The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump Has Never Been MORE SCARED and GOP Collapse Continues

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

Welcome to the MeidasTouch Podcast, where we bring you the latest news and analysis on politics and current events. In this episode, we cover the latest developments on several fronts. We discuss the latest Republican embarrassment as their hearings backfire. Once again, they demonstrate their incompetence and lack of judgment. We also dissect House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's disastrous plan to avert a debt default. Meanwhile,President Biden gave a speech at a union training facility, where he talked about the state of the economy and his plans to create jobs and promote economic growth and slammed MAGA Republican policies. Moreover, we bring you the latest news on Donald Trump's legal troubles, which seem to be mounting on all fronts, and examine Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's incompetence, which has been on full display in recent weeks.  DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: Mosh: Try Mosh today and use ‘MEIDAS’ to save 20% plus free shipping at https://moshlife.com/MEIDAS Henson Shaving: Visit https://HensonShaving.com/meidas to pick the razor for you and use code ‘MEIDAS’ for 2 years worth of free blades! Lomi: Visit https://Lomi.com/MEIDAS and use code MEIDAS and checkout to save $50! Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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. Republicans held more hearings this week. We call them professional rake steppers for a reason, because once again, those hearings backfired, with even Marjorie Taylor Greene being banned from asking further questions during one of the hearings. We will show what went down. And Republicans in the House of Representatives finally announced their hostage demands

for so-called spending cuts they want in order for them to raise the debt ceiling. And we're talking about some of the most extreme plans imaginable, directly targeting workers and everyday Americans. And then you have some of these MAGA Republicans saying it is not even extreme enough. I don't even think Kevin McCarthy has the votes for the plan that they rolled out. And I got to show you President Biden's response to it. It was great. Speaking of great, I think I'm pretty happy that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals did the right thing. I was nervous for a moment because they stayed or

paused a lower court ruling by a Trump-appointed federal judge who rejected the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's lawsuit to basically stop MAGA Republican Jim Jordan from subpoenaing Mark Pomeranz to try to force the testimony of this former special assistant district attorney. I want to talk about what went down in the Second Circuit, what we can expect next week, and what this Trump appointee's ruling was all about. And also, speaking of great, here's the real great part that I wanted to talk about, which is E. Jean Carroll's trial is set to take place April 25th. The wait is over. That's right. E. Jean Carroll's civil rape and defamation case against Donald Trump goes to trial next week on April 25th.

Trump's lawyer, Joe Takapina, continues to get smacked down by the judge, federal judge Lewis Kaplan. And it doesn't seem like Trump is going to show up at the trial. It's a civil case. So unlike a criminal case, Trump doesn't have to show up. But Trump was begging the judge to issue an instruction to the jury to say that the reason Donald Trump didn't want to show up was because it would just be too big of a burden to the city of Manhattan. And Judge Lewis Kaplan said, no,

I think it's not a burden at all. You could decide to show up or not. But you know what? I am not going to read such an instruction. And not only that, but Donald Trump, your lawyer can't even tell the jury why you are not here. So show up or don't show up. It is your choice. And Fulton County District Attorney Fawnie Willis, we haven't heard that name for a while, but she's been hard at work since the special purpose grand jury submitted their report, which was which still remains under seal. And Fannie Willis is criminal investigation into Donald Trump. Looks like it's headed toward a criminal indictment of Donald Trump soon. I think in the next two or three months, but I think late May, early June, we're going to see the criminal

indictment out of Fulton County, Georgia. I'll explain why. Also, Ron DeSantis, woof, looking more incompetent each and every day. I mean, talk about this process exposing him. He's become the laughingstock to everybody, to Democrats, to MAGA Republicans. I think Ron DeSantis is incompetence is actually one of the thing that's actually uniting, maybe uniting the country. Also, President Biden is likely to announce his reelection campaign soon. This and more here on the Midas Touch podcast. I'm Ben Mysel, as joined by Brett and Jordy. Action-packed week, fellas. And you know what? When we were last live on Monday, we did not touch on the fact that as of Monday night, the Fox Dominion case was going to trial.

And so I don't want to belabor the point because we've covered it a ton on other hot takes. But, you know, we should at least mention for continuity, of course, that Fox settled the defamation case brought by Dominion and wrote a check for seven hundred and eighty seven point five million dollars and essentially admitted that their statements were false by conceding that the judge's findings of falsity were accurate. Just wanted to put that out there. Wait, Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, but just not only putting it out there, we actually talked through the exact scenario of what could have and did eventually happen.

Honestly, let me, I have a bone to pick because I'm getting, I'm getting real sick of Ben being right about everything. I just want to throw that out there. I agree. It's annoying. It's annoying. It's kind of annoying. Ben breaks down the legal arguments. He says what's going to happen, even if people aren't super thrilled about what may happen. Ben always just nails it. But I guess that's why you're here at the Midas Touch Network, because we give it to you straight. And Ben really knows his stuff when it comes to the law. But no, Ben, that was an absolutely incredible prediction.

You know, it was tough. You know, it sucked to see them settle. It, it hurt obviously personally, just as an American who wanted to see more accountability for Fox. Um, but I get why they did it in terms of them being a company for their shareholders. And it's a whole lot of money. My, my, my kind of, uh, metaphor for it was, it felt like the, uh, it felt like the lottery winner kind of taking the lump sum or take of taking the lump sum up front rather than get the money kind of down the road because the process just would have obviously been dragged

out even after the trial with the appeals upon appeals upon appeals. And then at the end, it goes to another process where the final verdict could then be cut down to not too much more money than they even received by just taking the money up front. So, like, I get why they did it. I wish that they could have forced these Fox hosts, like I said in the last show, to open up every single show by saying, by telling their audience, listen, we lied to you. But I guess that was a little too much to ask. But plenty of justice happening around the country.

And by the way, Fox is like, it's just getting started for Fox. They got the Smartmatic lawsuit, which is like a $2.7 billion lawsuit. They have shareholder lawsuits. There's so much disarray from what we're hearing internally at Fox with their talent, with their staff, like they are in real chaos. So any way that that organization can be at least weakened or punched in the gut, I am happy with as at least a starting point. But seeing justice all over the country, the good thing about professional rake stepping, you guys, is it's not just isolated. It's not just isolated to Congress. These professional rake steppers, they step on rakes in the courts. They step on rakes in the Capitol.

They step on rakes kind of wherever they go. It's kind of the one kind of uniting ideology, if you will, of these MAGA Republicans. And we are just seeing it in all aspects. I'll tell you why. Stupidity is contagious. And so this professional rake stepping, it's a contagious thing because they all appear on each other's networks. They all talk to each other. They all influence each other in the worst ways possible. Stupidity, contagious. I thought you were going to say cyclical. I thought you were about to come back to cyclical. No, that's different. I'll use that later. Don't worry. All right. I got to figure out how you use that correctly. The truth is that when you lie about

everything, it's going to catch up to you, especially when you're in legitimate places like a court of law or when you're surrounded by intelligent people like Jamie Raskin and Eric Swalwell. Once you actually get confronted with people who are actually informed on the facts or actually informed on what's going on or you're under oath or something to that effect, all of a sudden your lies that you heard on your crazy right-wing blogs, they just all of a sudden they don't quite work. And so that's where they kind of go and step on those rakes because they get into places where their lies and gaslighting all of a sudden aren't working so much anymore. But people are seeing through it. You know, President Biden in a recent speech, we'll show it in a little bit, called these MAGA Republicans ideas. I think he called them these wacko notions, right? And it is

a kind of a combination of this wannabe fascism, this kind of cosplay authoritarianism mixed with this idiocracy and incompetence. And we should be grateful that there is this idiocracy and incompetence portion of it that is holding back their authoritarian intentions and designs. But nonetheless, they are cosplay fascism. They actually want to be full fascist, but their idiocracy holds it back. And, you know, it's on full display when they hold these hearings, right? I mean, they hold these congressional hearings in the House of Representatives. And, you know, you see why it is that these individuals, you know, should not be elevated to these positions. Like, you know, Kevin McCarthy, the weakest speaker of the House in history, puts Marjorie

Taylor Greene on the Homeland Security Committee, right? I mean, I just want you to think about like this isn't a joke, right? This isn't funny stuff. You know, the Homeland Security Committee is a group of members of Congress who have access to the most highly classified information. OK, this is life or death stuff that they deal with. And somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who she frankly can't control herself, right? She's not fit really to hold any type of job at all in this country, you know, except for in the MAGA Republican Party, where idiocracy and cruelty and just being evil and

hateful is rewarded. She gets to be on the Homeland Security Committee. And now Kevin McCarthy puts her in a position to make life or death decisions over your life, over your family's life, over your friends and colleagues and coworkers and community and neighborhood and country, you know, and she doesn't belong there at all. And so I just want to show you this clip to start. This is from a Homeland Security Committee meeting where Congressman Eric Swalwell, a Democrat, before becoming a Congress member, Eric Swalwell was a very well-established prosecutor, state prosecutor in California who prosecuted very high profile cases for the state of California.

