The MeidasTouch Podcast - The GOP Charade with Rep. Grace Meng

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

We kick off the episode with a discussion on Ben's highly controversial "scruffy elegance" and recap Ben's debate with Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling. We then discuss how Atlanta's 11Alive News issued a questionable FACT CHECK regarding one our SB 202 tweets and we challenge the network's legal analyst to an unfiltered debate on the MeidasTouch Podcast. Next, we discuss the effectiveness of the Georgia boycotts and the incredible role played by the Meidas Mighty in pushing corporations to change their tune on voter suppression #RESULTS. Ben analyzes the meaning of "wokeness" and how the Right has weaponized the term into a slur. In the next segment, we welcome Rep. Grace Meng of New York's 6th congressional district to discuss to rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and the accomplishments of President Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress. We wrap up the show with a discussion on infrastructure and ask the evergreen question: Between Matt Gaetz and Ron DeathSantis, what the hell is going on in Florida? Thanks for listening to the MeidasTouch Podcast! Please help us climb the charts by giving us a 5-star rating and sharing this show with a friend! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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With over 3,000 games to choose from, including fan favorites like Cash Eruption, We'll be right back. 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 Mycelis joined by Brett Mycelis and the one and only that's you and the one and only Jordy Mycelis. What's up? That's you. What's up, Jordy? What's up, Brett? How are you guys doing? I'm doing well. And you know why I'm doing well, Ben? Because for once you had your own Miami Alex moment. Brett, can you briefly explain what a Miami Alex moment is? For those of you who may be newer to our show, Miami Alex is one of our biggest supporters.

Miami Alex said to Jordi on Twitter a few months back, sort of something that could be seen as maybe a, I'd call it a backhanded compliment, I guess. But it was very nice and Jordy appreciated it and we laughed about it. But he basically said to Jordy, I told my mom that the youngest one, every time he sits there with his mouth open, he doesn't really look like he knows what he's going to say or knows what he's talking about. But then he starts talking and he's actually pretty smart. And so we call these moments now on the show. They become known as Miami Alex moments. And Ben yesterday brought on his own slew of Miami Alex moments by asking the public what they think about what he refers to as his beard. now Ben call it my elegant scruffiness it wasn't the only question that I asked I asked four specific questions I asked what they think about the Midas Touch podcast and is it the best podcast ever I asked them what they thought about the Gabriel Sterling interview which everybody

thought was a very good interview and then as a fourth throwaway knowing how I looked on the interview as I watched it. I had concern for myself. Look, I'm self-aware. I see how I look. I'm not delusional. And so I wanted to throw it out there for the people. And I wanted to know people, do you think I should keep this scruffy beard or should I get rid of it? And I did that because I'm always faithful to the truth. No, no, no, no, no, no. There is no other point behind it other than the fact that you just wanted people to tell you that, Ben, your beard looks great. But unfortunately, you got ratioed like I've never seen someone got ratioed. In fact, you had a follow-up. I feel like I'm the lawyer now. You had a follow-up tweet explaining how you ratioed yourself accidentally because the comments were just so ruthless. I didn't say I ratioed

myself accidentally. I acknowledged the truth of the matter, which is that I did ratio myself. And I'm glad I ratioed myself. It is a moment that I will internalize. I will change and I will do better. I'm not one of these, you know, talk show hosts who thinks they're holier than thou. I'm listening. I'm responding. Not today. I'm not responding today, but maybe later. It's still going on for those who can't see Ben right now. It's still very much, very present across his face. The thing we're referring to as a beard is still very much on his face. Scruffy, scruffy elegance. But going back to the main point of what I was talking about, there was the Gabriel Sterling interview. I think it was a good interview. It was very civil. We heard Gabriel's points. I hope that our listeners think that I came prepared and ready

to have a discussion on the terms with somebody like Gabriel, who literally that's what he does every single day. And me analyzing the Georgia election bill is not what I do every single day, but I came very studied. I didn't want this to be one of those interviews that you watch on TV or hear on the radio. That's just like, well, tell me what you think about this provision. And then you let the person just go on and ramble and say whatever they want. I made my points, Gabriel made his points, and I think the people will be left with their conclusions. And I want that format, though, to be a format that we continue to have on this show. It doesn't mean we're going to have that every week, but I'd like to have more voices that

don't necessarily agree with us in the mighty movement. And I'd like to ask them tough questions rather than just saying false, true, false, without actually having a discussion on the matters. And that's why. Absolutely. And Ben, kudos to you for having that civil discussion. I mean, it's tough. You just don't see it in the media today. The way you guys were able to sit down and just hammer things out, you know, obviously coming from two wildly different perspectives or Gabriel and we said, hey, Brett and I are going to be quiet. Right. And we'll let Ben conduct the interview. And that's how we're going to do this. We don't want to like team up on you three versus one. So we're going to let Ben take the lead. So it's just you guys going back and forth. And all of a sudden, Gabriel calls out Brett and I for being quiet as mice. And it's like, whoa, man, hey, we're not going to jump on here. But but just to be clear, we all agreed

before before we got into this, that Brett and I were not going to jump on here. But just to be clear, we all agreed before we got into this that Brett and I were just going to sit back and let you all talk. He did weaponize the rules of the debate a little bit for that point. No doubt about it. But this really does open up a whole new lane for our show. And by the way, I have zero patience whatsoever for when news networks put two bad faith people on both sides of the screen and have a quote unquote debate with two bad faith arguers. That is absolutely not what we want. But if there is somebody who we believe is actually coming at an issue in good faith. So the next challenge that I put out was I watched today, it was Channel 11, I think, in Georgia, and they looked at one of our tweets, which basically states that the General Assembly has created mechanisms to overturn an election, a la what Donald Trump wanted to do in the past general election.

