The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump and GOP PROBLEMS Get Even BIGGER

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

Welcome to the MeidasTouch Podcast! On today’s episode, we discuss the recent news surrounding Trump attorney Joe Tacopina's weird and desperate motion, which was swiftly denied by Judge Kaplan, leading to a disastrous start to Trump’s week in the E. Jean Carroll trial. We also cover Ron DeSantis' world tour, which ended in a humiliating fashion, and CNN's inexplicable announcement that they are hosting a town hall with Donald Trump next week. We also dive into the new lows reached by the Republicans and explore other hot topics of the week. Join us as we provide insightful commentary and analysis on the latest developments in the world of politics and beyond. Deals from our Sponsors: Better Help: Visit https://BetterHelp.com/MEIDAS today to get 10% off your first month. Neurohacker: Go to https://Neurohacker.com/MEIDAS for $100 off, and use code MEIDAS at checkout for an addition 15% off your first purchase. HoldOn Bags: Visit https://holdonbags.com/meidas to save 20% off your order Zbiotics: Head to https://zbiotics.com/MEIDAS to get 15% off your first order when you use MEIDAS at checkout. Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 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

Discover the magic of Bad MGM Casino, where the excitement is always on deck. Pull up a seat and check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer. From roulette to blackjack, watch as a dealer hosts your table game and live chat with them throughout your experience to feel like you're actually at the casino. The excitement doesn't stop there. With over 3,000 games to choose from, including fan favorites like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz, and more. Make deposits instantly to jump in on the fun.

And make same-day withdrawals if you win. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. You don't want to miss out. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you please contact connex ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor

free of charge bet mgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming ontario president biden brought the house down at the whiteents' Dinner this weekend, he and comedian Roy Wood Jr. showed what a normal event looks like, filled with laughter, self-deprecating humor, but also a powerful defense of the freedom of the press and our democracy. Meanwhile, MAGA Republicans this weekend continued their media appearances showing America just how radical and extreme and out of touch they are, especially as they now hold our nation hostage to their outrageous demands in order to raise the debt ceiling and avoid financial catastrophe. Also, we should mention Donald Trump

made another appearance on Fox with Mark Levin, again showing what a maniac he is. I got to show you some of these clips. I mean, it's the strangest stuff in the world. Also, as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated that America will likely default on its debt by June 1st if the debt ceiling isn't raised by Congress. President Biden, like a responsible adult, reached out to the so-called big four congressional leaders to say enough is enough. Stop this maga madness. Pass a clean debt ceiling bill so our economy can function. We'll report on that as well. Day three of testimony in the E. Jean Carroll trial. So where was Donald Trump? Well, not at trial. Like the coward that he is, he was far, far from the courtroom. He essentially fled to Scotland and Ireland, claiming that he would be opening a new golf course there. And just the image, the strength of E. Jean Carroll compared

to Donald Trump literally fleeing for this contrived trip to Scotland and Ireland. I mean, it is so outrageous. And as Donald Trump essentially fled the country, what was his lawyer, Joe Takapina, doing? Well, Joe Takapina filed a frivolous motion for a mistrial. Remember, we said that here on the Midas Touch Network that that would be coming. That is what they filed. And the judge, in like two seconds before the court even started, was like, yeah, I'm denying that motion. You may proceed with your witness. That. And now I feel like I'm a little underdressed for the occasion. But, you know, I'm traveling. I'm over here on the East Coast. I'm in New York having a good time. Haven't seen any of those marijuana zombies that Marjorie Taylor Greene promised I'd be seeing in the streets as I roam around.

Maybe the rain kind of scared them away or something. I'm not too sure, but I didn't see them out here. But it's great to be in New York and it's great to be here on the Midas Touch Podcast with the bros. Jordy, how you doing? I'll be seeing you here. Welcome, welcome to the East Coast time zone, big bro. Excited to have you on the same time zone as me. Ben, come on, man. Hop onto it, man. I'm wearing my jean jacket for those audio listeners. And I got to say, I'm not really like a jean jacket kind of guy. You're a denim guy right now. Right? You got your Jay Leno look right now. Yeah, looks good on you. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. What's up, babe? What's up, man?

You know, we've got a lot of show to discuss and as much as I want to talk about your denim jacket, I think they might as mighty want to hear what's going down in the news today. But let's talk about what happened this weekend. When I saw this White House Correspondents Association dinner, I mean, look, it's very funny. And Biden kind of switches from making these really hilarious jokes that would make an episode of SNL kind of feel like, you know, if they can't even rise to the occasion of some of these Biden jokes, but also striking a serious chord and a serious tone as well about the freedom of the press, about the freedom of our democracy, about supporting journalists abroad. But my overall observation about it is one, just how normal it is to have a self-deprecating president who can take a joke. I'm going to show you in a little bit because we're going to

contrast what went down at the White House Correspondents Dinner to essentially what was Fox playing the very next day at the same time slot, which was this interview with Mark Levin, who talks like that, and Donald Trump. Is Mark Levin on the podcast? He sounds like he was right behind me. And the contrast, though, of President Biden, people are making fun of him and joking about him, and he's just laughing, right? Meanwhile, you got Donald Trump when he was in office, refused to show up to any White House Correspondent Association dinner because he was scared. He couldn't take being made fun of. There is no self-deprecating humor there at all. So when you contrast Biden kind of just having fun with it, with then what takes place the next day

on Fox, where like Mark Levin has to say to Donald Trump, I just want to let you know, you're so smart. You're so funny. I've never had an interview that is such a good interview. You know what? Let's go a little out of order just so people know what the heck I'm talking about. But Mark Levin literally has to say to Donald Trump, this is just how a malignant narcissist and weird this all is. That's what we say here on the Midas Dutch Network. You can't normalize this. Do not gaslight the pro-democracy community. You got Mark Levin go, hey, hey, I just need to tell you, I just need to tell you when I sit here and I do this interview with you and I think about those words that you say, you are how you put those words together. It's one of the most brilliant things I have ever seen.

If you think that that is me hyperbolically making, no, that's the reality. Watch what he does in this interview. Play this clip. You say this, Mr. President, I've talked to a lot of important people, Supreme Court justices, presidents, presidential candidates, brilliant people. And talking with you is really the most impressive conversation I've had. Number one, there's very few people who could sit there and speak the way you do from subject to subject to subject to subject. If people would let you speak and actually listen to you, while you have the enormous pressure on your shoulders of these grand juries and other things going on, and you still are able to do it, that is absolutely remarkable. So the threshold for being the Republican nominee for president

is that you have the ability to speak. And that you have the- Who is preventing Donald Trump from speaking? We hear the guy from the guy every day. The guy can't shut his mouth. They're like, if only they let you unleash and let your true feelings out into the world, Donald. Who's they?

Who's they? Who's they? Who's they? By the way, I wanna know the they. I mean, it was just announced today that CNN is holding a town hall for this freaking maniac in New Hampshire. And CNN is going to be running with Caitlin Collins or whatever doing a whole sit down with them. Who are these people who are not letting this guy speak? And they go, I just want to let know, I speak to a lot of powerful

people, Supreme court, trust the sounds and the way you, the way you make a sentence, the way you make a sentence. Yeah. You know how I know your impressions are good because when I see the actual people speaking, I can't tell if it's them or you. And I often feel like they are doing an impression of your impression of them. If that, like when I see Mike Pence speak now, I'm like, it sounds like Mike Pence is doing Ben doing Mike Pence at this point. Ben's really good at Mike impressions. Mike Levin, Mike Pence, Ben. His name's Mark, but close. Good M names. M names. That's what I meant.

You're so close, Jay. You're so close. Yeah. My Pence though is, I got to hone the Pence better. The Pence is, I just want to kill me, I ask you. That's what he says. If you want to do, I have to consult my Christian faith and I have to say, do it. Do it for the Republican Party. You notice though when Pence says that, what he never says, he never goes, I'm an American. He always goes, I am a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican in that order. And he never goes, yeah, I'm an American. But Brett, that interview with Mark Levin, let's go to that one first. I mean, because I showed you that where Mark Levin literally makes out with Donald Trump. I mean, it is very, very weird. And then in terms of the content of what Trump is saying, he just says the same stuff.

Like here he goes, you know, I was treated worse than Abraham Lincoln. Many people are saying that he was been treated worse than Lincoln who was assassinated. Here, play this clip. Say that Andrew Jackson was the most vilified president. It was his wife died during this thing and they said such horrible things. And he had a very tough presidency presidency He was a very good president. He was a great general and a good president Abraham Lincoln they say was you know, he had a civil war going on. All right, but Abraham Lincoln had was just vilified he was

But now they say Trump got treated the worst of all, because what they did is they came up with phony stuff. Russia, Russia, Russia. It was all hoaxes. The Mueller witch hunt, which turned out to be no collusion. You know, after two and a half years, no collusion. I could have told him that the first day. And they had the laptop. They could have figured that out because on the laptop, if you look at it, you could have figured that out easy but uh there's never been anything despite that people are saying it was one of the most successful presidencies in history and i believe it was again we built the greatest economy ever we'll do it again we built we did things rebuilding the united states military i rebuilt it and then we added space force we added a force we added the guy's a liar about every single thing

from the malignant rebuilt the military well you didn't rebuild what are you talking about but ben if only they would let him speak then people would realize his true genius but but go off if only they would let him speak if only there was an app that was controlled by a malignant narcissist who begs him to go on the platform, like, I don't know, Twitter. I mean, that's own CNN, Twitter, Fox. All I see other than the Midas Touch Network and some reporters at MSNBC and maybe like one or two remaining reporters at CNN, maybe. Everything's controlled by right-wing disinformation or corporate media. But if only they would just let him say things like he's the one who rebuilt the military and no one questions that. Like, oh yeah, I seem to remember that prior to Donald

Trump, there wasn't a military and he took a shovel and he rebuilt it. So he says that crazy stuff. And then in the same interview, he says that China released COVID to get him, to get him out. That's what happened here. Here, play this clip. China, I was very from I was probably the first one. I said it came from the lab in Wuhan. I knew that for one thing, you saw body bags all over the place around that lab. You know, there were body bags all over that area and nobody talks about it. But in Wuhan, you had through satellite pictures and other things, you had pictures, body bags all over the place. And you could see little lines, you know, from way up, but they couldn't be anything else. But I said and I've said right from the beginning, it was the lab in Wuhan. It got out.