Eric Swalwell is just pointing out a fact that the Republican House Judiciary Twitter account posts these ridiculous things, you know, praising Kanye West, Kanye, Elon Trump. And so Eric Swalwell is just pointing out how harmful that is because it radicalizes domestic terrorists and extremists. And the witness there is the Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. And so you'll see Congressman Eric Swalwell just pointing this out and just having a very intelligible conversation. I want you to watch what Marjorie Taylor Greene does. So let's play this clip. Was kept up for months after Kanye West said that he was going to declare death con three on the Jews. Mr. Secretary, do you believe that all of us have a responsibility to elevate our rhetoric

and to denounce anti-Semitism and anti-police rhetoric in this country so that Jewish Americans and police officers can be safer? Congressman, I do. Thank you, and I yield back. The gentleman yields, and now I recognize the gentlelady from Georgia, Ms. Green. That was quite entertaining from someone that had a sexual relationship with a Chinese spy, and everyone knows it. I move to take her words down. Completely inappropriate.

And the motion, the move to take her words down is a step basically to disqualify her. And she should have been disqualified from asking further questions in that committee hearing. Based on that alone, she wasn't, but she continued to act like that. If someone acted like that, just think about if you work at an accounting firm or at a school or at a law firm or at a restaurant or wherever, or a nonprofit organization, and just somebody behaved like that, right? Like, they would be fired immediately and likely sued, you know, for harassment because it's really

despicable conduct, you know, and there you have Congressman Swalwell talking about the importance of elevating rhetoric, right? And addressing a serious issue that the MAGA Republicans on the Judiciary Committee that maintain that official account are praising Kanye West at the same time he was saying we need to go DEFCON 3 on Jews. And he's asking the question to the Homeland Security Secretary because that's a major issue under the jurisdiction of the Homeland Security Secretary that domestic terrorists are being radicalized by language like that coming from the House Judiciary GOP account. And then notice that Marjorie Taylor Greene, she doesn't even address what Eric Swalwell is saying. Like it's a fact. She just goes right to, but you had sex with a spy, which is not true. Back in 2012, 2013, when Eric Swalwell was informed that there may have been an interaction with, and he may have been targeted by a Chinese spy operation. What did he do? He cooperated with the FBI immediately back in 2012 or 2013, whenever it was. It was a very long time ago. And that's what she brings up.

And she brings it up like that, like Brett, to your point, like just a horrible human being. Yeah, no, it's really disgusting. It's really beneath just the entire United States Congress and government. But this is how these Republicans have so debased the rhetoric in our country and have just turned it into just a complete and utter cesspool. I mean, it's really just frankly disgusting to have a human being like that in our government who would otherwise be completely unemployable anywhere else. You say that literally in any other job. You behave that way in any other job. You are being sent to HR at minimum, or you are being fired and you are not being hired again. And this just kept going on and on and on

during this hearing to the point where Marjorie Taylor Greene actually got banned from even speaking. Yeah, literally. they told her that she could no longer speak anymore during these hearings. And she starts like, she tries to use these terms that she thinks, here's the thing with these MAGA Republicans also, they don't even know what the hell they're doing, right? They don't even know the rules of their own job. And so she's in there just being, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene, being as rude as could be. And then she'll make a comment like, point to personal injury, point to personal... And Dan Goldman responds to her. He's like, that's not a thing. What are you talking about? That's not even

a thing. We'll just play this clip in general. You'll see the whole sequence of events where Marjorie Taylor Greene just starts going crazy again. I mean, not that she has to get started to go crazy, but Marjorie Taylor Greene behaving like Marjorie Taylor Greene until she is banned from speaking during this hearing. Outrage, complete outrage, where China is poisoning America's children, poisoning our teenagers, poisoning our young people. How long are you going to let this go on? Congresswoman, let me assure you that we're not letting it go on. We are fighting this. No, I reclaim my time. You're a liar. You are letting this go on in the numbers. Well, actually, I want you to take the words of the speaker down. So in making a ruling on this, it's pretty

clear that the rules state you can't impugn someone's character. Identifying or calling someone a liar is unacceptable in this committee and I make the ruling that we strike those words. Sorry, just a point of order, legitimate question. You're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Did you move to I'M SORRY, JUST A POINT OF ORDER, LEGITIMATE QUESTION. YOU'RE RECOGNIZED. THANK YOU, MR. CHAIRMAN. DID YOU MOVE TO TAKE THE WORDS DOWN OR TO STRIKE THEM, MR.

THOMPSON? I'M SORRY, I JUST STEPPED IN. YEAH, TAKE THEM DOWN. SO THAT'S WHAT WE DID. MY UNDERSTANDING IS IF WORDS ARE TAKEN DOWN, THAT MEANS THAT THE MEMBER CAN NO LONGER SPEAK Yeah, my understanding is if words are taken down, that means that the member can no longer speak in whatever the proceeding is that those words were said. Personal inquiry, point of personal inquiry. There's no such thing.

Stand by just a second. House, when we strike, it does terminate the time of the individual who is speaking. So the gentlelady is no longer recognized. And that, by the way, the chair was a Republican, Congress member Mark Green, and he had enough of it. You know, and Congress member Green's like, you humiliated me at this Homeland Security Committee, Marjorie Taylor Greene. And she said, point of personal inquiry, which is not even a point that you could raise there of kind of parliamentary procedure. And Congressman Dan Goldman's like, what are you talking about? But notice, it actually took her calling Mayorkas, Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, a liar. They didn't officially take

down her words and vote to disqualify her from the hearing based on saying that Congressman Swalwell had sex with a spy. It took two times for that to actually happen. So that's what was going on there. And by the way, this was a theme throughout all these hearings. And by the way, not just these hearings, like all the hearings that there are. The theme is Republicans get their time to ask questions about really serious issues that affect America, right? Like they're holding these sham hearings, but they could actually be hearings that actually help inform the public, that actually help dig into issues that the American people care about. But they don't view those that way. They view these as these Soviet kind of trials, these BS trials to just kind of gaslight the public. And all they view this is as a platform

to get themselves on Sean Hannity's show or Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham's show that night. So they spend their time and instead of even asking questions to the witness, so they bring out a top level official from the Biden administration or a top level expert. They have them sitting in front of them and all they do for the five minutes they're allotted or whatever it is, person by person, they just do what Marjorie Taylor Greene is and they do their rant. You're a liar. You are a liar. Liar, liar, pants on fire. And that's what they do. There's just nothing. There's zero substance, zero even attempt to try to get to the bottom of issues that people care about.

And that's what's so enraging. Also, that they could get that little hit, that little great job by Sean Hannity every night on Fox News. That's what's also just so disgusting about this. If you're going to do these sham hearings, at least take them seriously, at least have the decency to pretend, but they cannot even pretend. Yeah. Like, so that hearing, Jordy, I'm sorry for interrupting. Jordy, you're on mute, but we can't hear you. Wow. I pulled a Brett. All I was going to, all I was going to say is one to our audio and, and YouTube watchers. I actually requested that Brett does more Marjorie Tellergreen impressions because he's so good at them.