And they did one of their fact checks where they do false, you know, the thumbnail of the article and the video, because there was actually on the local news, there's a video in addition to the article. The thumbnail is a picture of our tweet on an iMac computer screen with giant letters that say false and a red X through it. And first off, you know, how do you not reach out for comments? How do you not let us at least share our side? But they had their legal analyst, Paige Pate, basically go on TV and say why our statement was false. And Ben threw down the gauntlet, threw out a challenge to Paige Pate to come on this show. Ben, what's the latest there? The latest status is Paige Pate agreed to come on the show. I invited him for the next show. He

claims he's in North Carolina in the mountains with his family. I don't think that would necessarily preclude coming on the show for about 30 minutes or 45 minutes, but I am not going to let up on this one. As we know from the discussions with both Gabriel Sterling and Mark Elias on the last podcast, that there are indeed mechanisms, if an election is close, that would empower the General Assembly to basically carte blanche on their own, put somebody to take over in elections in various counties, and to make certain decisions, which could in fact have the effect of changing the balance of power in close elections. And as Mark Elias said, that's how elections sometimes are stolen when you throw out certain ballots in very close elections. This,

the past general election was not close, But anyway, we're going to have this discussion. But I mean, look, one of the things, and I'm sure Paige Pate is a great lawyer. I'm sure he's got great qualifications. But just looking, doing a quick search of his website, and I just want to make sure it's Paige Johnson and Church, which seems to be the website. Yeah, it's Paige Pate as I look at the image of him. I mean, he's a criminal defense attorney. He's not an election law attorney at all. There's no election law.

There's no election law on the website. And so from the very outset, I think I want to ask him, are you qualified to give election law advice when you're a criminal defense lawyer. And because there are expert qualifications for, you know, for lawyers, I think it's an important point to bring out. But I want to talk. I just want to say about this, because here's the thing that frustrates me about when the media does these fact checks is they take the text of the law extremely literally. So they go, no, in fact, it does not say a Republican can stand up and say, no, I do not accept the results

of this election. I am changing the results to a Republican win. No, it does not say that. But you need to look at the nuance of the bill and you need to look at loopholes in the bill. And you can't expect that Republicans are going to follow the letter of the law. They're not going to try to exploit every single loophole imaginable. So, Ben, like you were saying, if they say, you know, you could replace a board of elections if there was reports of there being problems in the previous two elections. Now, when we spoke to Sterling and we said, what had been the problematic areas in Georgia? Without skipping a beat, he goes, Fulton County, Fulton, Fulton, Fulton County. What's in Fulton County?

Atlanta, which is the biggest concentration of black voters, brown voters, biggest concentration of Democratic voters in the state. So they've already are making their stake. They already are making their claim that Fulton County is problematic. And this is important because they have to show evidence that they've said that this district, that this area is problematic going back for at least a couple of elections. even close. Joe Biden ran away with it. But say we were in a close election that was 200 votes away, 500 votes away, and they had the option. And they said, you know what, though? Fulton County, there were a lot of issues in Fulton. There were long lines. We saw maybe some people handing out water when they shouldn't have been handing out water. We saw a lot of problems. And this is a history at Fulton County. They always have a lot of problems running their election. So what we

need to do is we need to replace the Fulton County board with our person, a Republican in this case. And the Republican is going to decide now what votes count and what votes don't count. And they could go through and they could say, oh, well, this driver's license ID didn't match up with the thing that's in our system. This ID that has a mark on here over here, and they could, you know, essentially be tossing out votes. And if it's close, 200 votes, 500 votes, whatever, it's not out of the realm of possibility that they could, yes, overturn the results of the election by not counting these votes. And once again, it's not saying, oh, I'm just going to flip the election for the Republicans. No, it's much more devious and nuanced than that. And we need to look at and game out all these possibilities before we start trusting Republicans

at their word after they incited an insurrection against the USA because they didn't like the results of the election and tried every outlet possible to overturn the results of the election. Why are we trusting these people anymore? Exactly. And wait, just to bring it to a really immature place. So this guy's name is Paige Pate, who we're going to be interviewing soon. Sure, he might be coming on the show.

So be respectful. Okay, I'm just saying like his initials are PP. Like that's objectively hilarious. His initials are PP. Yes, Jared, great point. I think the important point, though, is what we would call as an undisputed fact in the law is that the Georgia voting bill, the very foundation is built on a fraudulent premise that there was rampant voter fraud or any voter fraud of any significant magnitude in the general election, which was not the case. And so when you start with a very fraudulent premise, that's the whole point of the bill is built on fraud. And then you ask me to then say, well, okay, yeah,

the whole thing is a fraud, but in paragraph 3.444, it specifically says, you know, and it's like, well, look, at the end of the day, this is a fraudulent bill by your own admission. So I don't want to give all my arguments. We'll see if Paige listens to the past one and prepares for it, but we look forward to having him on the show sooner than later. But we have a great guest for you today, a truly superb Congresswoman, a great community leader, someone who has been a major voice, particularly right now with anti-AAPI, anti-Asian violence that's been taking place. We have Congresswoman Grace Meng, who will be joining the Midas Touch podcast today. I'm so happy to have her on shortly. But one of the things I

want to talk about is something that the Midas Mighty movement has played a major part in. I don't want to say we did it, but we played a major significant part in our corporations who were trying to have it both ways and say, well, there's some good things about the bill and there may be some other things, but let's try to figure it out. And it began with Delta. A whistleblower who worked at Delta provided us with information of an internal corporate communication that just went to Delta employees. And this particular Delta employee was horrified at the statement because the statement basically made it sound like the bill was a very positive bill. I won't read the whole statement, but many a fact checker has said who are very literal with statements have said that the language there was very favorable to the bill by Delta and by Ed, who's the head of, who's the CEO of Delta, Ed Bastian, which is a very odd statement. So we put the statement out over last weekend, which led to Boycott Delta becoming like the number one hashtag in the

entire United States. Literally, you know, tens and thousands of tweets on all various forms of social media calling for this boycott of Delta. And Delta responded in return. They released a new statement last week within 48 hours of us pointing out their old horrible statement saying that the final bill is unacceptable. Other corporations took notice, right, Brett? Other corporations now are speaking out. And I think this is one of the things that, you know, I saw some comments from people after Delta made

their statement because they called it in strong language. They turned around and they said the final bill is unacceptable and does not match Delta's values. And a lot of people I noticed saw, you know, too little, too late. You know, Delta, the bill's already passed. But this pressure is incredibly important because it is going to affect the court cases when they start viewing what people's opinions on the intent of the law is. And other companies are now coming around, too, to join in. And Coke being another major company that's based in Georgia, after a lot of pressure, they decided basically to come out against the bill. Coca-Cola said that they do not support the legislation because it makes it harder for people to vote, not easier. And at the end of the day, that's really when you go down to

the very core of the bill, that's the issue with it. I mean, why are we making it harder for people to vote? We should be expanding voting rights access. No doubt MLB pulled out their all-star game, will not be taking place in Atlanta as it was scheduled to take place out before. I love that all of the GQP, we hate cancel culture. We hate cancel culture. Like literally when the MLB says, because this voting bill encourages suppression, we don't want to hold our games. We're a private company and we don't want to hold our games there. Like they literally go out and say, cancel baseball, cancel the MLB. Oh my God. Did you see? I'm so what a great account on Twitter is Patriot Takes.