It got out of the lab. I think it was incompetence. I really believe it was incompetence. Well, you know, people said I was charging China so much money in tariffs and taxes that a lot of people said they did it to get me out. But we did great in that election. I did much better in the second election than I did in the first. You see the clip of Congress member Jared Moskowitz in one of the committee hearings where he did Donald Trump's great, we don't have to play the clip, but it's Donald Trump's greatest COVID hits where he spread all of the disinformation right before COVID hit our shores and basically said, I spoke to President Xi. He is a strong man. He is a powerful man. He has it under control. And like a miracle, it is all going to go away. Very powerful,

very strong. And he continues to say that stuff about President Xi. But that's what Donald Trump was saying at the time. And then he goes, you know, people didn't know. You didn't know. We all knew. You idiot. It's all projection again. I mean, anybody who was monitoring the news, anybody that was monitoring what was going

on in Asia and in Europe knew that COVID was incredibly serious and was appropriately worried about it. And then Donald Trump in rally after rally would get there on the podium, on the lectern, whatever, and he would say, and then you hear about this new democratic hoax. It's a hoax. That's right. It's Russia, Russia, Russia all over again. It's the big hoax, the big hoax. And he said that repeatedly. And then when it started to get a little realer, he would make the comments like, but President Xi, good guy, good man. He's got it under control. That president, good guy, good guy. He's got it under control. Very powerful, very strong, very powerful. And it was his game. Very handsome man.

He literally says things like that. And then he waited for it to get catastrophic. And his whole thing was then like, okay, if we just, if we don't test, if we don't test, then we won't have COVID numbers and we'll be doing better than anybody else. And that obviously didn't work. And it was just one failure after one failure after one failure and hundreds of thousands of people died because of it. And when Trump there blames the incompetence of China for COVID here in the United States, it's once again more projection of his own

incompetence that he refuses to acknowledge. As President Biden says, don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. And it's a funny line that he repeats over and over again. But the reality is, I'd compare President Biden to mostly anyone else out there. I mean, Biden's done an incredible job so far. But I want to talk about President Biden at the White House Correspondents Association dinner because I do want to compare him to the alternative. Let's see what Biden says. Don't compare me to the almighty. Compare me to the alternative. So you just saw the alternative. Let's see what Biden says. Don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. So you just saw the alternative. The alternative that you just saw in Donald Trump, that's who the MAGA Republicans want to give the nuclear codes to. That is who they want to make

decisions over your life, over your family's life. That's who they want to hold those decisions with, with him. I mean, it's so insane to me to even think about that. But comparing that to President Biden, let's go through what went down in the White House Correspondents Association dinner. This is President Biden on Marjorie Taylor Greene. Here, play this clip. I want everyone to have fun tonight, but please be safe. If you find yourself disoriented or confused, it's either you're drunk or Marjorie Taylor Greene. That's so good. Here's President Biden on Tucker Carlson.

This dinner is one of the two great traditions in Washington. The other one is underestimating me and Kamala. But the truth is, we really have a record to be proud of. Vaccinated the nation, transformed the economy, earned historic legislative victories and midterm results. But the job isn't finished. I mean, it is finished for Tucker Carlson. What are you moaning about like that? Like you think that's not reasonable? And here is President Biden's takedown of Fox. Play the clip. It's great the cable news networks are here tonight. MSNBC owned by NBCUniversal. Fox News owned by Dominion Voting Systems.

Last year, your favorite Fox News reporters were able to attend because they were fully vaccinated and boosted. This year, with that $7 honest, fair, and truthful. But then I could be sued for defamation. It's really good. It's really good. Strong. Strong. Strong set.

Strong. President Biden on Ron DeSantis? At Ron DeSantis, I had a lot of Ron DeSantis jokes ready. But Mickey Mouse beat the hell out of me and got there first. Now, look, can't be too rough on the guy. After his reelection as governor, he was asked if he had a mandate. He said, hell no, I'm straight. I'm straight.

Let me tell you, that joke works on multiple levels. And it's what makes it so funny to me. Because he simultaneously called DeSantis homophobic and stupid with the one line. And that's what's so brilliant about that one. No, it was really great. I also like when he he was like you can't be too tough on the guy you know even though that was not the actual joke because desantis has like the thinnest skin you know and it wasn't like you can't be too tough on that guy um of course of course he uh took out his dark Brandon persona. Here, play this clip. I'm going to turn this over to Roy.

Roy, the podium is yours. I'm going to be fine with your jokes, but I'm not sure about dark Brandon. Let's go. And I want to go to this one serious moment, though, because it reminded me a lot of the State of the Union. I'll explain why after I show the clip. This was President Biden talking about the importance of the press in general. Play this clip. Let me start on a serious note.

Jill, Kamala, Doug and I and members of our administration are here to send a message to the country and quite frankly, to the world. I'm sure you know that. I'm sure you know that. I'm sure you know that. I'm sure you know that. I'm sure you know that. I'm sure you know that. I'm sure you know that. I'm sure you know that. I'm sure you know that.

I'm sure you know that. I'm sure you know that. I'm sure you know that. I'm sure you know that. You all know this quote. Thomas Jefferson wrote, we're left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government. I should not hesitate to prefer the latter. To Evan's parents, Ella, Mikhail, and Sister Danielle, as I've told you in person, we, not just me, we all stand with you. Evan went to report in Russia to shed light on the darkness that you all escaped from years ago.

Absolute courage. A handwritten letter from prison to his family, Evan wrote, quote, I am not losing hope. In an interview, his mom Ella said, one of the American qualities that we absorbed is to be optimistic. That's where we stand right now. To the entire family, everyone in this hall stands with you. We're working every day to secure his release. Looking at opportunities and tools to bring him home. We keep the faith.

And there was a moment there at the end, which is I think cut off in the clip where he then has everybody in the audience give a toast. And the toast was for freedom of the press and for the press to tell the truth. And he said, I want everybody here to be committed to telling the truth and to not spread disinformation because we're better than that. And everybody ultimately did the cheers. Now they're not going to the Foxes and the OANs and the Newsmaxes. They're not going to necessarily comply with that. But I think rallying the crowd like that and galvanizing the crowd was great. It's a little bit of a State of the Union kind of move.

It was what you alluded to before we played the clip of like, let's get everybody on the same page in public, at least for this moment. And it's just such a contrast. Obviously, we know Trump and these Republicans always refer to the media as the enemy of the people and use language like that. In fact, there's a clip going around right now that Patriot Takes posted, and I don't have the clip because the sound is really bad. It will hurt everybody's ears if I actually played it. But it was from this trip to Scotland that Trump did to basically flee the E.G. and Carol trial, to flee the country. And here's a photo from it. You see Trump in his dunce cap, I believe, in the middle of this most ridiculous photo for the people watching. But there's a video that Patriot

Takes just posted. If you're not following Patriot Takes, I highly recommend you follow Patriot Takes. They do really good work. And in the video, as Trump's shoveling the dirt, he says, and we throw it at the press right in their faces. We throw it right in their faces. That was today slash yesterday, whatever the time zone is in Scotland. And it just shows you how it's just so screwed up. It's just such a contrast between leadership and really the fundamental values of what makes America, America. And to me, when you look at that, there should not be a both sides there. A president, a former president should not be calling the media the enemy of the people. They should not be joking about we throw the dirt right in their faces. That's not becoming of words out. I mean, you have the really deranged people who go, who can't accept their, they can't believe their own eyes

because they're told that Biden is a sleepy Joe. He can't even get a sentence out. And then they see him coherent and energetic and funny and witty and lively and engaging. And they go, oh, it's AI. It has to be AI. It's a fake Biden. Like that's like, that's like, and you Biden. When I say that's the extremist fringe

of the party, I do mean that, but that represents a good chunk of the party. That fringe is a large part. It's not a small amount. Then you have the people who just completely hate on the entire event. They view the whole thing as just, oh, look at this elitist garbage. It's uniparty. Look, they're all working together. They can never accept the fact that at some times in life, you could actually put aside your differences and share an event and rally around shared values. They don't at all. And whenever they see that, it's just uniparty, uniparty. Look at them. Look, it's the elitist. They're all working against us. And one example I saw who, you know, it sounds stupid when I say it, but it's Cat Turd, who's a Twitter influencer, a MAGA influencer, who has so much clout for the listeners who are like, I'm never on Twitter or the YouTubers. This guy is like MAGA influencer number one. Trump literally quotes his polls that

he does on Twitter. Like it's the craziest stuff. Um, and this was like his commentary on it. He said the white house correspondence dinner is everything I hate wrapped up into one event, highbrow, arrogant elitist from our corrupt government, corrupt media, and soulless Hollywood snobs, all glorifying themselves, laughing and yucking it up while they destroy our country from within. Like these people have such brain worms, just such brain rot because of Donald Trump who played to their worst instincts. And usually somebody like that, you'd see those statements and you'd be like, this person is nuts. It's like, you know, the person on the street corner screaming at you, just keep walking. Like what is happening here? But the Republicans are like, oh, you represent us now. You are who we are. And I think that's why it's so scary kind of where we are right now, because Republicans have adopted that as who they are instead of saying, you know what? I'm not going to deal with your crazy. We all have these shared values and we could get together and put our differences aside for the better of the country on occasion. And Brett, let me just add to that too. Sorry, Ben, go for it. No, you go. No, go. You're going to add on.

