The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump CORNERED by Jack Smith as Georgia Report Set to Reveal NEW CRIMES

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, we bring you the latest breaking news to keep you informed! On today’s show we discuss the new ruling from Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert ...McBurney, who ordered the release of portions of a special grand jury report, including a section "in which the special purpose grand jury discuss its concern that some witnesses may have lied under oath" and what it means for the Fulton County investigation into Trump and his allies. Moreover, we cover the confidential documents found in Trump’s bedroom at Mar-a-Lago as well as the Trump team’s laptop turned over to to the U.S. Justice Department in a recent search, Jack Smith issuing a subpoena for former Vice President Mike Pence, the news of two more Trump Lawyers meeting with the federal grand jury, President Biden owning the narrative as it relates to Republicans trying to strip away the American people’s Social Security & Medicare and much more! New full-length episodes of the MeidasTouch Podcast featuring the brothers are released every Tuesday & Friday morning. The rest of the week, enjoy our short-form content we call ‘The Mighty.’ If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: Magic Spoon: Get $5 off your order at https://magicspoon.com/meidas with promo code ‘MEIDAS’ Rhone: Save 20% on your entire order by using promo code ‘MEIDAS’ at https://rhone.com/meidas Highland Titles: Get 20% off at https://highlandtitles.com with code ‘MEIDAS’ LightStream: Get a special interest rate discount at https://lightstream.com/meidas 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 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:11 If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Special counsel Jack Smith's criminal investigation into Donald Trump intensifies significantly. Former Vice President Mike Pence has been subpoenaed. Former National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien has been subpoenaed, former national security advisor, Robert O'Brien has been subpoenaed. And we learned that Trump attorneys, Evan Corcoran and Christina Bob have already testified before the federal criminal grand jury in Washington, DC. We know what MAGA stands for, everybody. Make attorneys get arrested. I'm changing it up. There was a great comment. Yeah, I'm changing it up. There was a comment that said, how about this one, Ben?
Starting point is 00:02:13 Make attorneys get arrested. I said, you know what? I like that. I'm going to start adopting that one more. And also, as part of special counsel jack smith's investigation it was also discovered that donald trump was sleeping with a folder that had classified markings on it and the doj had to subpoena it from trump's bedroom to get the folder back in january trump's lawyer's response to this sordid ordeal, Trump's lawyer said, Donald Trump was sleeping with the folder in order to use it to block the light from his phone that was keeping him up at night. And now because of the DOJ's actions, Donald Trump is going to have to find another folder to block the light. Okay, that's real.
Starting point is 00:03:07 We're going to actually show you video. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to show you video of the lawyer saying that. Oh, yeah. And Trump has his own and very real laptop from hell scandal going on right now. Yes, indeed. One of Trump's current aides had downloaded information from the classified folder onto that aide's laptop, which is illegal.
Starting point is 00:03:33 And that laptop was turned over to the Department of Justice. Projection incoming. Also incoming, the Georgia. Also incoming. incoming also incoming the georgia also incoming brett doesn't hear these intros before i do them so he's getting it for the first time you're getting a real reaction also incoming the georgia superior court judge robert mcbirney who's presided over the fulton County Special Grand Jury criminal investigation into 2020 election interference has made a critical ruling that three portions of the Special Grand Jury's report will be released to the public this week on February 16th. Now, the rest of the report
Starting point is 00:04:21 will remain sealed to protect the due process rights of the people who were mentioned in the report who the special grand jury recommends be criminally indicted. And that will only be sealed temporarily. So is Donald Trump one of the names in the sealed portion of the report? I think it is. And I'll explain why on this episode. Okay. All right. All right. Back to normal land. Back to normal land. After his historic State of the Union address, which over 72% of Americans had a positive view
Starting point is 00:04:58 of, according to a CNN poll, President Biden went on the offense, traveling to Florida as part of a 20-state blitz to discuss his administration's accomplishments and continuing to slam Republicans who want to cut or abolish Social Security and Medicare. MAGA Republicans are losing their mind, yet they continue to call for Social Security and Medicare to be cut. They continue to call for social security and medicare to be cut they continue to call for raising prescription drug prices like truth is their kryptonite speaking of which more maga republican craziness mega republicans going on a blitz of their own with marjorie taylor green leading this never a good thing and giving speeches about how Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, is actually not a Republican, but is actually a
Starting point is 00:05:54 Democrat. We talk about that here on the Midas Dutch podcast, how that's how they feel. She stole our bit. She stole our bit completely. It ripped it. Yeah, I said, this is what they go and they say Mitch McConnell's a Democrat. She's watching. They're taking our bits. There's no doubt about it. And the official Twitter account from that bizarre MAGA committee on weaponization or whatever the heck they're calling it that attacks the Justice Department, attacks law enforcement, attacks the FBI. They're out there spreading their new pathetic conspiracy theory. And this one is that the FBI is coming, this is according to the Weaponization Twitter account, to monitor Catholics at mass. They're coming at mass to
Starting point is 00:06:38 monitor you. It's like the most despicable Putin propaganda. It's beyond humiliating and disgraceful. Okay. And let's also talk about some stories that I think need more attention. How about like President Biden firing the architect of the Capitol who was appointed by Donald Trump to a 10-year term back in 2019, who was not even an architect. And surprise, surprise, who engaged in despicable misappropriation of government funds, pretended he was a cop, and then threw his family under the bus at a recent congressional hearing. Do you get any more? That hearing was insane. I can't wait to play the clip from there. And let's talk about the train derailment that took place in East Palestine, Ohio, which has sent toxic chemicals like vinyl chloride and hydrogen chloride into the air, which, by the way, was all caused by the Trump administration rolling back on critical regulations
Starting point is 00:07:41 put in place in the Obama administration to make sure that trains that carry these toxic chemicals are safer. This is the Midas Touch podcast. And with an introduction like that, it's going to be a very good podcast indeed. Brett and Jordy, let me let you guys get a word on how about that. Thanks, Ben. As we like to say on the show, another slow news day in the United States of America. Not too much to talk about. No, I for one am very happy to see that Jack Smith has entered his Oprah phase at this point. You get a subpoena. You get a subpoena.
Starting point is 00:08:18 You get a grand jury appearance. It's a great thing to see. And now it seems like every day we're getting hit with one person close to Trump got a subpoena. A second person close to Trump got a subpoena. Another person was in with the grand jury testifying. Another person was in. We're getting all this news. And as we hear about it, we see that right now the focus, those closest to Trump, those highest up, those in the inner circle. And guess what? Once you reach somebody like Vice President Mike Pence, former Vice President Mike Pence, you don't get much higher than that. And the only reason that you bring in somebody like a former Vice President Mike Pence is because you're looking for the bigger fish above him.
Starting point is 00:09:03 And there's only one and we all know who it is. So I love to see all this action happening. Jordy, how are you doing? You have a good weekend, everything going well on your end? I am doing great brothers. I cannot wait for this episode. Ben, please do not change what we refer to here, what MAGA stands for. We've already made those hats, we have the inventory. Don't change the last word. I don't know what we would do with all of the hats if you start calling it something else. So please, just keep it Make Attorneys Get Attorneys.
Starting point is 00:09:33 That is my one thing for you. Make it. Okay, that's a great point. It's still Make Attorneys Get Attorneys. But here's the thing, Jordy, that may be a collector's item addition that you could only get right now in the event that there is a change. So we could spin it that way as well, but let's get right into it with no spin at all, which is the hard, cold facts right now, which Brett,
Starting point is 00:09:58 to your point, special counsel Jack Smith's criminal investigation intensifying. You don't get higher than former Vice President Pence until you actually indict Donald Trump. So Mike Pence has been subpoenaed. The former National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien has been subpoenaed. And then we've also learned that Trump's attorneys, current attorneys, Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb. They've testified before the federal criminal grand jury in Washington, D.C., and Corcoran and Bobb were inextricably involved in obstructing justice with regards to Donald Trump's theft of the government records, including sensitive compartmented information. They were dealing with the Department of Justice when the DOJ took it over from the National
Starting point is 00:10:51 Archives. And Corcoran has been dealing with the National Archives dating back to late 2021 and 2022. Remember when Donald Trump back in January of 2022 turned over those like 15 boxes and he like hid inside the newspaper clippings, sensitive compartmented information and classified stuff thinking, oh, the National Archives are never going to find it. Like Trump was involved in packing those boxes. And then the National Archives got it and goes, what the hell is this? There's a lot of, oh my God, classified information here, sensitive compartmented information. Hey, DOJ, you've got to check this out. The Department of Justice then realized that there was a lot of other classified information
Starting point is 00:11:34 that Donald Trump took. Yet Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb continued to lie to the Department of Justice throughout 2022, including an attestation that was signed by Christina Bob back in June of 2022, giving this Red Weld folder, one of those legal folders that had like another 20 or so classified documents and other documents in it as well, saying that based upon a diligent search that we did and based on what was told to me, there are no other records at all that are in Mar-a-Lago. We've now learned Christina Bob never actually searched Mar-a-Lago at all, Brett. I wanted to pause on that statement right there because that line that Christina Bob added in, I think is so incredibly telling that she said, we did a diligent search for all the classified documents.
