The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump and GOP FULLY EXPOSED and it’s UGLY

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

Welcome to The MeidasTouch Podcast, where we bring you the latest updates on American politics and beyond. In this episode, we discuss Donald Trump's unhinged Easter holiday posts, and how his popularity is plummeting according to a new poll. We also delve into Trump's attempts to stop Vice President Pence from testifying before a federal criminal grand jury, and the Texas governor's deranged push to pardon a convicted murderer. Plus, we examine the escalating attacks on Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg by House Republicans, and his powerful response to their obstruction. And finally, we explore the dangerous new ruling by an extremist judge that escalates the GOP’s war on women. Join us as we unpack these stories and more, and provide our take on what it all means for America's future. New full-length episodes of the MeidasTouch Podcast featuring the brothers are released every Tuesday & Friday morning. The rest of the week, enjoy our short-form breaking news updates. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to rate, review and subscribe. Deals From Our Sponsors: Lomi: Visit https://Lomi.com/MEIDAS and use code MEIDAS and checkout to save $50! AG1 by Athletic Greens: Visit https://athleticgreens.com/meidas and get a free year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs with your order. Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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charge bet mgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming ontario donald trump is clearly terrified about the various criminal investigation and the Manhattan District Attorney's criminal charges. He's lashing out at the different prosecutors in various unhinged, all capital letter social media posts. He did this on Easter. He did it earlier today and throughout the day. Let's just take a look as Trump completely crumbles for a moment. This as his poll numbers continue to take a nosedive where it really matters among independent voters and those who are not affiliated with political parties. Frankly, the entire Republican Party has become such an extremist Trump controlled cult that most Americans are looking at that entire

party with complete disgust and confusion. And look, Republicans are becoming a shrinking, shriveling little Trump cult. Isn't that just how you define Trump things? Anyway, Donald Trump has filed a motion to appeal a DC federal court's order compelling former Vice President Mike Pence to testify before the criminal grand jury where Jack Smith is preventing evidence. You'll recall last week that Pence stated that he was not going to file an appeal under the speech and debate clause. So Donald Trump went running into the court of appeals and said, no, do not let Pence testify. Executive privilege, executive privilege. Donald Trump has lost that executive privilege argument now probably like 100 times before the DC Circuit Court of Appeal.

So expect Donald Trump to lose that almost immediately. And speaking about losing it completely, the Republican Party is showing that it does not stand for law and order at all. It's the party of lawlessness and disorder. right? Like on the state level, let's take a look at MAGA Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, right? Who just said he's going to pardon a convicted murderer, right? Someone who was just convicted of murder, who killed a protester in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing. And then on the federal level, let's take a look at the MAGA House Republicans who are further interfering with the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's criminal case, right? They're saying that they're going to take their MAGA

Republican fascist circus tour on the road with a field trip to Manhattan where they want to hold a field visit. They want to do a hearing in Manhattan. That's going to backfire. And as we've talked about, red states have become these laboratories of autocracy. So let's just take a look in general at this race by red states to escalate their authoritarian and very dangerous measures. And some good news to report out of Tennessee. Expelled Tennessee Democrat Justin Jones was just reinstated to his seat in the Tennessee House by a unanimous vote in the Nashville Metropolitan Council. And the vote to reinstate Memphis Representative Justin Pearson is expected to be on Wednesday. Not only are the MAGA Republicans evil and fascist, they are stupid. And they just do not think these moves through

at all. This is the Midas Touch podcast, April 10th, 2023. I'm Ben Micellis, joined by Brett and Jordy Micellis. Are you going to start doing the dates now? I don't know. I just felt like saying the date. I don't know. For the audio listeners, April 11th, I don't want you to think like you're behind on anything, folks. And boy, do we got a great episode for you today. Another lesson, folks, in what we call here on the Midas Touch podcast, the Republican professional rake steppers. And I'm very proud of that term and I'm proud that I'm starting to see that term be used. I think I've started seeing now people on the cable network start referring to them as professional rake steppers. I'm seeing folks in the comments call

them professional rake steppers. And Ben, you're absolutely right. I mean, every time they try these fascist moves, I always think, oh man, we're so lucky that they are as stupid as they are evil because everything just keeps backfiring in their face. And every time they do these things, they make the pro-democracy movement that much stronger. That's what we see. The pro-democracy movement bites back with a vengeance. And that's what we are seeing over and over and over again. Jordy, how are you doing, man? I'm loving the yellow shirt today.

Pro-democracy movement. Thanks, man. Thank you. Bites back. That's a new one. I like that. Bites back. Love that. Brett, I got to address this. Why are you so red right now? Did you get sunburned? What's going on, man? I thought it would be a good idea to work out right before the podcast. Just for the marathon? And I did a very intense workout. But the crazy thing is I finished like about 25 minutes ago, yet like it just keeps pumping through my body.

Like this might be the whole episode. I figured give me a 20, 30 minute gap in between. I'll be fine. Nope. I'm like dripping wet right now. But it's okay. I'm, give me a 20, 30 minute gap in between. I'll be fine. Nope. I'm like dripping wet right now, but it's okay. I'm here for the people. My heart is pumping. My heart is racing.

You were inspired to work out. So over the weekend, Brent and I saw a movie together. We saw the movie. Well, you're not in California. So Brent and I saw the movie air about how Nike signed Michael Jordan and the Matt Damon character, who's like not that overweight. They kept on calling like, and so right after that, was that one of the inspirations to start hitting the gym? It was one of those. It was inspiration for me. I'm like, oh my God. That was definitely part of the inspiration. And then Ben and I were talking and Ben's been like going to the gym, doing intense

workouts every day. And I'm like, summer's coming up. I better make sure that I'm going 150%. But you know what, brothers? Those are like normal things, right? I want to wish everybody a happy Easter. I want to wish everybody a happy Passover. Like over this weekend, we went to the movies. We were with family. Our mom visited. It was great. We had

such a good time, enjoyed some great dinners, great conversation, watched some TV shows, watched Succession, normal things, normal family stuff. And then I go online, I turn on the TV, I see these Republicans and they're talking about woke beer and they're just spreading anger and all this toxic rhetoric. I'm just like, I don't understand how you wake up every day just so angry and just so pissed off at the world. These people, it's just not normal behavior. Doesn't everybody just want to go to work, not be bothered, hang out with their family,

get dinner, just not be bothered by people, not be intruded upon by the government, not be yelled at by, oh, you're being woke, you're being woke, they're woke, they're woke, woke, woke. It's like normalcy is what we need to come back to in this country. And we just have so many examples right now of the complete opposite because this Republican party is absolutely losing their mind. And every week I'm like, this has got to, I don't even convince myself of this anymore. But you think like, okay, how could it get any more deranged than this? How? How's that even possible? And they always accept the challenge glowingly and they go, I'll show you how it could get more deranged. And we'll go through some of those ways that they just got utterly, absolutely deranged

every single day, worse and worse. We'll go over that on this episode of the Midas Touch Podcast. Well, look, Brett, to your point, it's like I'm trying to just go on social media, maybe post some messages, happy Easter, happy Passover, maybe check, check some Instagram. By the way, we have a Midas touch Instagram account for those who want to follow us. Um, but, but also just search Midas touch, you know, just trying to connect with people. And then I, I look, I'm like, okay, well, what, what, what are these MAGA Republicans posting? Um, and their whole thing over this Easter weekend was boycott Bud Light, right? Because Bud Light hired a trans activist, Dylan Mulvaney, as one of its spokespeople. And that just threw MAGA Republicans, they hate that because they

hate the trans community. And it started off with Kid Rock, who took an AR and started shooting all of the Budweiser cans in his backyard. And then throughout, I'm not going to show you all these ridiculous videos, but then you have all of these MAGA Republicans just spending the weekend, not joking, taking assault weapons and shooting Budweiser beer cans. No, normal behavior. No, normal behavior. And this was like, so Dan Crenshaw, who claims to be like, he's like, well, yes, I may be a right winger, a very strong right winger, but I'm the normal one. Dan Crenshaw now tries to act like there's some normalcy there when there absolutely isn't. And by the way, Dan Crenshaw, who, by the way, fought bravely overseas in special forces.