It's definitely a top five impression. And then, Ben, before you go, I love when Marjorie Tellergreen speaks. I love it. I love it. I love it. I say let Lauren Boebert speak. Let Matt Gaetz speak because, Brett, Ben, to your points, they're professional rake steppers.

You know who's not watching these hearings live like that? Gen Z. They're not. You know when they do watch it? When we take their ridiculous soundbites, not Gen Z's, when we take Marjorie Taylor Greene's ridiculous soundbites and behavior, stitch it together in a 60-second clip for them to just see and unfold display. Hey, do you want government to run like this? Do you think this person is a fair and accurate representation of you and your ideals and what you aspire this country to be? Or do you want it to be Dan Goldman, who is a normal pro-democracy loving person in this country who is a fantastic representative?

So when you're able to juxtapose these MAGA Republicans, when they're using the microphone to spew hatred and vitriol and division, and when you could show them doing that versus what Democrats are trying to do on a day-to-day basis, which is just protect people's rights, you know, the choice becomes clear and evident that these MAGA Republicans should be nowhere near government. I couldn't agree more with you, Jordan. Look, the clips that we just played for you were from the Homeland Security Committee hearing. There's one more I just want to show you, just so you see the contrast between Marjorie Taylor Greene and the way someone like Congressman Eric Swalwell

kind of calls them out. Like you can call people out, but, you know, stick to the facts and show photographs and show the images and show the people what you're talking about. And you can do it in a calm and intelligible manner. Watch Congressman Eric Swalwell calling out Marjorie Taylor Greene and Republicans

for their defund the police rhetoric. Play this clip. I'm disturbed about a recent tweet from the former president that says Republicans in Congress should defund the Department of Justice and the FBI. I'm also concerned about people on this committee and their own anti-police rhetoric. This is a defund the FBI campaign effort. Again, thousands of FBI agents who work hard every day to take bad guys off the streets. In fact, after the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, someone armed to the teeth went to an FBI field office to try and kill FBI agents. So compare that to MAGA Republican Congress member Nick LaLotta, who asks a question of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, but except it's not a question, right? Because MAGA Republican Congress member LaLotta, Brett, to your point, wants to get on Fox.

He thinks it's like, let's do this thing where I do a pop quiz and I'm going to ask the Homeland Security these gotcha questions. But watch how Secretary Mayorkas handles this. Play the clip. And sir, I know that we're limited on time. So I would appreciate when you responded, you just say A, B, C or D in these multiple choice questions, sir. And sir, my first question is, according to CBP, how much fentanyl has CBP seized along the southwest border in FY 23? You see the answers behind me, sir. So, Congressman, two quick things. Number one, my distance vision isn't what it used to be, so I can't actually see that.

And number two, I'm not taking a multiple choice test that you administer. Let me assure you of that. Damn! multiple choice test that you administer. Let me assure you of that. And also, once again, it's the Republicans complaining about fentanyl that was seized. That's the big guy. Look at all the drugs that were seized at the border. How much of this stuff was getting through when Donald Trump was president? That's that's what I want to know. Probably a lot, because Donald Trump, as we say on the show, his whole thing is we don't test. We don't look at numbers. No, we don't see it. It's not happening. We don't tell you about the spy balloons flying over. We

don't tell you that stuff. Yeah, if you don't test, it doesn't exist under the MAGA Republicans world. It's like the most insane thing. OK, but switching gears now from the Homeland Security Committee hearing to the Oversight Committee hearing chaired by MAGA Republican James Comer, the Oversight Committee hearing focused on basically blaming President Biden for everything relating to Afghanistan, like with no historical context, like no historical context that Donald Trump was the person who ordered the troops to be withdrawn, that Donald Trump like unilaterally did it in like a three sentence letter, that even the military generals are like, what are you doing? That Donald Trump and Pompeo released 5000 Taliban prisoners who became the new leadership of the Taliban. Those were the individuals who ended up taking over Afghanistan, like without even coordinating with the Afghan government at

the time, like there wasn't even a deal. It was like, let's just negotiate directly with the Taliban and let your prisoners out. Like, you know, who really would have wanted that? It was very helpful to Vladimir Putin, but how do you not even secure any type of deal? It would just like release the prisoners. And then they don't even go back further for a historical evaluation of like, why were we in Afghanistan in the first place with George W. Bush? And so, again, we call it like they acted like Biden was the reason that Americans were in Afghanistan. with this presidency. Biden is actually our first president in decades in which we are not actually in an active war. I know a lot of people act like on the right, act like we are actually in Ukraine right now fighting Russia. That's not happening. In fact, what did President Biden do? President Biden made it so that we were not fighting Russia. President Biden supplied

Ukraine with the necessary arms and defense that they needed so that that war did not become a world war, so that that war did not come to us. And Republicans hate him for it. And Donald Trump had this plan to take our troops out of Afghanistan and Donald Trump completely fumbled the plan. He completely sold out the Afghan government. He left them completely defenseless. He completely backed the Taliban when it happened. He left Biden in a really difficult situation, which was impossible to reverse. But at the end of the day, Biden went through with it. And I'm happy Biden did go through with the withdrawal and took our troops out of here as messy as it may have been.

That's actually a really good thing that Biden ended up doing. And for the first time, we are actually not in one of these wars. That is a big thing. And all the Republicans, all these people on the right, they try to act like, oh, the world was so safe under Trump. He didn't get us into any wars. Bullshit. That's just a fly. It's just a straight up lie. You trump he didn't get us into any wars bullshit that's just a fly it's just it's just a straight up lie you know who didn't biden that's that truth right there biden it's

just it's such a skewed thing and all their memes all their things they try to make it sound like biden is some like warmonger over here this is the first like kind of peacetime in america it's it's it's it's pretty wild you you know. And look, the Democratic Congress members were bringing it back to the truth. So this is Congress member Jared Moskowitz, Democratic superstar, another Congress member from Florida, calling out Republicans for forgetting who started the Afghanistan war. And he also mentions the Trump-Taliban deals and that why are the MAGA Republicans so focused on public urination and Hunter Biden's laptop before this hearing. Here, play the clip. Who says it's an important topic. You know, we're 100 plus days into the

next Congress. And this committee thought that before we would talk about the Afghanistan withdrawal, they thought it was more important to talk about Twitter first. And not only did they think it was more important than the Afghanistan withdrawal, they thought it was more important to talk about the hiring policies of the Biden administration. They also thought it was more important to talk about a laptop that was found at Radio Shack before the Afghan withdrawal. You know, they thought it was more important to talk about the D.C. government and public urination before the Afghan withdrawal. And so I know this is a serious topic.

But just look at the hearings we've had before this one. And so it's tough for us on this side of the aisle to accept that this isn't a serious hearing. This was a 20-year war. It was started by President Bush. You remember President Bush. I know many of you have disowned him because he disagrees with President Trump. Such a good line. But four presidents, 20 years of good decisions, 20 years of bad decisions. You don't want to examine 20 years. You only want to examine

like the last week. You know, when marriages dissolve after 20 years and they get in front of a judge, they don't just say, you know, everything was great until the last week of marriage. It's crazy. President Trump invited the Taliban to Camp David around the anniversary of 9-11. What? Like, are there any questions about that? Trump released 5,000 prisoners, many that included terrorists, 5,000 Taliban prisoners, many that included terrorists. I like he goes, Donald Trump invited the Taliban to Camp David on the anniversary of 9-11. What? No one wants to ask questions about that. The MAGA Republicans, that doesn't intrigue you. You don't want to do maybe a follow-up on why that happened.