Starting point is 00:12:25 There is no more remaining from what I'm told. From what I am told, that's the case. Like adding that into it really does say it all. And now it seems like she's trying to throw Corcoran under the bus. Is that your take as well? Yeah. And she's so dumb that who knows what her strategy is trying to actually... There is a strategy. I'm not really sure. I'm not sure there's even... She was the person who they were trying to have as the fall person back when they had her sign this document. They clearly wanted her to be the dumb fall person. And Corcoran was basically like, let's get Bob in. What's she doing? Yeah, she's following Trump around at these MAGA rallies. Let's see if she'll
Starting point is 00:13:07 come in and sign this. Hey, Bob. Hey, Christina. I got this little attestation for you. It's FBI. It's the top counterintelligence official who's coming to Mar-a-Lago. Can you just sign your name and say you're the custodian of records? Well, I'm not sure I really want to do that, Evan Corcoran. I'm not really sure. Donald Trump wants you. Okay, okay, okay. Let me do it right now. Let me sign it right now for you. But could we add that it's based on information that I was told? Okay, okay. You can do that. That's fine. But yes, she was throwing Evan Corcoran under the bus, but Corcoran was throwing Trump under the bus because I don't think Corcoran did the diligent search. Corcoran was relying on what Trump had told him, which there was no diligence search conducted at all. So ultimately, they're all
Starting point is 00:13:50 throwing Trump under the bus. And that's why both of their grand jury testimony is very important, because they're going to be asked questions or they have been asked questions. So can you tell us about the diligence search that was conducted? There's nothing attorney-client privilege about that. What was the diligence search? How did you know that there was no documents? And I'm sure they'll say, based on what I was told. Well, who told it to you? Donald Trump. And that's how you get to one of the major charges that's being investigated, which is the obstruction of justice charge is one of the other. There's three total criminal charges that were in the search warrant that was executed at Mar-a-Lago. Obstruction, concealment, and mutilation of the documents and the violations of the Espionage Act. So big news that you've got
Starting point is 00:14:39 Corcoran and Bob. This isn't normal. It's not like you get lawyers going to the grand jury all the time, but it's make attorneys, get attorneys. That's what it is. And then you get Pence, and then you get Robert O'Brien. The one point I want to make at Pence though, Brett, and then throw it to you though, is it wasn't like Jack Smith just subpoenaed Pence. In order to get Pence, you had to climb the ladder. And so over the summer, they had subpoenaed and brought before the grand jury Mark Short, who was Pence's chief of staff, Greg Jacobs, who was Pence's general counsel. Donald Trump asserted executive privilege there. So then at that time, Merrick Garland, I think this was before Jack Smith was appointed, had to go to the federal judge,
Starting point is 00:15:23 Beryl Howell, who's overseeing it, to say Donald Trump's executive privilege claim is complete BS. Got a successful ruling from the federal court overseeing the grand juries. Then short, and Jacob had to testify again, and then they climbed the ladder. So Pence really doesn't have any objections that he can really assert precisely because Merrick Garland did it diligently and then handed it off to Jack Smith. I understand everyone's inclination. Let's just indict Donald Trump right away. Look, that's what I want to happen. But just imagine if you did that right away without first getting short and Jacob, without getting Trump's top White House lawyers, Cipollone and Patrick Philbin through the same process where they showed up, asserted the privilege. Motions were filed with the federal judge.
Starting point is 00:16:20 Judge then compels them to testify, overrules executive privilege. You don't get Pence unless you do that. And sure, maybe Pence will assert executive privilege or Trump will try to assert it, but it's a loser now. Why is it a loser? Because all this precedent has been set based on the diligent activity that's been done. So that gives you not only the events that transpired, historic events with a former vice president being subpoenaed before a grand jury, but also the background of why the diligent work is likely to make these efforts successful and bear fruit. Ought to be a fly on Mike Pence's head when he got that subpoena. You know, Mike Pence, really, really, really, who knows what the heck that he is going to say.
Starting point is 00:17:15 But he has been an interesting character throughout this all. I know he's been in touch with the Department of Justice. They've been going back and forth with the Pence lawyers for a while to try to get him to speak. Ultimately, they decided, OK, we got to drop the subpoena hammer on him for whatever reason. They decided, okay, it's time. We just got to go ahead. We got to do this move. I think it's so not talked about enough how unprecedented this is in American history. I mean, this has just never happened. An investigation of this scale has never happened in our history. An investigation targeting the president of the United States of America and involving all these high profile figures. And as we see the recent
Starting point is 00:17:51 moves by Jack Smith, I think one of the things we're also seeing, I remember Jack Smith is doing like all the Trump criminal investigations right now. It's the documents case and it's the January 6th stuff. But in regards to the documents case, the thing that we have to realize is he is homing right in on the fundamental difference between what Donald Trump did and what we saw with Biden and Pence with the documents. It's the obstruction, stupid, as James Carville might say. It's the obstruction. And he is homing right in on that. Who signed these records? Who said that everything was handed in? Why did they try to obstruct us from even searching and finding these documents in the first place? And the Trump team has just been evading the end of the day. Had they just complied, had they just complied in the beginning and said, hey, you know what? I don't know how this happened,
Starting point is 00:18:51 but please search, please look through and take whatever you need. I understand I messed up, all good. We wouldn't be in this place with those investigations. But of course, that's not Donald Trump's nature. He has to fight back. And that fighting back in this case is called obstruction of justice. Hey, Jordy, before you go, because I know you wanted to say something. First off, I like that on the bottom of your screen, it says Ben and Brett's younger brother right there. You know, I used to get that all the time in high school, like growing up in school. They'd be like, oh, are you Brett and Ben's younger brother? All the time, like every first day of class, it would really be infuriating.
Starting point is 00:19:25 Now I get it. Are you Jordy's older brother? So I get it now. That's the ultimate. And just so everybody knows, Jordy controls that name. It's not Brett or not me. Jordy is the one who controls it. So you can't get upset.
Starting point is 00:19:37 Like when Jordy does it lowercase. You're already doing damage control on the name. I just want to be clear. Second point I want to make, Brett, when you said homing, I had to think for a second. Is it homing or is it honing? And to be clear, you got it 100% right. Traditionally, a missile homes, H-O-M-E-S, in not hones in on a target. The verb hone means to sharp in.
Starting point is 00:20:02 The verb home means to move toward a goal or to be guided to a target. While we're on that, Ben. I never doubted my language with that. Some usage guys now recognize hone in and as an acceptable alternative to home in. You come for the politics and then you get the- Well, Ben, while we're on that, can we just clear up the DEF CON levels? Because oftentimes people go straight to DEF CON 5. That's actually the lowest DEFCON level. DEFCON 1 is the highest DEFCON level. So I'm just happy to be able to have this audience and let everyone know DEFCON 1 is
Starting point is 00:20:33 the highest. It's an educational show for me. It's an educational show. Something for the whole family. It's an educational show. But Brett, what you saw when President Biden and frankly, former Vice President Pence with their documents, they basically invited the FBI and DOJ, look, search our property, search our premises. Donald Trump did not do that. Donald Trump hired a private security company to basically conduct the search. And that process is ultimately what led the Department of Justice to find out about an additional classified folder because it was that private company that identified that one
Starting point is 00:21:13 in Donald Trump's bedroom. And so after a report was prepared by that private firm, the Department of Justice then subpoenaed that information back in January, got that classified folder, and then also learned from that private investigation team and Donald Trump's lawyer, Jim Trustee, that the information from at least that folder, we don't know if there was more, was downloaded into a laptop by a current Trump aide. And then Trump's lawyer went on tv i guess to do damage control we have laptop from hell we have the clip here though because a lot of people you know were like he's we sleeping with the folder come on he's using it as a shield for the like what are you what are you talking about but like the lawyer went on and in like this Orwellian 1984, you know, he was acting like the Department of
Starting point is 00:22:07 Justice. He's like, they're going crazy. Like, of course, of course, of course, Donald Trump was sleeping with the folder. You know, you know, everybody knows what happens. Like, you know, when you got the phone, like right by like a traditional phone, like not like a cell phone, everybody's got like an old traditional, like rotary phone right by their bedside. And you know how that light can just be super annoying. Well, yeah, he's got a classified folder. He puts it over the light so he can sleep well at night. And now because the department of justice craziness, he's got to find, he's got to, he's got to find another folder. He's got to find, like, that was at, go play it.
Starting point is 00:22:48 It's just what I said. Play the clip. Now, you also turned over an empty folder marked classified to investigators. Where was this folder and why was it turned over? The folder is kind of one of the more humorous aspects of this whole thing. This is not a classified folder. This is a folder that when my team went through and searched and they wrote up their report, which we turned over to DOJ, they saw it's a folder, Manila folder, that says classified evening summary on it. And it was in
Starting point is 00:23:19 the president's bedroom. He has one of those landline telephones next to his bed and it has a blue light on it and it keeps him up at night. So he took the Manila folder and he put it over it so that it would keep the light down so he could sleep at night. And it's just this folder. It says classified evening brief, evening summary on it. It is not a classification marking. It's not anything that is controlled in any way. There's nothing illegal about it. There's nothing in it. And when DOJ found out about it, they went crazy. And they said they actually gave me a subpoena to say, give us over this empty folder that means nothing. How did they find out about a folder on his bed table?
Starting point is 00:23:58 We put it in our report. When we did all of our searches, we wrote up reports on everywhere we searched, everywhere we looked, anything we found, where we found it. And we gave that to them because everything that we've done as part of that search has been in the spirit of full cooperation and compliance. And when they read that and they saw, oh, there's this folder here that is so far outside of the scope of the subpoena or anything else, they demanded it back. And so now the president has to find a different way to keep the blue light out of his eyes. I'm sure he has other options. My dude literally went with, yo, funny story, hilarious story, actually.
Starting point is 00:24:39 This is the funniest part of the investigation. You'll never believe it. You're not going to believe this. So, you know know blue light this was this was the this was the excuse that all the lawyers came up with and decided yes that's what we're gonna go to tv with that's that's what we're gonna let's get let's get timothy parlatorian He's got the, he drew the short straw. All right. So here's the thing. It was not a classified folder, but it was a folder that had classified on it. Okay. That's, that's how he starts off. It's not a classified folder.
Starting point is 00:25:16 It doesn't have classified markings. It just says classified on it. And there was, there was nothing in it. So nothing to worry here. Doesn't matter that it was downloaded onto a laptop or whatever, but empty folders with classification all the time. Don't worry. And the Department of Justice, these crazy maniacs, these crazy maniacs,
Starting point is 00:25:35 they had the audacity to send a subpoena. Can I just say this too though? It's the blue light thing that actually doesn't get me because there's an alarm clock in my bedroom that I put like a t-shirt over every night to cover that light. But I'll say this, how many folders does the guy have laying around that he just has this excess of, oh, that's my blue light classified folder. Oh, that's my this folder. Like what an impractical thing to use to cover a light i like that at the
Starting point is 00:26:05 end of it also like they act like like woe is me to donald trump oh i guess he's going to have to find something else now to cover the blue light with was that was that on cnn by the way was that like like like like like literally anything else and any any device. I don't even know what this is. Let's use that. But look at that interview too. Was that interview on CNN, Brett? Yes. So where was the pushback though?
Starting point is 00:26:33 Like in all honesty, like there's the reporter just kind of giggling and laughing along. And like, granted, like it's ridiculous. And maybe there's like a nervous laughter that's just innate and built in when you're interviewing someone who looks like a criminal lawyer. Like the guy looks like a criminal criminal. He's in this pinstripe suit. He looks straight out of the magazine. But anyway, where's the pushback? You're just all going to have a big,
Starting point is 00:26:53 hearty laugh about this? It's definitely a bizarre thing. I'm going to have a big, hearty laugh about this. Oh, yes. Us. We can in retrospect. Absolutely. You know, she certainly should have pushed back she she made one kind of she made one she made the comment she made one comment and certainly there are probably other things to do it with yeah on to the next um which is your point to your point if if that was by the way i wouldn't platform someone like that but if I did and they were doing it, I'd be like this. I go, what?