You go, you go, you go. Okay, I'll go. So, Brett, go for it. No, you go. You're going to go. You're going to add on. You go, you go, you go. Okay, okay. So, Brett, I was just going to take it somewhere where you started that, you know, the state of the union and how this really reminded me of that. And that's when you give Biden the mic and allow him to speak just unapologetically, you know, from the heart. He does great. Like he really plays to his audience in a really good way. And so before any of the Fox News or the

Cat Turds could give out the talking points, the right wing echo chamber just totally spins out. And they don't even know what to make of it. They can't believe their own eyes because they've told themselves and conditioned themselves that this guy can't speak. It just is not the case. Go for it, Brett. Roy Wood, to your point, had a joke that exactly aligned with your point. I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like, Tucker's not on TV anymore, so there are a whole lot of people out there who don't know why they hate you right now. Because they really are just sitting back waiting for their talking points to come in to fuel their rage. And they're fleeing Fox right now.

They're actually leaving to go to all these other networks. And we'll get to that because I actually do want to talk a little bit about this CNN Trump event. I know we've got a lot to talk about, but Ben, I want to turn it over to you if you want to hit anything else first. Yeah. And again, as President Biden says, don't compare me to the almighty. Compare me to the alternative.

And look, I don't know about you, but I like seeing an event where people are smiling and laughing and having a good time together and not spewing hate. When we come back from a quick break, I want to show you the alternative. I want to show you what Marjorie Taylor Greene was doing and the types of disgusting things that she was saying. I mean, she's talking about Hunter Biden and Pornhub, and it is beyond bizarre. We'll talk about that. And Donald Trump fleeing the country as another day of testimony took place in the federal courthouse where he's a civil defendant. That and more after this quick break. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Now, it's so easy to get caught up in what everyone else needs from you and never take a moment to think about what you need for yourself. Now, I know in my own life,

I'm dealing with a lot of different factors, be it family, friends, or even work. And when we spend all our time giving, it can leave us feeling stretched thin and frankly burned out. Therapy can give you the tools to find more balance in your life so you can keep supporting others without leaving yourself behind. You see, therapy, it's helpful for learning positive coping skills and how to set boundaries and generally speaking, how to become the best version of yourself. And by the way, therapy, it's not just for those who've experienced major trauma. It's for everyone because what you're going through, it matters. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online.

It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Find more balance with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Midas today to get 10% off your first month.

That's betterhelp.com slash Midas today. Thank you. Now let's take a quick break to talk about our next sponsor, Neurohacker QualiaMind. Just like you, throughout the course of a workday, we here at the Midas Touch Network, we're juggling a lot of different tasks and assignments. That's why we're so proud to partner with Neurohacker Qualia Mind to keep us focused and improve our memories. Transforming willpower and productivity can in turn transform tons of life habits for the better, from workouts to job performance to life goals. And that's why it's so important to have a sharp

memory in today's working environment. Look, we've all misplaced something before and ended up down on ourselves, whether it be our keys or leaving something at work, because like, how could we forget that? Well, worry no more. Our sponsor, Neurohacker, combines 28 of the most research-backed nootropic ingredients on earth into the ultimate brain fuel formula, quality of mind. And it's been changing people's lives for years now. For my daily mental health performance and supporting long-term brain health, quality of mind is indispensable. It's so cool to take a health product where you don't have to worry if it's working because, well, it is.

Now, I noticed the difference in just days. It's my focus, my mood, my memory, and my willpower to get things done. The formula, it's non-GMO, vegan, gluten-free, and the ingredients are meant to complement one another, factoring in each ingredient's effect on mental clarity. It's also backed by a 100-day money-back guarantee. So you have almost three months to try Qualium Mind at no financial risk and decide for yourself. See what the best brain fuel formula on earth

can do for your mindset. Go to neurohacker.com slash Midas for $100 off. That's only $39 a bottle. And as a listener of the Midas Touch podcast, use code Midas at checkout for an extra 15% off your first purchase. That's neurohacker.com slash Midas to try quality of mind with code MIDAS to experience life-changing mental performance. Good read, Jay. Really good read. Let's go. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. I really try hard on those. You do a great job and I want to let you know, I think you do a really good job as the ad guy. Thanks, man.

I use those products and I would buy them based on your salesmanship right there. Okay, where we last left off, we talked about President Biden at the White House Correspondents Association dinner. We also talked about his line, which is, don't compare me to the almighty. You could compare me to the alternative. It's okay. And so when we last left off, we said, let's show you the alternative. So that was President Biden giving an uplifting speech at the White House Correspondents Association dinner now.

This is MAGA Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene. She is basically the de facto leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives at this point. She has powerful assignments on the House Oversight Committee, on the Homeland Security Committee. She has one of the most prominent roles for the House Republicans and for all members of Congress. I mean, you don't get more powerful seating assignments than she has, and Kevin McCarthy gave that to her because she's the face of the modern day Republican Party. And so this is the speech that she gave, which is the hate rallies, the disinformation that they spew.

It's weird. It's hateful. It is very anti-American. Play this clip. Here's what I found out this week. There is a website, you may or may not have heard about it, called Pornhub. It is a website, you may or may not have heard about it, called Pornhub. It is a disgusting porn website. As a matter of fact, it should be illegal.

I can't even, I don't even know why it exists. But Hunter Biden used to have multiple accounts on this Pornhub pornography sex website. And these aren't accounts where he could go watch pornography. These are accounts where he posted his sex videos, like the ones that are on the Hunter Biden laptop. This week I found out, you want to know what? He still has an account on Pornhub where his videos are posted. It is still live and active. This is the son of the President of the United States. Hunter Biden is the most disgusting, vile, embarrassment, piece of trash.

And that is what is a reflection on our country. And they attacked President Trump and his family? I don't care how people vote, Republican, Democrat, independent, non-political whatever that fact right there should be so offensive to every single American that we do something about it I am very serious when I say we have to impeach Joe Biden whoa whoa so let me be clear the fact that she is talking about is that Hunter Biden, if you even accept her allegations as true, Hunter Biden watches pornography or he has watched pornography in the past. And on that basis, she says that he is a vile piece of trash. And on that basis, she says that President Biden should be impeached. By the way, if you believe that Hunter Biden committed a crime, and there is a federal

investigation, and if he committed a crime, I have no allegiance to Hunter Biden, but if his criminal conduct involves something with finances or taxes, fair game. It has nothing to do with President Biden, unlike Donald Trump's kids and son-in-laws who actually made American foreign policy disastrously and made hundreds of millions of dollars during the presidency. But they don't care. That's not what their focus is. They're such perverts, these MAGA Republicans. They are perverted, disgusting individuals. There's no other way to say it. They wake up in the morning. I'll tell you how I wake up in the morning. I wake up in the morning when I think about what type of content I want to make. What do I want to focus on? And the things that I think about

are jobs. I think about working conditions. I think about equality. You wake up in the morning and think about jobs and equality? That's very high. I'm kind of like, ugh, I need some water. I'm tired. Okay, Brett. Okay. I understand. I made it very clear. I said, when I think about what content I'm going to be making, it's like, yeah, equality. I say when I think about the content I'm going to be making, okay? That was in relation to that.

I think about the issue. You agree with that, Jordy? i'm not taking any stance here i just be reviewing the pointer which seems to be taking a stance there i just i just want everyone to look at how red brett's face is right now is why i'm i'm pointing it out we got John, diversity. Okay. I'm done now. I'm done. Okay.

Well, I care about those issues. So I do. Yes, do I. When I wake up and I make the videos, I think about those issues when and they think about the green M&M and they think about which people they want to harm today and which group they want to hate on today. That's what they think about each and every day. And again, you want to have a conversation about Hunter Biden. I don't really want to. I don't really care about him. He's not running foreign policy. He's not- By the way, listen, when people spoke about people like Jared Kushner or Don Jr. or Ivanka Trump, it was because they were embedded within the

government and ran things, had high-level positions in the government. It was a complete nepotism issue within the United States government that we've never seen before. When do you just get to go after random politicians' kids in such a vicious and vile and disgusting way? Even no matter what it is about, it's honestly just a disgusting thing to even target the child. I'll make this point though. They go, but this is her argument. Hunter Biden is vile trash because he may have had an account on Pornhub and they go after Donald Trump. Okay, so by your own logic, Donald Trump went on to Pornhub and he wasn't content with the video. So he reached out to the person on the video, the porn star, while his wife just gave birth to their first son. He had two seconds of sex with her and then paid her off hush money and then falsified business records to claim the hush money payment to her

was a legal expense so that his wife wouldn't find out that he had sex with the porn star that he located from pornography movies while he was running for office. So if you even take her example right there and she's like, I just happened to be on, have you heard of this site? That's one of the best parts of it. She goes, I don't know if y'all have heard of this. that's one of the best parts of it she goes she goes i don't know i don't know if y'all have heard of this by the way if you ever see the studies too of like what type of porn they're watching in the red states it all are the things that they project and hate against all they're all of the things that they want that they claim to want to ban that's what they privately look that's what i would love like like them that movie what women want or whatever was i would

love to have like an insight into the minds of everybody in that room which is talking about how horrible porn hub is and how everyone who has an account is corrupt and just every every every dude in that room i want to just have a a window into their mind as to what they're thinking i like you definitely see a couple guys in the room over there like kind of look over at their wives like well i'll tell you what brother you're exactly right because i'll tell you what that room fell silent kind of when she was talking about this issue specifically i mean then they're like yeah one applause now now what just where is she going with this because i gotta clear my browser history is what they were thinking when they were watching. And of course, the hypocrisy,

there's just no end to the hypocrisy. I mean, we're talking about the woman who had an affair with a tantric sex guru in her gym and the gym manager, like kind of at the same time, got divorced from her husband over these multiple affairs. Now she's with the guy who's on, what is he on? RSBN. By the way, her husband, like the husband story actually gets sadder when you realize that he was the one who ran her dad's company. So basically like all the way she made money is that, you know, people don't realize like where'd she come from? She's kind of a trust fund kid too.