But it just goes to show you, Brett, as you said, it's all BS. The future of the Democratic Party is bright. The future of... Classic Moskowitz W right there, Jay. Classic Moskowitz W. He's really good. I mean, he's been bringing the heat in all these hearings. He comes completely prepared. But that's what I was saying. You could reasonably have an important discussion and fact-finding mission about what happened in Afghanistan, what went wrong, do a report on the past 20 years, how it started, why we were there, how things could have been better. Should we have even been there at all? I mean, like you could have done a whole thing. The problem is it would have put the place, the problems at the feet of the Republicans every

single step of the way. And so they don't want to find the truth. They just want to use these to try to blame Biden and get their two seconds or two minutes or whatever on Fox. That's all that this is about. Should this be the symbol every time Moskowitz gets a W? It's like, boom, boom, boom. I'm not sure you know what a W is. It goes up. No, Moskowitz W. You see what I'm doing?

You get it? I see what you're doing. Your journey's doing is hands down an M and then up to a W. Moskowitz, I see. We got a lot. I love you, brother. We've got a lot to talk about, including Donald Trump does not want to show up at trial next week. Donald Trump's going to trial next week on E. Jean Carroll's rape case.

Donald Trump does not want to show up. The federal judge is basically saying, can you stop whining? And Donald Trump's lawyer, can you pay attention to what I'm already ordering before? And can you stop filing these like ridiculous letter briefs and actually pay attention? Takapina, also a big ruling by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, staying a lower court order that would have compelled Mark Pomerantz to have to testify before MAGA Republican Jim Jordan's controlled Judiciary Committee. Let's also talk about what these Republican hostage demands are. They're refusing to pass a clean debt ceiling bill, and they've just rolled out a horrific set of demands, which are complete non-starters,

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They're amazing. I'm not steering you wrong. They're good. I couldn't agree more with you but Jordy and I like the way you said it mosh mosh mosh all right so when it comes to when it comes to passing a bill to raise the debt ceiling it's supposed to pretty much be automatic, right? I mean, during the Trump administration, Democrats absolutely, and for good reason, like completely disagreed with Donald Trump's priorities for what that budget looked like. But Democrats were not going to play games when it came to the debt, raising the debt ceiling. And so when Democrats control the House of Representatives, where spending starts, you raise the debt ceiling. It's just what you do because it's not about dealing with spending priorities going forward. Raising the debt ceiling is all about paying the debt that has accumulated in the past throughout America's history.

By the way, 25 percent of all of the debt in United States American history was created while Trump was president. So this is just about paying bills that are owed. And, you know, look, it's a ridiculous process that, you know, it's about 100 years old at this point that you have to keep passing debt ceiling bills to kind of raise the debt ceiling like there shouldn't even have to exist in the first place. But you have to keep this new, but you have to keep, but you got to keep raising it to the next level just to pay your bills in the past, right?

There's different forums to have discussions over spending, right? Like when budgets are put forward, you could have disagreements about budgeting and the Appropriations Committee and the Ways and Means Committee could have all these conversations about the finances. There's a whole other conversation there. But this is like the first time in history where MAGA Republicans have said, or where anyone in the House of Representatives just so happens to

be MAGA Republicans, that we're not going to pass a clean debt ceiling bill. We're just not. We need you, Biden, to follow our demands. You need to meet our demands about spending cuts, even though they're two separate concepts, totally. But we need your agreement to change your spending habits based on the way we want it. Or guess what? We destroy America. I mean, it's basically like that. We will. It's basically like that. You're right. And Ben, I'll extend it. Not just we'll destroy America. We'll destroy the global economy. Yeah. We'll destroy the global economy. You know, we want to we don't want to have the normal discussions when they normally take place about spending. And, you know, and there are issues there, right, where there are government shutdowns and all the stuff that happens with spending fights that take

place. But they're like, no, we are not going to raise the debt ceiling. We will cause America to default on its debt if you don't agree with us. America's full faith and credit will be absolutely destroyed. And we will plunge the entire world into a global depression if you don't agree to these demands. And President Biden's like, no, but how about this? Show me your budget. Well, they're refusing to show a budget, right? But they've at least showed their demands now, Brett. And Brett, can you go over what these demands are? Because if you go over them point by point, like these demands are cruel, they're impractical. And even when you lay them out, other MAGA Republicans are like, these don't go far enough. These aren't extreme enough.

So it doesn't even seem like Kevin McCarthy has the votes. But to be clear, Kevin McCarthy has not put forward his own budget. Just here's what you need to cut, basically. And what are the cuts, Brett? Yeah, it's comically evil, like movie villain, supervillain evil, the cuts that they want, because they knew that they couldn't directly come for Social Security and Medicare because Biden humiliated them at the State of the Union and called them out on it. So they said, OK, we're going to go after all the Americans who need help. We're going to target them in every other way imaginable. And I'm going to read you a list. This is straight from the Kevin McCarthy plan to avert the debt ceiling. He wants to eliminate

Pell Grants for 80,000 students and reduce grant funding for millions of others. He wants to remove access to Head Start programs and childcare to 300,000 children. He wants to cut funding for 2,000 border agents. I thought they wanted to protect the border. They wants to cut 11,000 children. He wants to cut funding for 2,000 border agents. I thought they wanted to protect the border. They wants to cut 11,000 FBI personnel, hundreds of police. He wants to shut down 125 air traffic control towers. I mean, that right there would increase airport security wait times like crazy. It would be an absolute disaster. He wants to evict hundreds of thousands of families, veterans, seniors, people with disabilities from Section 8 housing. He wants to impose work requirements for social programs. He wants to block the Biden

student debt relief plan. I'm not done yet. I'm still going. He wants to repeal the money that the IRS has, and we'll get to that in a second. He wants to remove all of Biden's environmental protections and nearly wipe out all of Biden's clean tax credits. He wants to reduce access to veterans care. He wants to increase wait times for veterans receiving benefits because he wants to put in a 22% decrease in VA funding. And I could keep going on and on and on. That list right there is a pretty rough start to this plan. And the place where McCarthy is finding himself now in is the so-called more moderate members of the House are saying it's a little too extreme. The extremist members of the House are saying, hell no, I'm not voting for that. It's not nearly extreme enough.

And McCarthy, because he, the brilliant politician, tactician that he is, he has to listen to people like George Santos and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lou Comer and all these bozos. And George Santos came out and he said, I'm strongly against this bill, Kevin McCarthy. I'm strongly against it because it's not mean enough. It's not extreme enough. He's got to listen to George freaking Santos. I mean, how humiliating is that? You have Matt Gaetz. You've got these House Freedom Caucus members. They say, you know what? It's actually not difficult enough for lower income How humiliating is that? You have Matt Gaetz. You've got these House Freedom Caucus members. They say, you know what? It's actually not difficult enough for lower-income Americans to receive Medicaid. We need to make it actually even harder for them to receive Medicaid for me

to even think about voting for this. And then they also go, you know what? Those SNAP benefits, which provides the food aid to qualified recipients, we need to make those also way more difficult for people to get. That should be way harder to get if you need SNAP benefits. This makes it far too easy for Kevin McCarthy's plan. And so that's where Kevin McCarthy finds himself in. It looks like he doesn't have even anywhere near the votes to even pass this in his own Republican House of Representatives. It's completely insane. It's completely cruel. It's totally unprecedented. And it just shows you how weak he is. It shows you how craven he is. It shows you how truly evil these MAGA Republicans truly can be when, listen, what do you not see in there?

You do not see, you know what? Maybe wealthy people could pay their fair share a little bit. Maybe billionaires could pay a little more into the economy to help out. No, every single thing that they target is to make low-income Americans, all the Americans who need help the most, it's to make them struggle more. It's to put the burden on them. Meanwhile, Biden's budget cuts the deficit by trillions of dollars. It's like a very reasonable, responsible budget that anybody could look at and go, yeah, these are all reasonable things to ask for. But once again, this isn't even about a budget in general. That's a separate conversation entirely. It's about paying your bills. And Kevin McCarthy does not want to pay

his damn bills. Brett, I think you said it perfectly there too, when you said it's cruel, it's humane, but you know what it also is? It's on brand. It's on brand. Inhumane. Yeah, that's what I meant. It's cruel, it's inhumane, and it's on brand for this MAGA Republican Party.