Absolutely. And he deserves to get a ton of credit and to be praised for that. The MAGA Republicans hate Dan Crenshaw. And so whenever he goes to events, the way they mock him is by basically calling him John McCain. Because that's how deranged the MAGA Republicans are. It's even more disgusting than that. They call him Eyepatch McCain because he has one eye. That's MAGA. McCain isn't even the only insult. It's his disability. It's what happened to him while he was in war. That's what we're going to criticize him for. That's just to show you how low

that it is. And Dan Crenshaw is the guy who, like you said, like last year, maybe within the past year, Dan Crenshaw has been a guy who said, listen, Republicans, listen to me. There are grifters in our midst, in our own very party. You have all these performative lunatics like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. They do not have your interest at heart. And he tried to take the moral high ground here. Meanwhile, anytime that he puts out a video or does something, he mimics that exact same performative MAGA deranged behavior. So what are you doing, Dan Crenshaw? Are you going to speak out against this or are you going to become it? Because either way, those Republicans who you're trying to impress here,

they're making fun of you. They're calling you the most horrific names. They're mocking you for your military service. And so over the weekend, Dan Crenshaw joins the Bud Light bandwagon. He posts a video. He's got to get in on this grift. The Bud Light, Bud Light gone woke, woke beer, woke beer, woke beer. And he posts just the cringiest video ever. And like all these videos, all these tweets, if a friend of mine was doing it, I'd be

like, are you okay? Is everything okay? Are you all right? Did someone force you to post that? You okay? It's a little embarrassing. Like, is everything okay at home? Like you're doing, you're doing good. And this is the Dan Crenshaw video where he thought was hilarious. We'll play this right now. Saw Bud Light's stupid ad campaign. So guess what we're going to do? We're going to throw out every single Bud Light we've got in the fridge. All right. Well, I guess that was easy.

And did you notice too, though? I have so many observations. One, to your point, how cringy it is. It's like, I'm going to throw out this stupid, this stupid beer, you stupid beer can. How are you so stupid? Did you notice too that he was wearing, because they're all such phonies, he's wearing a shirt that's from Tufts University, Tufts Peer leadership, because they all went to good schools and they all just do this as a performance. He's wearing a Tufts student leadership shirt.

And Jordy, in honor of you wearing the basketball jersey, I want to give you a little bit of the Midas Touch basketball jersey. I want to give you you kind of an analogy. You know, like in a basketball game, like probably more when you're younger though and the opponent can't use both hands to dribble, like they only go right. They only have one move that there is. Like the thing about like this Dan Crenshaw and the MAGA Republicans in general, they only have one move, okay? They only they only have one move. They only go in the same direction. They only go far right. They go to the right. Exactly. Take the far right baseline. Exactly. They go to the far right baseline

to take the most impossible shot because they are following not the – they're not actually even looking at the court. They have no vision. They just basically see Donald Trump yelling at them. And so they're like, go in the corner, go in the corner, go in the corner, you idiot, go in the corner. I got to go to the corner. I got to go to the corner. So they go into the corner where they can't even make the shot. And they, again, it's always this one move that they make and it's, and it just, okay. And we've been covering it each and every week. It's like, okay, last week they were really angry at the Mario movie because Princess wasn't helpless enough. And then the week before it was the green M&M and the purple M&Ms and the this. And then the week before that it's the new Disney movie is way too woke, right? It's like, meanwhile, Democrats are like, okay, can we focus on jobs and

social security and Medicare and equality and infrastructure? Can we focus on real freaking issues? And the MAGA Republicans are like, no, Dr. Seuss. And not only that, but did you notice what beers were actually in Dan Crenshaw's fridge? They were all beers. Every beer in that fridge was a beer owned by Anheuser-Busch. Every one, all of them. So he's acting like, look, I'm boycotting Bud Light. Every beer that he had in that fridge was owned by the same company. He literally had Bush beer in there. He had like Carbock beer in there, which is owned by Anheuser-Busch. And they keep trying to find, I'm not going to support Bud Light, I'm going to support Coors. And you even saw Kid Rock at this UFC event that

Trump was inexplicably at over the weekend. He was wearing a Coors blazer to protest Bud Light. And Marjorie Taylor- The weirdest people. Marjorie Taylor Greene did a post the other day, like, I didn't realize, I'll read it. I would have bought the king of beers, but it changed its gender to the queen of beers. So it's made to chill from here on out. First of all, they're all just anti, even the women in the Republican Party are just anti-women. Just a weird thing to say. And then Marjorie Taylor Greene was quickly informed that Coors

also has a major LGBTQ initiative, donates a lot of money to LGBTQ causes, has LGBTQ themed cans. And so now all of them are in a tizzy. They're like, okay, what do I have to do? Maybe I'll do Corona. And then they find out that Corona also has an LGBTQ initiative and donates a lot of money to LGBTQ.

Okay, I got Jack Daniels, Jack Daniels. They find out that Jack Daniels has a whole drag initiative with RuPaul. Like what they don't realize is like, this has been going on for a very long time in corporate America, where corporate America takes stances on issues that overwhelmingly the American people care about, like equality, like diversity. This is not a radical thing in corporate America. And the Republicans have just discovered that this is a thing in 2023, even though it's been happening for decades and decades and decades at this point. They try to throw out like, oh, these companies, they're on board with the woke agenda. They like equal rights.

They like equal rights. They're following the woke, the woke, the woke. They're not following the woke agenda. They're following the money agenda. They're following the green agenda at the end of the day. These companies care about money. That's a good point. These companies care about money. That's all they care about at the end of the day. What they've decided, what they've figured out is, guess what? The MAGA is irrelevant to their bottom line.

They're totally irrelevant. They don't need the MAGA consumer. In fact, they probably don't even want the MAGA consumer to be seen with their products. They don't want these neo-Nazi white nationalist people drinking a Bud Light. They'd rather Dylan Mulvaney drink a Bud Light. They'd rather people who actually support diversity drink a Bud Light. And Dylan Mulvaney has something like on TikTok, like 11 million followers, which is like more than half of what Taylor Swift has on TikTok. They don't realize these are very influential voices out there. And Bud Light is reaching a far bigger market by marketing to people that are actually okay with diversity, which is, I thought,

something that we had settled in this country a while back. Now we have to refight these battles right now. But the whole thing is just so absurd. Such a great point, Brett. I want to make these two observations too. So going back to Dan Crenshaw really quickly, this isn't the first time he's done like one of these weird videos. Now, a lot of people here are going to forget. And Brett, I'm sorry, I didn't give this to you before, but I'll post it on our Twitter or something. Crenshaw made this like bizarre 007 trailer style video where he like pretended to be like a James Bond or Mission Impossible character, like literally killing people. Like it's the most bizarre thing ever. So to your point, he tries to play this down the line Republican, but he just falls into the same

stupidness of the entire party. And now it's very rare I get to talk about like something from my previous work life before we started Midas and everything we're doing. But from a marketing perspective, this is so infuriating to me because the whole Dylan stuff here, it's not even really a campaign centered around her. What this is, is it's a sponsored post. They gave her like a specific can to post with. And that's it. It's not like a whole robust campaign. So just even listening to these Republicans talk about what Bud Light's doing on this big campaign, it's one one-off post

that an influencer is doing to connect with the 11 million TikTok followers that you have. I like the move of them buying thousands of dollars worth of Bud Light to run over it with trucks and things. You really showed them. That's a good point. It's a sponsored post. And also the way advertising works now is a lot of these posts are targeted towards certain groups and certain demographics. And that's how our targeted advertising works. And then they have certain influencers who they target at a certain group and certain influencers who they target at another group. And one of my joys yesterday was a little bit of trolling. I've got to admit it. But going through companies who would be traditionally seen as kind

of right-wing companies and finding their LGBTQ initiatives and congratulating them for their Yeah, you were on a hunt yesterday. It was so easy to find. It's so easy because every company has one. So like I posted on the Midas Touch Twitter account, NASCAR has like a huge LGBTQ initiative. We're posting the image here. I am courageous. I am driven. I am inclusive.

I am NASCAR. And NASCAR is in the color of the rainbow. And then they additionally, they have a post on their Twitter account that they call YASCAR and hashtag Pride Month that they did. And they had special Pride-themed shirts for Pride Month for NASCAR. And I posted this yesterday. And the right-wing reaction, they were like, what? They took NASCAR now too? They took that? This is an old campaign. All of a sudden they decided that... Remember how for all these years they kept going,

Democrats, they just want a virtue signal. They don't actually care about diversity. They just want a virtue signal. So Republicans took it and they're like, we got a vice signal. We got to show how much we just hate people. All groups, if you're not white, we just got to show, we just got to say, yeah, we hate you. We hate you. It's like a weird initiative. Even Fox News has LGBTQ plus policies, like positive ad campaigns about the LGBTQ community. So I guess they can't watch TV, they can't drink beer, they can't ride cars, they can't drink whiskey, they can't go to the supermarket. You just sit in your house then, okay? You lost the culture war. I hate to break

it to you. That's why you're freaking out. You lost, we all moved on. Americans actually care. Americans actually like diversity. Americans actually like each other and want to just be normal human beings and not run over cans of Bud Light with their trucks. So two things, Jordy, going back to my past life before Midas, do you recall when the Colin Kaepernick campaign with Nike came out? A lot of these things, they kind of tested on Kaepernick first, which I was involved in that. So when Nike announced its campaign with Colin, believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything, remember they burned the Nike socks. And then what happened, $6 billion was added to Nike's market cap as a result of the Colin Kaepernick campaign. So that showed right there, to me that when they start

burning the socks, how that completely backfires. And then one other thing that you just reminded me of, Brett, where the MAGA Republicans want to like litigate these issues that we addressed as a country, like in the 60s and the 70s about equality. You equality. I was teaching today at the law school where I teach. I was teaching about Title IX, which is to prevent gender discrimination in universities and colleges and high schools on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I was speaking to the class. I was like, so do you think that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Title IX, which precludes gender discrimination, do you think these could ever be passed today? Then I went through the various Supreme Court decisions from 1972 to the present that involved Title IX litigation, which pretty much expanded the rights of people over time and recognized additional rights and private causes of action and recognized more and more

and more inclusivity and just overall expanding the rights of people. And I said, truthfully, if like this case from 1999, which was a five to four decision, five to four in favor of providing rights to people who suffered forms of harassment, which was determined to be a form of gender discrimination. I said, that would be a six to three decision against protecting someone who was the subject of ongoing harassment. And I said, I don't think Congress would ever even pass the Civil Rights Act or pass Title IX today. So I just wanted to get... I was having a whole conversation with my class about... Ben, first of all, I didn't realize they allow all these woke professors at USC who...