Starting point is 00:27:27 I would say that. I go, do you realize, after they finished, I would say this. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? I mean, I just want you to be aware that you just said the most ridiculous thing. Like, did you draw the short straw parlatory? Did you draw the short straw, parlatory? Did you draw the short straw? Like, you got to almost mock these fascists or don't let them on, you know, or don't let them on.
Starting point is 00:27:50 But, you know, they line up like, you know, you remember from The Matrix, Agent Smith? I feel like Donald Trump's lawyers are like kamikaze lawyer Agent Smith's. Just one after another. It's like, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. Just another one fills the other one's place and just looks so stupid. It's like, hey, you've got the prototype of Giuliani and Sidney Powell and John Eastman. And then you got Christina Bob joins in. Alina Habba joins in. You get this whole new cast of characters and each one is like more insane than the next it's like what are any of you talking about like is your law practice suffering so much can you get no other
Starting point is 00:28:34 business that this is actually what you have to do you have to go on cnn like i feel like i don't feel bad for him because he represents trump but like you know what if the guy like you know goes to dinner with his family and they're like, hey, daddy, what did you do at work today? And he's like, well, I talked about how the former president who stole classified documents uses the folder as a freaking nightlight blocker. What does that mean, daddy? I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to jail, son. The other lawyers are, you think the other attorneys were like yo he really said it like like like they they like put him up to it yeah he really he really did the right thing they're
Starting point is 00:29:13 like they're like they're like it looks so much better when it was written down yeah i didn't think he was actually gonna do it speaking it's utterly insane as your part your parlatory did it actually did it you know you know behind behind it. Behind the scenes, they're having a look. And then later in life, they're like, yo, Parlatore, remember when you went on CNN? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I did the nightlight thing. Yeah. I drew the short straw. I drew the short straw. But see, here's the thing. Let's take it back to the serious level where it needs to for a second, though. This level of what MAGA is, right, though, is it's not like pure fascism. It is.
Starting point is 00:29:55 It wants to be that. But it's also so dumb. Trumpist MAGA strain of it combines this wannabe fascism that fortunately we can have this laugh about now, but it is trying to evolve to become a pure form of the fascism that actually can be effective in controlling. Right now, they're all idiots. You got Christina Bobb, you got Marjorie Taylor Greene, you got Lauren Boebert, you got Gomer, you got Gosar, you got Gates. And the format of all of these hearings is basically Republicans creating a stupid freaking committee hearing and then Democrats just like freaking trashing them at the committee hearings and exposing them all. And these committee hearings are a thing of beauty
Starting point is 00:30:51 in that format. But let's not forget all of these things, weaponization of DOJ, FBI, attacking the courts. The effort here is to fundamentally destroy our institutions so that MAGA Republicans can implement their QAnon cult agenda, their destructive to America pro-Putin agenda that's actually going to be very, very harmful and is very harmful to all of our lives. One other final thing to mention, then we should talk about what happened in the Georgia Superior Court with the release of portions of the report that's going to happen later this week and the order by Judge Robert McBurney. from hell, right? He's got his own laptop from hell, which is one that has downloaded classified information that shouldn't be there. That's now in the hands of the DOJ. And I also believe that Donald Trump has copied a lot of these classified folders and other formats, which is a per se violation of the Espionage Act, one of the crimes Donald Trump is being investigated for.
Starting point is 00:32:05 So we got to talk about, there's a lot I want to talk about. We've got a great audience here today. Remember to check us out at patreon.com slash MidasTouch, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash MidasTouch. And make sure you subscribe right now to this YouTube channel. But we got to talk about the Georgia Superior Court ruling by Judge Robert McBurney, what that means, whose names may be in this report. What we got to talk about is Biden and Democrats going on the offense, going to the states, talking about their accomplishments. We got to talk about Marjorie Trader Greene and the MAGA Republican blitz, attacking Mitch McConnell and calling him a Democrat, which isn't an attack, but yes, when you call, we don't accept McConnell, okay? We don't want him. And we got to talk about this other really important news like Biden firing the architect
Starting point is 00:32:56 of the Capitol, why that's so important, and the train derailment based upon the rollback of regulations by the Trump administration, regulations from the Obama administration. So much to discuss, but I know this is your favorite part of the podcast. Jordy, take it away from a brief message from our sponsors. And now let's take a quick break to talk about our next partner, Magic Spoon. Growing up, cereal was one of the best parts of being a kid. But as I got older, I had to watch out for sugar and empty carbs. Magic Spoon though has amazing flavors that you love, but high protein and less sugar. The Magic Spoon Variety Pack comes with four flavors. They're cocoa, fruity, frosted, and peanut butter. The Variety Pack has zero grams of sugar, 13 to 14 grams of protein,
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Starting point is 00:34:37 partner roan if you're like me you understand the pains of finding out what to wear let's face it most clothes are uncomfortable or too tight or never actually the size that you really are. And not to mention the annoyance of trying to put together a good outfit. And when you finally do have a good fit, you can only wear it for a few hours before you have an important meeting or dinner, and then you have to change.
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Starting point is 00:36:06 We're on the move a lot. Whether it's jumping from meeting to meeting, or catching a flight, or an important dinner, the Roan commuter collection has never let me down. The versatility and overall comfort of the collection is undefeated. Even after I wear it all day, I still feel super fresh because of the Gold Fusion anti-odor technology. The commuter collection can get you through any workday and straight into whatever comes next. Head to rhone.com slash Midas and use promo code Midas to save 20% off your entire order. That's 20% off your entire order when you head to rhone.com slash Midas and use code Midas. It's time to find your corner office. And now back to the video. Now back to the show. Forget the video. We're back to the live show. It's 535 on the West Coast, 835 on the East Coast. That's how you know this is live. I'm calling out the time stamps
Starting point is 00:37:06 right now. Wow. So, you know, you said back to the video. You're trying, you know, I got to, well, Jordy, great ad reads as always. You know, you do an incredible job there. As I've always joked about before, you know, when I spend a lot of time on my research for the videos that I do, I get very technical legal analysis. I look to the comments to see people saying, hey, Ben, I think that was a really good point when you discussed footnote. No one's really discussing footnote two in Judge Robert McBurney's order of the great job.
Starting point is 00:37:37 So I'm looking for that validation, and all I find is, Jordy, great ad read. Jordy, so cute with that dancing in the ad read, Jordy. Jordy's the cutest. I'm like, he's really found his calling. But also, I think it's the right fit, Jordy. Just like Roan, the right fit is you doing ad reads. It's a good fit. Back to my background, before we did Midas, I was in marketing and advertising.
Starting point is 00:38:01 So I love doing it. And by the way, we might have two more later in the show. But deep tease. Deep I love doing it. And by the way, we might have two more later in the show. But you cry. You keep these big T's not not sure that's the best marketing approach. But good work, Jay. This is Donald Trump's statement in response to all that we discussed before that break that was going on. Donald Trump talks. He made the social media post on his platform. He goes, will Trump hating prosecutor Jack Smith be investigating the fact that they spied on my campaign? This Trump's such a clown. Even as I was in the Oval Office, they stuffed the ballot boxes per 2,000 mules.
Starting point is 00:38:41 Per 2,000 mules. Per 2,000 mules. Per 2,000 mules. Per 2,000 mules, per the socks case, used COVID to cheat, that the FBI pushed Twitter and Facebook around, causing massive voter disruption and so much more. That's really what he should be looking at. Not asking a very decent Mike Pence why he didn't send the votes back to state legislatures for scrutinization, which he could have done. Get the rigors, he says, exclamation point. I mean, just like a disgusting and despicable person. And then he doubles down on violating the law, too, by saying he should have sent it back to the state legislatures, which you can't do. That's one of the things that
Starting point is 00:39:19 violates the law, violates the electoral count. Let's just throw it to the state legislatures. Let them scrutinize. We have a constitutional process. And one of the things that have been revealed in a lot of the emails that the January 6th committee was able to fight for, remember John Eastman was trying to block the turning over his emails to the January 6th committee and a federal judge in California, Judge David Carter, who sits in the Central District, says, okay, this wasn't a normal attorney-client relationship with John Eastman. This was a coup that you were both engaged in, in search of a legal theory. I'm releasing these emails. I'm releasing these text messages. And what those emails show was that John
Starting point is 00:40:02 Eastman was very aware that precisely what Trump is saying here about sending the votes back to state legislatures was illegal. That was in the emails that Eastman wanted to hide. So Donald Trump back in 2020, leading up to January 6th, hired a outside firm, paid him like $600,000 to conduct a independent audit, an independent investigation to determine if there was election fraud in the various states. And he paid him huge amounts of money, the top people, and then Trump suppressed the report because the report showed that there wasn't any election fraud. So that also goes to Trump's criminal intent based on his own hiring of this outside firm that he then suppressed the results of. Instead, he quotes Russian propaganda conspiracy theories like 2000 mules, which has been debunked every single second of this stupid thing, but not his own findings that his own investigation revealed that there was not election fraud because it didn't support the conclusion
Starting point is 00:41:19 that he wanted. Then he goes, will Trump hating prosecutor Jack Smith be investigating the spite of my campaign? No, you know who did? When there was real weaponization of the Department of Justice, when Bill Barr brought in John Durham to conduct an investigation of precisely those stupid conspiracies with the express goal of attacking your political enemies. Yeah, what actual weaponization is. And the only evidence of crime that was found was a tip that came in from Italian officials who said that we actually have information that Trump committed financial fraud. And what did the Department of Justice do? Cover that up, suppress that, not actually do anything about that at all, and instead spread conspiracies that, Oh,
Starting point is 00:42:05 they got information about criminality must be about the origins of the Russia investigation. No, that's not what it was about. It was about Trump committing crimes that the bar weaponized DOJ suppressed. And then one more fact, the FBI pushed Twitter around idiot, fascist trader, idiot, Donald Trump. That was the person that you hired. Like there's such freaking morons. You know, all of these MAGA Republicans, they're just like before January 6th, this was going down. Okay. Who was the freaking government before January 6th? Donald Trump. Who was the person who appointed the head of the department of justice? Donald Trump. Who is the person who appointed the head of the FBI? Christopher Wray. Donald Trump. Who spoke glowingly of those people? Donald Trump.