I think we've said this before on the show. The Kevin McCarthys, the Marjorie Taylor Greene's, the George Santos's, they don't want the country to succeed. They really don't. Their goal right now as Congress people, as elected officials, is actually to derail any sort of progress that the Biden administration can make because they think ultimately it will benefit them come 2024. They want to tank the economy.

They want to make lives harder for the average American. And they're going to hide behind whatever fake sort of cloak themselves in the flagness that they like to pretend to do and pretend to be patriots and this, that, and the third. They hate this country. They really do. And it's the saddest thing to play out in a lifetime. Here's the thing. They want to help their billionaire donors and friends.

That's what they want. They want the wealthy to succeed, and they don't give a damn what happens to the rest of Americans. And when you look at a lot of these states in the country, the income inequality, the disparities in income are just exploding throughout the country in general, but especially in these red states. And that's why you see these red states also starting to strip away even more rights of their citizens. And they're stripping away all these child labor laws. They're putting like 13year-olds to work because these are the kinds of societies that Republicans want to create. What they are doing when they have super majorities in these Republican states is what these Republicans in the House want to do nationally.

And let me just give you an example. I said I'd mention it of the government actually working, of why actually funding the government programs actually helps. So the data came in about the IRS funding. And with that in IRA funding, the Inflation Reduction Act funding, the IRS was able to provide 87% of customer calls this season with live support. That was an increase from 15% last year and the average time on hold. So you trying to get in touch with an IRS agent to get some help with your taxes decreased from 27 minutes to just four. And that's because they had more support staff to actually help the average American do their taxes

and get their tax returns in a speedy way. That's what Republicans positioned to their voters and gaslit Americans as, oh, look, these 87,000 jackbooted thug IRS agents are going to kick down your doors with weapons and they're going to kill you. I mean, these are the things that they were flooding people's inboxes with and guess what? It helped people because when these agencies are funded and are able to work, they're actually designed to help Americans and Republicans just want to destroy government. They view all government as evil and they want to burn it all down. But I think those, meanwhile, all they like, yes, like they're people like if you ask like a lot of these Republican voters, by the way, like they'll be like, what do you mean? I thought they got rid of the IRS agents because they just pretend like they pass bills out of committee or pass bills in the House of Representatives that actually don't ever get signed.

And then they just spike the football and say, we did it and moved on, even though that's not a thing that happened. One of the tactics of authoritarianism is not to elevate people, right? It's to make people suffer a ton. And then if you give the people like, just like breadcrumbs, right? And a little you trickle down just some breadcrumbs to them, you know, you hope that they think that, oh, you're just this benevolent authoritarian, right? America was always very different, right? America always kind of bucked that trend by focusing on the middle class, by focusing on workers, by focusing on a meritocracy. And if you just look at these laboratories of autocracy, what's going on in these red states, like their plan,

cruelty is the goal, right? That is the objective. And you may go, well, why is that? Because it's just a common tactic of an authoritarian, like similar to the way, and it's psychological, like it's a pathological authoritarian tactic, right? Like authoritarians of the past, authoritarian style leaders, you know, when there have authoritarians of the past, authoritarian style leaders, you know, when there have been other kind of global illnesses and kind of rampant diseases in countries, you know, where they would have a dictator, the dictator wouldn't acknowledge that the virus or the illness actually exists, right? And you would just say, what are you talking about? That's not a real thing. Or then you would blame a marginalized group for it. It's just exactly the same pathology that's being used in these

laboratories of autocracy in these red states. It's a playbook of authoritarianism because it is pathological as well. I mean, if you look at what Republican states are doing right now, like total chaos, we're talking about firearm deaths are sur? Like total chaos. We're talking about firearm deaths are surging in red states. We're talking about deaths from preventable diseases, maternal mortality, infant mortality are all way up. Life expectancy in red states is plummeting. We're talking about like life expectancy in some Southern red states of like 62, 63, you know, compared to blue states of mid to high 80s. Like, just think about those stats right there alone. These MAGA Republican red states have these abortion bans.

They're targeting birth control. Corruption amongst the political elites in these states is running rampant. Laws are being passed across the country in these red states to erase LGBTQ rights and the community in general, like their very existence, abolishing books. If you look at what's going on in red states, it mirrors what takes place actually in authoritarian countries. And then they have the same tactic that's used in the authoritarian country, right? Like in North Korea, what does Kim Jong-un say about South Korea? What does Kim Jong-un say about America? Oh, we have it perfect here in North Korea. America's a shithole. South Korea's a shithole. You don't want to go even see. They

make their people suffer, right? Exactly what MAGA Republicans say about places like New York and California, right? Like I'm not, I'm giving you stats, I'm giving you data, but I would never go to a great American state just because it's represented by a Republican and say, that state's a shit state. Like that state is disgusting. Like states are, have a beauty to them. I'll give you the data, but it's exactly the Kim Jong-un style authoritarian tactic to basically say, you know, the other New York city, I went there, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene just lies. Like you can take Marjorie Taylor Greene's rhetoric and look at Kim Jong-un's lies and rhetoric.

And, and they're very similar. She goes, I went there and all the people in New York, they all look drugged out. And they had these zombie eyes. And it stunk. And I saw the people suffering. And it's like, meanwhile, you want to look what's happening near your district, Marjorie Talegrin? You want to look what's happening right next to in Jim Jordan's district in the city there

where they literally call it Danger City? You want to look what's happening in Danger City? Think it, Danger City it Danger City. You want to look what's happening in Danger City. They get Danger City. Yeah. You want to Kevin McCarthy's district is called Killing County. I mean, it's actually called Killing County's Kevin McCarthy's district. Jim Jordan's is called Danger City because of the deaths and the and statistical the police shooting deaths and the the violent crime rates and rampant drugs that are taking place there. It is all complete projection. But I do want to show you what

President Biden said, though, because let's go back from team crazy to normal for a second here. And this is what President Biden said about the MAGA Republicans who have introduced these truly kind of wacko concepts. And I think Biden says, like, these are wacko notions that they're trying to hold the nation hostage. If I don't pass, like, I'm not going to do that. Play this clip of President Biden. Here's what's really dangerous. Mega Republican Congress are threatening to default on the national debt, the debt that took 230 years to accumulate overall, overall, unless we do what they say. They say they're going to default unless I agree to all these wacko notions they have. Default would be worse than totally irresponsible. It would mean cuts in Social Security, Medicare, higher interest rates for

things like credit cards, car loansgages working people middle class seniors would pay the price for the entire economy would be at risk america's never defaulted on our debt which has accumulated over 200 years let's remember the last administration alone increased the national debt by 40 percent in four years yet every single year they passed, they passed the debt limit every single year. And here, President Biden, and I love his messaging. He goes, I don't know, maybe MAGA Republicans want to run things like a deadbeat nation, but America is not a deadbeat nation. Play this clip.

America, America is not a deadbeat nation. We meet our obligations. And I made clear to Speaker McCarthy about how we should proceed to settle our differences. And no one should do anything to jeopardize the full faith and credit of the United States of America. Instead, I'm making threats of default if I don't go along with what they want, which would be catastrophic to the country. If we don't do it, they say they're going to let default take place. Take default off the table. And let's have a real serious, detailed conversation about how to grow the economy, lower costs and reduce the deficit. And President Biden saying, look, you want to have a conversation on spending.

I'm happy to have a conversation with spending. We can do it transparently. We can let let's make it a very kind of rigorous conversation. I'm all down for that. But don't do not threaten me. Do not threaten America. Do not turn America into a deadbeat nation in order for us to have a discussion on spending. And that's actually how you negotiate right there. You know, you got to take their hostage threats off the table and say, no, that's a non-freaking starter. And by the way, President Biden also used Trump's words against him where Donald Trump said that I can't imagine anybody using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge. Play Biden first, then I want to show Trump saying it. Donald Trump seeking to increase the debt limit while he was doing what he was doing. He said, quote, I can't imagine anybody ever even thinking about using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge. I guess he didn't know the new MAGA Republicans he bred.