I'm a very woke professor. Who would have thought totally woke professor. Super woke professor, Ben. But secondly, I think this new poll from USA Today kind of says it all. In the midst of all this, this poll just came out, USA Today poll, that said support for LGBTQ rights is now higher than ever across the American public. Now, there's one caveat here. The gap widened between Democrats and Republicans. So nearly every Democrat is for LGBTQ rights, but fewer Republicans now are for those rights. So it shows you, once again, what does that widening gap show us? To me, it shows us that a majority of Americans are supportive of diversity,

are supportive of equality, are supportive of these pro-democracy, and in this case, democratic positions here. Now, what also shows me is that the Republicans are becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of that overall electorate. And you've got to be sure that these massive corporations like Bud Light and like Jack Daniels or whatever, they see the same data when they do testing and stuff. And they see that these MAGA people who are really loud on the internet and complain and have all these, you know, just whine and moan about every little thing that's out there. Like they're just a very shrinking part of the population. Like you said, Ben, shrinking is the MAGA Trump word of the day, I think here. And you just see them shrinking and shrinking and becoming more irrelevant. But as they become more irrelevant and as they see the future slip away from them, quite frankly, they've already lost the future. I mean, just

look at Gen Z, look at millennials. The future's over for these Republicans. So they got to double down on these strategies to just be as loud as possible, to try to appease their most fascist tendencies that they've always really had, but never really unleashed on the American public. But now they're like, we have no other choice. We're going to lose power. We better expel democratic lawmakers. We better start allowing murderers back on the street. It's all a reaction to this changing cultural landscape that they just can't control and they've already lost the battle. So they're trying to do everything possible that they can right now to retain whatever power that they can. So, because I give you this example.

So to all the people who are listening and watching this, like what did you do for Easter weekend on Easter Sunday? What did you do for Passover? If you don't celebrate any of those holidays, just what'd you do in the weekend? What do you do in the weekend in general, right? Did you see a movie? Did you read a book? Did you go to the park? Did you try to do something that's fulfilling to you? Did you try to have a hobby says, today we remember Jesus' sacrifice and recommit ourselves to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves, embracing his call to treat one another with compassion. Another tweet from Biden on Easter saying, from the Bidens to you,

we wish all those celebrating a joyous and peaceful Easter Sunday. Very normal stuff. Let's see, what did Donald Trump post? How about World War III, World War III, World War III. I mean, this was Trump's post on his social media platform. This is just what he posted. He posts World War III. That is Trump's post on Easter. Happy Easter. But he did mention something about Easter. All caps, like a completely deranged lunatic that he is. He goes, happy Easter to all, including those that dream endlessly of destroying our country because they are incapable of dreaming about anything else. Those that are so incompetent, Happy Easter to all, including those that dream endlessly of destroying our country

because they are incapable of dreaming about anything else. Those that are so incompetent, they don't realize that having a border and powerful wall is a good thing. And having voter ID, all paper ballots in same day, voting will quickly end massive voter fraud. And to all of those weak and pathetic rhinos, radical left Democrats, socialists, Marxists, and communists who are killing our nation. Remember, we will be back. And the next post actually was World War III.

Imagine your friend wrote that. Imagine your friend on Easter posted that on their Instagram page, on their Facebook, on their Twitter. Would you check in on them? I think you would. I think you'd be like, this is a derain. They're really going off the deep end here. This guy had the nuclear codes. Republicans think he deserves them again. Just think about that. They look at that and they go, that's our guy. That is the guy who we want to make the life and death decisions over our family members. That is the person who we will trust the lives and the health and safety of our children, our family, our friends, our neighbors, our community, our country, our world. And this is why though we show you these posts. I know the large media

networks, they don't like to show this, but when he does give these speeches, then they go, oh, look, he's on Trump Force One, and he gave a very common and very, very, very reserved speech. Like, no, he didn't. So enough with this large media network, complete BS when they claim they don't cover him. You should cover him. You should just cover him the right way. And the right way is to point that out and not normalize it and say he is completely and utterly deranged, that that is a maniac, that he posts these things each and every day, and that this is someone who, if they are put anywhere near the proximity of power,

may kill you, may kill your family. And that's not hyperbolic. And I want to show you one of these other posts too, where I don't know if you caught this over the weekend. He's now saying that Ron DeSantis is a Soros-backed governor. I mean, I want to show you that and I'll show you some more, but let's just take one quick break. And now let's take a quick break to talk about our next partner, Lomi. Now I've never been able to compost before. It was always too complicated, too much work. And frankly, I don't

think I even knew exactly if I was doing it right. Then I got a Lomi. Lomi allows me to turn my food scraps into dirt with just the push of a button. Lomi is a countertop electric composter that turns scraps to dirt in under four hours. There's no smell when it runs, and it's really quiet. Thanks to Lomi, I have way less garbage each week. My family, we're down from three bags per week to just one. And here's something pretty cool. My wife, she recently started gardening, and we've been able to use the dirt that Lomi produces to help fill the garden.

And since I got my Lomi, I throw out way less garbage. That means it's not going to landfills and producing methane. Instead, I turn my waste into nutrient rich dirt that I can feed to my plants. I feel so great knowing that I'm composting and creating soil instead of waste. And I have basically a limitless supply of dirt for my garden. The other week I had my in-laws over for dinner and the food cleanup process was such a breeze. Plus they all think I'm super eco-conscious now. If you want to start making a positive environmental impact or just make cleanup after dinner that much easier, Lomi is perfect for you. Head to lomi.com slash Midas and use the promo code Midas to get $50 off your Lomi.

That's $50 off when you head to L-O-M-I dot com slash Midas and use promo code Midas at checkout. Food waste is gross. Let Lomi save you a cold trip out to the garbage can. Lock him up. Indictment season is upon us. Celebrate with the new indictment season t-shirt and v-neck exclusively at store.mid him up. Indictment season is upon us. Celebrate with the new indictment season t-shirt and v-neck exclusively at store.midastouch.com. Every time you do that ad read, Jordy, it just puts a lock him up. Lock him up. Really practice like that, by the way,

like my 30th recording. I nailed that one. Like it took me, it took me an hour to get those three lines. I kid you not. I'm not even exaggerating. I think you did a, I think you did a completely great job. A hundred percent. And Jordy, I found your tweet, by the way, of Dan Crenshaw from like this from what, 2021 of you talking about Dan Crenshaw. It's the same conversation. Yeah. This is from December 8th, 2021. I tweeted out Dan Crenshaw. The Republican Party has too many performance artists and not enough serious people like me. Also Dan Crenshaw, the video of him jumping out of a plane pretending to be a Mission Impossible character. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. Yeah, there are no moderate Republicans at this point.

Speaking of you can't make this stuff up, going back to the post, this is where he calls Ron DeSantis. He posts a meme that says, Ron be gone. Who supports Ron DeSantis? George Soros. So it's just like an anti-Sem. And here's the thing with the people like Ron DeSantis, and this is why the old adage, first they came for this group and I thought I was safe because I wasn't that group. Then they came for this group and I thought I I was safe because I wasn't that group. Then after they came for all of those groups, then they came for me. Ron DeSantis is the purveyor of the George Soros anti-Semitic trope. Ron DeSantis, after Donald Trump was criminally charged, gave the speech and said, it's just because of this Manhattan George Soros-backed district attorney, which is, again, completely and totally false. Alvin Bragg doesn't even know

Soros at all. Soros never donated money to him. It's just a total and utter lie. But DeSantis was peddling that disinformation, and now it's weaponized against DeSantis by Donald Trump. Oh, you're backed by Soros now. Because DeSantis is someone who legitimizes that type of complete false conspiracy, it's then weaponized against him and he just takes it. He doesn't do anything. Then one more post I want to show you that he made. And then let's talk about Trump's appeal of the order compelling Pence to testify before the grand jury. Then let's get into what's going on in Texas and what's going on in the House of Representatives with these MAGA Republican fascists.