Starting point is 00:42:48 Who appointed all of the idiots who were involved right then? Donald Trump. Yet they act like they're such victims. They want to pretend to be victims that they act like they weren't in power and that Trump didn't have the presidency at the time. That's what coward victims they are. Sorry. And by the way, we could go through like a whole list of stuff. And I think we will as we go through this episode of Republicans blaming problems that happened while Donald Trump was president on Joe Biden, as if President Biden is some sort of presidential time traveler and was actually in office in 2020. It is really the most pathetic attempt to hit President Biden. And they are counting on this. Guys, hear me out. This is why they don't want you to be woke, because they want you to be asleep. Because when they're asleep, then they could go and they could
Starting point is 00:43:37 toss things out of, oh, look who closed the schools in 2020. Those Democrats who closed the schools in 2020 who mishandled COVID. You mean Donald Trump? You mean Donald Trump, right? I mean, the schools were closed by governors, local governments in every state, and Texas closed their schools, and Florida closed their, it was a nationwide thing, remember? And who mishandled COVID? Remember, it was Donald Trump when all this went down, right? And yes, they know, but they count on their voters. They count on the American public being asleep. That's why kind of the optimism and the positivity and people paying attention to politics, that is really the ultimate kryptonite for these Republicans. And that's why that State of the Union address, that optimistic State of the
Starting point is 00:44:26 Union address when Biden got up there and Biden was uplifting and speaking about the American spirit and glowing terms and throwing punches at Republicans in the best way and using their own negativity against them like judo. The reason why that triggered them so much is because it allowed the American people to see through their gaslighting, to see through their lies. And that's why it's their objective every single day to try to inject the disinfo, to try to make you angry, to try to make you scared, to try to make you depressed. Because frankly, it's the only way they could win. The only way they could win is if you check out, if you give up, if you throw in the towel, that's why they're trying to wear you down over and over and over again. Sorry, I'll let you speak, Jordy. Then I do have a question for Ben,
Starting point is 00:45:15 though, about the cases that we were just talking about. But James, what are your thoughts? I just want to say this, Brad. You're so right, right, I keep looking to the midterms as that point of, look, the GOP's playbook, it simply doesn't work anymore. It's a tired playbook. The Democrats, pro-democracy loving people have figured out their games. Yes, this nonsense worked in the late 2000s, like in 2016 and 2017 and 2018. But there's just been a colossal just movement of people waking up in this country of just being so utterly embarrassed by the games that these GOP MAGA Republicans continue to play at the expense of the American people. Then no longer does the mass majority of, and I don't think that was ever the case, but find what they're doing funny. None of this is funny.
Starting point is 00:46:03 None of this is actually entertaining to the average American citizen. They want to make sure that they have their social security. They want to make sure that their livelihoods can continue to go on with a working government and not have to be scared that the Republicans were going to shut down the government. They don't want that. And so while their tricks of old may have worked, no longer. Absolutely not. I think we as a country moved on from that. And it's because, though, finally, Democrats are punching back. You know, finally, there's independent media like the Midas Touch Network and a lot of
Starting point is 00:46:35 other great ones that are out there. You've got Democrats being led by Hakeem Jeffries, and they're not letting any of this go without contesting it. What you normally used to happen is the MAGA Republicans would say all this crazy stuff and then Democrats would be acting like, you know, oh, well, let's talk about policy, you know, which is important. But you got to do both. You got to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Starting point is 00:46:58 Let's talk about policy. Let's talk about what we're doing for the American people. And let's call these fascist traitors, these MAGA Republicans. Let's just use the language and be direct. They hate the United States of America. They worship Vladimir Putin. They are fascist. They are traitors.
Starting point is 00:47:17 They are despicable people. Just call it out directly. And that's what I like to see the Democrats doing. Brett, come on, grill me. All right. So first, I just want to highlight this fact that we haven't yet talked about. But I think it's very important to note that this whole research firm that was hired by Trump to investigate election fraud, I put that in quotes because it's BS.
Starting point is 00:47:39 This firm that backfired and is proving Donald Trump's criminal intent. You know who is keenly aware of this right now? Jack Smith in the Department of Justice is very aware. It's been reported that Jack Smith, the Department of Justice, they have been asking the witnesses who come in to testify about this research because it speaks so much to the criminal intent. So I think that's interesting. I'm curious to know when they found out about this whole research group that Trump hired, for how long have they known this? I don't even think the January 6th committee knew about this. It was not in the January 6th committee's report. So this is a big deal. And this leads into my next question. Let me tell you why I think though. So you know why Republicans hate M&Ms so much? Why do Republicans hate M&Ms so much?
Starting point is 00:48:36 Whose name also is M&M? M&M the rapper? No, not Marshall Mathers. Very close. it's a political show not a rap show let's uh mitch mcconnell uh close then i don't no one knows where you're going with this mark meadows mark meadows where do you think so where do you think the information's coming i have no proof that the information's coming from mark meadows let's just say everybody's been subpoenaed but Mark Meadows right now. And that, by the way, you know what? I really hate myself for that one because my next question, obviously, and you knew where I was going with it, was about Mark Meadows. And so Mark Meadows should have been the first guest.
Starting point is 00:49:22 You make me say Marshall Mathers. You can't say Mark Meadows. You knew what he was going to say. Marshall Mathers. Yeah. Yeah, Jordy. Slim Shady. That's where I was going.
Starting point is 00:49:29 To be fair, Eminem during the peak of Eminem was like, nah, I'm not messing with Maga. He's like, I'm drawing a line in the sand. He did do that. He came out forcefully, but we're not talking about Marshall Mathers right now. We're talking about Mark Meadows. And that was going to lead me to my next question. Where the hell is Mark Meadows? I mean, you don't subpoena the former vice president of the United States before you subpoena somebody like Mark Meadows. So something right now is going down with Meadows that we are unaware of. Now, to me, my guess, my uneducated
Starting point is 00:50:09 guess would be that he's cooperating in some shape and form. It's the only thing that really makes sense logically to me. I'm curious, Ben, if you agree with that take or if you think there are other possibilities out there. Because to me, Meadows, very involved in all of this, somehow seems to be skating by every single step of the process unscathed while everybody around him seems to be getting pulled in front of the criminal grand jury and is very sus as the kids say, very sus as the TikTokers say. You know what I'm saying? I know exactly what you're saying. I think it's so sus. I knew you were going where you were going with that question before it was even asked. That's why I said Eminem. And that's one of my theories about where a lot of the information may indeed be coming from. Also, why did the
Starting point is 00:51:01 Department of Justice not pursue a contempt of Congress charge against Mark Meadows, which would just be for two misdemeanor counts? Rather, you know, which is probably like, look, we've got other things that we're working with him on. So we're not going to proceed there. And they let Mark Meadows know as well. And Jordy, possibly they let Slim Shady know. There's a Slim Shady. Can I just say this? There's a Slim Shady in all of us.
Starting point is 00:51:26 When you weren't on the episode, the last episode that Brent and I had finished together, we made an agreement that we were not, we were going to stop doing that. We're going to stop having the other brothers guess and finish the sentence. It is way too stressful. Even if I know the answer,
Starting point is 00:51:42 I'll never come up with it because I just hate being put on the spot like that so well you know I do hate though like when I'm in a meeting with somebody though and yes lots of people who they'll they'll say questions like so have you ever read so and so and you know if they do it like once or twice and I'm like no I don't know that and then if you know but there are some people who keep on doing that in a conversation I'm just like no I guess I don't know shit okay I don't know anything I'm sorry I don't know anything. I'm sorry. I'm a total moron. You know, everything, stop making this a freaking quiz and just have a freaking conversation. I know exactly what you
Starting point is 00:52:13 mean. Just let's have a conversation. So, so, so you've read the third book in the trilogy. No, I haven't read it. I do YouTube videos all day. I teach the law class. I'm a lawyer. Did this just happen to you today? Did this just happen the last day? No, but you gave me the memory of people sometimes who- His wounds seem fresh. They seem real fresh. Who do that. Anyway, whatever. I'm talking about Judge McBurney now. So Judge Robert McBurney, the Fulton County Superior Court judge, made an important ruling today. He's going to release
Starting point is 00:52:40 three portions of the special grand jury's report. The special grand jury really started being impaneled and receiving witnesses over the summer in 2022. The special grand jury is not a body that indicts, okay? That's for a grand jury. Georgia law is a little bit weird. They prepare, as part of this proceedings, they prepare a recommendation and then the recommendations can be then be used by a grand jury to indict. But the report that's
Starting point is 00:53:13 prepared by the special grand jury in grand jury proceedings, they're allowed to use hearsay. So what they can do is they can look at the findings of the report that could be presented to a grand jury to basically indict based upon the findings of the special grand jury report. And so what Judge McBurney said is because there are people who are likely listed in here who are going to be indicted, we don't want to release their names yet. Because what if they're not indicted and then their names are here and then that stench of criminality is with them? At some point in time, once an indictment happens and discovery takes place, all of this is going
Starting point is 00:53:59 to be public anyway. So the rest of the report is only going to be confidential for a temporary period of time to protect the due process rights of individuals who may be criminally prosecuted. By the way, we want this to be the case because we don't want Trump or other people who may be mentioned saying due process violation, we're filing an appeal. The jury's now been tainted by this process and give them an argument to make. That's the reason why the Fulton County District Attorney, Fawnie Willis, actually said to the court, hey, let's not release this yet. My charging decisions are imminent. So there are three sections, and the three sections are the intro, the conclusion, and section eight,
Starting point is 00:54:49 in which the special purpose grand jury discussing its concerns that some witnesses may have lied under oath during their testimony to the grand jury. And that's because the names aren't specifically listed in that section. So that section could be made public. Judge McBurney invited the district attorney's office saying, if you still think there should be more redactions, let me know. But there was another portion on page six of eight where it talks about these due process concerns.
Starting point is 00:55:21 And it says, this is particularly true being the due process concerns. And it says, this is particularly true, being the due process concerns, if the grand jury's final report includes recommendations involving individuals who never appeared before the grand jury and so had no opportunity, limited or not, to be heard. That's an important line right there because who did not go before the grand jury whose name may be in a criminal indictment? Well, we know about a lot of people who went before the grand jury and one person who didn't is Donald Trump. So as I read that statement, I immediately said that could be referring to Donald Trump right there when it talks about a recommendation involving individuals who never appeared before the grand jury.
