The MeidasTouch Podcast - The GQP are Naked Mole Rats with Katie Phang

Episode Date: April 13, 2021

Ben confronts Twitter user Mark G who referred to Ben’s beard as “the fuzz on the butt cheeks of a naked mole rat.” Companies stand up to GQP voter suppression. Things keep getting worse for Matt Gaetz. Police shootings rock the nation. And MSNBC and NBC legal analyst Katie Phang joins us to discuss it all. Thank you for making the MeidasTouch Podcast the top new news/political podcast in North America! Please share this podcast with a friend and rate it 5 stars on the Apple Podcasts app and help us continue to climb the charts! --- 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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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 Mycellus here we have a great show for you today including a guest Katie Fang excited to have Katie on the show. How you feeling, brothers? You're looking great. You're looking good. So fresh and so clean. Clean. Exactly. You got Moderna mycellus here. Got my first Moderna shot today. Congratulations. Way to go. Feels good. Didn't hurt. Didn't hurt at all. I took it in the arm like a champ. And for those listening, shaved off the beard after a lot of peer pressure, a lot of criticism, a lot of valid critiques, some less valid critiques.

The internet was cruel to you, Ben. But you're looking like 10 years younger, Ben. You look 10 years younger and you're looking good. You look really good, man. You look really good. And let me just say now, this means that all three of the Mycelis, a.k.a. Midas brothers, are now all vaccinated in some form or fashion. Let's go. Let's go.

Now, this first segment of today's pod, I'm a little nervous about, fellas, and for a lot of reasons. So this person online named Mark G. U.S. at U.S. Cars for we talked about this on the last podcast with poetic precision went after my beard, referring it to the fuzz on the butt cheeks of a naked mole rat. He then changed his image on Twitter from a race car to a naked mole rat. I didn't realize he changed it because of your face. Yeah, he changed his image on Twitter from a convertible to a naked mole rat, which is now his image. And he reached out because we called him out by Twitter handle on the last podcast. He said, let me on the pod, let me on the pod.

Now, I do not want to encourage others to criticize as a way of getting on the pod. So first off, let me throw this out there. Second of all, I can- Ben's inviting a whole host of comments about his appearance now, just so he can hash it out on the podcast. This is hilarious.

This is the Streisand effect in full action. I am so excited to see what the internet does with this, but go on. Second, I have never actually had a conversation outside of two DMs inviting this individual on the pod. Okay. So I don't know who is coming on the pod right now. I have not, I have not met a real person, a Russian bot. You don't know what's happening. And this is really like, you know, oftentimes you see comments on your Twitter feed and you roll your eyes or you take offense or you

smile, but you don't know who's on the other end of it. But now maybe this might be a historic podcast moment where you are confronting a Twitter. I don't want to call him a troll. He's probably a very nice guy. He's super nice and he really likes Midas. Yeah, he's great. He really likes Midas. He was making I mean, your beard did look like the fuzz. It was just being on a naked ball ride. It was just being very honest. We should be so lucky that the people who follow Midas touch He was making, I mean, your beard did look like the fuzz on the bunch of naked ball rat. We should be so

lucky that the people who follow Midas touch it that honestly. You know what it's like? It's like, you know, a good friend will tell you if they're sitting across from you at a restaurant. Hey, man. Hey, Ben, you got something in your teeth there. You should get that out of your teeth. A bad friend will sit there and let you have that in your teeth all day and walk around

and smile at the office with a big thing in your teeth. So thank you to Mark. we should we bring him in yeah bring bring mark in we're gonna see his visual for the first time let's see mark g hold on i think we need drum roll drum roll please hey hey mark oh how are you welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Thanks so much for coming on, man. So I got to tell you, start up front. Team Geordie, man. Let's go. Mark's already starting this off hot.

Let's go, Mark. Let's be real. We knew you weren't Team Ben. Team Geordie. Team Geordie. Mark, let's come in hot now that you said Team Geordie. So, Mark, you just joined the podcast. Mark G.

Am I able to say your last name, Mark G.? It's showing up on my Zoom. Or do you prefer to be anonymous? Grundy is fine. Okay, so Mark Grundy. But here's the thing, Mr. Grundy. Ben, Brett, and Jordy, I know you're hashtag Team Jordy. We're all showing our pictures on Zoom. For all I know, Mr. Grundy,

you are a naked mole rat. Oh, no. He's trolling a naked mole rat because you are refusing to show your face. Oh, there it is. Let's go, Mark. That's a beard right there. Let's be clear about something.

I'm the youngest of four, and I have these elderly siblings and they pulled the same shit on me yes my week my everything is made thank you mark so mark grundy is clearly team jordy for those listening mark grundy is sporting a real beard and i think that because of the real beard he has come at me who did not have a fake beard. So, Mark, first off, you're a real human being. That's good to see. Second, you are a supporter of Midas Touch. When did you before getting into your vicious and violent attacks on me? We can first by starting off. When did you off, when did you start to learn about Midas Touch?

Probably about June, July last year. Oh, so early. Very, very early on into the Midas Touch. I was on Twitter and I saw some of the first videos. And then later in the summer when the

George Floyd situation happened, I was pretty pissed. I was out there marching in the, in the summer when the George Floyd, uh, uh, situation happened, um, you know, I was, I was pretty pissed. I was out there marching in the streets here in LA and got pretty active on, on Twitter and, and you guys just went from strength to strength. So yeah, that's when I, I first saw you guys. And Mark, our videos were helpful to you. Did you use our videos to try to help convince others? Oh yeah. Yep. Yes, indeed.

And I certainly retweeted them to a good friend, the former guy about 8 billion times. So that was, that was damn fun. Yep. Remember the West Point slippery ramp saga? How could we forget? We got all sorts of hashtags going over the weekend and then within a couple of hours the stupid orange face bastard uh had to put out a statement and it just made it worse of course like that was hashtag trump is weak i remember that

that trend in number one so mark let's take it to the present. You're a big Midas Touch fan since June, July, one of the first adopters of Midas. Your hashtag, Team Geordie. You decide, though, to send a very, very specific tweet, likening my beer to the fuzz on the butt cheeks of a naked mole rat. Now, Mark, do you have any, did you take poetry courses? Are you, do you write poetry?

I mean, what's your background in just linguistically taking people apart? Well, I only do it when it's needed. So no, I've been, I've been involved in, in writing submissions to, you know, government departments, particularly customs departments, because I'm in the customs clearance area. So I, I've been writing things for many years. So I have a good turn of phrase. But you know, when you're presented with a certain set of facts, there's only certain things that you can say. And, you know, my legal team, because I know Ben is a lawyer,

so I have a statement here from my legal team. The famous... Mark is pulling out a document. Famous attorneys from the team of Kraken, Giuliani, Powell, and Asswhite. They have instructed me to say, I'm doubling down. That beard did not look good. Yes!

Yes! Yes! How do you think the new Ben looks, though, now that it's shaved? Do you have any new words for the way his face now looks? He is always a cool guy. It was just a beard.

I'm sorry. There you go. Oh, good. Now, Mark, you took it one step further. So your initial Twitter photo was a race car, and then you actually doubled down, and now the image you project to the world to identify you on Twitter is that of a naked mole rat.