Patriot Takes goes through to like the dark ends of the internet that you never want to go to. And they uncover all this stuff about what's going on on 4chan and 8chan and Telegram and all the stuff you don't want to read. And they posted one of these user-generated images that was going around on these platforms. And they called it the Patriot Boycott. It had one of Trump's dumb statements that we're not going to read here. And then it had a list of like 30 or so companies that they want to boycott. And at the end of the day, when you look through the companies, it's like, okay, so these people are just going to be like sitting on the floor of their house because probably the chairs that they're sitting on are a part of this boycott. The TV sets are

part of these boycott. The food services that they order their food are a part of this boycott. The TV sets are part of these boycott. The food services that they order their food are a part of this boycott. Every sport is a part of this boycott. These are going to become the most boring people on the planet if they actually follow through. And also, you know, the statement is just full of all the typos that you'd expect. They want to boycott not YouTube that I'm looking at now. They want to boycott YouTube. Why? Oh, T.-U-B because it bans conservatives. Yo, yo, yo, YouTube. A lot of these are, you know, they want to door dash Gatorade because they gave money to Black Lives Matter, MasterCard, EA Sports. Really, it's kind of like every big company on the planet. They want to boycott.

So that is the party of, but my cancel culture. Oh my God. The one thing though about the MLB specifically, it's like these Republicans, the GQP members, they only care about sports when it's their turn to see ifianapolis colts game a few years back i guess in 2016 that was and he walked out right when players were kneeling for the national anthem just to make a big charade of the whole thing these people don't actually care about sport they can't do you remember this you call it a charade yeah isn't it charade? No, no, no. Charade. A charade is different than a charade. I don't think that, I know. I don't think that's true. I was making a really good point and now you guys just totally ruined my train

of thought. But basically what I'm saying is just kudos to Rob Medford of the MLB for really coming out with their solid, strong statement. I mean, it was something, you know, the brothers and I had talked about early on how impactful we could be, you know, if at all to move this game and really quickly gain momentum. Again, I'm not saying it's us. I'm not saying it was just the Midas Mighty because very quickly, a lot of folks out there, you know, sort of latched on to this.

Hey, we got to move this MLB. If you're going to stand for something, right? Now's the time to dig in. You're the league of Jackie Robinson, right? Aren't you? So Rob Manford comes out with this comment. He goes, I've decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year's all-star game and MLB draft. Manford said major league baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box. I just love that the MLB has their moment to stand up for voting rights and, you know, against voter

suppression. And they answer the call. So props to them. Totally. And this is let this be less than everybody that your voice matters. And no matter how big or small your account is, your voice matters. And companies take this sort of pressure very seriously. So when a company out there, whether it's a media network, whether it's an airline, whether it's a fast food joint, whatever it is, you need to call them out strongly and forcefully because they are scared of you. They are scared of losing your business. It's all about the bottom line for these people. And speaking of charades, Jordan, the charade I want to talk about, Brett, is the charade of Republicans' view of cancel culture. To me, that's the biggest charade that there is. What private companies do is not cancel culture. They can respond however they want to respond to the free market. What true cancel culture is, is precisely what the GQP does. That is public officials who

are actually empowered, using their power for retribution against private citizens. Retribution in the form of precluding people from employment, having people attack them or attack the target, or in other countries, a cancel culture, true cancel culture is the government literally canceling lives, canceling people, killing people. That's what cancel culture is. And that is the design of what the GQP truly want to accomplish. They want to come into power to cancel the lives and people who they hate, who they don't who they don't agree with. That is what this is truly about. Yeah, I mean, and you could extend that to all their policies out there. Like in Arkansas, there was a bill that passed the legislature that actually, thankfully, just got vetoed by the Republican governor.

But the bill literally banned health care for transgender kids. That's cancel culture, banning health care because of a person's gender identity. And hopefully, you know, they don't have the votes to overturn that veto. But I don't know the state of the legislature. I'd have to look it up. They may. But that's a horrific bill. And that's, I think, exactly what you mean, Ben, by canceling lives.

Now, when you are mad at a company for taking a stand for justice, that's not cancel culture. That's accountability. And you need to be able to take accountability for your actions if you're going to go against democracy and if you're going to go against people's human rights. Yeah. And look, I mean, using the example, Jordy, you brought this up in Kaepernick. One of the issues there was it was actually Donald Trump who says, get that son of a bitch off the field.

That is truly what cancel culture is. An executive, a president using the power to cancel somebody's career, not a private corporation like Coke or Delta using their corporate influence to support things that are pro-democracy and to not support things that take people's votes away. And it just brings me to this kind of next point before we go into the interview with Grace Meng. This idea of how the GQP uses the term woke, and they say woke like it is a horrible thing. They almost use woke like it's some just horrible invective. The woke, the woke left, the woke, woke, woke. At the end of the day, what the term woke is intended to capture is to be educated, to understand the complexities in humanity, and to not jump to racially based

conclusions, racist conclusions, like Trump does, and like Trump wants us to do. And so this idea against being woke is an attack on fundamentally people becoming educated and learning the facts and learning the truth. And the truth isn't always pretty, especially when it comes to history about where we've been through as a nation, why we are the way we are now. But we want to have an awakening of intelligence or to be woke so that we can understand how we perfect or better the human condition. And the fact that they are so against that is so consistent with GQP views that are anti-science, anti-climate change, pro-COVID. It's why we called them a death cult, ultimately, because there is no intention of being woke or being educated. They prefer to yell and scream and die, ultimately, for their ignorance.