Here's one of the posts where Trump, in all caps, goes, the only reason I have these absolutely ridiculous investigations against me, headed by racists, lunatics, and radical left maniacs, is for purposes of election interference. It will be harder for the Democrats to cheat like they did in 2020. So they are going right to the old Soviet Union playbook and using the DOJ, FBI, and others in, quote, justice to interfere in our once sacred elections. We've got to swamp these cheaters and we will win. And because he knows he's going to lose and because the MAGA movement is just built on victimhood, he's already setting up his next conspiracy theory when he loses. I was going to win, but it was these racist prosecutors. And he only calls the black

prosecutors racist against him, which is also part of his racism because it's all complete projection. But it's just part of the MAGA. They're victims, perpetual victims over and over again. And he's just setting up the excuse when he loses. And by the way, with all this, at this point, I think every single day, I think it gets more and more unlikely that somebody like Ron DeSantis even attempts to run for president, runs for the nomination. Good point. Like you see even right now, you saw today, you saw Trump make a push about DeSantis. And I know we said we're moving on from these, but I'll just do this one where he said, Ron DeSantis is a young man who is not doing well against me in the polls.

To put it mildly, I believe that if he decides to run for president, which will only hurt and somewhat divide the Republican Party, he will lose the cherished and massive MAGA vote and never be able to successfully run for office again. If he remains governor, which is what Florida voters assumed. It would be a whole different story. Just saying, but who knows? That's a real tweet by Trump. But honestly, I think DeSantis is probably seeing all this. I mean, there are a lot of polls coming out now, and we've been saying this for, what, months? We were like- I told you he was going to lose Florida. Yeah, like he's going to lose Florida. 100%. DeSantis will lose Florida. Now, nearly all the polls that come out that do the state-by-state polls between DeSantis

and Trump have DeSantis losing Florida. And I think that gap is only going to widen. And I think at a certain point, I think DeSantis really does want to run very badly. I think he intends to run. But I think at a certain point, he's going to be presented with the data. And the data is going to tell him, you're going to lose your own state. You can't recover from that, man. Honestly, Trump is right in that pose. You can't recover from losing your own state. That's humiliating. And I think DeSantis might go, you know what? I'll try for 2028 or hopefully,

I don't know, the guy's in prison or something and has to drop out. I don't know what's going to happen. But I think he's going to be scared off also because he's a coward who doesn't want to take on MAGA, doesn't want to take on Donald Trump because he needs them. This whole party has anchored themselves to this guy and now they're paying the price for it. Ben, let's- It's identical. That's what I said. Because people would say, hey, what do you think? DeSantis, Trump, what's going to happen? I go, oh, in the Republican party? I go, Trump's going to win every state. I said, it's not a close call. And I said, if you go back and watch the other episode, I said, Trump's going to win Florida against DeSantis easily. And people were like, oh, well, why do you say that? I go, the same reason Kim Jong-un wins in North Korea. I said, it's a cult. You can't have the lieutenant beat the cult leader when your whole party, their platform in the 2020 election was we hear – this is not me making this up. Their platform was we hereby revoke our platform and we defer to whatever Donald Trump says. They removed their platform from the Republican National Convention.

They took out their platform totally. Then in the Republican National Convention, what do you have? All of the headliners are Donald Trump and his children? What world are we living in? It's him and his family members and his children who all headline the main day. And by the way, they do it at the White House, which is a clear violation of law as well. And so you have that to kind of add to it. But I said, no, Kim Jong-un doesn't lose an election. Vladimir Putin doesn't lose an election. And here's the thing, pro-democracy community,

and this is as we talk more later in this episode about these laboratories of autocracy, what the MAGA Republicans want to do because they are getting crushed in the polls of where America actually is right now, they want to try through authoritarian means to basically suppress the vote, gerrymander the heck out of the country. They already tried doing all these things, engage in all of the tactics, the false propaganda, all of the stuff. So even though that their policies are disfavored, that they can through cheating basically and through actually rigging these elections that they could try to stay in power. And here's the simple example that I give. If you were to have the current Supreme Court

run for a nationwide election, the entire country got to vote on who would be a Supreme Court justice. I said, I guarantee you it would be a court that would vote 9-0 on issues like common sense gun reform, on issues like a woman's right to control her body, on issues like protecting unions, on issues like preserving and protecting the Affordable Care Act, on all of these issues that the modern day Supreme Court, the 6-3, Americans don't support those policies. I was having a conversation with someone from Canada the other day about our system. And I said, you know what? Because in Canada, they probably have, and I'm sure the Canadian viewers may or may not agree with this, but my really close Canadian friend

confirmed, their MAGA community is probably maybe 10% to 15% of the country, maybe slightly more, but they're right around that. I was telling, I said, the reality is that our MAGA community here is probably 10% more, maybe 15% more than you have in Canada. But still the overwhelming majority of people here are compassionate, decent, support equality, support LGBTQ plus rights, support common sense gun reform. We are not the laws that you see being implemented here. I just said our system of the electoral college, our system of gerrymandering, our system of how voting takes place here creates these incongruous results

that are very different. But it's not like America is with this craziness. There's a portion of it, but it's not even close to the majority. And that's what we have to keep on reminding ourselves. And we could get exhausted sometimes because this is exhausting, but we can't let our exhaustion allow them to take over. Yeah. And you put any of these issues on the ballot, really just about every century, right? I did like that. We are not the laws you see being implemented here is a very powerful takeaway from this episode. It is true. And I'm going to pivot what I was just going to say because I was on TikTok over the past few days. I was just spending some time

scrolling through the TikTok feed. And there's a trend going on that actually really upset me because it's a woman who asks the question, she goes, to all my friends out of the country, to all the TikTokers out of the country, would you come to America? And it's all the people responding to her query. And all the answers are really sad. People from the UK, people from Australia, people from Africa, people from Asia, people from all over the world chiming in on this saying, absolutely not. America's a scary country right now. I'm scared of being shot. My country has warned us from going there. My country has warned us that as an LGBTQ

person, it is unsafe for me to go there. And I think it's just such a sad thing to have happened to this country where America used to be like... When I studied abroad in college, even when I thought that things were a little rocky here at times, everybody who I spoke to was like, it's my dream to go to America one day. It's my dream to go to New York. I really want to go to New York. I really want to go to California. I really want to go to, you name it. And now to see those people who probably in the past looked at America as a beacon of hope, as a place of, this is a place where dreams come true. This is a go-getter kind of place that has diversity and beautiful sights and attractions and a beautiful country and warm, friendly people. Now they look at our country and they go like, it's way too dangerous. It's way too

scary. It's undemocratic. They view us like the way we would view traveling to Russia. And I think that's just a really sad indictment of the current state of the country because of the direction that these Republicans are pushing us in. But I do urge our international audience, because we certainly do have an international audience, that it is this small percentage of people and they are loud and they are angry, but that's not who America is. An overwhelming majority of the people in this country are really good people. And the country is a beautiful country, but it just upset me. And Brett, remember over the weekend, one of the things that struck me as I was watching

some of these clips of these MAGA Republicans saying, New York City is disgusting. California is a shithole. It's disgusting. These are beautiful places. It's like, no, it's not. I was telling you, I was like, you know what, Brett? Sorry, Jordy. I was telling this to Brett when we were in person. You guys go to movies together. You guys have separate conversations without me. I never have a conversation without both of you. So that one works. You and I talked this morning without Brett. Move to California, you'll have some more opportunities.

One of the tactics though that Kim Jong-un says about South Korea or says about America, right, is it's just a shithole there, or you don't want to go to South Korea as their own people suffer in North Korea, right? They're saying, once you go to South Korea, it's the worst. Once you go to America, it's a shit hole over there. Meanwhile, they're starving their people. And it's actually not too dissimilar. If you look at red states, like the life expectancy, you're talking about like 66 years. And you compare that to the life expectancy in blue states and it's like mid 80s. And that's a big gap overwhelmingly between the red states and blue states there. And so as the red states try to demean and demean and demean blue states, it's very reminiscent of the tactics. All of that

stuff comes from that authoritarian playbook. And that reminds me of, right, you have the House Republicans announcing Jim Jordan from the Judiciary Committee. I always want to mention this, that the MAGA Republicans picked an unlicensed lawyer to run the Judiciary Committee, right? You could pick anybody to run the committee that deals with judiciary, and you pick the person who doesn't have a license as a lawyer who never took the bar exam. I think that just bears repeating. But they want to, they announced that they're holding a field trip and that they will be going to New York because they want to do a whole field trip committee hearing on how

dangerous New York is and how all of the crime in New York and how violent crime has increased. One, get the heck out of New York. Why are you showing up to New York? Focus on your own communities and focus on your own constituents. But like in those areas, Jim Jordan's area and other areas like even where Kevin McCarthy is from Bakersfield, Killing County, which I did a documentary on in Hulu. When you focus on these areas, you're talking about far more violent crime per capita. Like it's not even close, Brett, like three, four, five times the amount of violent crime in these red states than in New York City.