The new MAGA Republicans he bred. The language that he's using is so spot on. And that's what we talk about here on the Midas Touch Network all the time. And on this podcast, right, this is no longer. Well, on the one side, we got Democrats who are progressives and liberals. And on the other side, we have Republicans and they are various gradations of conservative. That's not that's not what exists right now, right? You have a pro-democracy coalition, which is represented by the only political party that supports democracy today,

only major political party that supports democracy today. And that is the Democratic Party, made up of progressives, liberals, independents, people not affiliated with political parties, people who are actually conservative and not this MAGA weird blend of fascism where we can have disagreements, intelligible conversations. We could challenge each other, but we love our constitution. We love our country. We want to have intelligent conversations. We want to elect adults. We don't want to elect people like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump because we're like, hey, we're not going to give those people control over life and death matters of ourselves and our family and friends and colleagues and coworkers. And on the other hand, you got these MAGA Republicans, authoritarian fascists.

That's who they are. And so the divide is clear. I know the media wants to, oh, Democrats, liberal, you know, on the other side, conservatives. Marjorie Taylor Greene isn't conservative, right? She's out of her mind. She's like a mega fascist. There's nothing conservative about those ideas. And if we can now play the clip of Donald Trump actually saying exactly Biden's got the receipts. So play this clip of Trump. imagine anybody ever even thinking of using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge. When I first came into office, I asked about the debt ceiling. And I understand debt ceilings. And I certainly understand the highest rated credit ever in history, and a debt ceiling. And I said, I remember to Senator Schumer and to Nancy Pelosi, would anybody ever use that to negotiate with? They said, absolutely not. That's a sacred element of our country. They can't use the debt ceiling to negotiate.

And that's exactly what they are doing. Frankly, encouraged by Trump. Trump is the one also giving the orders to Kevin McCarthy to use the debt ceiling to hold the nation hostage. And you have to ask yourself, Jordy, it's to your point. So what's the end? And Occam's razor, the easiest explanation, the simplest explanation, they want to destroy the country. Why else would you engage in such maniacally evil conduct? As Biden said, you can raise the debt ceiling and then we can have a conversation about spending. But they go, no, we're going to send this whole thing into default. Why? Why would you do that? What what reason do you want to so harm our country and hurt our people? But, Brett, I think there's some big news you've learned today about Biden potentially announcing reelection.

I did. But I got to say that, that Trump clip, it's the most Trumpy clip on the planet. Like first, okay. He says this point at the beginning, right? And then there's no way that conversation happened with Pelosi and Schumer. Can we agree that's, that didn't, that didn't happen. It's not something. I mean, they weren't crying as they were speaking with him either. Yeah. And then he's like, they said right they said they said sir sir and then he's like the debt ceiling i know he's like the debt ceiling i know debt ceilings good debt ceilings are good i know debt ceilings debt ceilings yes debts it just like repeats himself and fumbles over his words and you're like what are you talking you have no idea what you're

talking about but that is that those are some good receipts. But yes, we are learning today through a Washington Post report that Biden is preparing to announce his reelection campaign for the 2024 election next week, as early as Tuesday. Apparently, Biden and his aides have a video that they are prepping for the announcement. They're targeting a Tuesday release for this announcement video, and they're trying to have it coincide with the four-year anniversary of the 2020 campaign launch. So some massive news there. Personally, I am very excited about another Biden election. I think he's been doing a great job. I think he's an incredibly strong incumbent. I think that Biden is really good at, as we just saw in those clips, at contrasting kind of somebody with a steady hand, somebody who's a statesman who knows the ins and outs of government and politics, somebody who actually

knows how to lead in a calm, competent matter against these just deranged new breed of these MAGA Republicans who have completely co-opted the Republican Party. I think that contrast is very important, not to mention that he is objectively, whether you like it or not, objectively one of the most consequential presidents in the history, at least the modern history of the United States of America in terms of legislation passed, in terms of success on the global stage, in terms of getting our troops out of Afghanistan, which I actually think is a positive thing that he did. I think Biden has done a lot of good when he was handed a situation that was dire. He was handed a situation where we were losing just tons of jobs, where thousands of

people were dying every single day. COVID was running rampant. I mean, there was a time where we couldn't actually go to the store and find toilet paper on the shelves. We couldn't go to the store and buy more than one or two of a product because everything was rationed across the country. You had to buy groceries off market at random places because they didn't sell them. They didn't have them in stock at grocery stores. I don't think people remember just how bad things were, not to mention the disastrous transition, the non-existent transition that happened where Trump just gave up at the end of his presidency and did not even help a little bit as all presidents did.

And I think Biden has done an incredible job. I'm all for this reelection campaign. I think he'll do a great job. Do not, do not, do not let the mainstream, not even the main, do not let the legacy media gaslight you into thinking this is anything but a fantastic decision by the Biden administration, by President Biden for his reelection campaign. Don't let them. He's been successful. He's been stable. He's kicked ass. This is exactly the person that we all voted for. And the leadership speaks for itself. The results speak for itself. We're once again, a country that's respected around the world because we have a leader that's competent, stable, and getting things done.

And I should note just quickly where Biden was giving the speech from, because I think it speaks a lot to his messaging also, not just what he's saying, but the kinds of places he's going to. He gave that speech from a union training facility in Michigan. I mean, contrast that also with McCarthy's speech when McCarthy gave his speech threatening to hold the entire economy hostage. Where did McCarthy give his speech? Did he give it in front of union workers? No. He went to New York Stock Exchange to give it in front of Wall Street. I mean, that right there, it's like, dude, what are you doing? Who do you represent? Oh, you just told us. Oh, and Ben, real quick before we kick it back to you, I mean, just how funny and amazing is it going to be when Biden beats Trump again? I mean, it's just going to be hilarious and amazing. I hope he breaks out the beat him like a drum line. Oh, beat him like a drum. And I'll say this class. I don't I don't agree with President

Biden on on everything that he does. And but, you. But I know that there is a normal adult in the room who is doing everything in his power to try to protect our nation, to put forward policies that help most Americans and workers and focusing on jobs and things like lowering prescription drug prices and focusing on making health care accessible and affordable, making education accessible and affordable, focusing on things like equality, right, focusing on making sure women can have control over their own bodies. And, you know, MAGA Republicans are, you know, using big government. They're using their weaponizing government to try to control the bodies of women to tell you who you can marry. And then they

spend their whole days talking about woke, woke, Mr. Potato Head this and the green M&M that and, you know, and whichever movie gets them angry because the character is too woke and they're going on a battle against the woke. And it's just like headache. You're just giving me a headache. Like stop with – just stop with the freaking nonsense and like let's have – let's be serious. And so I do want to talk about Ron DeSantis because he goes out there. It's like the cringiest headache-inducing thing when he does these speeches.

And his state is suffering. Like, let's be real. What's going on there? Like there are so many areas where he's just been completely negligent regarding his state. You know, I think I was, I was telling you this the other day, Brett, I'm like, look, if you can at least maybe do like, maybe focus on like the bare minimum, like to the people like Greg Abbott and DeSantis, like, can you try to at least keep the lights on and like allow people just to go about their day to day? Like they're so cocky that they just go to woke and they don't even focus on like the basic bare minimum function of like what their job duties are as a governor of like what you're supposed to do. And then they go, woke, woke. Here we're talking about the woke, the woke. I'm battling the woke in the schools. And it's like, yo, can you make sure that our lights work and that our electricity

is working, please? Like, can you make sure that like we have, you know, gas? Like, can you focus on some of the most basic things? So I want to talk about Ron DeSantis and everyone's piling up on him and rightfully so. And I want to talk about some updates in the various Trump related cases. Let's just take one more quick break. Oh, hey, when did you get here? Let's take a quick break to talk about our next partner, Henson Shaving. Look, everyone knows how annoying cheap razors are. The cuts, the irritation, the frustration. And don't get me started with subscription razor services, the headaches that those can cause. That's why you got to meet Henson Shaving. Henson Shaving

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Let's go. If you're interested in any of these sponsors, check the description below. If you're watching on any of these sponsors, check the description below. If you're watching on YouTube or wherever you're watching or if you're listening on audio, all the links are right there. Click it. And thank you for supporting our sponsors. A lot of updates in the court to report. The first one I'll talk about is Mike Lindell.