And dying for your ignorance is not a hill that any of us should want to die on. And that seems to be the main public position of the GQ paper. We'll be right back after these messages with Congresswoman Grace Meng. No, that's not America. That's not America. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast, joined by Congresswoman Grace Meng. Grace Meng is a congresswoman from New York's 6th Congressional District, which for many out there encompasses Queens, where our, we grew up, we're all New York Mets fans, Brett, Jordi and myself, and we're all Long Islanders. So we know the district well, and we thank you for joining the podcast, Congresswoman. Thanks for joining. Thank you. I'm glad to hear that the Midas Touch has its successful roots in Queens.

Not only that, but our mom grew up right outside of your district in Floral Park. And so we would go there very frequently, have very fond memories of that district. Awesome. So shifting gears now and wanting to talk directly about what was in the news. It was a new low, but nothing quite shocks me when I saw what Governor Huckabee tweeted the other day. This was on April 3rd. Governor Huckabee tweets, I've decided to quote, identify as Chinese. Coke will like me. Delta will agree with my values.

And I'll probably get shoes from Nike and tickets to at MLB games. Ain't America great. And just by way of background, Congresswoman, you know, I'm Colin Kaepernick's lawyer. So I assume the Nike reference also is when the Nike campaign also empowered black and brown communities with the Kaepernick campaign and other social justice initiatives. Given all the anti-AAPI, anti-Asian American, just hate that is out there when you have political leaders who are the ones stoking it. I mean, what goes through your mind? I mean, first to your point about Nike and Delta and Coca-Cola, God forbid we make it easier for

people to participate in democracy. You know, God forbid we are trying to advocate for more people to vote, regardless of what the outcome will be. I am just shocked and amazed at public figures like former Governor Huckabee, who should change his Twitter handle, he's not a governor anymore, you know, at making these sorts of criticisms and accusations and really, again, stoking that ignorant fear that already exists out there in the midst of a pandemic, in the aftermath of, you know, people getting murdered in Atlanta, Georgia, and almost 4000 hate incidents across the country. He's still stoking fear. But how about be a leader, you know, be an example, be a role model. You can talk about the substance of these issues without trying to, you know, pander to whoever he's trying to pander to and just creating more division and fear. Yeah. And before we started recording this morning, he tweeted again like it was not enough to tweet that a few days ago.

His is one from this morning is breaking wind from CNN. Coke will announce name change today to quote Coca-Cola, which has been approved by the Chinese Communist Party and by the leftist loons who the company bows to more than their actual customers. Hashtag cancel culture. I don't even know what he's talking about. I mean, it's a combination of, you know, racist, hateful, senile, disgusting, and then not even recognizing how stupid it is by saying hashtag cancel culture, when in in fact these were the individuals who are literally trying to cancel people they're trying to cancel people by discriminating against them by encouraging people to kill people that's cancel culture isn't that yeah i really don't understand what is going through his head um You know, be constructive, right?

Like when you wake up in the morning, doesn't matter what role you have, what title you have. Be a constructive person. What are you doing to bring people together and improve the lives of people around you? People who agree or don't agree with you politically. But just be a constructive person. He's totally not. Discrimination, racism, hate against, you know, black and brown communities, AAPI communities, you know, it's not a new phenomenon. It's a horrible thing that has existed throughout time. But one of the things seeing, you know, Donald Trump get up there a little less than a year ago to this day and talking about Kung

flu as the opening discussions of COVID and public safety and immediately putting the blame on China, on Chinese Americans, on AAPI Americans. So it's become kind of institutionalized. And you brought legislation or led legislation, I think, last September about this. Can you tell us about that legislation and where it stands today? Sure. Well, first of all, to the point of the former president's rhetoric that has been going on for over the past year, we all saw this coming, right? You don't use words like Chinese virus and Kung flu directed at the Asian American community in the midst of a pandemic, which we didn't know much about in the beginning and expect nothing to happen. Right. So there is blood on the hands of this former president.

We introduced legislation last year that you mentioned. We've been screaming about this for over a year, screaming into what seems like and felt like a big black hole. And honestly, it took tragedies in Atlanta to really wake people up. And we are really appreciative of President Biden supporting this legislation, which would really just streamline the process as to how these incidents are handled. We don't have enough dedicated personnel and resources to even collect simple data on these types of incidents around the country. The 3,800 incidents that we've been hearing about, it's been collected by a local nonprofit group, which thank God for them, but we should have government, you know, resources dedicated to detecting the

problems and helping to find a solution. And just simply would also help it make it easier for victims to report these incidents right now as well. It's really difficult and there are a lot of obstacles and people don't like to report them. And this is the COVID Hate Crimes Act. When that was brought up last September, what kind of support did it receive? Was it bipartisan support? Was there a number of Republicans against it? Or how did that stack up back then? So this bill didn't get much support last year.

We were in, obviously, a former presidential administration. I wasn't that optimistic, honestly, that it would pass and get signed into law. In fact, this bill didn't have much support. But my other bill, which was just a resolution, a symbolic resolution that cost no money and had no real teeth, didn't even get the support of most Republicans. We passed a resolution that said, I, as a Congress member, stand against bigotry towards Asian Americans. And 14 Republicans did vote for it, but 164 Republicans voted against that. So that statement was apparently too much to ask for. Yeah. And I think one of the important things too is education. There is, I think, a lack of

education. I think even when we grew up in Long Island, but across the country, of course, of AAPI communities, of Black and Brown communities, of Indigenous communities. And I think that that education coming into the curriculum, understanding those experiences are important. And it's an area where we should all, I think, get around as a country, no matter what political side you are. I think it's helpful to know the origins of this country and to speak truthfully about the history of this country and to speak truthfully about the history of this country and how we can move forward together. What are your thoughts about kind of education and how do we improve that as a tangible item? Definitely. I love it.