And people don't really know that about her. Her dad ran like a real estate or construction company and made a lot of money. And her husband, who she cheated on, was the one who ran the company for her. And then she ran out with all the money that they had and basically did her whole theatrics where she would harass the kids who were school shooting victim survivors and all of that. And that's how she made a name for herself. So people don't know the origin stories of her and her wealth, but that's what she did to herself. What'd you say? I said you can't buy class, that's for sure. All right. So let's go though. So again, you can't compare me to the almighty,

but compare me to the alternative. I want to show you, this is MAGA Republican Representative Tim Burchett, who was on CNN, one of the last good reporters on CNN, Acosta, interviewed him and asked him, why did you say before that politicians can do nothing about gun violence. And he gave an even worse answer. And he was like, well, I was just talking about Christian revival. What are you talking about? Here, play this clip. Let me ask you on another topic. We had another horrific mass shooting down in Texas, as you know, five people killed after they asked their neighbor to quit shooting guns in his front yard. Let's listen to something that you said after the mass shooting in Nashville, and we'll talk about it.

We've got evil in this country, and everybody just needs to tone down the rhetoric a little bit, because all that does is gin it up in both sides, and then they point the finger and nothing happens. If you think Washington's going to fix this problem you're wrong they're not going to fix this problem they are the problem it doesn't continue that other countries don't have this level of other countries don't have our freedom either you know it's the united states of america my father fought for this country my mama flew an airplane my mama lost a brother fighting the nazis dad fought the japanese we've got incredible freedom in this country. And when people abuse that freedom, that's what happens.

Congressman, getting back to when you were saying that Washington's not going to fix this, a lot of people listen at home to that. And, I mean, you like to speak, you know, plain English to folks. A lot of people listen to what you just said and said, wait a minute, it is your job to fix this. And it's unacceptable to have mass shooting after mass shooting after mass shooting. Why not fix this? Get together, get together with the Democrats and get it done. Well, this happens a lot, Jim. The that was cut off a little bit. I was probably speaking more from a Christian perspective.

I also went on and said we need real revival in this country. I feel like we've turned from the Lord, and I know that maybe makes people's heads spin off sometimes when they hear somebody like me say that, but it's just... There's Christianity in other countries, and they don't have mass shootings. Well, they don't have our freedom either. They don't have a Second Amendment. And also, you know, you want to what happens? What about that point? Take away.

But what about that point that you should be the ones to fix it to say, well, we're not going to fix anything here in Washington. That's your job. OK, she broke over 20 laws. What law are you going to do? You know, now you have people that can print guns. Well, maybe don't prevent the laws that ban people from printing guns. And these people, they just don't want to do anything ever. And then they, like, thankfully, Acosta calls out that moron, like, well, I'd do anything ever.

All right. It's like, well, every, you know, a lot of countries have Christianity. You know, a lot of countries have mental illness. You know, it's not just America. Well, they don't have our freedom. They certainly don't have our freedom here. And a lot of countries have mental illness. You know, it's not just America. Well, they don't have our freedom. They certainly don't have our freedom here. And a lot of countries have a lot of freedom. Actually, if you look at the freedom scale, like there are actual reports that judge countries by a level of freedom. The United States doesn't even rank top 10. Like the United States is actually quite far down that list.

But it's not freedom to have to worry about going to a grocery store and getting shot. It's not freedom to send your kids to school and worry if they're going to make it store and getting shot. It's not freedom to send your kids to school and worry if they're going to make it home that day. Like that is not freedom. And this whole idea of freedom that they try to spread is just BS. I mean, look at what happened in Texas over the weekend. This is an example of Republican freedom, right? There was a shooting, left five people dead in Texas this weekend. And it was like a weird neighbor dispute. The neighbors asked the guy to stop shooting his AR-15 because in Texas, you can just take out your AR-15s and start shooting it because it was scaring the neighbor's baby. And the guy responded by taking his AR-15 and

killing five people, including a nine-year-old. That's freedom in Birchett's mind. When you say Birchett quick, it sounds like you're saying bird shit, which I think it was. Which is a good, it sounds like you're saying bird shit, which I think it was. Which is a good comp. Which I think that was, good job Lord on that one. And then Abbott's response on that was just completely cruel and heartless and ghoulish where he was like, five illegal Americans were killed. What are you talking about? Like five people were shot because of your crazy psychotic gun policies. Because Texas is the wild, wild West and these Republican states,

gun violence is running wild. And you have the nerve to say the criminal who killed five illegal immigrants and turn this into an immigration issue, like that's going to solve it. It is just so disgusting the way they pervert these phrases. And, you know, think like we're lucky that we have Acosta on CNN. I think he is the last saving grace on that network. Jordy, I know you're, you're a big Acosta guy. You want to give an Acosta shout out? Big Acosta shout out. I mean, that's exactly how you push back on that type of behavior. This should terrify everyone. That, that, that Birchett, I'm trying to say it best intentionally. Now his response to that should terrify you. Do you know why? Because that's the best response he came up with to that question after two weeks of him making that statement. You know what I'm saying? Like that, that is bananas that that guy is,

is helping to pass laws in this country. And meanwhile, he knows he's going on Acosta. He's going to get pressed about his stupid comments he made on the steps. And that's what he had. And do you notice his first move, Jay? His first move was also to kind of like blame the media for misinterpreting his statements. He was like, oh, well, that happened again. They cut me off. They cut me off again. They didn't let me finish. Acosta's like, okay, what did you want to say? Proceed. And then he says it. And then Acosta presses him again. You know, we, you know, other countries are, have freedom, right? You know,

other countries have Christianity, right? Well, they don't have our freedom. Oh, okay. I think our freedom isn't quite working out for, for, for people when they get shot up in school. Okay. I don't think our freedom is working out for the women who are being banned from crossing state lines to get an abortion and are being forced to have pregnancies. I don't think that is freedom in their mind. But CNN right now is also experiencing its own really sad shift. And we've been noticing this. Brothers, you remember we did a whole expose on this too, when the shift happened. You could look up our original YouTube video from maybe over a year ago or at least months and months and months

ago when we spoke about this. But CNN announced, for those who don't yet know, that they will be hosting a town hall with Donald Trump next week. You don't have to do that. There's no reason to do it. But CNN's ratings are absolutely cratering. Like they're, they're really hard. They're really horrific. Like honestly, more people watch the Midas Touch podcast than watch most CNN programs. Most people watch a Midas, more people watch a Midas Touch clip that Ben does throughout the day or one of our many incredible contributors do throughout the day than most CNN shows.

So they are really suffering right now. They're bleeding viewers. So they think, oh, we'll get Donald Trump on and he will help us out. I think also cynically, I think they're also kind of looking at the viewers leaving Fox and they're like, this is our chance. We got them. And it's such a misread. They misread every situation. Those viewers are not leaving Fox to go to CNN. It's not the normal ones. I'll tell you this. The people leaving Fox, it's not like, oh, well, they had to pay $785 million and whatever it is.

And so I no longer trust them. So I'm going to go to a more trustable centrist news source, CNN. Here I come. That's not the mindset of the person leaving Fox. They're not leaving cocaine to go to marijuana. Like they're trying to escalate this one to some next level stuff right here. They're not down a notch. Yeah, they're trying to level up.

And that means going to Newsmax or going to Steve Bannon or Marjorie Taylor Greene's podcast. And you see it. There's a direct correlation because Newsmax's ratings have like doubled. And while like all the Fox, not even just Tucker's show, but Hannity's show, Ingram's show, all of them are taking a massive hit. But CNN, in their infinite wisdom, decided that they're going to have this town hall with Donald Trump next week. Caitlin Collins is going to be the moderator.

I have mixed feelings on Caitlin Collins. I think she has done some good work, some bad work. But I think knowing her history is also helpful that she, for a long time, worked for the Daily Caller, which is a website, a far right website founded by Tucker Carlson. And she's been kind of promoted to be like the top person at CNN now as they get rid of all these other people, which I think is very revealing in the direction they're going. And Politico is reporting that CNN was actually, CNN was the one who approached the Trump campaign a few months ago. And it was this week that they rushed to lock the deal down and

get this locked down, which I think also kind of fits into my theory as A, they're desperate for ratings and they're the ones who are seeking this kind of stuff out. But also after this Fox stuff went down, they're like, this is our chance. And they jumped on it this week and locked the deal down. And I think everybody needs to know, a lot of people talk about the Chris Licht guy who's the head of CNN directly. But I think it's important that people know about John Malone, who we spoke about in that video, who is, he's like the key Warner Brothers Discovery board member. He's a massive Trump supporter. He's the chairman of Liberty Media, which is Discovery's largest shareholder. So he's like one of the main owners of CNN. And you got to know this guy's kind of history and this guy's mindset.

And I'll bring up a picture of him. Like he kind of looks like Harlan Crowe a little bit too, which kind of tells you, you know, all these guys kind of look the same. And he don't, right? Literally, this guy could be Harley Crowe. But this guy donated $250,000 to Trump's inauguration. Okay. That's not like, yeah, I'm just going to support the Republican candidate. I maxed out. I maxed out my, you know, 2,500 bucks or whatever it is. No, he gave $250,000 to Trump's inauguration. His comments about his views on what journalism should be are Fox News. So he looks at all the

craziness going on at Fox. He looks at all the lawsuits, the settlements, and he goes, I want me some of that. I want me some of that. He's repeatedly gushed over Fox's style, and I say this incredibly sarcastically, of journalism. And this is a direct quote. He said the US, quote, needs Fox News or something like it because otherwise everything's leftist. I think also just the use, like anytime somebody like that uses the word leftist, that sets off a whole bunch of red flags in my mind about where they stand. And he's compared himself to Rupert Murdoch. This is a direct quote again. Rupert is sort of like I am. He's a libertarian, but he thinks we should have a strong military is what he told the

Financial Times in 2017. And according to Vox, he's repeatedly wished in public for CNN to remake itself. And while now he denies that he has a direct impact on what CNN is doing, I think when you are the largest shareholder and owner of the company, I think you have a bit of sway. And when you say publicly that you want to change CNN and change the media into Fox and that that's your North star that you look to, I think it tells you everything you need to know. And I think it really explains the shifts that we're seeing right now in CNN coverage. If I were you, I would turn off the channel on them. I wouldn't even watch.