Do you plan on keeping that naked mole rat photo for the foreseeable future, or are you going to transition now that I've shaved my beard? I'm in two minds, because I'm honored to have um pierced your veil um i do apologize for hurting your feelings you snowflake um i may transition back to the race car because i i love car racing but i think in the greater scheme of things the honor of actually appearing on the podcast i might leave it for a while i like that mark now mark um your accent where are you originally from i don't think that's a south carolina accent no it's not i was born in uh england raised from a

very small boy in australia and the company that I used to work for had the contract to do the logistics work for the Sydney 2000 Olympics. I ran the whole show of the customs clearance in and out and so on. And they must've thought I did a pretty good job. They transferred me to the US and here I am. Mark, any final words of wisdom

to the millions of Midas Mighty out there who are listening to you? You're a fellow member of the Midas Mighty community. Any inspirational words that do not involve my beard? Yes, indeed. I think it's just wonderful that you guys had no background in politics and decided to get off your butts and do something. And a fantastic job for doing it. It's inspired so many people. I think the community that, you know,

that it's resulted is just wonderful. And you see it on Twitter. It's inspired me because here in Los Angeles, we have a appalling mayor, an out of control police department, which is beating peaceful demonstrators. And so, you know, I might as well let you know I'm exploring a run for the mayor. You heard it here first. Mark Grundy, the naked mole rat originator, is going to be possibly running for the mayor of L.A. Mark for mayor. Mark for mayor.

There we go. I love it. I love it. Mark G., thank you so much for joining us on the Midas Touch podcast. It was all in fun. I enjoyed the criticism. Thanks for being a good sport. We appreciate it.

Thank you so much, Not only for your tweets, but now for this video that will live in my cell is family. Might as family might as mighty family history. So thank you, Mark. Thank you. Let's go. We'll see you soon.

Mark. Everybody. You had a team. Jordy. That was one of my favorite guest segments ever. I think. Right. What a good sport. Honestly, like that was, that was a ton of fun. That was one of my favorite guest segments ever. I think Mark Reddy, what a

good sport, honestly. Like that was, that was a ton of fun. Thanks again, Mark, for joining us. Definitely my new best friend. Definitely my new best friend. And you know, when I think what it shows is that public shaming could work at times, right? There's a degree of bullying that's actually good. There's a degree of bullying. A small degree, but public shaming could work. Because Ben, now we're looking at you. You are clean faced. And I think now companies are taking the Mark G approach. They are shaming Georgia for passing these voters.

You didn't see that coming, did you? That was a great segue. Look, Georgia clearly is the naked mole rat of the United States of America right now. Oh, I see a lot of analogies and metaphors, guys, coming at you right now. But companies, guys, are waking up. They're organizing against these voter suppression bills. Now, on the one hand, I want to be like, well, why didn't you do this before the bill passed? But I think it's important that these companies are speaking out now and are speaking out loud and are also showing it not just with their words but with their actions today it was announced that the upcoming will smith movie that was set

to film in georgia was actually going to film somewhere else film in georgia you kind of did a little uh don jr there brett was it the film film in Georgia? Was it set to film in Georgia, Brett? Okay, I'm going to go on another tangent, but somebody actually did the other day. Wasn't I right, Jerry? Didn't he go full Don Jr.? It was pretty damn close to a Don Jr. By the way, that was a good impression.

Accidental impression. Very good. Accidental impression. So somebody in the reviews, we have many amazing five-star reviews, and thank you. Keep them coming. Please keep them coming. But there was somebody who did a five-star review. And thank you. Keep them coming. Please keep them coming.

But there was somebody who did a five-star review. Somebody who did a five-star. Are you doing it on purpose? No, no, no. This is how I speak. There's somebody who did a five-star review. Am I right? Am I making it up?

Or does Brett literally do it? I think it's just the way it's coming through on your mic. I'm speaking totally normally. But there was somebody who wrote a review about the show and said, I love the content, but their voices are like nails on a chalkboard. Not radio voices. So I think for the rest of the episode, I'm going to talk in a radio voice, actually, now that we mentioned. I'm going to talk like this. So what we want here in Georgia is voter suppression.

What if I just spoke in a crazy radio voice the rest of the time? In a weird way, I think that was a compliment. What they were saying is that we have faces for TV. It was not a compliment. That was the only negative review. I mean, they're mostly all five-star reviews. So, Brett, what you were saying, though,

seriously, what you were saying... So, Will Smith is moving outside of Georgia to shoot his movie because of voter suppression tactics. Now, Smith has decided that he cannot support the state. What if I do? What if I actually did this in the entire episode? You basically are so. the movie studios, example of entertainers who have power, taking the power that they have, taking the privilege that they have and using it for action to punish, you know, states and representatives to show that voter suppression doesn't pay. Republicans aren't good for business

and that your actions have consequences. If you're going to attack voters, if you're going to attack black voters, there are going to be consequences for your action. You're not just going to be able to get away with it. And so hopefully this could help spark change. Hopefully this could help other states, you know, think twice before they decide to implement their own voter suppression laws. And this kind of tactic has worked in the past when companies have pulled out. It has led to the pulling back of anti-transgender bills and other sorts of bills like that, because, you know, at the end of the day, money talks and the film industry in Georgia is actually a massive thing. So these companies

stepping out, you know, could do some short term pain, obviously. But, you know, it's a longer term issue that when we need to put a stop to it right now. Correct. Senior CBS, senior White House and political correspondent Ed O'Keefe broke news this weekend, and he tweeted out that this first of its kind call between over 100 top corporate leaders on Saturday focused on how to respond to proposed changes in state voting laws. Participants included top leaders of airlines, media, investment, and law, although I don't know about law because I wasn't on that call. Those invited included leaders such as American Airlines, United, Atlanta Falcons, Levi Strauss Company, Walmart, Viacom, LinkedIn, Twitter, AMC Theaters, CBS News, and others. Here's my take on it, though. At the end of the day, it's great that these companies and

organizations were on this call, but this can be performative bullshit at the end of the day. We see a lot of times the companies go out and they say that they're associated with something or they say they're against, you know, dismantling voting rights. But then at the end of the day, we see who they're giving money to and they're giving money to a lot of GQP politicians who favor a lot of the dark things that corporations do sometimes. And we see a lot of these great public statements, but then in action, we don't see it. And here's an example. I mean, over the past couple of weeks,

we've started to see companies quietly donating to candidates who supported the insurrection and supported the big lie, despite making a pledge not to do so. And so Toyota, for example, is one of these companies, they said after January 6, they said that they were going to assess their future criteria for donating to PACs and donating to political candidates, that they wouldn't donate to anybody who voted to overturn the election. They haven't come out with a statement reversing course, but they've since given money to at least five candidates who supported overturning the results of the election. Same thing happened with JetBlue. It was a big controversy over the weekend. There was a big boycott JetBlue campaign because of this. And you're just seeing these corporate donors

try to do this in the background while making these public facing statements like, oh, of course, we support democracy and we're going to be here. But that's why we need to watch what companies do by their actions. That's why we need to watch what companies do by their actions. That's why we need to watch what politicians do with their actions. And I think that's what at the end of the day gets us so frustrated when we see fact checks that are purely based on the words of politicians and corporations and not the actions of what they're doing. You always need to look at what they're doing, not what they're saying. And here's why I'm hopeful, though, that this wasn't just lip service. I think it was last week, Mitch McConnell came out and he said companies should