Look, this is a problem that is nationwide. It's a problem that can't just be addressed from the tail end or from a law enforcement perspective, but we have to address it from the very beginning. Asian Americans have really been seen as invisible or seen as foreigners for most of our lives, definitely for most of my life. Most Asian Americans I know have grown up with regular and consistent questions on how we learn to speak English and telling us to go back to wherever we came from, even though I was born in Queens. People making funny comments about how we look and the foods that we eat. It's just something we've grown up with all our lives. And so I've just been realizing a lot in the past few months, you know, we all grew up in New York,

a pretty diverse city and state, but really not learning enough about the contributions of diverse communities to this country. You know, I didn't learn that much about Chinese people building the railroads here, or Japanese Americans being locked up in camps and didn't learn enough about slaves building the U.S. Capitol, the very place where I work every day. And so if we're serious about addressing the long-term biases and stereotypes that people have, we have to start with educating them, showing them what a complete and accurate picture of American history looks like. That was always one of the most shocking things to me that here in the United States of America, we put Japanese

Americans in internment camps and not a very long time ago either. It just is really horrifying how recent that history is and how that persists in America right now. I think one of the things you brought up before was important. It's that it seems like a lot of things that happened in this country are reactive. Nobody was quite looking at the bill that you proposed until tragedy struck. Now we've had this horrific incident occur and there's renewed interest in this legislation. But how do we keep this interest going in this 24-hour news cycle where there's just constantly so much being thrown at Americans on a daily basis? That's a great question. That's why I'm such a believer in collecting data and statistics, regardless of what the problem and the issue is. If you can imagine most of the news stories that we've heard, if we didn't have that 3,800 incidents being reported figure, you know that these stories

would be a lot less compelling. People might not really believe that they're happening. And so as with any issue, if you don't have number, if you don't have statistics, we don't have a full grasp of how serious a problem is. And then it becomes harder to find a solution. And so I think going forward, you know, one of the most basic things we can do is to help paint that fuller picture, whether it's for government, whether it's for the media, to make sure that people have a better understanding of what's actually going on. You know, incidents of hate against Asian Americans are nothing new. And if we didn't have the numbers that show the increase and the rise in the number

of these incidents, people might not fully believe that it's a real problem in this country. One of the things that we also have to realize is this hate is able to be expressed in the way it is via violence because America has this gun crisis. There are so many guns out there and all these incidents seem to be taken out using AR-15s and AR-15-like weapons. How do we deal with this gun violence problem in America? How can we propose common sense gun legislation that could prevent attacks like this going forward? So we have legislation at the federal level in Congress. We have legislation, HRA, that would help address some of these loopholes. But we're also seeing some of these bills being passed at the state level. In Georgia and in many places around the country,

it's easier to buy a gun than it is to register to vote. And that's just ridiculous. In Iowa, they just signed a bill into law that would say that you don't need a permit to get a gun. And so these bills that are being proposed are scary. And this kind of goes back to politics. Elections have consequences. And so, you know, we've made sure to work really hard and organize all over the country. We've won back hundreds and hundreds of seats, flipping them from red to blue. But we have to keep doing that. That was just a great start. You know, we need to do a lot more. There's a lot at stake in the next election. The other side, though, their response is not how do we get more people to vote? How do we get our message out?

They're like, how do we cheat? How do we suppress votes? How do we change the rules? And how do we rig the system? How do we combat that? It's always an enigma to me because we don't cheat on our side. We play by the rules and you've got the other side who cheats and seems to very frequently get away from it. I love this question. Look, it's not that we need to cheat, but we need to, at the very least, get the message out. I got involved in the Democratic Party nationally over the last four years because I didn't believe that we were getting the message out. Getting the message out just on mainstream media or just in cable news network is not enough. A lot of Americans do not read or watch those stations. Are we getting our message out through local billboards,

agricultural newsletters, ethnic and diverse smaller media outlets and radio stations? We as Democrats focused on that in the last four years, and that was a huge factor in our successes, but we have to continue to do more of that. You know, the Republicans are the party of deceit. Just because they're saying all this, they are still working on outreach and all those smaller and nontraditional outlets that I've mentioned. We need to make sure that we're communicating with Americans in every single zip code. It's just like how none of the Republicans voted for the American Rescue Plan, a bill, a law that literally puts thousands of dollars into the pockets of their constituents. But you know what? They all went home on those non-conventional media outlets and talked about

it and took credit for it. So I'm glad to see, for example, from billboards to local newspapers that Democrats are putting out the message just reminding them that their senator, their congressmember did not vote for this bill. Because if we don't do that proactively, we are letting their deceitful reaction and fake accomplishments sink in. And they're not hearing any news from us. I've traveled around the country a bit. I've been to areas, you know, I went to one rural area, and they said, we didn't believe anything that Donald Trump told us in 2016. But you know what, none of you guys came around. He was the only one that came. He sent people here. They made us believe that they cared about us and they heard nothing from our side. So we need to continue to work on that. I think it's so important to stop that spread of disinformation just at the core as soon as

it starts to happen. So spot on. My question for you is the term ally is used a lot these days, and it's great. People are putting in their Twitter profile pictures, talking about it on Facebook, Instagram, hey, I'm an ally of this community. I'm an ally of that community. It's fantastic. My worry, and I think you may agree with this, is that some people, not all, but some people may be hiding behind the word ally without actually doing any activism to further the movement. How do you combat that? How do you get people motivated to get off their butts, get off of Twitter, get off of Facebook and go out and make real change? I appreciate that question. So I really believe that there's a wide spectrum of allyship, right?

You've got people like reporters and podcasts talking in depth about these issues and organizing and mobilizing. And then you've got people who might not ever have registered to vote before, people who've never been to a rally, who've never spoken up even on social media. And so I believe that we are trying to make space for everyone that fits on this spectrum. You know, we had a day of action nationally, virtually, March 26, we asked people, allies, you know, post the hashtag Stop Asian Hate. And some people said, oh, that's so superficial, that's not going to make lasting change. But if you're someone who has really just become woke,

and you want to help and you want to be an ally, I welcome that. And I hope that's just the beginning of further conversations and actions that we can take together. But also really simply, like just checking in on your network. I tell people, even if you have a network of five people on your block, like that's still making a difference. I've talked to Asian Americans who were raised here and they said, and I feel the same thing. I've never seen such a widespread showing of support from people who don't look like me. And it's overwhelming. That hearing we had in the Judiciary Committee, where I saw colleagues who didn't look like me, who weren't