New York City right now, and this was a statement in response that Alvin Bragg gave. Alvin Bragg said, don't be fooled. The House GOP is coming to the safest big city in America for a political stunt. This hearing won't engage in actual efforts to increase public safety, such as supporting national gun legislation or shutting down the iron pipeline. The Manhattan DA's office welcomes public safety conversations. We have them every day with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners. In fact, we'll start. Just released NYPD data shows shootings and homicides are down in New York City for the

first quarter of the year, with progress in Manhattan helping to drive the overall citywide decrease. Virtually every major crime category is lower in Manhattan right now than it was last year as of April 2nd, 2023. Murders are down 14%. Shootings are down 17%. Burglaries are down 21%. And robberies are down 8%. In District Attorney Bragg's first year in office, New York City had one of the lowest murder rates of major cities in the United States, nearly three times lower than Columbus, Ohio. And let me put a pin in that for one second, because Jim Jordan actually represents parts of Columbus, Ohio. So New York has a three times lower murder rate than Columbus, Ohio, if chairman

Jordan truly cared about public safety, he could take a short drive to Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Akron, or Toledo in his home state, instead of using taxpayer dollars to travel hundreds of miles out of his way. And that was written from a spokesperson and Alvin Bragg, whenever he does these responses to these Republicans, to the House Judiciary Committee, he posts them as quote tweets above the tweet of the House Judiciary Committee, because that's how these Republicans communicate. They're just perpetually aggrieved and perpetually on Twitter and on the internet. So Bragg has to respond accordingly and reply to them on Twitter. And it's a good

point that Bragg makes. I mean, that's a powerful response. And it just shows you how BS all these investigations are. At the end of the day, all they want to do is obstruct the investigation in what I consider to be an absolutely criminal way, what Jim Jordan is doing. It is an incredible waste of money. It is an incredible waste of resources. And here's another town that Jim Jordan represents. Here's Jim Jordan's district of, I think it's called Lima, excuse me if I'm getting it wrong, from Ohio. That's it. That's it. A wage, baby. crime rates in America compared to all communities in all sizes, from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One's chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 26. So that's Jim Jordan's district, which is far higher than New York City. And so it shows you it's all disingenuous. It's all projection. And it's very like when Trump

and his tweet that you read before Ben said, it's Soviet style this, that, that. No, actually, the Republicans are engaging in Soviet style everything. Soviet style prosecution, Soviet style propaganda. This is the kind of stuff you saw in Soviet Russia. This is the kind of stuff you see in Putin's Russia. This is the kind of stuff you see in North Korea, frankly. This is the kind of stuff you saw in Nazi Germany. It is just absolute disgusting propaganda. And they are using the resources, the pocketbook of the United States taxpayer in order to put forth these ridiculous, ridiculous, phony investigations to do what? Not to help the American people, but to protect Donald Trump. That's really what they're doing. They want to protect Donald. That's why? To protect their little dear leader? It's absurd. Well, you know why they want to come to New York.

And I'm not going to say the technical name for how we coined this phrase, but they saw all the love that Marjorie Taylor Greene got when she stood in New York for five minutes and then flew to Florida. And that's what they want. They just want the cameras. They want people booing them so they could take that home to their district and say, look at these New Yorkers who are out of control, yada, yada, yada, and just paint this picture like New York. They want to get their own soundbite, their own Marjorie Taylor Greene, New York moment, their New York minute, if you will, and take it back with them to their district. And's just so... They're tying themselves to Donald Trump. We all know that. That's their plan. Donald Trump is one of the most unpopular people ever to ever exist in the United States of America.

Hit the polls. Hit the polls. Hit the polls. I'm hitting the polls because... Hit the polls. Hit the polls. I'm hitting the polls because- Hit the polls. And this is why I was so annoyed by the coverage in the past three weeks. It was like, this indictment actually might help Donald Trump. When Donald Trump gets arrested, it's going to help him so much. People love a guy who's arrested. I'm like, what did you do? Drives me crazy. I'm like, what is, find me, I'm like, what did I say like a week or two ago? I said, find me one independent voter or democratic voter. Find me one. I'm not talking about a MAGA cultist. Okay. But find me one genuine independent voter that goes, you know, I wasn't going to vote for Donald Trump. But then he got arrested. You know what? He had sex with a porn star who he calls Horseface and he falsified business records about it

as part of a bigger catch and kill scheme with the National Choir to pay off other people he had sex with. Yeah, I think I'm going to have to give him the nuclear codes. You know what? You know what? I wasn't quite sure before, but- I was on the fence. That's my guy. That's my guy. I was on the fence there. And that was a legitimate narrative that the media was trying to push on people. And I was like,

find me one of those people. And thankfully now there is some data to back up my moaning and ranting and raving on my end. But I implore our audience, Brett, to that point too, because you still hear it. Oh, Donald Trump has raised millions. And first off, he hasn't really disclosed any of it, although he says it's coming from new donors, but neither here nor there. The guy was going to raise money regardless. Tell that person they're being silly and that he was going to do that regardless. He's going, oh, this locked up the nomination for Trump for the Republican Party.

Stop it. We just addressed this earlier in the podcast. You're being silly. He was already going to do that. Just stop it. And guess what? We should revel at the fact. We should enjoy the fact.

If this genuinely solidifies support behind Donald Trump, good. Please. Because this is the guy who they're anchoring themselves to right now, okay? Trump's approval since the arrest alone, since Donald Trump was indicted, has collapsed from 29% to 25% in just one week after the indictment, completely collapsing amongst independents. And not only that, but this ABC episodes poll also found a new level of Trump dislike. He's got a 61% unfavorable rating with only a 25% favorable rating. That's even below that kind of floor of that 29% MAGA floor. That's even now eating into that MAGA floor, which is kind of held firm

at that sort of 29, 30%. And this is the independent shift right here. The week before the indictment, 40% of independents were in favor of the indictment. But as soon as the indictment happened, 54%, 54% of independents said they were in favor of it, a 14% swing in favor of the indictment. And that's going to keep increasing, by the way. As you see Donald Trump get indicted by Jack Smith, as you see Donald Trump get indicted in Georgia, you're going to continue to see Donald Trump get crushed with those numbers. At the same time, yes, you will probably see Donald Trump take even more of a stronghold of the same time, yes, you will probably see Donald Trump take even more of a stronghold of the Republican nomination, which I already think at this point

in time is a lock. But guess what? That's a death sentence for the Republican Party and their chances in 2024. And everything that they're doing right now to back Donald Trump at every single turn, to weaponize the federal government, to attack prosecutors who are doing their jobs, it's all going to backfire on them. Because as we say, professional rake steppers, and they're going every day right now, they are setting up the world's biggest rake, like the Guinness Book of World Records sized rake. And come 2024, they are going to step on that rake and it's going to smack them so hard in the face, they're not going to know what hit them. And I would call it that Easter

Sunday or the holiday weekend test, right? The end of the day, what do Americans want? What do Americans focused on, right? Whether you celebrate a holiday or not, you just want to spend time with your family. You want normalcy. You want humanity. You want compassion. That's not leftist extremism. That's not Marxism. And Americans are like, look, what are you doing? Can you please stop posting freaking World War III? Can you please stop in all capital letters talking about how you make the most perfect phone calls in the world when you call and extort people? Like, can you please just be normal? And can you please go away? And can you please stop this weirdo cult worship of this person?

That's my holiday weekend test. There's the 3 a.m. test too, which is when you get that phone call and you need someone to make a split second decision. Obviously, you would never want nuclear weapons to be anywhere near this maniac, but also just like he's so disconnected and untethered from reality. Just one of the further points to prove how untethered he is from reality, he has now lost... I'm going to turn it legal for a second. Yeah, that's a trick. Whoa.