stay out of politics. Well, a few days later, over 100 companies were on a call talking about these suppression bills. And isn't that nice for Mitch, right? When it's useful for him, he tells companies to stay out of politics. When it's beneficial for his racist voter suppression bills that he's trying to push forward, convenient for him to tell companies, you know what, sit this one out, guys. But when he wants money from them, Brett, like you were saying, how these corporate donors give the GQP all this money, you know, hey, no, actually, come, come, come to our party, come inside here. And he said it in the same speech. He was like, yeah, so corporations, they should not be speaking about politics. I'm

not saying don't give us your money, but you shouldn't be taught. No, you should still give us your money, but don't talk about politics. This is the same Republican Party that for years now has insisted that corporations are people. And now that corporations are speaking out against their draconian rules, all of a sudden it's, oh, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up. One of the things I think that birthed out of this whole thing though, that I think is pretty great is the democracy pledge. We talked about the democracy pledge with Glenn Kirshner. Democracy pledge is just a simple way for companies of any size, by the way, whether you're small, medium, massive, whatever it is,

to just you sign the pledge and you say, hey, I will stand with democracy. It shouldn't be hard. I'm not going to stand with people who try to overturn results of elections. I'm not going to stand for overturning the United States government. I'm going to stand for democracy. And that should be the base level. And we started seeing like a lot like a lot of companies sign onto this thing, right? Yeah. We saw even our friends at a one fresh pillow, small company. Yes. Husband, wife, let's go. They came on our pod a few months ago. They donated the pillows to the national guard after the insurrection. I'm lucky. I get, they, they sent me one early on, a OneFresh pillow. I sleep with it every day. It actually is like super, super, super comfortable. And it's incredible to see companies like that start at the very kind of beginning stages and supporting democracy and supporting humanity is always a good thing to see. And so I'm definitely following them. But

they inspired, I think, a lot of other companies. I think since the One Fresh Pillow tweeted out, I saw a bunch of other companies join. Yeah, their tweet took off and inspired others. And I think that's what you have to understand happens here. It's very much a domino effect. If your company does it in your neighborhood, maybe you'd be able to get five other companies to do it. And all these things, all politics is local. So what you do matters. So please, whether you run a small business in your town, whether you're a management in a bigger corporation, try to convince your business to sign stuff like the deep pledge and to speak out for democracy and support companies like One Fresh Pillow who support democracy. These people are standing up for America and we should be supporting them back. I mean, it's as simple as that. I want to talk about the Trump RNC. I said the Trump RNC retreat. It's actually the RNC retreat, but it should, for all intents and purposes, be called the Trump RNC retreat.

But I want to talk just for a second, Jordi, and touch upon the point that you made with Mitch McConnell, because him saying that corporations shouldn't be involved in politics is far more insidious and absurd than even what we basically just touched upon. There were a number of laws in place, you know, John McCain, Feingold, McCain, Feingold, and lots of legislation that's always tried to been imposed to take dark money out of politics to limit corporate contributions. And at all levels, the Republicans oppose that. As Brett mentioned, they did want corporations to be treated as people and under certain circumstances to be able to make unlimited expenditures to influence elections.

This is very uniquely American. As you start looking at other countries, the idea that corporate entities can play such a significant role with money to buy off politicians, is essentially what it is, is such a ridiculous concept. Yeah, it's called bribery in other countries. That's what it's called. Which is why you have these limitations. But at the very least, because of McConnell, corporations are involved in this game. And you've made them involved in this game to give money to politicians. And so clearly, if they are giving money to politicians, they're now going to be held accountable for the donations and contributions that they give. And so naturally, they're going to have to

have conversations about why would I be supporting this person or not supporting this person? Because a contribution to a candidate who supports an insurrection, a contribution to a candidate who supports QAnon and who supports white supremacy truly means, and there's no other way of looking at it, that your corporation supports those values and ideals and that you should be held accountable for the racist views that you have. And that's why corporations need to speak up because they are inextricably intertwined because of McConnell's system. So I just wanted to touch on that piece there as to specifically why it's absurd. Of course, speaking about absurd, as I mentioned, you had the Trump RNC donor retreat.

It's technically the RNC retreat, but of course they do it at no other place than Mar-a-Lago. It's a very weird festival of just the strange swamp creatures who make up the GQP, your QAnonists, couldn't help himself but to give a ridiculously absurd anti-democratic speech that doubled, tripled, quadrupled down on the insurrection and his support of the insurrection. Everybody wants to talk about his comments about McConnell because, you know, he it's fun to talk about. He called McConnell a dumb son of a bitch. He made fun of his wife for leaving the administration, blah, blah, blah. But the underlying thing that we need to take out from this is he basically said that he just wishes the insurrection would have succeeded and he would do it again. I mean, this is the terrifying thing. We are in this time period right now where the media, where politicians, where all these different people are trying to whitewash the events of January 6th and pretend like, oh, there was no threat of actually taking over the government. No one actually had the

intentions of that happening. But then Donald Trump comes in on the time and he goes, no, yeah, I wanted to overthrow the government and I would do it again. And they're like, oh, but did you hear about what he said about Mitch? And that's like just the ongoing thread that just keeps on happening. By the way, this is why I felt it was so important that when we had the opportunity to put people on the stand and have them testify under oath about the insurrection. This is exactly why, because otherwise Donald Trump is going to do is Donald Trump spin and just try and whitewash and rewrite history. But if we have those people's words, like the McCarthy's of the world, if we have them testify under oath what that testimony take place. The reality is, is that had those witnesses actually been subpoenaed, the legal process of compelling the testimony of Congress members and senators would have been long drawn out. Literally, we would still be, as of this recording, involved in the impeachment trial. We would not have been able to pass the COVID stimulus relief. We would

not be talking infrastructure. We would not all be vaccinated. And so the calculation was, you know, this crazy sideshow that is Trump, the best way to rebut it is by doing good in the country rather than regurgitating all of those things with the idea that Trump will remind you always who he is, like reminiscing about how crazy Trump was in a positive way. Like Cornyn's basically saying that Biden is scripted and that his tweets are normal and that that's somehow problematic. And we had a sake bomb take place. If we could play the clip of Jen Psaki basically responding that that like what in the world is Cornyn saying here? We have a president who's focused on America, not conspiracy tweets. Senator John Cornyn called Joe Biden's tweets unimaginably conventional and said that his comments were largely scripted and questioned whether he was really in charge. Does the White House have any reaction to that? Well, I can confirm that the president of the United States does not spend his time tweeting conspiracy theories. He spends his time working on behalf of the American people. So exactly. At the same time, you have