Asian, talk about this issue, it just blew my mind. And so I think it's an incredible start and I appreciate allyship and we have to keep thinking of creative ways to push that forward and what that looks like in today's world. And I think that's one of the reasons why you have people from the GQP, you know, use this word, you know, try to make fun of the word woke, you know. When at the end of the day, it's like, isn't that what you would want to become enlightened, to understand things, to gain information and to share information? And they criticize and critique that because that's what brings people together and they don't want people to be brought together. So it was just an observation I made when I heard you use the word woke and just finally Biden's been in office over 60 days. How

do you think he's doing? Gosh, the first weekend that he took office, and I'm sure many people felt this way. I was like, I don't have to wake up in the middle of the night in a panic to check my Twitter because, you know, every few days he would just reveal their former president would just reveal some new policy that was seeking to hurt or destroy yet another community. I just feel so at peace. And we have a lot of work to do. Right. and we have a lot of work to do, right? We can't just go back to the days of, you know, 2016 right before Trump or go back to the time right before COVID and feel like we've solved everything. We have a very short window in this world and in this country right now. Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the White House. We have a very short runway to show the American people that we truly care about them and we're willing to do whatever it takes to improve lives, to save lives in this country.

And we better take advantage of it. But I'm just really I feel at peace because we can finally get some real work done. Congresswoman Meng, thank you so much for joining the Midas Touch podcast. And we hope you'll come back and we will be right back after these messages. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. So great to have Congresswoman Meng on the show. Incredible interview. She's an incredible person. Would love to have her back. Let's talk about Infrastructure Week. And I'm not talking about the former guys. Next week is Infrastructure Week, and next week is Infrastructure Week, which became a parody of itself. Let's talk about real infrastructure week, which is actually improving infrastructure and not just using bullshit talking points like Donald Trump did.

They had four years to even propose a plan. To propose a plan. It couldn't even have to be a good plan. They had four years to put something forward about infrastructure, and It couldn't even have to be a good plan. They had four years to put something forward about infrastructure and they couldn't even do that. Dude, we could have come up with the plan. If you tell me, Ben, you have one week, come up with an infrastructure plan. Okay. I would, I would at least have about a 35 to 50 page document. Would it be the greatest plan? No, because there's only a

certain amount of time. But I'd have a plan. They had like millions of people who voted for them. And amongst all of them, they couldn't get on a Microsoft Word document and just fucking write a plan. Because at the end of the day, they don't want to govern. They don't want to spend money if it doesn't help their billionaire interests. Their only plan is cutting taxes and finding other ways to hide their money and to make them and themselves and their friends richer. I want to clarify that point, Brett. Their whole goal is to cut taxes for deca-millionaires and billionaires and hope that billionaires and deca millionaires can get richer.

It's not like even cutting taxes for people who actually would need relief. They're against economic relief for the middle class and for people who need money. And that's why they spend so much time going, look over here at Dr. Seuss. Look over here at the border. Look over here at the MLB. Look over here at Coca border. Look over here at the MLB. Look over here at Coca-Cola, because they're trying to distract people from the fact that they actually have zero plans, not one to help a single American. I mean, that's the problem. It's actually why when you really break it down, one of the reasons that they love Trump and embrace him, in addition to the fact that they embrace his racist ideology,

is that all of the psychopathic and crazy stuff that just distracts from the kind of real sinister, let's prop up billionaires and decamillionaires. He's just a psycho every day who's just being psycho. And then, you know, you have the GQP kind of in the background, just dismantling our government, dismantling our systems as psychopath. Trump just does whatever the fuck that was for the last four years. So the Democrats propose a incredibly comprehensive infrastructure bill. Once again, Joe Biden says, I'm proposing an infrastructure bill next week. And guess what? There's a damn infrastructure bill the next week that gets proposed. And it's a comprehensive bill. I mean, it seeks to expand

broadband to every American, especially in rural areas. There are people in America still who don't have internet or are using dial up internet in rural areas. This bill seeks to provide everybody with broadband. Broadband, pipe upgrades, road upgrades, highway upgrades, everything that you would want in an infrastructure plan, energy upgrades. So this seems like an incredibly bipartisan thing that everybody should support, right? Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Of course not. These right wing networks and politicians, they always try to frame these issues in such a way that sounds so horrible to their viewers. And Fox News is the king of of doing this king of spreading disinformation. It's like, do you like Count Dracula? Because this bill gives $800 million to bats.

And if you want bats and Dracula to suck your blood, then you would vote for the crazy, radical, bat-loving, Dracula-loving bill. You don't want to do Dems back Dracula. Like you take a step back. Obviously that's not what the talking point is here, but it's not too dissimilar to that. And you take a step back,

you're like, what fucking world are y'all living in? If you want to have the debate with me, have the debate on the real issues. And they're unwilling to do that because they're intellectually dishonest and they just want to be pricks. And what they should do is talk about the issue, but instead they talk about Dracula and bats. Well, here's the thing. And that's why I love Pete Buttigieg as much as I do. MVP, baby. He's the best. So he appeared on Fox News this weekend and just pushed back on all of these GQP talking points, like step by step. Brett, I think we have a clip of it. You want to play it? We crunched the numbers. We find that 5.5% of the $2 trillion, well, 5.6, of the $2 trillion proposal is only dedicated

to roads and bridges. Why is that? Well, we're talking about roads and bridges. We're talking about rail and transit. We're talking about airports and ports. As you mentioned, we're talking about things like the grid. I don't know why anybody would say it's a mistake to invest in the grid after what we just witnessed in Texas. We saw U.S. citizens living in Texas, melting snow in their bathtubs to be able to flush their toilets in the United States of America. That is unacceptable. So, yes, infrastructure includes energy infrastructure. You know what else is part of infrastructure now? Broadband. I'm proud of the fact, even though it's a little outside my lane on

the transportation side, I'm proud of the fact that we're going to finally get broadband out to every American because we know, especially in rural areas, how much that's cutting people off from opportunity. Good infrastructure planning is always about looking to the future. You know, railroads weren't part of infrastructure until we built them. And, you know, I'm sure in the Eisenhower area, they weren't thinking about things like broadband. They were still working on electrification, which would have sounded newfangled in its time. Now it's time to prepare for the future. And the millions of jobs that will be created by this bill are because this bill looks to the future. I mean, it's just so nice having adults back in the room. I mean, you can't get more common sense than what Pete just laid out right there.