I mean, you notice how all these dudes, sorry, I'll toss it in a sec, but all these dudes always pull the same move. It's, it's, it's Malone. It's Elon Musk. They always go, what do you mean? I'm just, just the center. I'm in the center. What do you mean? That's the radical left. And all my views are just very centrist, like banning

books and banning abortion nationwide, like a centrist does. And then the media buys into the spin or they just buy the media and they push the same spin. But it's the same kind of lines that like an Elon Musk uses. They always pretend like they're, what? I'm just like a moderate. But they're like radical. Whenever they say that, that's also a huge red flag. Like you are an extremist. Like just admit it. Sorry, Jody. No, no, you're spot on, B. And I'll tell you what, I've seen the mass exodus firsthand from just the mightest mighty of CNN, leaving CNN in droves. The comments week over week I see in this live chat are, I used to watch CNN. I can't watch them anymore.

I don't know what happened. It's very Bill Maury. It's exactly what happened with Bill Maury. He took this weird approach. I fancy a lot of our audience are disgruntled Bill Maury watchers because, frankly, I'm one of them. It drives me crazy watching the guy and seeing what the hell is he doing these days. And that is the same exact vibe I get right now from CNN. It's complete garbage. Just garbage what they're doing.

And it's really a problem. It's a problem. And it's so interesting you say that, Jordy, because, yeah, the Fox viewers are now going to OAN. They're now going to Newsmax. They're going to the Marjorie Taylor Greene podcast to get the Steve Bannon podcast, to Charlie Kirk's. The CNN watchers are coming to the Midas Touch Network. And I'll say this, the views and stuff that we talk about here, at the end of the day, it's like, let's just treat people with decency. Let's treat people with humanity. Let's treat people with compassion. Let's focus on the 99% of Americans out there. That's not to say that we're against people who are in the 1% at all.

If you run businesses, there's great, but pay your fair share of taxes. There's no reason that the school teacher, the bus driver, the workers should be paying more taxes than the billionaires. And it's just a strange thing to me, you know, and a complete perversion of what should be the reality of our priorities where, you know, the MAGA Republicans are out there, you know, backed by Fox and these rightwing channels and people like who you just discussed, Brett, talking about what they want to cut in order to raise the debt ceiling. And it's stuff that crushes people. And meanwhile, what the MAGA Republicans are okay with, they love tax cuts, not just tax cuts for billionaires, but like tax write-offs so that a billionaire who has a private jet or a yacht can basically completely write off the purchase. And so when you wonder, well, what can we do possibly, I don't know, to raise more money in the treasury? What's the type of thing that we can do to help with the

deficit, to help pay off the debt? I don't know. Maybe because billionaires can avoid not just paying taxes because of the tax bracket you put them in, which is like the lowest ever in history, but maybe you also let them write off things like private jets and yachts. So when we start having a sensible conversation about spending, we can have a real conversation about that, but you don't tie that conversation to the debt ceiling. That's never taken place before. And then when we have that conversation, when we deal with it normally, when it comes to appropriations and tax policy. Let's have a real conversation to the public with what you're doing. But no, the MAGA Republicans instead say things like, here's what we need to do. And this is directly from the debt ceiling bill,

if you want to call it that even, that the MAGA Republicans are saying, if you don't do these things, we will not raise the debt ceiling. You need to eliminate Pell Grants for 80,000 students and reduce grant funding for millions of others. You need to remove access to the Head Start programs and childcare to 300,000 children. We need to cut funding for 2,000 border agents and 11,000 FBI agents. We need to basically reduce veterans care so there'll be 30 million less visits by our veterans. And let's shut down 125 air traffic control towers and let's block Biden's student debt relief plan and let's repeal all of the money given to the IRS. Let's do all of those things. Or if you don't do that, guess what we're going to do? We'll destroy the economy. You know that debt ceiling that we have

to raise, which is our constitutional responsibility under the 14th Amendment? Screw that. We'll destroy America if you don't do those things. And by the way, as I said, you want to talk about those things in a way. These committee hearings where the MAGA Republicans talk about Hunter Biden's laptop all day and they have Marjorie Taylor Greene yell at mothers and say they're not real mothers if they adopt their children. You know what's supposed to take place at those hearings? Conversations about things like spending priorities and things that actually advance our country. But that's not what the MAGA Republicans are doing. Now you have a situation where the Treasury

Secretary Janet Yellen says that if the debt ceiling is not raised by June 1st, America defaults on its debt. And then what happens? We go into a global depression. That's not me fear-mongering. That's what will take place. And the easiest way to avoid it, the easiest thing you do is you raise the debt ceiling. When Donald Trump was in office, he said, I can never even fathom that anybody would use tying spending priorities or spending negotiations to the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge. I cannot fathom that taking place. And so before, Kevin mccarthy and everybody would just raise the debt ceiling and that's just what she did by the way 97 of all debt 97

of all debt was created before president biden was in office 25 percent of all debt that our countries accumulated in its entire history was created by Donald Trump. And with all of that, the debt ceiling, which is how we have to pay off our past spending, it's not about future spending. That's not what the debt ceiling is. Future spending is about appropriations. It's about where money goes to the future. Debt ceiling is about paying our past bills. Kevin McCarthy gives this example. Oh, it's like when your kids raise your credit card and just fill up your credit card with all of these charges. They're like, you better pay it. Kevin McCarthy, in that example, you are the child. You are the child who has run up all of

the charges. And then you've now said, well, we're the adult and we're not paying for the charges that you ran up. You ran them up, period, full stop. And by the way, I've done a deep dive. I've read that bill, 320 pages of that bill. You know where the debt ceiling part of that bill, that's the first is the very last sentence. You know what the other 318 pages are? All of those cuts that I just discussed. So example, you're seeing right there, title one, discretionary spending, limits for discretionary category. And as you go in there, it repeals all discretionary spending. It says, we hereby repeal all of the money that was allocated. There is another section, there it

is right there, rescission of unobligated coronavirus funds. And it talks about, we're going to repeal any unallocated funds that would go to the things like I just mentioned. And it just says it, we are hereby repealing it. And so then what do they want to do? They want the veterans to come in and beg them. They want the veterans to come in and say, please, please, we need healthcare. And then they'll go, nope, sorry, we have other spending priorities. Pull that last one up there as well, Brett, because this last one is congressional review. Part of the bill, when you look through it also, is they basically effectively want to stop President Biden from doing executive orders. So any executive order that could potentially be

deemed under this definition a major issue, that an agency can't engage in any action, that Biden can't engage in any executive order, that all of that has to be approved by the Republicans in the House of Representatives. It is more insane, that bill. It's not a serious bill. It's one big poison pill that's designed to be laughed at and mocked and rejected so that they could say, look, we're doing something. Look, we passed something. If only President Biden agreed to our hostage demands, we wouldn't have this problem. Now, would we? That's the only reason that they pushed this bill through. And now we're learning that President Biden has, in fact, reached out to Kevin McCarthy today and to the four major congressional leaders, including Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, to discuss the debt ceiling,

because we are now one month away from a potentially catastrophic default on the debt, which would crash the global economy. They are playing a game of chicken, and Republicans are taking an absolutely unprecedented stance right now, and they are putting our country at risk. They are threatening our veterans to do it. They are threatening those who rely on programs the most to do it. It is an absolute disgrace. And their move when they are called out on it is to go, lie, that's a lie. If you look at the House Judiciary GRP account, it looks like Marjorie Taylor Greene at the State of the Union. It just says, lie, lie.

And then you see everybody call them out in the comments. But that's all they have. It reminds me, though, of when Rick Scott went on to Fox and had, what's the host's name, who called him out and said, it's in the plan, man. It's in the plan. It's not a Democratic talking point. It's in the plan. And I could say the same thing right now to Republicans. Listen, you could say, oh, lie, Democratic talking point, this and that. It's in the E. Jean Carroll case couldn't be further from the courthouse. I mean, how cowardly can you be in the contrast between Donald Trump fleeing the

country and E. Jean Carroll courageously giving testimony couldn't be in starker contrast. Let's talk about that right after this quick break. And now let's take a quick break to talk about our next partner. Hold on. Plastic. It's everywhere. It's everywhere we look and not enough is being done about it. 100 billion plastic bags are used and then thrown away every year. Yeah, that plastic bag you see in the gutter or floating in a stream or washed up on the beach, multiply that by 100 billion. Yikes. Am I right? But there's a better way. And it could start with a better bag. Hold On is a company born from the idea that there must be a better way to go about our daily chores.

Now, trash bags and kitchen bags, they're necessary staples. But do they need to be 100% plastic? 100% no! Hold On trash and kitchen bags are heavy-duty, plant-based, non-toxic, and 100% home compostable, which means they break down in weeks, not decades, without filling up our landfills or polluting our oceans. Hold On wants to be part of the growing movement away from single-use plastics, which if you ask most experts is the single worst kind of plastic.