So Mike Lindell put out an offer. And his offer was if anybody can prove that the election data he was using was false. He said that he would give them five million dollars and he had a whole process about how you had to disprove him. Well, he was easily demonstrated that the data that he had was false and then he refused to pay the $5 million. And so the group of people who proved that he was wrong about his election data, and he was using just a completely false set of election data, they brought a lawsuit against him. And in an arbitration proceeding, they were awarded $5 million. And Mike Lindell, of course, says, I'm not going to pay you. And he goes, it's going to be decided in court. Well, it was. It was decided. It was decided in an arbitration.

And an arbitration ruling will get affirmed in court. But Mike Lindell is going to owe $5 million because he made this ridiculous game or bet or competition, if you will. And it was easily demonstrated that he was using false information. I want to talk about what's going on in Fulton County, Georgia. We haven't heard a lot about what's been going on with Fawnie Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney's ongoing criminal investigation into Donald Trump's 2020 election interference. Since we last heard, remember, there was a special purpose grand jury that issued a report

making recommendations about people who should be indicted. It's confidential. So we don't specifically know who the people are. We believe it's the fake electors, 16 fake electors, as well as Donald Trump and others in Trump's inner circle. But the way it works in Georgia, it's like a two-step process if you elect to go through the special purpose grand jury. So unlike Manhattan, right, where you just go to the grand jury and they vote to indict, in Fulton County, Georgia, first there's, if you elect to go through this process,

first a special purpose grand jury, they make recommendations. Then you bring those recommendations to a grand jury. So one of the ways I am able to make these predictions is I just follow the procedures, Jordi, that takes place. And so the grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia meets in May. So they'll get those recommendations handed to them. And then they may have other witnesses go before the grand jury, but they can basically take judicial notice of those recommendations and indict just based on the recommendations, or they can call in other witnesses, right? So what's going on in this month or so period between the special purpose grand jury report and the grand jury? Well,

Fulton County District Attorney Fawnie Willis is very smart, right? So she's using that time frame to basically go to the fake electors who a lot of them are going to be criminally indicted and say, you sure? You sure this is the way you want to do it? Because I mean business, but you can make that call on yourself. And what's being reported is that a lot of those fake electors who are some prominent Republicans, they're turning on each other and they're saying, I wasn't involved in this. It was this person's fault. It was that person's fault. And they're pointing fingers at each other. Now, the problem is that they're all represented by the same exact lawyer, this MAGA Republican lawyer who's kind of representing

them all. Why is that a problem? Because what at least Foney Willis is saying is that they're kind of, the lawyer is kind of coordinating them to not flip on each other when they want to flip on each other. And in addition, Foney Willis has offered some of them immunity deals if they testify against each other. And you may go, none of them should get immunity. Well, the reality is that is a strategy used.

If you give some immunity to testify against each other, this way you can get all, you could actually get these criminal indictments and successfully prosecute them. So it's a strategy used by prosecutors that's being deployed here. But one of the things that Fonny Willis says is that the offer by the Fulton County District successfully prosecute them. So it's a strategy used by prosecutors that's being deployed here. But one of the things that Foney Willis says is that the offer by the Fulton County District Attorney's Office to give some of these fake electors immunity has not even been conveyed to some of these fake electors by the lawyer. And how do they know that? Well, when they would, according to Foney Willis, when they would interview some of the fake electors over the past few weeks and they would say, hey, so, so you know we offered you immunity, right? And you

turned it down. Some of these fake electors said, I never knew that. I would have taken it. And so Fannie Willis filed a motion with Judge McBurney and said, hey, here's what's going on. They're flipping on each other. This lawyer is completely conflicted and should not be representing all 10 of these fake electors. There's a total of 16 fake electors, and should not be representing all 10 of these fake electors. There's a total of 16 fake electors, but should not be representing these fake electors. So there was this disqualification motion that was filed. Judge McBurney hasn't ruled yet, but we learned about all of those proceedings taking place that I just talked about. So what happens next? Judge McBurney will rule on that disqualification motion.

So as soon as we know the ruling there, I'll let you know. But the grand jury will meet in May. They'll deliberate probably for a few weeks. And so I think you see a late May to mid-June indictment of Donald Trump. And I think people like Giuliani, I think perhaps people like Mark Meadows, you know, certainly be fake electors. But I think you're going to like what we talked about happening in New York so far, what when what what's about to go down in Georgia is going to kind of make New York kind of look like a footnote. Yeah. So every few months, Republicans are just going to take field trips to various cities. Is Jim Jordan going to be in Atlanta in a few months? Is that what we could all expect? I mean, probably. I mean, honestly,

it's the dumbest thing because you could predict these people, right? And that's where their stupidity is cyclical. I told you I'd get that in this episode. Great job, Jordy. You got to fit into every episode at least once, right? How screwed is this attorney? Honestly, it seems like a pretty faux pas, to put it nicely, pretty big faux pas, but it seems pretty messed up to not- The lawyer's being accused of being unethical and having what's called an unwaverable conflict of interest, right? What the lawyer argued before is that, look, I represent, at one time it was 11, and then the court said you can't represent this one and these 10 because there's a conflict. So they separated it out, but she was able to still represent the 10.

But what the lawyer said is, look, all of my clients signed what's called a conflict waiver where they knowingly and intelligibly waived the conflict of interest. But what Fannie Willis says is there are certain things called unwavable conflicts of interest. So when the parties are directly adverse in the same manner, which it is now, the parties can't waive that conflict of interest. So, you know, what do we say MAGA stands for? Make attorneys, get attorneys. And we repeatedly see lawyers finding themselves in these ethical binds. The reality here is I don't think this lawyer is ultimately going to be in jeopardy of like losing her legal license. But I do think that there is a conflict of interest. She is going to be disqualified, I think. But, you know, we'll see. Like,, Fannie Willis is no nonsense. So will Fannie Willis view that conduct as obstruction of justice? It wouldn't surprise me. I don't think Fannie Willis wants to get distracted, frankly, with that sideshow. She's got her case. That's why I think the lawyer may kind of get away with it a little bit, just because you can't fight

these wars on all these different fronts. And Fannie Willis is very specifically focused on 2020 election interference. But, you know, Brett, I think that this lawyer does have to justify how this took place. If indeed that's what took place and her clients are going in saying these offers were never conveyed to us. I mean, that is very, very serious. It is an ethical violation if that's what took place. Lawyers can lose their license for that. You know, we'll see what happens here. And we'll keep everybody posted. Brett, you mentioned, so is Jim Jordan, MAGA Republican Jim Jordan, he's going to go to

Fulton County? Yeah. You know, and so, you know, Jim Jordan issued a, Yeah, Jim Jordan's been constantly interfering with Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney's criminal investigation. And then that became a criminal case when the grand jury voted to indict Donald Trump. And now that it's a criminal case, what is Jim Jordan doing? He's subpoenaing people who work at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. And the most imminent subpoena was that of Mark Pomerantz, a former special assistant in the District Attorney's Office who was hired by Cy Vance.

And Pomerantz believed, by the way, that Donald Trump should be prosecuted immediately for financial fraud crimes, the bigger crimes. So even if Pomerantz were to actually testify before this House Judiciary Committee, it's not like Pomerantz is going to provide exculpatory information for Trump. Like Pomerantz, Pomerantz is going to say my beef was that I thought that Trump was guilty of the bigger crimes and I wanted that to go first. And I resigned and I was pissed because Alvin Bragg wanted the falsification of business records to go first. So that's at the end of the day, if you play this all out and Pomerantz finally testifies, it's not like Pomerantz is

going to say, I don't think Trump did it. He's going to say, no, Trump is way more guilty than the falsification case. And the beef that he had with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was really about sequencing, right? Alvin Bragg was like, look, I'm not ready to bring the bigger financial fraud case yet. I want to wait for more evidence. So what evidence would he be waiting for? Well, how about the fact that Donald Trump was just deposed by the attorney general in her civil case for the civil version of a lawsuit relating to Donald Trump's deposition, which would not have happened if you sequenced it the way Mark Pomerantz wanted it, because Donald Trump would have just invoked his Fifth Amendment right, and that would have stayed or stopped the Attorney General's civil case.