Starting point is 00:56:10 I mean, come on. Who else is that referring to? Yeah. Who else could it possibly be? And they're obviously going to try to, once this report gets released, they're going to try to make it as unclear as possible for us to figure out who they are actually speaking about in the report. They want to have that anonymity. So we will be trying to read the tea leaves and the language and to see if we could figure out who exactly they are speaking
Starting point is 00:56:38 about. But I'll say this, if you are somebody who went in front of that special grand jury in Fulton County and you lied under oath and you see this from Judge McBurney today that they know that you lied under oath, I think you should be pretty afraid at this grand jury also impaneled right now that could act pretty quickly on this? Like they don't have to reconstitute a new grand jury. That's already kind of parallel to this. Yeah. They have to constitute a new grand jury, but that's not a difficult process to do. That has to start after this ends or it could be going parallel? It could have started a month ago. It could have started months ago. But at this point, because they have the report presenting the evidence to the grand jury, remember a grand
Starting point is 00:57:36 jury proceeding by its very nature, one, it's done in secret, two, it's one-sided. There's not even a judge in the room presenting evidence to a grand jury. If there are ultimately disputes, that goes before a judge. But the only people in the room usually with the grand jury is the prosecutor and the grand jury. So the prosecutor shows him the evidence. There's no one rebutting the evidence. And we go, okay, based on this, we want you to do an indictment. And so that's the next step that ultimately takes place there. So that's likely where what's going on. Think about the names of some of these people who went through there. I mean, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Flynn, Lindsey Graham.
Starting point is 00:58:12 I think Meadows was compelled to testify in this one, yeah? And so they have a lot of people who we know about and are hoping for accountability for who has spoken to in front of this grand jury so it'll be very very very interesting once we see this this final report and i know we are all waiting with bated breath as to what fawney willis's definition of imminent is um which hopefully that we uh so so is the judge um because because you know one of the things the judge says in here is at the very end of the order finally the court directs the district attorney's office
Starting point is 00:58:54 to provide periodic updates on the progress of its investigation so that the court can reassess if other parts of the special purpose grand jury's final report can be properly disclosed. That's like Judge McBurney saying, all right, look, you told me charges were imminent like two weeks ago. Chop, chop. I gave you two weeks now. I got to release some portion of this. So let me know what's up here because we got to release this. I thought it was a good decision by judgment.
Starting point is 00:59:26 I thought it was a good even-handed decision that I think appeases kind of all the various issues that could possibly arise from a public release. Totally. I couldn't agree with you more. Let's compare normal land to crazy land, like normal pro-democracy talking about protecting social security and reducing out of pocket costs. Let's talk, you know, for, for drugs, let's, let's talk about like jobs and infrastructure and let's talk about like things that Biden's out there talking about right now.
Starting point is 01:00:00 And then let's compare that to what MAGA Republicans are talking about. And first though, before we do this, I want to show this one clip, though, to show you where we're going with this. Can we just play this Marjorie Taylor Greene video for a second, Brett, where she tells the crowd, do you think Mitch McConnell is a Democrat? Let's pull this clip up for a second, please. How many people here, and raise your hand if you believe that Mitch McConnell is a Republican? Raise your hand. Nobody. Okay.
Starting point is 01:00:29 How many people here, raise your hand if you believe Mitch McConnell is a Democrat? Yeah. Oh, my goodness. How about that? All the hands go up. So Mitch McConnell, he's a rhino. He's worse than a rhino. He has helped Joe Biden pass his agenda.
Starting point is 01:00:49 He's worse than a rhino. Worse than a rhinoceros. They probably all think we're talking about rhinoceroses too. Like, you know, they don't even know what a rhino is in their public. He's worse than a rhinoceros. She's in Idaho. That's not one of the strangest parts of the clip is she's in Idaho. Why is she in Idaho? She really wants to be a national political figure. She really wants the celebrity of it. And I think she envisions herself. And I'm sorry, sit down if you're aware. I hope you didn't just eat dinner or something. But I think she wants to be like vice president or president of the United States. So she goes to states like- And under the MAGA Republican Party, that's actually, they would do that. Just like that.
Starting point is 01:01:26 Yeah, no, they would elect her in a heartbeat. Absolutely. And taking a fight- Just remember about six months ago, she was hanging out with Nick Fuentes, the literal white supremacist. I mean, Jordy, she dressed like a spy balloon for the State of the Union. That's not me. That's not me criticizing.
Starting point is 01:01:42 That's what her office said, that her outfit was the spy balloon. And that was like last week. Yeah. And you know, risky maneuver to go for Mitch McConnell, who does not take stuff like that lightly. And as much as I hate the guy, he is a master tactician and will do everything to crush you if you come for him, as we see what he's now doing with Rick Scott and all that, which is an interesting intra-party feud.
Starting point is 01:02:06 But what are you going to say, man? Oh, I want to give you our full reaction to that, but we got to go to a quick ad read right now. But then you're going to get all of the brothers' reaction to that. So again, your favorite part of the show, here's Jordy. Our next sponsor this week is Highland Titles. At highlandtitles.com, you can become a lord or lady of Glencoe for less than $50. Now, thanks to a quirk in Scottish law, you can buy one square foot of land in Scotland as a gift. Highland Titles has been selling these plots of land for 16 years and have more than over 300,000 happy customers.
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Starting point is 01:04:12 interest rate discount and save even more. The only way to get this discount is to go to lightstream.com slash Midas. That's L-I-G-H-T-S-T-R-E-A-M dot com slash Midas. Subject to credit approval, rates range from 7.99% APR to 23.99% APR and include 0.50% autopay discount. Lowest rate requires excellent credit. Terms and conditions apply and offers are subject to change without notice. Visit Lightstream.com slash Midas for more information. Let's go post that Donald Trump just made right now. And then we'll talk about as part of crazy versus normal, we can see what Biden's doing. This is what Trump just posted.
Starting point is 01:04:56 He's obsessed with Scarborough. Obsessed. And has been for years. Has been. And then he says, Mika, and he calls her misogynistic and disgusting. He goes, every time Joe Scarborough and his sidekick Mike hit me with their fake news, I'm going to hit them with the news of their really bad ratings. Same goes for their sick and dying cable platform, MSDNC, and the chairman of Concast, Brian Roberts, who proudly allows fake news to be reported at a level that few just a short time ago would have thought even possible bad reporting and fake news is absolutely killing and he puts that in quotes the usa and again it's that it's that uh avatar of his that looks like
Starting point is 01:05:38 he's behind jail bars which i like but like it's the biggest like the biggest disgrace to our flag that he puts that thing over his face. Just a total freaking crap show, these MAGA Republicans. You got Marjorie Taylor Greene dressing up like a spy balloon and holding a balloon walking around the House of Representatives. You've got Donald Trump sleeping with classified folders as a way to block the light in his landline telephone by his bed. You've got Paul Gosar threatening, making anime of himself, killing Democrats. You've got Marjorie Taylor Greene also threatening and harassing and stalking the survivors of school shootings. You've got MAGA Republicans taking their American flag pins, throwing it on the floor and replacing them with AR-15 pins and dressing up and walking around the House of Representatives wearing AR-15 pins.
Starting point is 01:06:39 I mean, they're announcing too, this was a new one from the gray check mark next to weaponization committee for those listening. We just pulled up the main Twitter account for this committee that they call weaponization committee. And it's got a statute of liberty, statue of liberty avatar. And then their new one is the FBI is coming to monitor catholics at mass you know with a video what is that video even of brett something like dystopian whatever that looks like it's out of 1984 the video that's from the rihanna super bowl performance happened literally 12 hours ago ben no i was i was working man i was working i i didn't even I never even clicked. I never even clicked. I watch it. For those listening, this is one of our biggest pain points as brothers. Ben does not open anyone
Starting point is 01:07:35 else's text in the group. He does not open my text. He does not click and open my text. They look like they're like fencers. I mean, I don't know. And then he acts surprised when we have different i don't know thoughts the thoughts in different situations because he doesn't look at our text he doesn't read them and a real pop culture icon you are uh i just yeah i didn't i didn't watch the hat i didn't i actually didn't watch it i was yeah it was that mean it was them memeing the super bowl uh in order to spread a new conspiracy theory now. That was last night, Ben. Yeah, it was like the most talked about performance of the past six months. Yes.
Starting point is 01:08:14 I'm too busy focusing on Robert McBurney. Yeah, you're working hard, Ben. We understand. But no, I mean- Let's talk about that post, Brett. You know more. Why don't you talk about that? And I have something I want to add. Yeah. Well, they try to pinpoint these different things. They take things out of context and they try to scare you. Because like we said in the beginning of the show, their whole thing is about scaring you and about wearing you down. While we had President Biden at the State of the Union try to have this uplifting message of we're all in this together. There's nothing we cannot accomplish when we do it together. You have the Republicans screaming liar and dressing up like Chinese spy balloons and just causing chaos because they are
Starting point is 01:08:55 the party of chaos. The only way they could win is by terrifying you, by scaring you, by ensuring that you check out. And ironically, all this weaponization committee is actually doing is it is weaponizing the federal government to attack their enemies and to spread disinformation. That's actually what it is designed for. It's designed to weaponize the government against the American people. It's really dystopian. It's real 1984 kind of stuff that they're trying to pull with this. So with this story, I always have to backtrack. What the hell are they talking about? So I have to go back and look through the thing. And it stems from some leaked FBI document about an investigation- Not domestic terrorists.