At every stage, production, disposal, decomposition, plastic bags are doing harm to our earth, our water, and even our bodies. Hold On is absolutely amazing. One, they're a woman-owned, woman-founded company. Two, the Hold On bags are incredibly durable and sleek. It's so good to know that what I'm using is plant-based, non-toxic, and 100% home compostable. To shop plant-based bags Thank you. o-n-bags.com slash Midas, M-E-I-D-A-S, or enter Midas to receive 20% off your order. Small things can lead to lasting change if we stop and say, hold on. Thank you, Hold On, for sponsoring this episode. Let's take a quick break to talk about our next partner, ZBiotics. Now, if you're like me, you've probably skipped a workout because of drinks the night before. Like, it happens. But if you're committed to your healthy routine, you need Z-Biotics. Z-Biotics pre-alcohol

probiotic is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's this byproduct, not dehydration, that's to blame for your rough next day. Z-biotics produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. It's designed to work like your liver, but in your gut where you need it most. Just remember to drink Z-biotics before drinking alcohol, drink responsibly, and get a good night's sleep to feel your best tomorrow. Now, I can't lie. After we hit 1 million subscribers, I may have partied a little bit too much that night. But luckily, I knew I had Z-Biotics. Now, as instructed,

I drank a bottle of Z-Biotics before any alcohol, and I was amazed at just how good I felt the next day. Give Z-Biotics a try for yourself. Go to zbiotics.com slash Midas to get 15% off your first order when you use Midas at checkout. ZBiotics is backed with a 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember, head to zbiotics.com slash Midas and use the code Midas at checkout for 15% off. Thank you Zbiotics for sponsoring this episode. So Donald Trump was on trial in federal court in Manhattan, in E. Jean Carroll's case, but Donald Trump conveniently picked this week to go to Scotland and Ireland. And there he is with a shovel in the middle of nowhere, I suppose near one of his other golf courses, though. It just shows you how contrived this is because he clearly did not have to be there today for that event. He was scared to be there in court. He was scared to be anywhere around her, and he wanted to give an excuse to his followers about why he wasn't going to be in trial. So he posted,

we'll be leaving for Scotland and Ireland soon in order to see and inspect my great properties there. That's what he has to say to his people. No, you are a coward. You are afraid to be in a room with E. Jean Carroll. Let's just be clear. The golf courses and hotels are among the greatest in the world. Turnberry and Aberdeen in Scotland and Doombag out in Ireland. We'll be meeting with many wonderful friends and cutting a ribbon for a new spectacular second course in Aberdeen. Very exciting, despite the fact that it is make America great again. That is on my mind. In fact, America will be greater than ever before. And it's always such projection too. When he goes, we'll always be on my mind, he's just thinking about the E. Jean Carroll case. But that's, look, he came up with a fake reason. He's a coward. He's being sued for something

very, very serious. He's not showing up. And all he's not showing up, wants to get the hell out of the country. And so he basically threw it at Takapina. And Takapina filed this ridiculous motion for a mistrial that we said that was coming here. I said, look, here's what he's doing with all of these pretrial filings. He's trying to basically blow up the case, file a motion for mistrial. It's never going to work in front of Judge Lewis Kaplan because it's just utter nonsense. I'll tell you about what the motion for, that's Judge Lewis Kaplan there for those watching and for those on audio, we're showing a photo of what Judge Lewis Kaplan looks like. Kaplan's no nonsense, Kaplan. But when Takapina entered

court today, I want to show you first how he was greeted and how eugene carroll was greeted here play this clip millions and millions of women believe you okay can you just play the tech just the takapina park you could stop right over there just play the tacky talk when they call him tacky takapina and like i wish i could keep ben's face on the screen when they say because if you look at takapina's face he gets like like he's really annoyed by it like it really really gets you're so right that's the funniest part about it is that they're so under his skin and he's so annoyed and and when they go tacky takapina and you watch his face and he's like it's just a funny way to enter like your place of work for the day here play, play this clip. If you had a rough day at work today,

at least your day didn't start off like that. Look, here's what I think about lawyers generally. You know, I think that a lawyer who is representing a client in many instances should not be conflated with the client. 100%. Unless the lawyer conflates himself with the client and acts like the client. So at some point, a lawyer can say, I'm representing the client. I have a job to do. And at that point, I'm okay. If a lawyer represents someone who's accused of a serious crime, that is embedded in our constitution. And everybody has a right to a criminal defense lawyer. They have a right to counsel. And I think that being a lawyer is an honorable profession,

even if you represent people who are accused of doing bad things and people who do bad things. I draw the line where you represent people who are, one, trying to overthrow our democracy, because then you're trying to overthrow our constitution, right? It's kind of like when Donald Trump tries to invoke immunities, like executive privileges, the way President Biden's like, no, you don't get to try to overthrow our constitution, then invoke our constitutional protections. So that's number one to me. And number two, when you as the attorney act like the client and you go on and you basically assume that persona and not defend the client so much as act like the client.

And I think that's how Takapina has behaved. And then people go, you know, it's interesting because when the Ghislaine Maxwell trial took place, right, no one attacked her lawyers. But you know why? Because Ghislaine was there. She showed up every day to court. And it's a criminal case. And you didn't see the attorneys saying just horrific things to the media every day and putting on this ridiculous bravado and just being disgusting. I do believe, and I think it is an American belief, that everybody has a right to the attorney,

no matter how horrific your crimes are, you better believe that, right? You have to. But I think your point about them taking on the persona of their client and then going on these TV networks, spreading this disinformation, bloviating, I think that's where I draw the line. And you could go on TV and discuss the case and put out as powerful as a defense that you can. That's your job, right? It's your job to defend your client. And I have respect for that. But what people like Joe Takapina are doing, what people like Alina Haba are doing is so beyond the pale of what an attorney should do. And you should notice, like in Trump's case with the

Manhattan DA, it's not like we're sitting here ragging on Susan Nicholas. Most people probably don't even know her name because she is quietly doing her job of representing Donald Trump. And that's okay. It's honestly okay. That's how it should be. But she's not going on TV and saying, oh, it's all fake news. The media is a liar. You're a liar. She's not pulling that stunt. And once you start doing that to me, you lost all my respect. I will not defend you at all. And I frankly think you are demeaning the entire profession and making it look horrible. The Susan necklace example is a great one because she's Donald Trump's criminal defense lawyer. No one knows who she is. I wouldn't even, I would, I mean, I know who she is. And if you'd watch Midas Touch Network, you probably know who

she is, but most of the public doesn't know who she is. I wouldn't even think about, you know, at this point, like, why would I go after Susan Ecklund? It would be a weird attack for me to be like, she represents Donald Trump. What a loser to do that because the reality is that Donald Trump's in charge with crimes. He should have a lawyer. He should have competent counsel. But if Susan Ecklund were to go on TV

and start acting like a complete buffoon, like Takapina acts, like Tacky Takapina. How many times do you think he's gotten that? It really penetrated. I'm going to one up your comment, Jay. How many times has Takapina gotten it versus how many times has Ben watched that video today?

It really makes me crack up. There's so many nuances of it. Just how he walks in and he's angry and he filed this horrific motion and he knows that Donald Trump just fled to Scotland and he's got to show up there and cross. And then they greet him and they're like, shame on you, Tacky Takapina. And it's a great nickname. I wish I came up with that one. Michael Cohen has some nicknames for him, which can't be repeated here, but you can watch Political Beatdown to look at those. So here's the motion for mistrial that was filed by Tacky Takapina early in the morning. He said that here's why the judge needs to throw out the case

and declare a mistrial. One, he says that the judge, he blames the judge. He says the judge mischaracterized the plaintiff. He said, two, the judge bolstered the testimony of plaintiff. He said, three, the judge allowed plaintiff to testify that defendant has two tables of lawyers at trial while prohibiting defendants from fairly clarifying the improper argumentative, to clarify the record by showing that plaintiff has a comparable amount of lawyers, for continuously sustaining improper argumentative objections of plaintiff's counsel as to questions using a well-established and accepting looping method, what's he talking about, cross-examination,

permitted the testimony of Natasha Stoyanov without any voir dire of the witness. By the way, as of the time of this, Natasha, the time he filed this, Natasha Stoyanov hadn't even testified yet. And so Natasha Stoyanov is somebody who alleges that Donald Trump groped her and basically pushed her against a wall when she was a People Magazine reporter and she was writing a story about her relationship, about Donald Trump's relationship rather, with Melania while she was seven months pregnant. Donald Trump said, come into the room and then pushed her against the wall and groped her and tried kissing her.

And so she's allowed to testify about what's called Me Too evidence. Even before the Me Too movement, it was called Me Too evidence, where other victims of somebody who's accused of sexual assault can testify of a pattern and practice of their behavior if certain threshold standards are met. But when you look into it, he's complaining that E. Jean Carroll talked about that they had a lot of lawyers there. What is he even whining about? And one of the issues that he complained about is that he tried to insinuate that E. Jean Carroll hates all men because in her satirical book, she talks about the satirical moment in the book,

she talks about sending all men to Montana and retraining them. So he basically goes, okay. And at one point, this is the cross exam. At one point, I think in your book, you propose we should dispose of all men. And she answers, yeah, into Montana. And he thinks like he's got her, right? He's like, question, into Montana, answer. And she goes, yeah, and retrain them. Question, so retrain. So all the men here in this courtroom, in this country, all get shuffled off to Montana and get retrained. So at that point, he thinks that he's got this moment because there's, I think, six men on the jury. And so that's why he's bringing up this questioning, which by the way, E. Jean Carroll's lawyers probably should have objected to because it was prejudicial and nonsensical to begin with. It has nothing to do with anything. But I think E. Jean Carroll's lawyers realized that he's

digging a deeper hole and he's a professional right stepper. Because then E. Jean Carroll said, and this was like perfect, she's like, you do understand that that's satire, right? And then he goes, ah, okay. And then the court to try to bring some levity to the moment, because Takapina looks like an idiot, and just get Takapina to move on to the next topic, because the very nature of this cross-exam is stupid, to basically use satire to claim she hates men. The court goes, as a joke, the court to bring levity was like, it comes from Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal 700 years ago, right? And E.G. and Cara was like, yeah. And the court's like, all right, let's- Well, it also does come from Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. Read Jonathan Swift's