Cornyn reminiscing about Trump crazy conspiratorialness. You have Lauren Bobber tweeting, this is not Obama's third term. This is essentially Hugo Chavez's first term. I mean, just the wackiest, dumbest shit. What they learned from the Trump administration was they can't govern. But what they can do is they could be professional Twitter trolls. And as long as they could. But not even good trolls. No, shitty, like the dumbest craziest tweets but the more outrageous the more outrageous they are the more engagement they get the more they're crazy people go oh okay yeah good job and the more you know liberals will be like what the

fuck are you talking about and it just creates this just ongoing never-ending cycle and we saw some craziness spread in and Mara Lago. We saw that we saw the woman who was previously convicted of like stealing things with like a bag of cash wearing this complete Versace outfit, you know, posing next to it, literally a suitcase of cash and then another photo next to Donald Trump. And then this crazy fest, the one person who they did not allow in, though, is Matt Gates, although Matt Gates is still out there basically talking about acting like everything is normal. It's it's the most bizarre thing in the world. Gates is digging his hole deeper. But let's be clear. This is what the GQP is. The GQP is Matt Gates. It's Marjorie Taylor Greene. It's senile Donald Trump ranting and

railing against democracy. It's Bob talking about Hugo Chavez's first term in office. It's people who hate this country. It's people who don't care about education, who want people to die, which is why the GQP is dwindling. OK, it's a smaller and smaller, smaller party. We did the joke on the last one. People need to leave this party. And guess what? People are leaving this party because the same way corporations are calling you out. It's hard to be a Biden Republican because if you're a Republican now, you're GQP. You're crazy. So we see the independence increasing. We see the growth in the Democratic Party and we see Americans getting stronger. We see the focus

on infrastructure. We see us collectively getting healthier. We're poised to have seven percent GDP growth, the biggest financial growth in the history of recent history of the United States. We are in the roaring 20s because of Joe Biden defeating Donald J. Trump, thanks to people like Mark G and the Midas Mighty and all the local organizers out there who helped rally the people across this country. This is why we do Midas Touch, you know, because we're not going to the crazy Mar-a-Lago parties. We're talking about our love for democracy. When we come back from these messages, we will have Katie Fang. Thrilled to have that interview. We'll see you after these messages.

Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. We are joined by no other than Katie Fang, NBC and MSNBC legal contributor, trial lawyer, former prosecutor. Katie, welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Thank you. It's my honor. I was just waiting for you guys. I'm like, you know, like trolling. Like, when are they ever going to ask me to be on? We always wanted you on. And Katie, from the very beginning, when Midas Touch just began, you would share our videos super early on last even March and April and we would interact. So I feel like I've known you for over spread the word and let other people kind of enjoy the gift that is Midas Touch. So absolutely. Anytime. miniature Schnauzer that's behind you. And the one reason why I want to bring that up too, other than it being super cute,

is we like to give some tidbits of knowledge about the brothers. This is a story that we've never shared before, that when you said Schnauzer, it triggered in my mind. Uh-oh. So one of Brett's nicknames growing up was Schnauzer. This is true. And so we called Brett Schnauzer, Schnauzer this is true and so we called we called brett schnauzer schnauzer up until it probably disappeared about 10 years ago but he was probably like 29 and a half

am i allowed to ask why yeah it's actually it's actually a very nice reason why um or at least this is the reason i'm told there could be a, a much darker or more offensive reason. But my dad growing up had a schnauzer. And, and so he would say, because, you know, I was like his little, like his little schnauzer. And so I, that's, that's what I've heard. I don't know if there's another meaning. I don't know if it was secretly mocking, Ben, you could confirm or deny you were, you would have more background knowledge of the nickname. Very endearing. That's very endearing. Katie, thank you so much for joining the Midas Touch podcast. I'm joking. So going into.

What if that was just imagine if we did that with all guests? That's great. That reminds me of a story about the brothers. Katie, we'll see you later. I'm sorry, Katie. So, Katie, going into the real news, though, of the day, the first thing I wanted to talk to you about as a lawyer is Biden's announcement that he wants to create a commission studying the Supreme Court, its composition, how Supreme Court justices are appointed. Do you think this is actually going to be going somewhere, Katie, or is this just kind of doing lip service to an issue that Democrats are angry about the way this has happened? But is this going to lead to something? That's a good question. I mean, it's kind of long overdue, right? I mean, everybody's talked about the lifetime appointment gem that is SCOTUS. But, you know, I think people need to know it's lifetime appointments on the federal district court bench, too. It's not just the Supreme Court of the United States.

And so that whole lifetime appointment concept trickles down all the way to the lowest level of our federal judicial federal judiciary system, I guess. You know, I think it's a great idea. It may be kind of be throwing a bone, like you said, to the more progressive Dems that are out there that have been screaming for change. We clearly had an kind of an abusive system we went through with Kavanaugh and with Coney and everything like that. But I think Amy Coney Barrett, but I think it's going to take a long time, guys. I mean, there's, you know, we got Biden, hopefully for two terms. But in the meantime, it's just going to take some time because remember, it's a commission. So we're

going to look into it. And then we're going to take our findings and we're gonna make our recommendations. So I mean, maybe like in my grandchildren's generation, maybe we'll, we'll have something that that actually looks like change. But you know, there's been a lot of scuttlebutt and chatter about Stephen Breyer being forced to resign to kind of make some space for a new Supreme Court justice to be nominated and to be put in into place by the Biden administration. So I don't know, I mean, I think there's different routes to get there and different paths to get there, but I think it's welcome, right? I do think that we need to have a kind of a re-jiggering and re-envisioning of what

this thing is supposed to look like, because it certainly is challenging. But I think we also need to also be grateful for what we have. I mean, we have Soño Sotomayor. I mean, we've got people that are currently sitting in the highest court of the land doing the Lord's work right at this point. And so I think that we need to be grateful for what we have, but I don't mind kind of, you know, looking under the hood. I think it's kind of time, right? We kind of need to figure out how to maybe make it look a little bit more representative of what our country looks like, because it'd be great to see a little bit more diversity on that bench.

Yeah. And speaking about diversity, you know, diversity on the bench, one of the things that I think is reaching a fever pitch that has become so institutionalized with Fox News, just fully embracing white supremacy. To me, it was always there, but just kind of outright with Tucker Carlson, basically advocating for like white replacement theory, and then standing behind him, no criticism whatsoever. As someone who, Katie, who goes on shows as a contributor with people, though, you know, you're obviously MSNBC, NBC, which is not that, but you used to, I mean, in the past you were on, you appeared on Fox News, you appeared on lots of news channels. Now seeing where it is now, like what goes through your mind

and how do we allow that to exist in its current form? Is that just the way it's going to be that there's just an institutionalized pure white supremacy network out there? Or can we push back? So, you know, what I find to be startling that Fox and Fox Business hasn't kind of dialed it back is even after being sued by Smartmatic and Dominion, you would think that they would maybe kind of say, you know what, we need to slow our roll a little bit here and maybe reevaluate how unfettered we let people like Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo. I mean, those people have like,

they jumped the shark like hard. It kind of makes you wonder, you know, that little adage like, well, you know, we all get out of bed and we put our pants on the same way. I don't think those people do. Like, do they have people in their orbits that are minorities? And if so, like, do we just pretend

like we don't listen to what they say when they're on national television with a global reach? I don't really get it. And I'm startled because, you know, multi-billion dollar lawsuits would probably make other people kind of reevaluate where they are. They're not doing it. So, and I think you guys can appreciate this, but there's always the inherent danger of trying to stomp on people's first amendment rights, right? I mean, the idea that is there a way to curb speech? Is there a way to regulate what comes out of a massive network like Fox or Fox business? Can you necessarily kind of put guardrails on what people say and how they do it. I mean, if they want to be labeled and branded for the rest of their life until their expiration dates that they're white