He's now lost in front of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals on this executive privilege argument. It may be 100, may be an exaggeration, but he's frivolously asserted executive privilege over the communications between himself and his advisors over and over again. He first did it, go back to our hot takes over the summer when it came to his former top White House lawyers like Patrick Philbin, Pence's former top advisors like Mark Short and Greg Jacob, and Trump's former top lawyer, Pat Cipollone. So here's the thing about the Department of Justice when they get these wins. This is a frustrating part about the legal process in general though. The win of compelling Pence to testify where Pence has no way really to appeal it and that's why Pence doesn't file the appeal because he knows he's going to lose in front of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, that isn't built overnight. I wish it was, but you got to go back

eight months and look at the fights that the Department of Justice were fighting then, eight months, nine months ago, and fighting Donald Trump's frivolous assertion of executive privilege where Trump argued, look, my communications that I had while I were in office, they are confidential and Biden didn't assert executive privilege. And consistently, the court says, it's not your privilege, Donald Trump. It's the current executive branch's privilege. There is a narrow line of cases that says a former president may be able to assert executive privilege in an interbranch dispute, although that case law really hasn't been developed.

But a former president can't assert it where the current executive is not asserting it. And anyway, even if it was validly asserted, it can be overcome if there's a demonstration of a compelling interest. And of course, there's a compelling interest in the criminal investigation to get this information of Pence. So you'll recall that Pence is, the objection that Pence made was a ridiculous one. Pence is like, I'm a senator. That's what Pence said. Basically, treat me because I have a ceremonial role as president of the Senate. The speech or debate clause which immunizes legitimate

legislative activity, that should immunize me from ever having to give testimony in front of the grand jury. The court was like, no, look, the court said, and it was Jeb Bozeman, the new chief judge of the DC circuit said, look, when you're in your ceremonial role, fine. For that limited moment where you're counting the electoral votes, fine. We'll treat you like a senator. You happy? But for all of the other times, for all of the other times that you've had communications before, leading up to the insurrection, when Donald Trump threatened you, and after, really all the key stuff that we want. I mean, it's not exactly massive revelations of what

Pence said while he counted the electoral votes. We know that. For all those other moments, you have to testify, Pence. And Pence knew he was going to lose. So Pence is like, whatever. I at least showed the base that I was trying to object to it. I'm going to testify. But then what Donald Trump, Donald Trump's not asserting speech or debate clause immunity. Donald Trump's claim was executive privilege, that he's lost over and over and over again. So today, Donald Trump filed an appeal asserting executive privilege and asking the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to rule against what their precedent has been over and over and over again. And to anybody out there though who was like, look, this Department of Justice investigation

has gone way too slow, I sympathize with that position, but I'll ask you this question. Would you have wanted this to go to trial against Donald Trump without Pence as a witness, without Pat Cipollone as a witness, without Patrick Philbin as a witness, without Mark Meadows as a witness, without Stephen Miller as a witness, without Dan Scavino as a witness, without Mark Short as a witness, without Greg Jacob as a witness, without Robert O'Brien as a witness, without Ken Cuccinelli as a witness. If you filed that case earlier and didn't go through these steps to compel all of them and establish this precedent, even if you didn't have Pence, would you want to go to trial without Pence's testimony? Or would you want to go to trial without Pence's testimony?

Or would you want to go to trial as frustrating as it's been to go through this process to make sure you have all of the right witnesses there? And unfortunately, the process moves slow. That's our legal system, unfortunately. But I can assure you as someone who practices in that legal system each and every day that, honestly, the DOJ is moving as quick as it really can in a case like this, and frankly, quicker than I've seen other cases against very wealthy people who have means who are able to delay it more than is being delayed here. And so that's just my overall argument whenever I hear that, I'm sympathetic to it because it is outrageous and ridiculous. But our system is a flawed system,

our judicial system, like it is. And it's not a great system. It's just the best system that's ever existed in the history of, you know, to date so far. And, is a system that's been utilized in other countries and other areas. And it's a system of flawed, but imperfect, but that's our system. And so anyway, the short of it is Trump is going to lose, I guarantee you. Trump will not win this motion and Pence will be testifying very soon in front of the grand jury within weeks. We still have a lot more to talk about here on the Midas Touch podcast. I want to hear this good news out of Tennessee, Brett, and you got to explain to all of our listeners and viewers what went down in Texas with Greg Abbott pardoning the murderer

who was just convicted of killing one of the protesters who was protesting after George Floyd was murdered and said that he was going to pardon this person. It is beyond dystopian. We'll talk about that right after this break. Our next partner is AG1 by Athletic Greens. Now, I take AG1 by Athletic Greens literally every day. I gave AG1 a try because I wanted better gut health, boosted energy, immune system support, and I hated taking pills and vitamins and wanted a supplement that actually tastes great. I take AG1 in the morning before working out, and it makes me feel incredible and just ready to take on my day. When I take AG1, I know I'm doing something good for my body,

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out. We are back here live on the Midas Touch podcast. How woke are, I'm feeling super woke tonight. Are you feeling woke? I'm feeling as woke as can be. Woke AF, that's for sure. Woke, woke, woke, woke. Brett, what's going on in Texas? I mean, I'm hearing that Greg Abbott, the MAGA Republican fascist governor, has announced that he is going to pardon this murderer who was just convicted of murder. And it's so dystopian too, because the person that, and you'll tell the story, but the murderer basically were sending all these messages before the protest, right? Like, I am going to kill these protesters. So basically, he found a protester who was open carrying, and by the way, do I think that there should be people open carrying, you know, like AK-47 style weapons? I don't think that that's the law in Texas. So one of the protesters had the gun, basically started a fight with the guy and then just

shot and killed him right away and said, that person carrying the AK-47 scared me subjectively, so I had to stand my ground. So basically they're using open carry and stand your ground as kind of creating this wild wild west where basically someone is open carrying, someone else is open carrying, and then someone goes, I got to stand my ground. You're scaring me with your gun. And that's what's going like, and here's ultimately judge, jury, and executioner, guess what? Is not actually the jury. It is the governor like Greg Abbott who goes, if you are supporting protesters

who are protesting the death of George Floyd and you get killed, you don't get justice. If you murder them, I side with you. So it really is a license to kill if you support the MAGA Republican policies. Yeah. It's a complete abuse of power. And when we speak about these Republican states, as David Pepper calls it, being laboratories of autocracy, I mean, this is the epitome of laboratories of autocracy here in Texas. And it's also the epitome of the Republican Party being a lawless party full of criminals, being a party that is, frankly, pro-crime. And in the background, while you have

all these House Republicans going, Democratic prosecutorial overreach and weaponization of the government and Democrats, weak prosecutors and weak district attorneys, they're letting these criminals back out onto the streets. Once again, it's more projection from the Republican Party, who in this case is literally letting a convicted murderer back onto the streets. So the guy's name, the murderer's name is Daniel Perry. And he was a US Army sergeant. And he murdered a Army veteran, an Air Force veteran named Garrett Foster. Garrett Foster was 28 years old. And Daniel Perry was convicted of murder by a jury on Friday. And what happened after that happened? Well, the right wing media ecosystem went up in arms and went ballistic over it. And you had people like Tucker Carlson

demanding that Greg Abbott pardon the guy. You had people like Marjorie Taylor Greene demanding that Greg Abbott pardon the guy. And so what are these weak-willed people, these weak-willed Republicans like Greg Abbott do? Do they stand up for the rule of law? No, absolutely not. They listen to the most extremist voices in their party because they are one and the same. And they listen to the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and they listen to the likes of Tucker Carlson. And we get a statement from Greg Abbott where Greg Abbott says, immediately once the pardon request hits my desk immediately, the second it hits my desk, I am signing it. And so Texas has like this pardon board where it needs to go through before it lands

on the desk. It kind of seems like the pardon board is just like a rubber stamp for whatever the governor ultimately wants here. But what's important to know about this story is it wasn't like a on the fence case here. This was a premeditated murder. As Ben said, the guy sent messages beforehand, literally saying, this is an exact quote. He said he might kill a few people on my way to work today. That's what this guy, Daniel Perry, who was convicted of murder said. And he said his whole plan. He typed it out, posted it on Facebook, sent it to friends and texts. He said, here's all you got to do.