A Modest Proposal. It is a satirical essay that is about that. It's about the poor. It's about the aristocracy. It's about the attitudes towards the poor of the rich. And it's known as being this piece of literary genius, one of the top satirical works in the entire English language that through satire suggests that the impoverished Irish people could ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food to the rich. So that's what E. Jean is playing off of in her book. It's a reference to- That's what her book's called. Her book is called What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal. And so what Takapina claims prejudiced their whole case such that they need a mistrial was that the judge almost, this is what the implication was,

that the judge kind of ran to E. Jean Carroll's defense and basically supported her statement that it comes from Jonathan Swift, almost coached her and helped her. And it's like, that's the title of her book. And the judge was just doing that to actually help you, Takapina, because you just got humiliated by E. Jean Carroll, who just said, you realize I was joking, right? I don't believe that we should deport all men to Montana and retrain them. You get that, right? And that was one of the main points that he wants to make. And he also

complained and whined that the judge, while not in the jury's presence, called out Donald Trump and Eric Trump for posting all of those things on the first day of trial, calling the trial a scam and a witch hunt and all the ridiculous things that they say in violation of court order. So this is how the judge dealt with the motion for mistrial. Court is now in session. All rise for the Honorable Judge Lewis Kaplan. Judge Lewis Kaplan goes, counsel, I'm denying your motion. You may ask your question to the witness. It was just like that. That's what went down. I'm denying your motion. An 18-page motion just denied like that. So good. Yeah. I mean, the motion, all those words on those 18 pages basically boiled down

to judge, you're being mean to me and attacking the judge, which is just a real stable genius move, folks, to attack the judge to try to declare a mistrial. But those are the kind of people we're working with. And once again, that's why I am highly critical of Joe Takapina or Tacky Takapina, as the people in New York are calling him. I'm hearing it, too, all around here. Many people are saying- Tacky, tacky, tacky Pina. But yeah, I mean, look, there's some in the comments saying what they're trying to do is set up an appeal. True. But they're always going to do that. That's their entire game. They're going to try to do anything they can to say,

we've been treated unfairly. Donald Trump is a victim. So unfair he had to go to Scotland. And it's like, look, he was too big of a coward to even show up to his own trial. And instead, he created some pretextual reason for why he was going to Scotland. And Brett, speaking about these foreign trips, I mean, just looking back at whatever this DeSantis thing was and realizing that he spent over $600,000 of taxpayer money because his whole claim- Dude, on just the flights. That's not including everything else. That's not including the personnel.

He took that Harlan Crow jet, that Bombardier. He did. Yeah, that was one of the jets he actually took. He took a bunch of private jets. He traveled around the country to random cities. He traveled around the world. And for what? Just to get humiliated? Just the meatball hopping around the world, getting humiliated in every single country he went to? So he took though the most fanciest jet that's out there on the market, the Bombardier 5000. What could he have done? I don't know. You work in the government.

You could take a commercial flight. You could have your secret service. You could take a commercial- Your public servant. Your public servant. And again, here's the thing. Like when you have the Clarence Thomas debate, and I had this debate with some of my students at the law school, some of the undergrad students. I said, look, if Clarence Thomas wants to retire and he wants to fly on a Bombardier

5000 and he works with wealthy people that want to fly him around. And that's part of his job as a private citizen. He could do that. I'm not criticizing the fact. Let me just say one thing. I don't think that people would be as friendly with him if he was not Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. And therein lies the problem. And exactly. But here's the thing. There are certain positions where you are called the honorable this or that. He's called the honorable. He wears a robe. People rise for you, okay? Because you're supposed to be honorable. So be honorable. You don't get to have your cake and eat at seven. Like you could just be a judge. It's a very respectable profession. You are the Supreme Court. You've reached the highest level and you could demonstrate humility.

By the way, if you want to be a wealthy Wall Street banker and fly around in private jets, I'm okay with that. I think we should change our tax policies though to make it fair. When I talk about the total write-offs on private jets, I don't think that's a fair situation. But nonetheless, I think that if you're a wealthy person, go for it. But to your point, Brett, you're not acting honorable. At this point, DeSantis, you are a public servant. That's your job. So now while people in Florida are going through real issues and systemic generational problems, he's going to create. And no, the Republicans are going to, for these eight years of damaging Republicans, I mean, damaging the state,

the Republicans, they're all going to blame once a Democrat comes into power, right? Because the Republicans are going to see what's going on. I mean, the state rather is going to see what's going on with the Republican Party. And they're going to be like, yeah, he screwed it up. And then they're going to blame the Democrat for it. Like, look, the insurance policies are bad at all. The Democrat did it. Like, that's their go-to move. It's like, you're destroying the state. People have to flee your state because it's hateful now. And sure, are people coming into the state because like you have policies where you don't collect taxes and you don't do any, yeah, that's, Florida. It's a beautiful state. It's objectively beautiful. So you do that,

and then you don't charge people taxes, and you go, look what the great work I'm doing. It's like, I'm not so sure. Yeah, I mean, people in Florida are really suffering, and I've been reading a lot of stories about people who got there with those promises from these Republicans. Look, come to this bastion of freedom and lower taxes. And now they're there and they have to push back their retirements. They have to take multiple jobs. They're having real trouble and are really struggling because this insurance crisis especially has gotten really bad in Florida. And I know any of our listeners from the state could attest to that, that rates have just completely skyrocketed, and in some cases, doubling, tripling, quadrupling. Some insurance companies just completely left the market. They're like, we're not even in this.

And then you put that with all the other autocratic fascist policies that DeSantis is implementing every day. And a lot of people are like, oh man, I'm really regretting this. What the heck am I doing? And so while all that suffering is going on, you have DeSantis running a shadow presidential campaign. We also have the bobblehead moment. I wish I had the clip right now. The bobblehead moment, I believe it was in Japan, when he was asked a simple question about his falling poll numbers. He probably should have had a decent response chambered. Instead, he gave a very awkward response, which will live in infamy. Then he had the outburst in Israel when he was asked about his military record in Guantanamo Bay, where he like snapped at the reporter.

Then when he was in Israel- Museum of Tolerance. At the Museum of Tolerance to top it off. Go on the nose. Then he like went to the Western Wall and he put on a yarmulke and he was like, had his, like a campaign insignia. He had his name on it, which is just kind of weird and offensive. And it's just so performative. And this is also like, let's backtrack. This is the guy who refuses to condemn Nazis in his state, who's banning books, who's pushing all these autocratic policies.

And he has the nerve to act like he goes to Israel and look, Jewish people, I'm in Israel, even though it's really a play to his evangelical base there. But it's just so transparent, you know, what he's doing and what, you know, a lot of these politicians do. I just want to say this too, though. I mean, when you look at where DeSantis took that photo op from, I mean, that was the Western wall, right? When you look at that, maybe people don't know, that's a very important area within Israel. And so when you see him basically campaigning, wearing a yarmulke or a kippah that says DeSantis on it, that shit really, I mean, it boils my skin when I saw that. Oh, it's so fake.

He went to the UK also, and the reviews couldn't have been worse. I don't understand how you go on a trip that's this important and just completely fumble the ball at this level. I'm going to read you some quotes of some of these UK business leaders said. I mean, it's unbelievable how bad that he actually was in this. So he met with these titans of British industry. It was co-hosted by lloyds of london which is the largest insurance marketplace uh perhaps they could use some help

in florida because florida they have no insurance in florida but he's meeting with the insurance people overseas and to say they were unimpressed with ron desantis is a complete and utter understatement here are some quotes horrendous lowage. I love low wattage. Just calling him like low wattage. DeSantis looked bored and, quote, stared at his feet. Another noted, and this is pretty vicious, nobody in the room was left thinking, quote, this man's going places. you know but they go outside of their bubbles and they get exposed and it's one of the reasons why i like to low wattage it's one of the reasons i like to cover these congressional hearings because again we call these mega republicans professional rake steppers because when they're finally there and they have to like discuss things and and have normal conversations like they're not behaving like normally like setting aside behaving as like leaders which is what they're supposed to be doing like their behavior is abhorrent to civilized

society when you are holding a hearing where your very essence of it is to spread some COVID disinformation that the head of the teachers union is responsible for school shutdowns and not the actual global pandemic and not Donald Trump mishandling it, but where you spend your time, where you're supposed to ask questions in this already performative disinfo filled hearing, telling the witness, a mother of an adopted child, that she's not a real mother because she has a son through marriage or a child through marriage, that's just really mean. That's really evil. That's not the way normal people behave. And if you behave that way in any other setting other than in the MAGA Republican Party, rightfully so, you wouldn't have your job. And the MAGA Republicans are always like, well, the Democrats, they hate my First Amendment rights.

No. The First Amendment is about the government coming after people for their speech. Even then, through a strict scrutiny lens of the government's actions, where the speech becomes criminal, inciting violence, then the government could have a legitimate interest in dealing with it. But that's not what we're talking about, right? What we're talking about is actually not the First Amendment. It's actually being a good human, right? And what MAGA Republicans are being called out for are just basically being assholes and being jerks and being hateful people. There's this article that we posted, which basically says, maybe becoming president takes more than just being a dick. And it's not a First Amendment issue.

The First Amendment issue is my freedom of speech, our freedom of speech to criticize you for saying hateful things. If I'm walking around in a department store and the person in the department store is out there screaming at the top of their lungs anti-Semitic things and Nazi chants and just discriminatory hateful things, you're in a department – I could say, stop it. What are you doing? And that's not a violation of your first amendment rights when I want to hold you accountable.