Starting point is 01:09:40 About a domestic terrorist group. And they call themselves a Catholic group, but they are literally a hate group that has been identified, multiple hate groups that have been identified by the Sovereign Poverty Law Center as extremist groups, as terrorist groups, as hate groups who are anti-Semitic, white supremacists. They're like Proud Boys kind of type groups that the FBI had a memo on that, hey, you know what? Maybe we should watch these groups that are known for this sort of activity. At the end of the day, the FBI in this situation seemed to have folded and they were like, oh, yeah, we're not doing that anymore. That was a leaked document. We're going to put it away. And they sort of caved. But it also shows
Starting point is 01:10:19 you how the Republicans are actually endangering our national security with things like this. Like when you have a group that is actually an anti-Semitic hate group, that is actually a white nationalist group, and the FBI is trying to look into it. It's basically the same playbook that the Republicans did when they said, the FBI is coming after school parents. They're coming after parents in schools. They weren't coming after after school parents. They're coming after parents in schools. They weren't coming after parents in schools. They were coming after people, often who times who were not even parents, who were making threats against school districts for whatever reason, who wanted to blow up schools, who wanted to tear up schools, who were giving death threats to principals and superintendents and people like that. That's what they were monitoring. And the Republican Party, unfortunately, I think realizes that, oh,
Starting point is 01:11:09 our base is domestic terrorists. Not saying that every Republican is a domestic terrorist, but it seems like all these domestic terrorists seem to be Republicans. So we need to protect these people at all costs. And then they attack the FBI situation for doing their job, for trying to do their job as the Congress weaponizes the government against our institutions, our agencies and people. That's really what's happening. So you always have to follow these, go down the rabbit holes a little bit of the right-wing outrage machine. But then you realize that's all it is. It's an outrage machine. That's their currency. All they do is manufacture outrage all the time. That's why Fox News exists. That's why Newsmax exists. That's why the Republican Party exists. Because if they actually had to rest on their own laurels here and their policies and actually how they're helping
Starting point is 01:12:03 people and trying to make life better for people. They fail 100% of the time. So their only option is let's scare the crap out of everybody. They're coming for you. They're coming for your guns. They're coming for your kids. They're coming for your way of life, their culture. They're coming for white people. Whatever it is, whatever they could throw out to scare you, that's what they're going to do because it's their only path right now to victory. They have no other path that they see. Well, Brett, I'm going to say your favorite phrase right now. Their stupidity is cyclical in nature because when we look at this, this FBI
Starting point is 01:12:40 tweet, if you could pull up the weaponization tweet one more time here, Brett, well, when we take a look at that tweet, what it immediately reminded me of was the IRS conspiracy from three weeks ago. And the second that that gets disproven because 90% of the new IRS agents, guess what? They didn't raid your house. They're answering calls,
Starting point is 01:12:57 trying to get you money. They have to jump onto a new conspiracy, a new wackadoo thing to point their base at. Because once it gets disproven, they will trip over themselves to make up something even more ridiculous. Jordy, while we're on that subject, I need to speak about the IRS. This wasn't even in our outline, but I got to speak about the IRS thing because we actually now have data. The Washington Post actually released an article doing research on the subject of the IRS after all of this Republican outrage. After all the, oh, they're coming for you. They're coming for you. You know
Starting point is 01:13:32 what ended up happening? People got their tax refunds quicker this year. That's what's happening right now. People who are having trouble paying their taxes, working people who actually need help with their taxes are actually getting people to answer the phone on the other side of the line. And it's like in a drastic, drastic way. So Washington Post reported that the IRS, because of the new staff and funds that they had due to the Inflation Reduction Act, they've been able to answer nearly 90% of phone calls in tax season thus far. And now you're saying, oh, 90%. It sounds good. But what was it last year though? 90%. What was last year? 80? 75? 85? It was 13% last year. 13%. It's now 90%. 90%. That is called government working for the people. That is what we want. We need these
Starting point is 01:14:23 institutions to run. Guess what? I know Republicans don't like to pay their taxes. By the way, nobody likes to pay their tax. It's not a fun part of the year. It's not a fun thing to do. But I know Republicans want to abolish the IRS entirely. But guess what? That's not happening. We still have to pay our taxes. We live in a country that needs tax money. Get over it. It's how it works. And now when people have trouble with their taxes, they get to call up the IRS and they actually get another person on the other side of the line to pick up and help them, which is exactly how we want government to work. They just want to break it. They just want to break everything. It just goes to show how
Starting point is 01:15:02 short-sighted they are because these MAGA Republicans, because do they not think the IRS was not going to quantify all of how their resources have been helping the American people? Of course they were going to, especially after being dragged through the mud and being accused of God knows what by these MAGA Republicans, that they're going to present the data. But these MAGA Republicans, they just don't think through any of these weird culture wars that they start. They just keep trying to light fires day in and day out. What they do is they go, government doesn't work. And then they get into office and they do everything possible to prove that government doesn't work by themselves not working. They go, I'm in the government now. I'm just going to ruin everything. Government doesn't work. I
Starting point is 01:15:41 don't work. I don't work. I suck. I suck. The government sucks. Okay. Okay. And they don't do anything. I want people who actually want the government to function. Okay. I want people who actually want to be able to get the job done. And these people are just political arsonists. They're arsonists in every sense of the word, in every sort of aspect of government, no matter how you slice it. Do you think we should keep interrupting Ben before he freaks out?
Starting point is 01:16:02 Should we stop doing it? Like every time he's jumping on his words every second. I think it's about time we give Ben an opportunity to speak. I agree. He's getting really upset. Just trying to move the show forward, brothers. Everything that MAGA Republicans do is either wrong or criminal, and it's usually both of those. And what I like is that following his State of the Union address, President Biden is out on a tour, on a 20-state tour, to highlight the accomplishments of his administration and also
Starting point is 01:16:34 to point out the failures of the MAGA Republicans and that MAGA Republicans pose a real existential threat to the people of these various states by pointing out what their actual policies are. So he started this in Tampa, Florida, where he highlighted the work that his administration has done to protect and strengthen Medicare and Social Security and comparing that to Republican members of Congress who continue to push plans that would undermine these programs and the economic security of millions of their constituents. And he starts in Florida, the state where one in five residents is over the age of 65, and he talks about his achievements, like allowing the federal government
Starting point is 01:17:18 to negotiate Medicare drug prices, imposing price caps on insulin prescriptions at $35 per month, how seniors out-of-pocket prescription drug costs are now capped at $2,000 per year, benefiting over 1 million Medicare beneficiaries. And Brett, to your point, this is government working for the people. And I know MAGA Republicans want to just use words like America first, we back the blue, America first, whoa, blah, blah, pronouns, rah, right? But it's like, what are you all... It's like, what are you talking about, you idiots? You fascist freaking moron traitors? Can we focus on the issues that matter to people like jobs and job security and paying people a wage with dignity and lowering prescription drug
Starting point is 01:18:12 prices, making education accessible and affordable, making sure we take care of our veterans and give them the best benefits that we could possibly give them, protecting a woman's right to control our body, keeping the government out of who you can love and who you can marry, bringing manufacturing jobs here, the CHIPS Act, the PACT Act, you know, Infrastructure Act, Inflation Reduction Act. These are massive pieces of legislation that actually work for the people while MAGA Republicans just say a bunch of words, Mr. Potato Head, Catholic Mass, they're coming for you. You know, Disney woke characters and pronouns this because they're a bunch of idiots.
Starting point is 01:18:51 They're traitors. They're morons. They're fascists. They hate America. They want to enrich themselves. They're cool with taking PPP loans and then getting all of the PPP loans forgiven. But God forbid, God forbid, you want to relieve debt on people who make less than $125,000 up to $10,000. Then they'll file lawsuits everywhere. But I like that Biden's highlighting all this stuff. And he says, look, congressional Republicans have a long record of working to cut Medicare and Social Security. The White House explains, look at Senator Mike Lee. He said, and it's a direct quote, one thing that you probably haven't heard from a politician, but it will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it up by the roots and get rid of it. In November, John Thune, the
Starting point is 01:19:42 number two Senate Republican in leadership, declared that Social Security and Medicare benefits should be slashed. Florida Senator Rick Scott is championing a plan to put Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security on the chopping block every five years, which would put the health and economic security of 63 million Medicare beneficiaries, 69 million Medicaid beneficiaries, and 65 million Social Security beneficiaries at risk. And Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin proposed sunsetting these laws every year. The Republican Study Committee, which includes a majority of House Republicans, released a formal budget that, according to Politico, included raising the eligibility ages for each of these programs, along with withholding payments for individuals who retire
Starting point is 01:20:30 early or had certain income and privatized funding for Social Security to lower income taxes. And in 2015, most House Republicans, including Speaker McCarthy, Representative Scalise, and a host of others in current leadership voted to raise the retirement age to 70, which would cut social security benefits for tens of millions of seniors who paid into the system for years. So those are just the facts. Those are just the facts. And the MAGA Republicans go, boo, no, we don't. But they lie about everything. They can't even help themselves. Even had Senator Mike Rounds just, what was the face you made, Ben?
Starting point is 01:21:11 Did I say something wrong? Oh, no, your mic sounded weird for a second, but it kind of went right back into it. All good. Even had Senator Mike Rounds from South Dakota on, I was like, why is he making that face? Did I make like, for the listeners, Ben made a very strange face when I started speaking. Senator Mike Rounds, Republican from South Dakota, just yesterday on CNN said, you know what? We should view funding social security on a year by year basis. Every year we'll figure out if we want to do it. It's like they can't help themselves because it's been
Starting point is 01:21:41 Republican policy to try to get rid of social security and Medicare for decades and decades and decades. And we all heard it. And finally, President Biden had the courage to bring it up at the State of the Union and they all act appalled. How dare you say that? How dare you say that? They were just offended that they got called out. They were just upset that they got caught and they did not know that they were going to get caught like that. And then in the days following, even have Rick Scott going on CNN to try to defend it. That interview completely blows up in his face. He then repost the same statement that Biden keeps going around with the pamphlets on saying
Starting point is 01:22:24 that he wants to sunset all these programs every five years. He reposted it the day after, the day after they had all that phony outrage. You have Steve Scalise going and doing these interviews saying, the president has been falsely saying that there are people that want to get rid of Social Security and Medicare. It's been inaccurate accurate you saw him try to pin it on us i just hope he stops going around the country telling that falsehood because there's no truth to it like do these do they not know cameras exist do they not know that recordings exist and that this has been the republican party platform for a long long long long well here's
Starting point is 01:23:03 the thing though brett that they've Brett, that now they're kind of this cognitive dissonance. They're just like, look, we could say anything because at the end of the day, Fox will just cover up for us. They're dependent on that. Fox will cover up for us. The large media networks won't do anything and Democrats aren't going to punch back. So let's just lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. But they have, this is where it's new and innovative. Finally, what Democrats are doing. Yeah. And we'll meet, it's like, they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're not, you know, it's like when you punch a bully in the face and they're just like, what, what, what just happened? You know what, though? I think it also shows that we've won this debate. Like it's, it's, it's kind of game over
Starting point is 01:23:42 on this debate. Like we, we won. We won. They're now trying to pretend like they want to keep social security. Okay. Like if that doesn't show that we won this debate, I wish they were honest though. And I say this often about the Republicans. I wish they were honest about their policies. Just come out and say, you want to get rid of social security and Medicare. Defend your position. We know it's your position. You want to privatize it. You think it's better if you give all the people's money to Wall Street to gamble it away. That's your perspective. That's fine. You're allowed to have that belief. If you want to privatize it, hand that money to Wall Street, let them handle it. Just stick by the courage
Starting point is 01:24:18 of your conviction. Stick by it and have that debate. Own it. You want to get rid of Social Security? We don't. We think that it's better, that it's safer for it to be handled by the government. You think that Wall Street should handle it. Let's have that debate. But they don't even have the courage to stand by their position. Instead, they try to gaslight. They try to take every kind of possible angle on the issue because they're cowards. And like you said, Ben, they know that no matter what position they take, they're going to have these propaganda networks. And in a lot of cases, the normal networks kind of have their back or at least have them, give them a soft landing with whatever it
Starting point is 01:24:54 is, let them get away with it. But- No doubt. Let's just say this too, real quick, going back to the State of the Union. The reason why they react the way that they do is because they, I forget who said it better, but they've had these talking points for so long already that they're ingrained in them. They don't actually know how to pivot it and say something different. And so what we saw was they just had no idea how to face the reality of them finally, after all of these years, getting called out for their BS. And it was just so incredible to see. And I just want to say, like Biden, man, he's doing a great job. It's time he goes around the country and spikes the
Starting point is 01:25:29 football because he has so many amazing wins under his belt. And it's time for every American in this country to understand what those wins are and how they're directly impacting their lives. So we're talking about MAGA. Great point, Jay. We're talking about MAGA incompetence on all levels, right? And this story about Biden terminating the architect of the Capitol, which is also known as AOC, not to be confused with the AOC. Oh, by the way, that confused me earlier today. When they're like, AOC says, I was like- You know all these dishonest media publications are going to be Biden terminates AOC to get rage clicks. By the way, we said this is an
Starting point is 01:26:03 educational show. We're talking about the architect of the Capitol. I was curious as to why they do call it the architect of the Capitol. And Ben, you said earlier, this guy isn't even an architect. The first architect of the Capitol actually was the architect of the Capitol who designed the Capitol. Well, because that's what the job is. Yeah. But the job has become more of a managerial job. It's the federal agency. They're responsible for the maintenance, the operation, the development, the preservation of the United States Capitol, not necessarily being an architect and building a new Capitol.