Pete is the Fox News whisperer. I love it. I mean, Pete, you know, there's going to be a time where they just stop inviting him on the show. But, you know, he's the kind of person, though, like there are a lot of people I would say absolutely do not accept an interview on fox they're just going to try to make you look bad if you're ill-equipped for that they will try to use that against you and make bills look stupid they will try to use you as you know oh look look what liberals believe look this person couldn't even answer this question but if you were if you are as smart as people to judge and you know your stuff and you come prepared, you could really make these Fox News hosts look like idiots because they are. And Pete does an amazing job there at saying,

oh, yeah, 5.6 percent of the bill is roads and bridges. That's because it's also rail. It's also broadband. It's also X. It's also like you can't just take a little portion. And they try to do the same thing with the covid relief bill. And the fact is, is that they really just don't want to help people. I mean, if the Republic here and here's the difference between Republicans and Democrats. If the Republicans came forward with a good faith effort and this never would have happened as we've saw. But if they came forth with a good faith effort during the Trump administration with an infrastructure plan. And I remember that Pelosi and Schumer and all the Trump administration with an infrastructure plan. And I remember that Pelosi and Schumer and all the Democrats were calling for the bill. They were saying,

I thought it was infrastructure week. When are we going to do this? Let's see the bill. Let's make it happen. I think the Democrats were pitching their own bills at the time. They never made it through because Mitch McConnell was the majority leader at the time. Now, had they pitched a bill that improved infrastructure, I could guarantee you that Democrats would have gotten behind that bill. They would have said, yes, this is a place where we could have bipartisan support on a bill. This is what the American people want. Let's make it happen. But now, just because it's the Democrats proposing an infrastructure bill that is so highly needed and everybody agrees that we need to improve our infrastructure.

As Pete noted about Texas, what a disaster. As anyone who's been on our roads and bridges and in our airports knows, what a disaster. This is a time that we could use bipartisan support, but the Republicans have no interest in doing what's best for the American people because they don't want the Democrats to have a win. And you know who has no idea what goes into infrastructure? The South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem. Did you guys hear what she said? She was like, I was shocked that like the bill

doesn't have anything for infrastructure. I mean, they want to like improve pipes and roads and stuff. What's that all about? I was on a call with the White House today with all the governors talking about the specifics of this package. And I was shocked by how much doesn't go into infrastructure. It goes into research and development. It goes into housing and pipes and different initiatives, green energy. And it really is not an honest conversation. We're happy. That is infrastructure. That is what infrastructure is. She actually said this. It's crazy. I want to point out one thing there too, though, may get ignored in the craziness of what she says on the second part, but that we had a conversation with all of the governors to

talk to the president about infrastructure. I mean, just think about that. And then she says, it wasn't an honest conversation. Well, you were on the conversation. So what productive piece of it are you you contributing to the conversation or governor is your job just to sit silently as everybody's trying to make this bill better. And then as people hang up, just basically fundamentally mischaracterize what it is, mischaracterize what infrastructure is and not contribute. But unlike the former guy, the current president, Biden, is actually trying to reach out and have a very honest conversation. And so if you are upset that the bill doesn't have, I don't know, maybe some additional infrastructure that you think is important in your state. Why don't you have that conversation? They don't want to have that conversation.

They don't want to have honest conversations. They want to have dishonest conversations. You know what they do want to do, though? Defend Matt Gaetz? Yeah, but before defend Matt Gaetz, they want to not have that honest conversation during the making of the bill. They want to try to slide some of their pet projects for their state into the bill under the guise that, you whatever, then they will happily let the bill be passed without them voting for it, without their support, without any of that. And then they will have the nerve to take credit when the infrastructure bill helps

their district and helps their state. They'll be like, oh, look at the new roads that we got in South Dakota. Look at these new bridges. Oh, man, aren't I so great? And it's like, no, because you fought against this every step of the way. I made a joke that today that, you know, Republicans should want to get, you know, new infrastructure because at this point, our infrastructure is, you know, at least well over 18 years old. And Republicans seem to be into, you know, much younger things than 18 years old. Now, of course, talking about Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who the Justice Department is now investigating whether he engaged in a relationship with a 17-year-old girl and whether he was involved with other young underage women

and whether he broke federal sex trafficking and prostitution laws. So, guys, where is Q in all this? We've been hearing about this child pedophilia, child trafficking ring in our politics, and we have somebody right here. We got Matt Gaetz. Is Q going crazy about this or what? What's happening? The wild thing is you ask like, look, pedophilia is obviously a significant issue. It's horrible. There's nobody who's for it. Everybody's vehemently against it. Anybody who is involved in it should be prosecuted to the furthest extent imaginable by the law,

period. Go to jail for the rest of their lives. That said, the GQP talks about pedophilia ad nauseum, like just over and over and over again. And the GQP, the Q elements, particularly in the G, between the G and the P, the Q element is particularly, that's their main premise of being. Over and over and over again, they believe that there's pedophilia cults at pizza locations and they make up, you know, all of these things that actually aren't true. But when it actually comes to the fact that their leaders and their members are engaging in pedophilia, they like support it like they're like form of projection and that the pedophilia ring that's actually being talked about actually exists. And it's actually called the GQP. If you ask me, Q is the biggest front, the biggest protector of pedophilia and child sex traffickers

that ever existed. I think the whole thing exists to protect these people to hide behind. Oh no, we're going after it. We're going after it. When you have a guy who, you know, is well-rumored and continues to be exposed as likely Q himself, that guy Watkins who runs like HN and all those things, his whole history is running a website that has spread child pornography shock yo you guys gotta see this i'm just switching gears for a second and i don't even know why but this is definitely this is definitely worth a conversation um so i had up a google of kind of touch that was on before i just clicked enter um no so there so there are people who are selling

sake bomb t-shirts come on under the named madas touch m-e-d-a-s-t-u-c-h and there's like reviews they remove the i and they're selling it madas Touch. I've seen that actually. When you hit the big time, you get the foreign knockoffs of your products, but you could get the real Midas Touch merch on our website at store.midastouch.com. Get the real Saki bomb shirts. I'm sorry for that deviation.