supremacists, I wouldn't be comfortable with that label or that brand, but maybe they are. But I think it's short-sighted because Fox News is now becoming the fair-headed stepchild to crazy shit like Newsmax and OANN and all that other stuff. And if Fox wants to keep it where the Joneses, maybe that's why they haven't actually slowed down a little bit and decided to be a little bit more moderate and a little bit more temperate. Who knows? But I do find it to be offensive. I go the reason why I don't watch it. And that's the whole thing with Fox News, with the GOP. The lessons that they learned from the insurrection are not the lessons that they should have learned. The lessons that they should have learned were this is wrong. This is horrible. This should stop. The lessons that they learned were we need to be crazier. Maybe we shouldn't do it like in a violent way, but we need to be crazy. What did you see that poll? What was that crazy poll where it was like 90% of America didn't think that there was an insurrection that happened on January 6th. Like there was some insane poll that came out the other day. It was Republicans,

right? It was like most of the Republicans. I know, but I'm like, where are you people on January 6th? Right. And you know, it's like, why don't you guys ask Mike Pence what the hell happened on January 6th? Like I'm sure he and his family, as they're being like, you know, herded and shepherded in a hurried fashion, like to their safety, I'm sure they have something to say about what happened on January 6th. There's this, I don't, I've been struggling to try to explain this, you know, practicing medicine without a license, like trying to like figure out this psyche and mentality of this whole group of people in the United States that is just delusional. It wasn't like Australia originally like a penal colony.

Like there's this whole group of people that should be living on a whole island so that they can just be an echo chamber amongst themselves. Because I am open minded. I'm judgmental, but I'm open minded. And I'll listen to whatever you want to tell me, but there does come a point in time where reality and your delusion collide, right? That doesn't happen for a lot of these people. These are the same people who think Donald Trump was not elite and was fighting for them. And the same people who say that Tucker, what's his middle name? Tucker Swanson, McNair, Carlson, heir to the Swanson frozen family fortune. That's the man of the people who's

sticking it to the elites every night. I mean, the whole thing is just. And they double down on supporting people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz. Even when it's obvious that Matt Gaetz is going down for sex trafficking, he's like the sex trafficker, like leader, like he's like the pioneer. Like this was someone who was so deep in it. The more facts that come out, the more disturbing it gets. And they're just, they're, they're either silent or supportive of him. It's the most shocking thing in the world. What do you think's happening or what's going to happen based on your legal experience next with Matt Gaetz? So a couple of thoughts. So, you know, you guys are safely ensconced on the West Coast. And the reason why

I say that, I mean, for the exception of like those of us that are not on the West Coast right now. If you're in Florida, Matt Gaetz is Florida man personified. The level of just fraud and just corruption. I mean, what's happening with Matt Gaetz right now on a national level

is shit that happens every day in Florida. It just happens all the time. Matt just decided to go from JV to varsity, which is why he decided to do what he's doing now, which is why, like I said, I think I said last night, I was doing a hit. I'm like, there's always a Florida connection, right? Because there's always something that connects us back to Florida. And now we have the Kushners and we have Trump down here in Florida again. But you know, Gates has got problems because today they announced that the House Ethics Committee is investigating Matt Gates. And it's not just the allegations

of sex trafficking, right? It's like improper campaign fund usage, inappropriate sharing of images on the House floor. I mean, it runs the gamut to sex trafficking as well. And so Gates, who bizarrely is still serving on the House Judiciary Committee, though, right now, which I think is like a conflict of interest there a little bit. Something doesn't smell right. So Gates is going to have a whole other world of problems. But, you know, Joel Greenberg, who's like the self-professed wingman of Matt Gates, that dude is seriously going to be selling Matt Gaetz down the river. I would. He's got 33 counts and four different superseding federal indictments right now. Like if I'm Greenberg, I'm going to tell them everything I know about everyone I know,

which is not just going to be Matt Gaetz, by the way. There's going to be other collateral, you know, kind of damage that comes out of this. But Gaetz got new lawyers today, which I thought was intriguing. So if Ga Gates wasn't worried about where this was heading, why the day after Joel Greenberg announces that he's negotiating a plea deal, would he pick up Mark McKay and Isabel Kirshner, who are very well-known criminal defense lawyers? It's the, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire. So I think Gates is going to have some serious reckoning coming up. I think the deadline to do a plea deal for Greenberg is May 15th. And in the absence, he's going to trial in July. So imminently, there's going to be some outcome for Matt Gates. Did you see the clip of

Greenberg's lawyer the other day, when he was asked if Matt Gates was going to get in trouble, and he literally just tried to filibuster the answer. But he did say, if I were Matt Gaetz, I can understand why he'd be uncomfortable. After 40, after 45 seconds, a minute ago, um, um, uh, you know, uh, I didn't realize you were going to ask me that, but, uh, and he's like, he's like a Florida connection, right? That Florida lawyer with flowing hair. I said, he looked like the Trump doctor who I think recently passed away. The Trump doctor who said he was the healthiest human being on the planet.

When his office got raided. Remember when his office got raided? That was shady. I forgot about that. His office got raided. And like, no one's ever talked about that since. What happened? Well, you guys know that Mukaseay see mckay see um he currently represents the trump organization mark mckay see who just got hired by matt gates represents the trump organization in the cy vance investigation that's going on with the grand jury that's currently seated with all of the financial records etc he's been described as Rudy Giuliani's protege. Shit you not. And if Rudy was your mentor, then Matt should have looked somewhere else. I mean, the guy's allegedly a legit lawyer,

so we'll see where it goes. But there's always a Trump connection, too, by the way. So I don't know. One thing, though, that you mentioned, though, with Matt Gaetz also, though, is that he's serving on the Judiciary Committee. That's not the Democrats didn't appoint him there. He didn't just divine himself there. The Republicans said, you know what, Matt Gaetz, he should go to the Judiciary Committee. And then the other thing that you said, too, is one of the things the Ethics Committee is investigating is him showing other people in Congress, Republicans, the photographs, the lewd, lascivious, illegal photographs. And after all of that, the GOP's assessment was, yeah, that man, let's make him

the person who looks at our judges and oversees the way law is administered in the United States. Right. That's all you need to know about the folly of the whole GOP, I think, in a nutshell right there, Katie. That's that quintessential lying down and spitting up in the air concept, right? But I mean, the House Ethics Committee investigation, it's supposed to be bipartisan. So you know what? I guess the minor sex trafficking, sex trafficking in minors is where we draw the line, maybe, if you're the GOP. I think that that's maybe where we draw the line, although it's reminiscent of like Epstein,

right? The whole, we made people go to the Bahamas and we flew them there for sex. I mean, there's all this weird stuff with Greenberg. Like why are we in Greenberg's office in the middle of the night, like doing things with IDs and stuff. Why are you paying for this on a public Venmo, dude? What are you doing? At least set it to private. What's going on there? How many people, how many millions of people raced to their phone, their Venmo app and like, My Venmo is on private. And I, cause I don't even want to let people know, like when I pay for a coffee or something like that, that's the extent I'm like, I don't want people to know

if I'm like paying a friend for coffee or for tickets or whatever. This guy's over here using it for, I'm using it like a J I'm using a JV. Uh, this guy's using it to buy prostitutes on his, on his Venmo account. It's a, it's a crazy world. There are people who post public though. And I, when you turn on the app and I, and I see him and I, I always think twice about the people who like show their purchase. And I was like, what are you doing? Not only that, people scroll, people scroll Venmo like they scroll Twitter. Like a Twitter feed. Like when they're bored of looking through Twitter, when they're bored of looking through Instagram.

