these notions though of 2050, it always feels like pushing the buck later and later and later. And I get that government moves slowly and that there are a lot of targets that we're

going to hit. But the one thing that I think is cool about this order is that it asks the federal government to run entirely on carbon-free energy by 2030, which is really not that far away. And we're hoping to receive net zero emissions by 2050. It's a huge undertaking. It's a huge accomplishment if we can hit our goal there. My biggest problem, and it's not a problem with this because this is so amazing, but for me, I think most American people, most Americans might look at this and because it's not something so tangible and so immediate, they don't understand how actually impactful this is going to be for not just America, but for the whole world. Yeah, totally. But one of my also issues with it is that, you

know, anything that's done by an executive order like this can be overturned by a future administration. So all the progress that we're trying to make can be reversed in this situation should a Republican come to power. So I think that's important to note. I'm happy President Biden is doing it, but this is not a perfect solution. That's why we need to pass real legislation to actually protect our climate, because this is an urgent, urgent, urgent threat. California announced that they plan to be an abortion sanctuary if Roe is overturned. I'm really proud of my state for doing that. With more than two dozen states now poised to ban abortion, I think the number is somewhere around 26 states looking to ban abortion if the U.S. Supreme Court gives them the okay

and overturns Roe. California clinics are saying that they're going to provide sanctuary for those seeking reproductive care, including possibly paying for travel, lodging, and other procedures from people for other states. I think this is great. I think this is a great thing. I hope other states follow. But I'm worried about more as the kind of the new America takes shape if Roe is overturned, as I'm worried about kind of

this separation that's going to happen between all the states. I think we're going to be further divided. I think blue states are going to become bluer as people kind of shift to them to get safer. I think red states are going to be redder and we're going to be a more divided country than ever before. And this has been just an amazing and unique episode of the Midas Touch podcast. I mean, where are you going to get a podcast where the host actually gets kicked out of his studio, which in the defense of the hotel was a makeshift stairwell. So, again, for the new listeners, that very rarely happens, but I can't guarantee it won't happen again, but definitely come back. Thanks to everybody who listened and watched the Midas Touch podcast today.

And in all seriousness, if you are a fan of Midas Touch, if you're a fan of the podcast, it would be super helpful if you could leave us a five-star review. If your app allows for that, if you're watching on YouTube, if you hit that thumbs up button and subscribe button, it actually really helps the algorithm. I know it's corny that all the podcasters say this, but it's true and it really helps us out. So please hit that right now. Thank you all so much. And all I have to say, Brett, is shout out to the Midas Mighty.