I could go to the Black Lives Matter protest. I just get in my car. All I need to do is I'll just tell authorities, whatever. I'll just say, I felt threatened. I felt threatened, standing my ground, standing my ground. And I have full license to kill, murder, whoever I want. I could just claim self-defense. I'll get off the hook. That's it. That's what I'll do. He's on the record saying all these things. And then he went ahead and that's what he did. And that was the exact defense that he used in court. And the jury

saw all the evidence. The jury saw the police footage of him being interviewed after the incident. They saw the posts on Facebook. They saw the text messages to his friends. And they said, beyond a reasonable doubt, this guy is guilty. But the lawless pro-crime Republican Party, because he is one of them, because he killed a Black Lives Matter protester, said, oh, we're going to pardon the guy, lawless. And I think we have to even view this story even more beyond the context of this individual incident, because the effects of it truly are chilling. Because what Governor Abbott and Republicans are saying is all these radicalized extremist followers of ours, you have a license to kill. You have a license to do whatever you want and we'll have your back. So political violence right now is open season. As long as you're a Republican,

take your gun, kill whoever you want. And as Ben mentioned, the protester who he shot was carrying an AK-47, but the guy admitted that the AK-47 was not being pointed at anybody. It was not being pointed at him, did not pose a threat to him. but he used the fact that the guy had a gun, which is legal in the state of Texas, used the fact that he had it to say that he felt threatened by it. So he had full range to shoot and murder the guy. It was a premeditated murder. And now you have these Republicans supporting the release of an actual convicted murderer onto the streets. It doesn't get sicker than that. It doesn't get clearer than that also of what the stakes are when you go to vote. And all these notions when the Republicans push Democrats to party a crime, they're releasing all these people. You got to think what they're

hiding. They're hiding their own crimes. And this is exactly what they're doing. They are letting the most violent, most dangerous people onto the streets. And they are promoting them. They are helping them. They are aiding and abetting their behavior. And it's truly a sick thing. It's a deranged thing. And it shows you just how radicalized the Republican Party have become. The American people, that's not what they want. They don't want people, they don't want the country becoming the wild, wild west where anybody could just pick up an AR-15 and shoot somebody and then get away with it because it was what the governor was cool with it. So that's it. I mean, we're really at a very disturbing time for the United States of America. And I think we have to make sure right now that this is a story that does not get lost in all the other

news because it is super important. And I think upon hearing this, I think a majority of the American people will be absolutely enra I think a majority of the American people will be absolutely enraged by the behavior of the Texas governor and the Republicans pushing for the release of a admitted convicted murderer. And the one thing I would just add to that is it started with Tucker Carlson making the request. And so Tucker said this individual should be pardoned. Greg Abbott was like, yep. Now, normally the whole pardon process, right? Someone who's convicted serves a certain period of time because pardon implies guilt. The person who's seeking the pardon says, I did it. I'm sorry for doing this. I've rehabilitated myself. That's part of the

pardon process, which the MAGA Republicans, though, have completely turned on its head as well. And they just use the pardoning process the way Trump did. All of the individuals who engaged in horrific criminal conduct, whether it was Manafort or Bannon or Stone. I could go on and on and spend the entire episode talking about all the people who Trump pardoned for committing crimes in furtherance of Donald Trump. It was pardon, pardon, pardon, pardon, pardon, pardon, you know, people who were convicted or just very recently charged. And then it also just kind of speaks to just, again, the absurdity of these laws that are in Texas. And I think there were a few commentators who reflected on this. your ground right, as well as an open carry right. So you can open carry assault weapons. Just walk around with AR-15s and AK-47 style. You have the right to open carry that. But then

if someone else who's either open carrying or who has a weapon says that they subjectively feel fear because of your open carry, well, then they have a stand your ground, right? And then they can kill you. There was this video that was circulating probably about a year ago where there was a relatively benign, started off just like a domestic dispute that happens, unfortunately, across the country. I think there was a dispute where it was a divorced couple. I think the woman was a judge or a local judge in Texas

who had recently been divorced from her husband. And then her new boyfriend was at the house with her kids. And then the ex showed up at the house and they got into a little argument. And then all of a sudden, the person at the house took out the gun and the other person took out the gun. And then I just remember watching this video where the person in the house just killed the other guy, killed her ex. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And didn't blink. It was as though you were stepping on a cockroach. That's how normal it looked. You shouldn't have done that. You made me nervous. That's why I had to do it. Like no sympathy, no whatever. And that video terrified me more than a lot of other videos because it was just done. So pop, you're dead. Because there is no like conception of like, it is so wild, wild west lawless of what takes place there.

And of course, you layer on what, you know, ultimately this patently despicable pardon. But, you know, again, there's no modern democracy in the world that engages in that conduct. By the way, that type of conduct, like, doesn – even the Taliban may look at that and go, oh, that's a little wild. Or you do that over there. It's so lawlessness and it's so normalized as like that's just a thing. And it's like, okay, that's not conservative. That is like fascist and extreme. And speaking about that, Brett, you want to talk about what happened in Iowa with some of the race to the bottom that we're seeing in these laboratories of autocracy?

Yeah. I mean, you see all of these various Republican governors and attorney generals now, like I said, they know they're losing the argument. And if they were to put the abortion argument, for example, on the ballot, as they've done, they'll lose that vote 100% of the time because majority of the American people, even in the deepest of red states, support that issue. They support the right to control their body. They are not okay with this forced birtherism of the Republican party. But you see these Republicans all across the country, they're trying to out extremist one another. And in ways that just seem like, what are you doing? And so now we saw this newly elected Republican Attorney General in Iowa, blocking emergency contraception for victims of rape and sexual assault. I mean, you don't get

lower than that. They pause the practice of paying for this emergency contraception and some very rare cases of abortion for victims of sexual assault. This was a program that was greenlit by the former Democratic Attorney General of the state. And this Republican Attorney General comes in and she goes, you get raped, you get assaulted, too bad on you, on you. And it's just, it really is a race to the bottom. But I guess through the race to the bottom, I guess the one kind of saving grace of it all is that this is on display right now for all the American people to see. And they are only doing these things because they are fundamentally losing

on every issue. And so when they lose on every issue, they try to wield the power that they can currently to try to preserve their power at the expense of the voters, no matter how much it hurts their actual own constituents. But here's an example of it backfiring in one of the best ways possible. We've been trying to say every single day, folks, pay attention to what's going on in Tennessee. Tennessee has been one of the main... Tennessee's really been ground zero for these attacks on our democracy from the Republican Party. And we saw last week the expulsion of two Democratic lawmakers for no reason. Representative Justin Pearson, Representative Justin Jones, Representative Gloria Johnson

was also put on the chopping block. They put it up for a vote. And what did these racist Republicans in Tennessee do? They ended up expelling just the two black representatives and not the white woman. And by the way, I love Gloria Johnson. I just want to say it. And the way that she has also supported the two men who have been expelled, the two representatives who have been expelled, it's been really incredibly inspiring to see.

That's why everybody is calling them all right now the Tennessee Three. And here's why that move by Republicans was so stupid because, you know, maybe if you listen to the Midas Such podcast, because Gloria Johnson was a guest and Justin Jones has been a guest on the show in the past, do you know their names? But you go around and you ask most people, you know, and maybe even yourself, just being a little facetious, but you know, who is Justin Jones? Who is Justin Pearson? Who's Gloria Johnson? I bet two weeks ago, most of you was, I don't know. I don't know who these people are. Who are they? Now, everybody knows their name. All the Republican Party did was they turned the three of those individuals into absolute superstars, national political heroes who stand for something and not only stand for something,

but stand for an issue that we have seen in the last elections that Americans actually care about more than any other issue. And that's the issue of our democracy. And Republicans have been so clownishly fascist and incompetent that they have thrust these people into the national spotlight. And this is how stupid they are because they caused this whole ruckus. They caused this whole scene. And I don't even know if they realized that at the end of all of this, that the local city halls of the towns in which these people are representatives of are able to simply vote them back into power. And so we saw the first incidents of this today.

We saw expelled Tennessee Democrat Justin Jones reinstated to his seat in the Tennessee House by a unanimous vote in the Nashville Metropolitan Council. I want to play you for a moment because it's just so incredibly inspiring. The moment the vote took place. Remember, this is the local the town council and just the vibe of the room and the excitement in the room when he was voted back in. I'll play the clip. Take the vote. I story. and the excitement in the room when he was voted back in. I'll play the clip. Take the vote. Ayes, 37. Justin Jones has been elected as the interim successor for the vacant seat of Tennessee House District 52, pursuant to the state law and the rules governing the

Metropolitan Council. Everything's gonna be all right. Be all right. Be all right. Be all right. And so Justin Jones, immediately after that all ends, first of all, like I said, they made him a superstar. And he's always been a superstar, by the way. But they propelled them into the national spotlight for everybody to see just how impressive these individuals are. And now these lawmakers are back to being lawmakers. They're back in the Tennessee House of Representatives and they went into the Tennessee House of Representatives. Justin Jones went into the Tennessee House of