I've seen people go through Venmo. But are you supposed to know who these people are? Like, I don't know who these people are. Is it just whoever's like on public? It's like whoever's like you're friends with and stuff. I've heard that too. It's like the ultimate boredom move. If you are totally bored and Twitter is, you know, boring to you, you've already exhausted Twitter. You've gone through Reddit. You've checked your Facebook feed. You've looked through Tik TOK. And the only thing you're left with is

your Venmo feed, looking, looking at what people have paid each other for. That's just, if you'd find yourself doing that, I would try to figure out a way to get help or find a way. Take a walk outside. Yeah, take a walk, take a walk, watch something. My guilty pleasure is, and I've never posted, but I like to kind of like stealth, like stalk, like look at stuff on TikTok.

Like that's my thing. Like that's like my time suck. Oh my gosh, I love TikTok. Brain dead. Yeah, me too. That must be, I'm totally with you there, Katie. like that's my thing like that's like my time suck like oh my gosh i love i love tiktok brain dead yeah me too that must be i'm totally with you there katie there's nothing more i like and i also love tell me if you love this on tiktok this is totally nothing to do with laura the interview but we'll make sure we play this on the pod anyway i love following how like there are these songs that the memeable songs and like they'll live for two weeks and you'll become like

an expert in the song and then the song just disappears then there's like a new song yeah yeah so did you know ben that um i was supposed to do a hit like right during the grammys weekend and they were like katie be prepared you're doing this panel like fine like be prepared to have your pick for song of the year. And I was like, timeout. Like, first of all, there's still the Grammys. Like, I'm like, is that like MTV? Like, I'm like, I'm way too old to even know that this stuff is going on, but I was like, sure. You know, I'm like, yeah, I'll do it. So I'm like, okay, wait, I got to prepare. Like, you know, like I seriously prepare for my hits. Like I go on

pacer and I pull like shit off. Like, you know, like I'm like looking at whatever, right. I'm looking at the nominations for song of the year. Ben, they were TikTok songs. Brand new Lamborghini, not a cop car. Pistol on my hip like I'm a cop. Yeah. I only know like the two, like, you know, the 20 seconds or 60 seconds. But I was like, yeah, I know that.

I'm like, I know that. How do I know that? tock and then what happened to and then like like my daughter my six-year-old daughter right like she's like six going on 36 and she knows i don't let her listen to tiktok too much because you know it's curse words everywhere or whatever and even though i've dropped some not so choice words with you guys i don't do it in front of her and she knows the tiktok songs so she'll be like savage love it's i'm like what are you doing all the lyrics and she'll be like mommy we don't listen to that because that's just over now like we're on something else now i'm like oh i'm sorry i didn't realize that but you're totally right

it's like you know insta famous and you and i do too and i'll totally confess this to you guys and like the millions of people that are listening to this so i follow on tiktok the cooking stuff because i'm not a cook i can't cook cooking stuff yeah the cooking stuff, cause I'm not a cook. I can't cook. Yeah. The cooking stuff is ridiculous, but I also like go and I like look at, um, the cleaning hacks cause I don't clean either. So I'm like looking at how to like clean, like, you know, baking soda, put vinegar inside a spray bottle, shake it up three times, add some lemon, spray it. It's always like the wackiest thing. I'm like, this is like a lot of work. So sometimes I'll go to Amazon. Like if I, if you guys were in my kitchen, I'd show you, I have like a couple of things from Amazon that TikTok made me buy. So I sometimes go and I buy stuff off of Amazon because of TikTok.

That's so funny. Well, let's go from our TikTok tangent to a little bit more of a serious topic. Let's talk about the Derek Chauvin trial. What do you think of it so far? How do you think the prosecution is doing? How do you think the defense is doing? I think one of the most frustrating things to me as a spectator of this is we all kind of live the shared experience of watching George Floyd get murdered. We all saw this with our own two eyes. So to now see this case be litigated, I just want to scream at the TV. We all saw it. Like we all, we all saw this happen. Obviously justice needs to, to play out, but what do you think of the trial? Where are we at right now with it? So I've been live tweeting the trial since day one, and we just

concluded, you know, this, this trial and in terms of the second week and the prosecution has done an exceptional job. It's not easy to do this case. And I think that they really anticipated kind of the bumps in the road that were going to be potential issues like the prior history of George Floyd's drug use. It was so exquisitely, painfully presented through George Floyd's girlfriend last week. There was this level of humanity that was just unbelievable in the way that she talked about their shared battle with an opioid addiction. And it was just so smart in the way that the prosecution put it in front of the jury, because there's millions of people that battle that same opioid addiction. And the way that she presented George was in a way that we were able to see him in his life versus in the way that millions of us saw him in his death, right? It's that type of stuff. And then the magnitude of having like a nine-year-old child talk about what that experience was for her to witness basically George Floyd's execution in front of her.

And then to have strangers who witnessed it to say in tears that they pray at night and they apologize to George Floyd for not doing more. I mean, in the body cam videos of the four officers that are being prosecuted, the different angles, and every single time, all you heard was him crying out that he couldn't breathe, that he was scared, and he wanted his mom. I mean, it's stuff like that, that you cannot ignore. But as we all know, as trial lawyers, especially those of us that do criminal law, it's a unanimous verdict that's required. And all you need is one of those 12 jurors to not want to convict, to not believe that the state carried its burden of proof,

and you won't get a conviction either on one or all of the three charges that he's facing. The defense attorney is doing the best that he can do with very little. I think that the only thing he can do is focus on the pre-existing medical conditions of George Floyd and the presence of the fentanyl and the methamphetamine in George Floyd's system at the time of his death. But the prosecution this week did amazing work with very technical experts and made it in a way that it was super relatable and the jury got it. And so the defense is supposed to put on its case next week. We may actually be going to closing arguments and to deliberations in the next maybe two weeks. You may have a verdict in the next two weeks from this trial. And Katie, strategically, from the trial lawyer's perspective, the prosecution wanted to get ahead of the medical

expert who is going to talk about contributing factors, which starts getting very technical when you talk about the actual factor was obviously the knee to the neck. But sometimes in these medical reports, it does list in the autopsy other factors that are not the direct causal factor, but that are general factors. So from a trial strategy standpoint, it was important that the prosecution get ahead of it, be candid with the jury about, yeah, these other things may exist, but they have nothing to do with what the cause of death. They're going to try to act. The defense is going to try to act like it is, but it's not. And here's why, rather than kind of hiding the ball, you know, for some of our listeners out there, you would go, well, why would you want to bring it up if it's a bad fact?