Yeah, that's bizarre. Well, hey, imitation is the serious form of flattery, something like that. That's the thing. But anyway, going back to this Matt Gaetz thing, because this Gaetz thing- That expression is a charade.

Yeah, exactly. I hate you guys so much. This Gaetz thing just genuinely isn't funny at all. Well, no, it's not funny because Q is a charade. It's so beyond disgusting. And it's GQB projection 101, right right let's go after the pedophiles let's go after the pedo you guys are the fucking pedophiles it's fact and you know look no further than the fucking weirdos who are defending gates right you had uh rep jim jordan come out and he says i believe matt gates in a pretty strong statement you have

marjorie taylor green who the DOG needs to release the tapes instead of allowing another witch hunt to take place. She also then said, remember all the conspiracy theories and lies like Trump-Russia collusion and propaganda that the media has spread around. Take it from me, rumors and headlines don't equal truth. I stand with Matt Gaetz.

Hey, when Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene are the two people in your fucking corner, you got to get a better corner. And Alex Jones as well came to the support saying, I support, I stand with Matt Gaetz. If I were in serious trouble and Jim Jordan was like, hey, yeah, I'll, I got your back here. Let me come out with a public statement. I'd be like, no, no, no. You know what?

I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. You know, we don't need to do that. You need to be quiet. No, I got you. I'm going to say, I stand. No, Jim, Jim. You know what? I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. You know, we don't need to do that. You don't have to be quiet. No, I got you. I'm going to say I stand. No, Jim, Jim, you know, I appreciate the sentiment.

I appreciate it, but not this time. You know, Marjorie, I got you then. I got, no, Marge, Marge, Marge, Marge. Keep doing your, keep doing your CrossFit. Keep doing your burpees. You know, you don't have to, you don't have to come speak out. Alex Jones comes out. I'll support you.

I stand with, I stand with, no, no, no. Alex Jones, speak out. Alex Jones comes out. I'll support you. I stand with... No, no, no. It's Alex Jones. Alex Jones impression. It's definitely the impressionist of the family. Occasionally, I break it out. This whole thing was a charade. Yeah, I get it. The episode's going to be named the GQP charade.

We get it. We get that's going to be part of the episode title. Very funny. Can we move on to DeSantis Publix as we close? DeSantis, who's also got to speak like this because there's a lot going on in Florida and you got to be a tough guy. The one thing with the GQP

though is they talk so fast. They're all kind of coked out and they talk so fast you can't even actually have a legitimate kind of coked out and they talk so fast well you can't even actually have a legitimate kind of conversation when they say boycott coke don jr's ears really went up and he was like wait what and then they were like no not not not not that cook not that okay the death santas press conferences in florida are like literally he sat in front of videotape of former guy and was like,

how do I reenact exactly what former guy was? Let me do exactly like that. The hands, the speech, the way he attacks the reporters, the corruption, obviously, but just visually, he's legitimately just morphed into former guy. This is the new DeSantis scandal. It seems like every week there's a new DeSantis scandal that we're trying to figure out what the hell is going on here. There seems to be so much corruption surrounding this guy. And every week it just keeps dripping and dripping and dripping. And so this week, 60 Minutes did an expose on Governor Ron DeSantis, Ron Death-Santis, because he announced the partnership with Publix grocery stores to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine.

Now, this comes on the heels of Publix donating $100,000 to DeSantis' PAC. So DeSantis is being accused here of a pay to play scheme with Publix, basically taking this $100,000 and giving them the rights to distribute this vaccine as a favor, you know, a quid pro quo, as his buddy Donald Trump might call it. And when confronted about this and when caught in the lies, here was DeSantis' Trumpian-like response to the media. So first of all, what you're saying is wrong. How is that not pay to play? That's a fake narrative. I met with the county mayor. I met with the administrator. I met with all the folks at Palm Beach County. And I said, here's some of the options. We can do more drive-through sites. We can give more to hospitals. We can do the Publix. And they said, we think that would be the easiest thing for our residents. But Melissa McKinlay, the county

commissioner in the Glades, told us the governor never met with her about the Publix deal. The criticism is that it's pay to play. It's wrong. It's wrong. It's a fake narrative. I just disabused you of the narrative and you don't care about the facts because obviously i laid it out for you in a way that is irrefutable and so it's clearly not isn't there no no no you're wrong you're wrong you're wrong yes it's actually a fact he's such a dick this guy he's such a fucking asshole and it just like it sounds like the former guy just like he's doing what's ben doing ben's up to no good back there charade charade you know what i'm just gonna are you on a google like translate and how to say so george jordy has left the podcast everybody jordy has gotten up out of his chair and he's left the podcast he could not take this level of

but you know it's the same stop it the desantis is a is a real bully to bring it back to what we're talking about here and desantis is here using his accordion fucking donald trump accordion hands pointed literally pointing his finger at the journals going wrong wrong wrong wrong his mouth moving at a hundred miles a minute. This guy is a bad guy. And this is not what an innocent person does. And it's over and over. It's over and over again. Like this isn't just public. This was how vaccines were being distributed. Everything. It's a pattern of behavior. Everything seems to be a pay to, you know, everything seems to be a pay to play. It's all a charade. Do we lose Jordy? Does he really not come back? Text Jordy so as we can, as we bring it back and wrap it up, because he has to give a shout out

to the mighty. And look, to be fair. I like to think he's just waiting right off screen to give the shout out to the mighty. And that's really what he's going to come back for. But Jordy is back in action. Jordy, I apologize. I'm not going to do this. To be clear, I've only come back so I can do the shout out to the Midas Marty at the end of this podcast. We love you, Jordy. We have some great guests coming up in the next, you know, this week and the next few weeks. Midas Touch podcast has been ranked by the pod charts as the number one new podcast in all of North America. No, no, the world. In all of the world.

And I think that's being reflective of the guests who are coming on this show. I love that we're changing up the format a bit and having these debates in a way that no other podcast does. I love that we are connecting, though, at the same time still to incredible Democratic leaders like Congresswoman Meng, who joined the show today. And of course, we're bringing you our own form of brotherly love from the my cell is household growing up and sharing with you our story. So as always, Ben, my cell is Brett, my cell is Jordy, my cell is saying thank you all so much for your support. And we will see you next time on the Midas touch podcast. Shout out to the Midas.