Starting point is 01:26:36 But the first architect of the Capitol is actually the guy who designed the Capitol, William Thornton, and that's where the name's from. And the head of the agency is appointed by the President of the United States for a 10-year term, a 10-year term. And the last architect of the Capitol, who was just fired by President Biden, was appointed by Donald Trump in 2019, took the role in office in 2020. That seems to be a fact, once again, that Republicans are trying to gloss over. They're trying to act like this is a Biden person who, we're demanding that Biden get rid of the corrupt head of the, the guy Trump appointed, you mean? They always try to pin
Starting point is 01:27:18 these Trump things on Biden. It's the gaslighting, the audacity of it all, folks. And even though technically the architect of the Capitol is not necessarily just an architect, they usually are supposed to have some experience as an architect or some experience with historic preservation and restoration projects because that's all they do, right? It would kind of be like someone becoming a sheriff. Technically, you don't have to be law enforcement, but that's kind of what you're supposed to... It's an elective. It's helpful. It's helpful. It's right in the playbook. It's Betsy DeVos all over again.
Starting point is 01:27:54 Becoming a Supreme Court justice, it would be nice if you're a lawyer, but this person had no clue at all, but engaged in all the Trumpiest stuff in the world. Used the leased vehicles from the architect office's budget, and his wife was driving around in it, and then his daughter was driving around in it. They were using the government car as just their main automobiles. And that's kind of how the investigation even started. Somebody saw the government plates and the wife at a shopping center and they're like, well, what are you doing there? And then because those cars are equipped with the sirens and the lights of the Capitol police, apparently he pretended to be a cop also and the family would act like he's a cop to try to cut the lines and get all of these benefits.
Starting point is 01:28:48 Real Herschel Walker move right there. Real Herschel move. Yeah. And then his wife also, yeah, also a George Santos move. And then his wife would post on Facebook and social media, this is happening. All the patriots are welcome. This was during COVID when the Capitol building was shut down. This is happening. All the patriots here are welcome. Private message me. Contact me. I'll give you a private tour. All the Patriots accepted. So like giving private tours through social media
Starting point is 01:29:17 through a friend while it was- Right before the 2020 election too, as the tours were banned. Yeah. As the tours were not happening, that was going down. And then he was not there. The architect of the Capitol was not present at the Capitol building on January 6th, which would probably be a plus to the MAGA Republicans, except for... But one of the reasons, though, is the Democrats questioning of him just took him out at the hearing. And the guys, as part of the MAGA traits, the guy's a moron. The guy's an idiot. He knew he was going to get asked the questions that were in the office of
Starting point is 01:29:51 the inspector general's report that I just read to you. And you think he would have a better response than the one that he just gave about why was his wife using, or at least be apologetic, right? Be like, you know what? I am sorry. This was during a global pandemic. It will never happen again. I take full, like, I don't know, something, right? This is the Trumpiest response. If we got this clip here, play this clip. He's being questioned by a Democrat, the ranking member from the committee. Play this clip. The notion that you need the car to be with you at all times to be tethered to it. Can you explain how there have been, at least in the Inspector General's report, times when the vehicle's been used by members of your family where you're not in the car?
Starting point is 01:30:39 How would you have responded to emergencies in those circumstances? So I'll have to say that you would have to address that with members of my family because the times that that i knew when my wife drove the vehicle and my daughter drove the vehicle or the times that i was in the vehicle so your testimony is that the family members have never driven the vehicle without you being in the vehicle. So your testimony is that the family members have never driven the vehicle without you being in the vehicle? I'm saying that that would be something that would have to be discussed with them. I will also say... Well, you're not suggesting we bring members of your family in to testify before us, are you? No. I'm just saying that when my daughter was interviewed, who was 17 at the time of the allegation.
Starting point is 01:31:27 Thank you, sir. But just to be clear, your testimony is that at no point are you aware of family members using the vehicle without you being a passenger in the vehicle? My recollection is no. Well, let me just observe that. I think if you felt the need to go to South Carolina or Florida on vacation and have the car with you because it needs to be with you at all times. And yet there are allegations, pretty serious ones, that members of your family use it without your presence in the vehicle. It seems to undercut the argument with that. I'll yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Starting point is 01:32:03 Yeah, throwing his family under the bus. And that's where the member of Congress like, so you want us to subpoena your daughter? That's what you are you asking me to subpoena your daughter? Is that which? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's a real Ted Cruz move, right? Damn it. Our brains are way too similar. I was about to make the same joke. It was a very much a very Ted Cruz move. Oh, my goodness. Ben, I want to ask you a question, not as your younger brother, just think this is someone listening to the show, a Midas Mighty ass answering this question. So the question is, if it's clear as day that he is lying about this and there's evidence to substantiate that, perjury?
Starting point is 01:32:42 Yeah. I mean, if you actually look in the Office of Inspector General's report, which apparently I was reading instead of watching the Super Bowl halftime show, which tells you a lot about me, it lists a number of criminal, it lists a violation of criminal law as well. Could there be perjury for that? Yes. Is that a type of charge that I would readily see the Department of Justice using their resources for based on what was said there? No, but he's been fired. He's been disgraced. Fortunately, a new architect of the Capitol is going to be appointed for a 10-year term, but it just goes to show you at every level of government, Trump's appointed the absolute worst person to the level of the architect of the Capitol. And Brett, finally, if you could just break down, I think it's important that we
Starting point is 01:33:33 discuss this on the show with our platform, this train derailment that took place in East Palestine in Ohio. And there were regulations put in place in the Obama administration regarding safety features of these types of trains carrying toxic substances, exactly the type of train here. This was something that the industry lobbied the Trump administration to roll back those regulations because it's a little bit more expensive. It cuts into their record profits by having more expenses to implement safety features. But we have something that was transporting very toxic chemicals like vinyl chloride and hydrogen chloride, things that can cause severe pulmonary distress, respiratory distress in people. are lots of reports of animal deaths and a lot of sightings on the ground that seem completely incongruent with what the government led by Republicans in Ohio are actually reporting.
Starting point is 01:34:54 They've even like the police even arrested someone who was asking a member of the press who was like asking questions. And then the final thing, Brett, before tossing it to you now, MAGA Republicans are also trying to be like, you see the infrastructure plan isn't working yet. Again, that goes to that. That was just, uh, right now by, um, it was, it was literally as, as we were doing the show, it was by JD Vance, the Ohio Republican Senator, you know, saying that that shows the, it's like, no, you idiot. It's Trump taking away the safety regulations and the infrastructure
Starting point is 01:35:25 plan doesn't implement everything immediately right away it shows why we need an infrastructure bill which by the way i thought that was something that trump wanted but was too big of an idiot to actually implement yeah and by the way jd vance has been completely silent on this derailment i guess until like right now during the recording of the show. He hadn't said a word until that, and then that is his statement. And instead, he's spent the last week since this has happened just posting his culture war BS, trying to rile up his base, rather than actually try to look at the issues that are affecting his constituents. And this goes back to February 3rd. And this was something that I've been trying to follow, trying to see what's happening. And it's been a little tough because there hasn't been too much coverage on this. And I thought it was pretty eerie that
Starting point is 01:36:17 there hadn't been that much press coverage on this. But basically, February 3rd, there was this horrifying railroad accident that took place in East Palestine, Ohio. It was a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed. And this was something that there were warning signs about. You had union workers bring up these safety issues for a long time, and they were completely ignored by the executives, by the corporations. They totally just did not at all listen to them when they said, hey, we got an issue here. They literally called it a, quote, ticking time bomb, saying that the carriers had dramatically increased in length and tonnage of the average train while at the same time they were cutting back on maintenance and inspections. So they were adding more onto these strains.
Starting point is 01:37:05 They were pushing them to the brink to try to increase their profits, while at the same time, they were cutting back on the maintenance and the inspection, which is a typical kind of big business move here, anti-worker move that you think, oh, well, it's all good. We're going to get more money. It's all going to be good. The results now are absolutely disastrous. And it's not like they didn't have the money to do all the above. It's not like they didn't have the money to implement these safety requirements. They brought in over $12 billion in revenue last year. They had record profits last year,
Starting point is 01:37:39 record profits. And so what did they do? Did they put that money into, let's get more safety. Let's acknowledge the concerns of our workers. Let's do something now before it's too late. No, they put $10 billion into stock buybacks. That's what they did with their money. Such a typical greedy move. And for all this money, they have the stock buybacks lining the pockets of their wealthy investors, not making the necessary upgrades that they need. And they're also at the same time to make it even more twisted and worse, they're using that money to also lobby the government against regulations on the industry. Just a double slap in the face to the way that they are using it. Jordy, Jordy, Jordy. That corruption is cyclical. That's how I'd use it.