Well, you don't want to seem like you're hiding the ball and then it's going to come out anyway. So you kind of get ahead of it. And is that what you think they did here? Yeah. So people need to realize that last year in August of 2020, there was an original motion to dismiss that was filed by Derek Chauvin's lawyers. And the basis of the motion to dismiss was the fact that George Floyd had the fentanyl and the methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death. And so the drug usage was always a focal point of the Chauvin defense from day one. Now, obviously, they lost that motion to dismiss, right? It was denied. But then there were subsequent motions and pretrial motions prior to the trial beginning.

And the ruling from the trial court was because it was relevant to the defense being presented by Derek Chauvin, they could get into George Floyd's drug usage. Now, smartly, the prosecution, taking the sting out of potentially bad information, presented it in their case in chief through his girlfriend, Courtney Ross. But what they also did was they basically said today, because today was really heavily on the medical testimony concerning the drug usage and the preexisting heart issues and stuff like that. They took the forensic pathologist who trained the medical examiner who did the autopsy, and she destroyed the defense's theory that the drug usage or the heart condition were the cause of, you know, George Floyd's death. And I was nervous because I really wasn't sure how Dr. Andrew Baker, who was the ME who did the only autopsy in this case, I was nervous how he was going to present

because the prosecution called him as well in their case today. And he actually stood his ground. He confirmed that it was homicide in terms of the way that George Floyd died. And he also said, look, the primary cause of George Floyd's death was not the drugs and it was not his heart condition. And so I talked about this earlier tonight when I did a hit. There are jury instructions that these jurors are going to get at the conclusion of this case before they deliberate. And the jury instructions are very clear. Causation or to cause the death of George Floyd, it doesn't have to be the only cause. As long as it was a substantial causal factor in the death of George Floyd, you can actually have a myriad of causes to be able to reach that end result of his death.

And so I think the reinstatement of the third degree murder charge that was kicked out and then brought back in from the Minnesota Supreme Court, that's your low hanging fruit. That's Derek Chauvin acting in a way that's imminently dangerous. And we saw that from civilians who don't even know the law screaming at them, get off of him, get off of him, check for a pulse. And now we basically have paramedics saying the guy was dead basically when we got there. And then we have experts that say, it's not the drugs, it's not the medical conditioninent pulmonology expert, right? He wrote, literally wrote the book on it. He had these bad-ass exhibits and these demo demonstrated like his demonstrative aids that he used showed Derek Chauvin putting 91.5 pounds of weight on George Floyd's neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds. So when you see something like that, it's a dereliction of your duty as a juror to ignore it, right? I mean, we've seen crazier

things happen, but you can't ignore that. It's too powerful. So that actually leads me to the next question. How important is it that these jurors stay the course? So I know there was one juror specifically who spoke with the judge, said that they were watching news the other day and a lawyer came on and they turned off the TV. That same juror also got a text from their mother-in-law, something about the case. And they said, you know, just to the effect of, oh, it must've been a wild day. Now I know we have some alternates. I think there are two, but really how important is it that we stick with the current jurors selected? We don't know who they are. We only know kind of how they answered in voir dire during jury selection. So we got a taste of that. We know what their kind of makeup is, but otherwise we don't really know anything more

than that. You know, the goal from jury selection was trying to get jurors that hadn't witnessed the video or didn't really have any kind of knowledge about this case, which we all know, you have to rely upon jurors to tell you the truth, right? I mean, there's no way to really vet if they've seen something or that they know something. This juror was questioned outside the presence of the other jurors, and she apparently gave satisfactory information, and so she's remained on the jury. You know, the alternates, for those people that don't try cases and stuff, the alternates don't know their alternates. The alternates, there's 14 jurors left, right? They sit through the entirety of the trial and then right before the jury deliberates is when they're told, like, you're not really one of our jurors, which is brutal, right? If you're an alternate, you sat through this whole thing and you don't know.

And the reason why you don't tell them is you don't want them to check out. Speaking of, though, there's some poll reporters that are in the courtroom. And earlier this week, some of them were saying that some of the jurors didn't seem to be completely paying attention. But the goodness for the prosecution is they've been paying attention, taking notes and really kind of following along with the current prosecution experts. But to answer your question, jurors are supposed to remain fair and impartial and they're supposed to listen to all of the evidence and apply that evidence and the facts to the law as the judge tells them and then render a verdict that's supposed to be a fair and impartial verdict.

But to ask people to truly leave their preconceived notions and their biases and prejudices at the door before they enter into that courtroom is, I think, an impossibility. You can't erase certain biases that you have, I think, inherent or otherwise, or implicit or otherwise, right? So I would hate to see, though, something happen where we pull in an alternate, and then we pull in an alternate and then we pull in an alternate and we don't have any alternates left. And you have to hit the reset button. That's my fear, too. Mistrial from that or, you know, you kind of have to when you're on this kind of role as a lawyer, you don't want to have to do this over again. You really don't. We will stay tuned on that note. Katie Fang, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for joining the Midas Touch podcast. Thank you for your support of Midas Touch. And we hope you will come back.

Always, anytime. Thank you. We'll be right back after these. No, that's not America. after these. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. Great to have Katie Fang on the show. One of my favorite interviews so far in the Midas Touch podcast. Switching over to a topic that is not too dissimilar to what we were talking about with Katie. These two high profile police incidents, these matters that are both incredibly outrageous, one involving Lieutenant Nazario. We saw that stop in Windsor, Virginia, where officers pointed guns and pepper sprayed a black U S army officer, Lieutenant Karan Nazario over nothing. I mean, it was that he, he, he just got the car. He didn't

have plates and he pulled over to an area where it was, where there were lights. And it was probably a decision that saved his life by pulling over in that gas station. Yeah. Because had he pulled over in a dark area with those police officers, the way they acted against policy, just for a frame of reference, this actually happened in December, last December. The findings came out recently and the lawsuit relating to the incident occurred recently, which is why this was brought in the news. The conduct at issue was against police department policy. And you watch this horrible video. That's what I want to ask you about, Ben.

Why are we just seeing this now? I mean, it's April. Why are we just seeing this video from December now? Why is this guy just getting fired now? For me, as a person who's not in law, it seems outrageous to me. Well, it's one of the very unfortunate and frustrating things about being a civil rights lawyer. I'll tell you, the fact though that the video came out now and that this investigation concluded within the time period it did. Wow, frustrating, Brett. In my own experience,

I mean, this is shorter than a lot of times where I get the videos in my police shooting cases or in my excessive force cases. It's very frequently, you have the incident that takes place and there's such a disparity of information between the police department who have all the access to all the instrumentalities, the videos, the dash cams, the audio recordings, the police reports, and the family of the victim or of the injured party who has no access to it whatsoever. So then as the lawyer, you make the public records request for the records. They don't give it to you right away. They give you some excuse that it's an ongoing investigation, which they continue as long as they can claiming it's an ongoing investigation. Now, here's another crazy fact. In California, when you're bringing a case against the municipality, you have a six-month period if you're going to be suing based on state law claims in addition to federal claims to give notice of your intent to file a lawsuit. This is called a

government tort claim. And so by the time those six months, you have that six-month limit, you may not have access at all to the videos, to the audio recordings. That's outrageous, right? And so you're kind of swinging in the dark about what the case could even be or what it is. And if the family doesn't hire a lawyer in that six month period, they could be waiving their entire state law claims to even sue in the first place if they didn't hire a lawyer who knows about those issues and those laws. That's so crazy. And so then if you file the case in federal court, at least in California, discovery, meaning the exchange of documents, doesn't begin until after an initial status conference takes place. And sometimes a

judge can set that initial status conference six months after you file your federal lawsuit. So you can be talking about a year, a year and a half before you're even able to get these documents and these records. Then you go in front of federal judges who then, we know this based on a lot of the federal judges who are appointed, don't like civil rights cases. They sympathize with the police departments regardless of the facts. And so they'll create a very shortened time period within which you can get the records, take the positions, and have to prepare for trial. Now, I've had cases too, Brett, where the judge limits your entire trial in a federal civil case to about 10 hours sometimes in these cases, total, of presenting evidence in a federal civil case.