And Ben, it's also not, quote, the Democrats, which is how they always frame it. They want to be able to go into that department store, go into that convenience store and say something homophobic or say something racist or just be the worst possible version of themselves. And then the second anybody comes back and says, Hey man, that's not cool. Like, like tone down, like that's, listen, that's not cool. And they go, the Democrats are canceling me again. It's like, dude, I'm not speaking to you as a Democrat. Most people don't walk around like Mike Pence ago. I'm a Christian. I'm a conservative. They're just like, dude, I'm a person. I'm here. I love my family. I have a wife. I have kids. I'm trying

to live. Maybe have a barbecue. Maybe go to the movies. Sort of buy a sandwich, dude. Get out of my way. They're not like, here I am putting on my Democrat hat to yell at you for your racist stuff. Here I come to cancel you. It's like, no, just stop being a dick. And the thing that's happened over the past few years that Trump really enabled and brought out, and of course it always existed, but Trump greenlit it so that this is the way forward for Republicans, is that everybody thinks that they have the right to be a dick, as that article says, without any consequence. But that actually goes against this whole First Amendment free speech argument. It's actually the opposite of what they say, because the First Amendment doesn't end with you, because I have a right and everybody else has the

right to tell you that you are wrong. Everybody has the right to go, dude, that's not cool. And that's not you being canceled. That's you being rightly criticized. And that's okay. But don't act like you're some victim at the end of the day. Yeah, like Elon Musk, you know, goes on Bill Maher and he's like, you know, the, the, the, the woke mind virus that is infecting all people. What I'm trying to say, Bill Maher, what I'm trying to say is that we all have a, that the woke mind virus is trying to stop everybody's First Amendment rights. And then bill maher's like

brilliant i'm like the hell it's like mark martha he throws him a mark levin yeah i've talked to supreme court justices i've talked to i'm like what the hell was that i'm like that's just that's what the world was that and basically all they're trying to say is they want to platform the most hateful people and then they want no accountability when normal decent people are like that's freaking disgusting like what is what what is he what do they want to post like what they desperately want to post is sex shaming pictures, the types of posts that Elon Musk wants to post. These really kind of gross images that are borderline pornographic, but sexual harassing pornographic anime memes that he posts on his social media account. And then when people are like, yeah, you're the CEO

of this company. Why are you posting? The woke, the mind virus. No, we're just saying stop being weird, man. Stop posting that stuff. I have a right to say that's not normal. Please just stop doing it. You could keep going, but the First Amendment kicks in when the government comes in and says, you can't do that. And by the way, do you want to know when the government said you can't do that? In October of 2020, I know you like to say that that was Biden, but guess who was the government there? Donald Trump. And guess what the Trump administration would do? Actually, when they use the government, they would use the government to reach out to Twitter if there was a mean post about Donald Trump, and they would tell Twitter to take it down. The only post that Biden said take down was a post in the campaign Senate of a sex shaming, weird video of Hunter Biden having consensual sex because the MAGA

Republicans going back to the outset are obsessed with that. So I want to take people out though. This is what they're talking about. So this is Ronna McDaniel, whose real name is Romney, but she doesn't call herself Romney because that makes Donald Trump upset. And this is what she talks about when she's being interviewed. You'll notice what she says. She goes, Democrats are trying to ban people and freedom of thought. It's their talking. It's exactly what we were just saying. I want to quickly ask you about cultural issues because we've got some new polling on this and the issue of trans issues. Polling higher is people are more worried voters are about attacks on trans families than they are about trans people competing in sports. When asked about issues involving schools, the top concern you can see here was book banning.

Now there's word major donor to the GOP, Peter Thiel, is unhappy and is going to hold his money out because he doesn't like these debates about abortion and trans and bathrooms and all of that. Are you worried that these cultural issues are hurting the GOP? Well, one, the Democrats are using this word book banning. You're seeing it a lot. You saw it on Biden's launch. That's a lie. There isn't book banning. Republicans are doing are protecting our children and parental rights and saying five year olds shouldn't be reading sexually explicit material. Ron DeSantis went in front of cameras and read some of these books and the news stations had to go away because the

material was so explicit. But now we know their game plan, right? We can have a conversation about issues. And really what it is about is parents should have a say in what's happening with our kids. And I think most Americans support that. But it's good to know the Democrats' playbook, and we're going to push back on that, especially coming from a Democrat Party that is banning freedom of speech, that is canceling people, that is destroying your life if you don't think with their orthodoxy. This is a Democrat Party who is saying if you think outside of the box of everything we are dictating to you we will make you lose your job we will destroy you um so they're banning people they're banning freedom of speech and freedom of thought

republicans are protecting children yeah i mean it sums it up right there that they're banning people if if you if you say things that go against the orthodoxy well if you say things that go against the orthodoxy, well, if you say things that are spreading Russian propaganda, it's not a democratic thing to call you out and go, why are you saying the Putin lies? Why are you doing that? If you're out there spreading COVID disinformation, civilized society- Or if you're going outside in a restaurant or whatever and harassing somebody because they're gay or because they're transgender, guess what? You're the jerk in that situation. And most Americans are against that. And Rana was confronted with an actual problem that it's her job to fix there. Most Americans, and it's actually an important point that was brought up there, most Americans actually think your attacks on the transgender community

are hateful and they're actually stand against it. So you want to make this the crux of your campaign going into 2024. And then she deflects and she tries to take charge of the narrative by spreading that same BS, which is what we've been speaking about over the last few minutes. So I'm not going to belabor those same points, but you know, the Republicans did an autopsy and I encourage people to also look up the, there was a Washington Post article about it because it's just so, it's so peak MAGA, so peak GOP 2023, this autopsy, because it's designed to figure out everything except what the actual problems are for the Republican party. It does not even mention

because they don't want to offend him. Doesn't even mention Donald Trump once. Doesn't even mention that extremism. Not one time. About abortion, you know what the conclusion they came to with abortion? I'm not making this up. You can read that.

Once again, it's in the plan. The autopsy that they put together for why Republicans didn't do so great in the last elections was, oh, we need to talk more about abortion. Maybe people just aren't hearing our opinion enough on abortion. We got to speak more. They're so deranged. They're so out of touch. And the only ways that they could win is by cheating, by rigging the maps,

and by clawing away at democracy. And so that's what we see them doing every single day because they have no other way to win in this country. I really don't know, Ben, if we could end on a higher note than an unexpected Elon Musk impression. I mean, what do you guys think? I didn't even know I was going to do the Elon Musk impression, even as I was doing it. Have you been practicing that impression? It's a pleasant surprise. Well, I saw the clip of him and I was like, I watched it on Bill Maher and it was like literally just what I did. And it made no sense. He really, at the end of kind of all the ums and ahs, really only said three words, woke mind virus. And then Bill Maher was like, great point.

And listen, I think, honestly, we might need to toss out the internet and start over because I think that people don't look at them like, what the frick are you talking about, dude? That's a really good point. That's a really good point. People don't... I saw one of the comments which basically says, okay, I love the show, but what can I do to reach out to all of these people? How do we get them to listen? First, I'll say this.

Right now, the Midas Touch Network is, if you look at all of our views on digital, it does get more views than Fox. It does more videos, more views than any of these right-wing networks, kind of period, full stop. So to me, it is important to get the message out to a lot of people. I believe a lot of people important to get the message out to a lot of people. I believe a lot of people need to hear the message. But ultimately, it also is what is the message? And I frequently get asked, well, Ben, did you ever know you wanted to run like a political media company?

And ultimately, my answer is, I don't feel it's political. And I know that sounds strange, but I really don't. For all of the political videos, quote unquote, I do, I don't feel like a political person. And there's people like, man, you need to run for office. I see in the comments and I appreciate that, but that's not really what I want to do. I really like doing this. And I think a lot of the views that we share here, I don't think should be political. I just think let's treat all humans decently. Let's have intelligent conversation. Let's try to solve problems. Let's try to focus on issues that are really important to American

people. Let's be fair. Let's make sure people have good working conditions. And let's focus on the fact that we want people to have jobs. I don't want people struggling paycheck to paycheck. Let's try to figure out those problems. I'm open. I'm open to solutions. It doesn't always have to be a democratic solution. But when I asked the Republicans, hey, what's your solution? Great Eminem missed a potato. And I'm like, oh, that's not a solution. You're just freaking saying woke mind by you're saying random things. That's not a solution. Like I'm like, oh, that's not a solution. You're just freaking saying woke mind bar. You're saying random things. That's not a solution. I'm open to if there's a constructive solution. We could have that conversation. I guess I care about equality. I want to make sure a woman can control their own bodies and not have big government and people

like Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump control their bodies. To me, that shouldn't be like, oh, well, that's embodied in the Democratic Party. That should be embodied in America. And then we could have different ways of how we achieve those goals and hopefully have normal conversations and we're not screaming at each other and ultimately solve the problem. So as I like to think about it, how do we reach out to Americans? We should just talk like Americans. We should talk like human beings. We should just talk like people who care about character, who care about decency. And if people are repelled by that, you'll expose them. If that angers the people, then call them out. What I am ultimately confident about is that there are, and I truly feel

optimistic, it's not just a glass half full mentality. I truly believe that there are significantly more people who care about love and compassion and decency and intelligence than people who are MAGA Republicans who hate. I truly believe that. So I think what we have to do is we have to orient the media around really those views, those commonalities. And while CNN tries to become the next Fox and Fox lose viewers to, what you should be doing, what everyone should be doing, it's not a secret, right? We should be focused on re-imagining the way the media is done, but re-imagining the ways it should be done with humanity, with compassion, with decency, with intelligence, just trying to solve problems. That's why I love the Midas Mighty. That's why I love this pro-democracy community here. It's why we're

so grateful for all of you, for all of your support. None of this is possible without you. Share these videos. Share the podcast, subscribe, not just on our YouTube channel, but subscribe as well, wherever you get your audio podcast. It helps the show if you subscribe on audio. So if for whatever reason you're not subscribed in audio, subscribe there. For all our audio listeners who don't see our YouTube, check out our YouTube. I think you will like it. Also, you can check us out at patreon.com slash Midas Touch, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Midas Touch. That's one of the ways we fund this network. We don't have outside investors. I know probably not the best business model, but I think doing it grassroots is the

right way. One of the membership tiers we have is a tier called an honorary producer, but there are a lot of other tiers as well. And here on the screen now, we have all of our honorary producers for those just listening to audio. Thank you to our honorary producers, but thank you to all of our patrons. You could also check out our gear at store.midastouch.com, 100% made in the US, 100% union made. That's store.midastouch.com. Check that out there. Got a new political beat down tomorrow. I'm doing at noon Pacific three Eastern with Michael Cohen, who was just deposed in the New York Attorney General case. We'll talk about his deposition. A lot of exciting stuff coming our way. And again, thank you all so so much, Jordy, I'll let you take it away. 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.