Starting point is 01:38:30 Look at that. Look at that. And at the end of the day, you could boil this down to deregulation, kind of coming back to those chickens coming home to roost. And the Trump administration, one of the first things they did in 2017, they had the Department of Transportation repeal this Obama era regulation, which required freight railroads to employ electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, uncertain trains, hauling hazardous, flammable chemicals. And so what the Trump administration did is they went through this FAST Act, which was called, it was a piece of legislation called the FAST Act, which repealed the Obama mandate through an analysis run by Trump's DOT, essentially arguing that the costs were not worth the benefit. Well, guess what? Now we are seeing the true costs out there as these
Starting point is 01:39:17 chemicals spill into these towns, as people are forced out of their homes as people who come near the area have their eyes burning as there are dead fish in waterways, as you see dead animals, dead farm animals, dead wild all over the place. It's completely catastrophic. And then you have the government saying, you know what? Everything's good now, though. You know, it's low contamination. The water should be good.
Starting point is 01:39:44 You should be fine in Ohio. I, not to sound conspiratorial, I wouldn't go near it if I were them. I wouldn't trust it. You see what it's doing to the animals. You see animals dead on the street. You think it's going to be healthy for a human to be within those toxic chemicals? I personally, I would be absolutely nowhere near it. And it also comes after the state of Idaho, the GOP legislature there,
Starting point is 01:40:11 constantly stripping away these regulations, regulation by regulation, because that's how they think government should work. They think just the businesses should be able to maximize their profits and there should just be no restraints. Do whatever you want. Consequences be damned. Well, here are the real life consequences. And then they have the nerve to turn around and blame Biden and blame Buttigieg for a problem that they caused. I mean, it just goes around. You have people like Lauren Boebert, you have J.D. Vance, you have all these people now trying to blame Biden for what happened rather than blame this nonstop deregulation being pushed by Republicans at the expense of American lives,
Starting point is 01:40:53 at the expense of workers, at the expense of families. The results are simply catastrophic. These images are absolutely horrifying. And I think we all need to be speaking about this more. We need to be speaking about this loudly and we need to call out the corruption for what it is. I was trying to think of that. I think part of the issue is, and it's a weird comparison, so stick with me for a beat, but I's sort of also one of the issues with police departments across the country in that all the risk is mitigated no matter what happens. The taxpayer ultimately ends up taking the tap. You know, it's not the company at the end of the day that ends up like being fined like
Starting point is 01:41:42 incredible sums of money and has to deal with the cleanup. But at the end of the day, like the government has to step in to deal with the catastrophe caused by this rail company. So they are able to say, oh, you know what? We get to save costs at the top by deregulating, by not doing this stuff. And when stuff goes wrong, guess what? The taxpayers will bail us out. All good. All good. Nothing off our back. No skin off our back. And you get in this just disastrous cycle, Jordy, disastrous cycle where they just don't care. They just don't care. And it's absolutely just, it's horrifying. It's absolutely horrifying, those images that we're seeing there. And look, Jordy, in terms of this being cyclical, these corporations, in their view, want the government to be the agents of creating their oligarchy. And they also then want the government to be the repository of its
Starting point is 01:42:36 shit. That's how they view government. And there is a proactive role that government can and should play in curbing very dangerous things and also improving people's lives within a capitalistic system that operates in its truest form, not by picking favorites like MAGA Republicans want, whoever their new cult leader is, du jour, but also operates with compassion, with decency, and reflects that what really is the heart and the engine of America is actually not corporations. It's people. It's workers. It's you. That's what actually makes economies work. It's people. And so when you focus on people power, when you focus on better working conditions, when you focus on making sure people are paid with dignity, when you make sure that people have better working conditions and work in safe environments, and you enable people to reach their fullest potential, that's what inspires. That's what
Starting point is 01:43:53 leads to great economic growth. You see, Biden gets that when they talk about middle up. That's really what they're referring to. Let's focus on the worker, not focusing on giving a billionaire three more yachts or five more yachts based on them having tax provisions where they can shelter their money overseas and that they could cut benefits to workers. Look, I stand with the people, okay? That's what I fight for at Midas Touch. And what I like about President Biden taking his message across the country to his people, to the people, while Democrats continue to call out the MAGA Republican extremism, is to have these conversations in areas like Florida, in Ohio, not right before an election. That's one of my criticism for Democrats too. It's like they wake up all of a sudden right before an election. It's like, all right, now let's act like we like Ohio. Now let's focus like we, no, no, no. We love these
Starting point is 01:44:54 places. So let's show them 365 days a year. Let's not wait until 2024 right before an election, before you start. Let's go now and let's have these honest conversations in areas and let's talk about our care for the worker and let's explain to the worker, yeah, look, the outrage machine is here to trick you. Don't you want better working conditions? Don't you want lower prescription drug prices? Don't you want opportunity for yourself and your family and your community? Don't you want opportunity for yourself and your family and your community? Aren't these values actually what makes America a great place? Not the performative mantras while the exact opposite is being done that's incongruous to the ultimate
Starting point is 01:45:39 mantra. But I know we got to wrap this up soon, so I'll let you get the final word. I knew he wasn't going to take himself off mute. You knew it. I just want to say that's why Mitt Romney, back when he ran and why Republicans for so long have said things like, corporations are people, my friend. Corporations are people. This is like the crux of a lot of these arguments in court that right-wingers make. Corporations are people. Same thing as people.
Starting point is 01:46:09 No, they're not, though. They're not. They're not. I'm sorry. They're not. And that sort of attitude is what results in situations just like this. I saw a person or two in the chat also go, you're not telling the full story. Biden should just put back in the executive order that Trump took off. And I thought I might as well address that as well. And that, like I said, the regulation was taken away via this passage of the FAST Act. It was done legislatively. And that technically, I don't think Biden actually has that executive authority to wield in this situation. It will probably just end up getting struck down if he tries to do it, if Buttigieg tries to put that back. And so you need a legislative solution. And Republicans will not want to pass a legislative solution for things like that,
Starting point is 01:46:51 because it will mean adding more regulation, which is against what they stand for, which is one of the issues that we're currently facing. Now, if I were Biden, maybe I would just go ahead and do it anyway. let the court strike me down, at least have a Band-Aid solution, but it will get struck down as the thing at the end of the day. And so we need solutions that actually last longer, that are enduring, that are built to last. And we can't do that with Republicans in the government. We can't do that with their leadership, which is why it's so dangerous when they're doing all these kind of distractive tactics and when they're being such clowns and when they're gaslighting the public. Because at the end of the day, all they're doing is they are making our communities less safe.
Starting point is 01:47:34 They are making the average American poorer. They are increasing the wealth gap in this country, and they are really harming the American people overall. And they are doing their antics to hide all of that. And so we need to be a force that counters that, that could show that, guess what? Democracy is a good thing. Empowering workers is a good thing. We want a strong working class. We want a middle class. We want a strong middle class. We want jobs. We don't want all these companies to just get billions and trillions of dollars and then do these stock buybacks and make the American people less safe for it. We're done with that. And so we all need to stand up and we need to be the force to counter that element and cut through the gaslighting, cut through the
Starting point is 01:48:26 BS and show that there is a better way forward. And that's how I'll end. You guys are smart, man. You guys are smart. I love doing the show with you guys. You guys are really smart. And with the Midas Mighty, I feel empowered. I feel that we have what it takes. I really do. I feel very optimistic. I want to just tell all the Midas Mighty out there, everybody watching, everybody listening, how much we love you all, how grateful we are for you all. When everybody asks, what's the secret stuff about, how does Midas Touch network? Over the weekend, we were the most watched YouTube news network in the world, beating ABC and Sky News and Al Jazeera, anywhere in the world. And it's
Starting point is 01:49:06 because of you. It's because the might is mighty. It's because this is a serious group of people who cares about democracy in the United States and abroad. That's why. And we're so grateful for all of you. One of the things also that we've done very differently than the large media networks, they're funded by millionaire and deca-millionaire and billionaire investors. We are not. We are 100% independent. We are 100% accountable to you. And I say, look, is this the smartest business model in the world that we have? Probably not. But this is about saving our democracy. And so one of the things that we do in order for us to be able to have the resources for the research that we do and all the things, we have this Patreon site where you could become a member. You can join one of the membership tiers.
Starting point is 01:49:52 You go to Patreon.com slash Midas Touch, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com slash Midas Touch. You go there. There's a lot of exclusive content you could only get on Patreon. But most importantly, it helps grow this independent media platform. That's what's used to help fund all of these shows, all of the new shows that you see we're rolling out. And so if you're able to, and look, it's a membership. The different membership tiers are at different monetary amounts. And so no pressure either way, we're still going to do all the great content we do here on YouTube each and every day. But that's one of the ways that we can
Starting point is 01:50:31 operate not having the business model that I think makes the large media networks very flawed and inherently rife with conflicts of interest. So wherever you are in the world, you can go to patreon.com slash MidasTouch. Go to store.midastouch.com as well for the best pro-democracy gear. Jordy's got the water bottle, the Midas Touch Network water bottle. It's actually a Patreon exclusive though, Ben. So it's not available to everyone, this one.
Starting point is 01:51:00 Okay, that's on Patreon. But we got a lot of other stuff at store.midastouch a lot of other stuff at at store.mitastouch.com check that out store.mitastouch.com get the best pro-democracy gear there and that extra incentivizes you to go to patreon to get show that to the camera for a sec that's a fresh looking water but that's a now that's a nalgene 2 made in the usa midas touch network unapologetically pro-democracy that's fresh right if you haven't seen it yet, also check out Killing County. It's on Hulu about the crime, corruption,
Starting point is 01:51:30 and cover-up that all takes place. How do I do it? Which way? There you go. Which takes place, I'll never be a good weatherman, which takes place in Kevin McCarthy's district. Executive produced with Colin Kaepernick.
Starting point is 01:51:46 Make sure you check it out. Killing County. It's out now. They have the highest police shooting. That's highest crime, highest homicide rates. And it's all in Kevin McCarthy's district. It's doing really good on Hulu right now. Check it out. Share your feedback and post on social media.
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Starting point is 01:52:54 The network is The Weekend Show. Search The Weekend Show. Subscribe there. This network is growing fast thanks to all of our patrons thanks to all of your support we are so grateful we will always be grateful and thank you for watching this episode of the Midas Touch podcast I'm Ben Mycelis I have the honor of doing this with my brothers each and every podcast I am so blessed and I'm so blessed for all the Midas Mighty out there. Jordy, take it away. Shout out to the Midas Mighty. The best part of waking up? Maga Tears in my cup.
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