I've had that experience happen to me a few times. And so you may not be able to even get these records for years, then have a short few month window to get the records. And then, boom, you're in trial. I mean, that's the system. So it's a long way to answer your question. But it takes a long time to get the body camera footage because the police department say ongoing investigation, you know, can't turn it over. That's just the way that it shows how the system's rigged to defend the police above all. And it's not it's not there to help the victims of these crimes. It's there to protect those in power.

It's there to protect the police departments at every which way. And the police departments are built to protect police departments. I mean, there's the whole notion of the thin blue line, which is, you know, we don't basically cross another police officer. If another police officer does something wrong, you're supposed to have that officer's back because we're one unit. And that to me is the biggest bullshit on the planet. If you have a bad apple, so to speak, in your bunch, you need to call that out or you're a part of the problem. You're complicit. You need to say that's not what this police department's about. You deserve to be

fired. You deserve to be charged for murder, for homicide. And you need to be speaking out loudly and clearly against this because all that's going to happen is this is going to continue to happen and happen every single day, every single week. We're going to be waking up to these shootings and it's just so mind numbing. But now thanks to body cams, thanks to all this footage, thanks to the internet, all these stories are actually getting out. All the stuff that black people have been saying for decades and decades and decades, we're now witnessing it firsthand. And it's horrific. It is horrific and it needs to stop.

And I'll say this. Yes, to some extent, we are seeing the dash cams and body cams. But as I just explained to you, the process within which how hard it is to get these body cams, if the family does not hire a lawyer or the right lawyer who is very sensitive to these issues, we don't know how many cases honestly are out there where the body cams weren't exposed or where we don't have the information. And so we don't know what we don't know. And here's one that we do know, though, that happened this weekend also on Sunday. DeJuante Wright, black man who was shot and killed during a traffic violation stop again. The information that we have today, the female officer who

was the shooter claimed that she believed that she had her taser in her hand and not her gun and thought she was tasing the individual and not shooting to kill him. You see the video, she goes something like, oh shit, that was the gun and shot and killed this black man. It was horrific. The video, the video was horrific. You have police being judge, jury, and executioner and creating the physical interactions that kill individuals in disproportionately black and brown Americans. Don't they, got pulled over. He called his mom. That was the first thing he did. He called his mom.

How crazy is that? That's the last conversation he had with another individual was his mom. Got pulled over, called his mom, let her know he was getting pulled over, shot, killed. Here's the thing. It's a very difficult conversation to have because for a lot of reasons,

but specifically, I am not in theory, I think the police, there's a value to police officers. I think police officers risk their lives and there's a lot of good that police officers can do and do do, but there are a lot of interactions that they shouldn't even be involved in to begin with. They very frequently are creating the physical altercation with people in the first instance that is then leading to the shooting and to the death. And then they cite doctrines like qualified immunity to claim that there should be no repercussions for their actions. And there is something to be said about, we have to look at where the education, the funding, the resources are being put into dealing with issues. Because dealing with traffic violations, dealing with mental health issues, dealing with personal

issues, dealing with a lot of these interactions, the default shouldn't be, we need to bring in individuals who are not appropriately trained in dealing with these interactions, who only know how to use weaponry when weaponry is not called for, and then don't know how to use the weaponry correctly. They don't know when to use a gun versus a taser. And that's very problematic. You don't know when you're holding a taser that it's not a gun. I mean, that's the craziest excuse to me ever, that you did not know as a cop, as someone who was trained, you did not know that what you were holding in your hand was a taser when you hit the trigger. It's the most insane thing ever. Well, we'll keep watching these

situations. We'll report back on later episodes of the Midas Touch podcast. We'll obviously keep following the trial and the murder of George Floyd. We'll keep you updated on that. Katie Fang did a great job discussing that and we'll keep at it. We'll keep holding powers accountable. One of the tweets that I saw this weekend that was just so powerful to me, it was someone who said, I'm an older man, I'm in my seventies and the fighting spirit that I used to have growing up in the sixties and seventies to see that again in three brothers and the community that you've helped create is so meaningful to me is what this reviewer and then a tweet along the same lines.

That was just really just warmed my heart to know that we're having that impact, that we're energizing. Please, Ben, on that note, I'd be remiss if we got to the end of this episode and we didn't talk about the fact that our supporters are starting to do meetups and they're starting to meet each other because people are getting vaccinated and now people could be with one another when they're vaccinated. So two of our supporters, you may know them as Midas CJ and Midas Kassan, actually got together and met up together in Orlando. I think it's like the coolest thing on the planet wearing their Midas touch gear. It made me smile from ear to ear. And I can't wait to have more meetups like that across the country. And I can't wait for us to be able to, now that the three of us are all in

varying levels of vaccination, to be able to go out there and meet all you guys out there. I mean, it's going to be a whole new, unique experience and I can't wait for it. Totally. And I'm so jealous because they had the inaugural Midas Touch meetup. They did. Midas CJ, Midas Kassan, inaugural Midas Touch meetup. They did. Midas CJ, Midas Kassan, inaugural Midas Touch meetup. I'm so jealous. But like Brett said, we'll be there soon. Yeah. And I look on a personal note, Brett and I are going to see each other this next weekend. We're seeing each other for the first time after a year. Wow. I've been practicing basketball. brett better be ready to be challenged to a

game to 11 by one i'm i've just been warning you brett will report back who wins the game i'm i got really good recently just want to throw that out there i might have to fly over there and play you yeah yeah yeah no i'm i'm playing good these days jordy i just want to let you know that okay and and then i want to also let everybody know that too, that is something we are working on, not just me being a good basketball player, but we're working on Midas Touch meetups. And so one of the things we're thinking about doing and we're in the development stages

is developing Midas Touch local and regional chapters across the country where once people are safely vaccinated and we can start having physical interactions again, which I hope can even start as early as the summer, we can have Midas Touch clubs across different states, across different regions, across different cities and towns, and have this really be run by you and have it become whatever you want it to be. I think it's important that it gives back to the community that we talk about celebrating democracy. But I think there's a ton of ways to do cool events at a very local level that helps and gives back to people where you can start your own Midas chapter and really start building these important

links that we need in our community to fight for our democracy. So let us know what you think about that idea. Tweet at us. If you want to start chapters, we'll start thinking about how we set that up. But we're excited about that. But with that note, we had a great episode today. Our last one was a little bit shorter, so we wanted to keep this one longer. I want to thank our guest, Katie Fang.

I want to thank Mark G. Mark Grundy. It was a very funny first interview. Enjoy that. And Jordy, I'll let you take it away. Shout out to the Midas Midas!