Representatives today and received a warm welcome, at least from the Democrats when he went back in. But I want to show you the thunderous applause that Justin Jones received when he went back to the Tennessee House triumphant. And that's him walking in on arm with Representative Gloria Johnson. Less than a week after being expelled by the Tennessee House Republicans. Fist raised. And man, he gets right back to it. I love to see it. And you saw him out there. He was right with the people. He was immediately standing side by side with them, protesting again, walking, fighting for the issues, committed to common sense gun safety laws, committed to preserving our democracy, committed to holding people like Representative Sexton, who's the House Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives, accountable and showing that fight with him. And for those wondering,

well, why not Justin Pearson? What's going to happen with Justin Pearson? That vote, I think, is currently scheduled for this Wednesday. So we should see him back reinstated this Wednesday. But just to show you an added layer of how anti-democratic, how just purely fascist these Republicans in Tennessee and around the country are, what they're doing now because they realized all of a sudden that, oh, the local town councils could just put them back into power. Oops, oops, oops. Now they're trying to wield the power. They're trying to, once again, weaponize the government against the individual cities. So you have this Shelby County Commissioner Erica Sugarman letting everybody know what these Republicans are doing. And this is what they're doing. Sugarman said, we are also being threatened by the state to take away funding if Pearson is reappointed on Wednesday, needed funding to run our schools, to run our municipalities. So these Tennessee Republicans are willing to strip funding from school districts, probably from police departments, from any sort of needed services in these towns in order to

punish the people for putting back into power the people who they voted for. That is just fundamentally anti-democracy. It is just fascism in plain sight. But I love that this is already backfiring them on a big way. And I am telling you the movement that they are creating right now, the energy that they are putting into these Gen Z voters, and just honestly, Americans of all across the political spectrum of all demographics, people right now are absolutely furious at what's going on in these laboratories of autocracy. And I know this by speaking to people, you see it in the data, these independents, these Democrats, these even Republicans who used to consider themselves like members of the Republican Party, they are now viewing this Republican Party as the most extreme party ever. They are viewing them as far more extreme than anybody views the Democratic Party. And that's a big win. And the Republicans continue

to show that every single day. So that's the update, but I think we should all be happy to see the reinstatement of Justin Jones. all be happy to see the reinstatement of Justin Jones. I'm excited to see the reinstatement of Justin Pearson on Wednesday. And guess what? Through all that we saw last week, all that chaos we saw last week, they made those two individuals and they made Gloria Johnson now national superheroes. And we watched them.

I'm telling you, watch Justin Pearson, watch Justin Jones, watch Gloria Johnson. These people, especially Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, who are incredibly young and have just gotten into the Tennessee House of Representatives for the first time, these are going to be forces to reckon with in the future. These are going to be national political leaders. I mean, you could hear it in their speeches, you could see it in their passion, and they have the people on their side. And yes, even in Tennessee, they have the people on their side, despite what the Tennessee Republicans want you to think and what you're doing. So democracy prevails there for now, and we have to keep fighting, but a positive update out of Tennessee after all the chaos last week. Mark your calendar, folks. The Dominion billion

dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox is going to trial jury selection April 13th of 2023. We expect that to be a multi-week trial. And recall, the judge has already found partial summary judgment in favor of Dominion on the issue of falsity. All Dominion will have to show is that Fox committed these defamatory statements with actual malice. Malice in the MAGA palace. Mark your calendars, folks. rape and defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll is set to go to trial against Donald Trump on April 25th of 2023. Jury selection will commence there. Judge Lewis Kaplan, the federal judge presiding over the case, reiterated in an order today that the jurors are going to be completely anonymous jurors, anonymous jury selection,

anonymous jurors, and citing Donald Trump's recent further threatening conduct as well. Mark your calendars, folks, as well. New York Attorney General Letitia James' civil fraud case against Donald Trump, Trump's adult children and the Trump organization, where she's seeking at least $250 million in damages and an injunction effectively stopping the Trump organization, his adult children and Trump, from doing business in New York. That is set to go to trial October 2nd of 2023. The Department of Justice on Monday filed an appeal against the Trump appointees ruling upended decades of reliance by blocking the FDA's approval of mifepristone and depriving patients of access to this safe and effective treatment based on the court's own misguided

assessment of the drugs. Safety, the Justice Department lawyers wrote in a court filing today and more alarming news about Justice Clarence Thomas receiving millions of dollars of gifts from this Republican donor. And as there's more digging taking place there, you start learning that this Republican donor is like the biggest collector of Nazi and Hitler memorabilia. He had Garden of Evil in his backyard in addition to all of the Hitler paintings he has there. He gave $500,000 to an organization run by Clarence Thomas's wife, Jenny Thomas, which paid her hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary. For those watching on YouTube, these are the paintings, the Adolf Hitler paintings and

the various statues that this wealthy donor who gives these millions of dollars in gifts to Clarence Thomas has. And so Clarence Thomas says, I just thought this was hospitality and hospitality is different than gifts. That's why I didn't disclose this. Folks, this is not a both sides issue. It's not both sides. It's all coming from one direction and that direction, it's coming from these MAGA Republicans, the corruption, the fascism, the extremism, the weirdness. And we want to highlight this here because I just want things to be normal. I just want a country led by compassionate leaders who take things serious. And by the way, if that means different political parties, so be it. But that's just not what we have today.

We've got one major political party, the Democratic Party, that is a pro-democracy coalition of former Republicans, of people who are truly conservative and not like just saying that, of independents, of people not affiliated with any political parties, and of course, liberals and progressives, just people who support this country and want to stop all of this weirdness. And that's the modern-day Democratic Party, the democracy party. And that's the modern day Democratic Party, the democracy party. And on the other hand, you've got the MAGA Republican Party, this kind of fascistic Trump cult that we highlight all of their conduct. And we show those contrasts each and every episode of the Midas Touch podcast. Brett, you were laughing at something?

Was I doing a good job? No, you're doing a great job. I was just smiling because we were coming back to the three shot and I wanted to make sure I was smiling at the people. I thought I did a good job. No, that was a really good one. You did good. You did an excellent job. Okay, good. Thank you.

That was a good recap. Anyway, I- You know what I'm really excited for, brothers? You know what I'm really excited for? What? Well, tomorrow. Tomorrow. Yeah.

This is super exciting. What? Well, tomorrow. Yeah. This is super exciting. We are doing a Patreon-exclusive Zoom Q&A with the Patreon Midas Mighty in it. So tomorrow. So if you're listening to this on audio in the morning, it's Tuesday, April 11th at noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. You'll get to hop on a Zoom with the three of us. You'll get to chat with us, ask us some questions.

And I'm really looking forward to it. I love these. We're trying to do one like this. And that's no matter what tier, no matter what tier, right? No matter what tier you're on. So if you want to join us for this Zoom chat tomorrow morning, sign up. Make sure you sign up tonight or by early tomorrow morning. The latest, patreon.com slash MidasTouch.

That's patreon.com slash Midas touch that's patreon.com slash Midas touch you'll see the one of the most recent posts I'm about to post a reminder as well has the zoom link in it so if you want to meet us if you want to get a one-on-one question with us we love answering your questions and we love chatting with the Midas mighty there it's one of the great perks of being a member of the Midas Touch Patreon, and I love it. We try to do it on different days each month because some people have obligations on Sundays, on Saturdays.

Some people have obligations during the week. So this one's on a Tuesday. We switch it up. We've got to make sure that everybody gets a shot to see us. But I cannot wait for that. Remember to check out the new merch also at store.midastouch.com. We've got a lot of really great, exciting gear.

We've got the... Jordy, what's the best selling gear right now? Lock him up. Indictment season. It's going fast too. The indictment season TNV neck. I mean, we might be, I underordered. I'm sorry, guys. I underordered.

We might be out by this week. It happens, but make sure to get yours at store.midastouch.com. And there's so many other good stuff there. Ben, any other sign-offs here? Yeah, make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel. We're on our way to 1.5 million subscribers by the beginning of this summer. So please, if you haven't subscribed to the Midas Touch Network, it is free. Make sure you share these videos and post them on whatever social media you prefer.

Share them with friends, family, coworkers, whoever, family, whoever. You know, just share these videos. That goes a long way to help. So also, if you watch this on YouTube videos, subscribe to our audio as well. It helps if you subscribe on audio. So just search Midas Touch Podcast on audio. Subscribe there for our audio listeners. Make sure you're also subscribed on YouTube. Make sure you're subscribed on all platforms. That's patreon.com slash Midas Touch. Get one of those memberships. One of the tiers is this honorary producer tier where your name appears at the end of the podcast.

Shout out producers. Let's go. And you get a poster saying that you are an honorary producer if you want to join that tier. And we're not funded by any outside investors. So the way we do this, we're 100% independent. And so one of the key ways we fund this is through our Patreon, not through outside investors. So check us out, patreon.com slash Midas Touch, subscribe on our YouTube. And I just want to give a heartfelt thank you to all the Midas Mighty out there. None of this is possible without you. This is not just like a network. This is a pro-democracy movement that is led by you, and you are the most important ingredient to make this work.

We are so honored and humbled to be a messenger and to help bring people together and have these conversations, but truly, none of this is possible without you. We love you. Thank you so much. And the Midas Mighty remains undefeated. Jordy, take it out. New catchphrase, Ben. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

Lock him up. Indictment season is upon us. Celebrate with the new indictment season t-shirt and v-neck exclusively at store.midastouch.com.