So it was actually a brilliant sequencing. But the whole dispute that Bragg had with Pomerantz is Bragg was like, look, I want a corporation first, get my 17 felony convictions against the Trump organization. Next, falsification of business records for the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. Then I'm going to continue my criminal investigation on financial fraud. Pomerantz got pissed at that and was like, no, financial fraud now. And then Pomerantz wrote a book about it, which frankly isn't helpful because by Pomerantz

writing a book now, Jim Jordan's able to argue, well, you wrote a book about it, so now you can't testify. And so that puts the Manhattan District Attorney in the position to say, we didn't authorize the book. And by writing that book, that potentially could be a violation of grand jury secrecy laws, and that could be a misdemeanor. So by writing that book and doing that press tour, I think Pomerantz, even though at the time he thought that that was like the right move, I think at least what we now know, I think it's indisputable that Pomerantz kind of didn't have the best strategy there. And Alvin Grant's strategy made way more sense. I got to say, in watching Pomerantz and the actions that he's

taken since leaving the prosecution here and writing the book and kind of going public and doing these interviews, I think to me, at least, it affirms Alvin Bragg's decision and it affirms his whole kind of legal process here and all the steps that he took that he was actually doing it the right way. And I understand, obviously, and I too was upset, by the way, when we found out that Pomerantz was no longer working on the case and everyone thought the case was blown up. But I think history has been kind to Alvin Bragg and has not been super kind here to Pomerantz.

But it's so true because it's the ultimate rake stepping. It's like, okay, you follow this through to the end of it, and what happens, okay, you follow this through to the end of it. And what happens? Okay. If he does testify, you get Mark Pomerantz out there testifying before Congress about how guilty he thinks Donald Trump was. And then he thinks he should have been in prison last year. That's how you follow this through. That's the ending of it. Don't think that's what, that's the worst case scenario of what happens here. If Jim Jordan gets his way,

just so everybody knows what a genius this idiot is. So if you say, well, why is Alvin Bragg even fighting it? Because the broader issue is state sovereignty, because the MAGA Republicans aren't just stopping with Pomerantz, right? They want to pry into all of the deliberative proceedings that are taking place within the grand jury. And so Alvin Bragg doesn't want to waive this argument that he just doesn't care if people who used to work for him or work for him are being called to testify where Alvin Bragg argues there's no legitimate legislative purpose. And Jim Jordan argued the legitimate legislative purpose why the Judiciary Committee wants to get involved in this

is because they're looking to pass a law that would basically make former presidents that you couldn't prosecute former presidents for crimes, that they would get full immunity from any state crime, which, by the way, is patently unconstitutional. There's nobody above the law. And ultimately, what I found very interesting and quite revealing about the lack of logic in this Trump judge, Viscosell's order is in the first page of her order referring to Pomerantz's testimony. She goes, nobody is above the law. Mark Pomerantz needs to testify. But then the justification, the federal hook about what the legislative purpose is, is an argument by Jim Jordan that former presidents are above the law. That's the very

basis that they use to claim that the House of Representatives should be able to issue this subpoena that you can't prosecute former presidents, which is patently unconstitutional. And then the judge, the lower court judge, and again, Alvin Bragg has appealed that, that you can't prosecute former presidents, which is patently unconstitutional. And then the judge, the lower court judge, and again, Alvin Bragg has appealed that, has basically said, look, it's not for me as a judge to look into anything further than what Jim Jordan basically tells me. Jim Jordan says they're interested in passing a law, so I don't have to dig deeper. It's not for a federal judge to actually question the intentions of the House committee, only that they've put forward a legitimate legislative purpose where Alvin Bragg was like, that's not a legitimate purpose. That's illegal.

And you can't use that as a pretext to pry into what we're doing in the States. So Alvin Bragg appealed this lower court order because the lower court order rejected Alvin Bragg's lawsuit against Jim Jordan trying to stop Jim Jordan from deposing Pomerantz. And the lower court said, yeah, there is this legitimate legislative purpose. And then Alvin Bragg appealed that to the Second Circuit, which issued a temporary stay, which paused the deposition. So the deposition was supposed to take place April 20th. It's no longer taking place then. The Second Circuit's going to look through all of this information and make a ruling. And here's the thing too, though, and this is what the lower court federal judge said, which is why the testimony, though, is not going to be as dramatic

as I discussed anyway, you know, as it could have been because the judge was like, well, Pomerantz can still assert objections and privileges. So if they're trying to ask questions about grand jury secrecy, if they're trying to ask questions about confidential information within the district attorney's office, then Pomerantz can assert an objection on a case-by-case basis. So it's basically going to be Pomerantz just objecting the whole time, and it's just going to be a waste of time at the end of the day. And the whole thing is performative BS, but of course, we'll keep everybody posted on what's going on there. And of course, we got to talk about E. Jean Carroll's trial starts next week. And Donald Trump's lawyer wanted the judge to read an instruction to the jury that the reason that Donald Trump may not show up to his own trial where he is a civil defendant in a rape case is because Donald Trump wants to spare New York City the burden of all of the

resources it would take and spare the court all of the resources and judge lewis capon was like no not only am i not going to read that instruction that you right now but thanks for even making this an issue because i'm now instructing you takapina and trump's lawyers that you can't tell the jury that either you can't tell the jury that donald so if they didn't bring this motion or didn't even say that asking for the instruction takapina arguably during jury selection could have said look because you can't unring the bell once he says it right so he could have said to the jury look trump's not showing up and the reason trump's not showing up is because we wanted to spare the city the burden total bs but he at least could have said it.

And then, by the way, E. Jean Carroll's lawyer could have said, objection, objection, but it would have been said already. But now, because Takapina even raised the issue, the judge says, yeah, I'm not going to say that. And by the way, you can't say it either right now. But it seems like Trump is not going to show up to this thing at all. He's a civil defendant, so it's not a criminal case. So he doesn't have to show up. If you're a party to a civil case, you don't have to be there, believe it or not. But it doesn't mean that the jury is

not going to punish you for not showing up to your own trial. Right. And so here, obviously, there's an empty seat at the defense table. And E. Jean Carroll's lawyers are going to put on the witness stand other victims who Donald Trump sexually assaulted, play the Access Hollywood tape. Then they're going to play Donald Trump's deposition and then they're going to call E. Jean Carroll and then they're going to rest. That's basically their case. It may be a different order. And you may ask, Ben, is E. Jean Carroll's lawyers going to call Donald Trump to testify and force him to show up? No. And then you may go, Ben, why would they do that? Why wouldn't they call Donald Trump to testify? Haul his ass in there. E. Jean Carroll's lawyers are smarter than that. And here's what

they realize. Donald Trump did horrible during his deposition, and you can play a party's deposition for any purpose during the trial. So all they're going to do, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we're going to play for you Donald Trump's deposition. They're going to do that in their case in chief, and they're going to have the jury watch Donald Trump's deposition instead of his testimony. So then after they rest their case, then the defense has to put on evidence. So who's the defense going to call as their witness, right? So you basically force them that if they don't call Donald Trump as a witness, then you're going to say to the jury, look,

they had the opportunity, their client didn't even show up. They didn't even call their own client on direct exam. Then if they do call their client, just imagine trying to prepare a direct examination of Donald Trump, not a cross-examination. Taka Pina, you can't do leading questions. You have to ask Donald Trump questions on direct exam. You have to establish a foundation, which it's actually a skillful thing to do. And then after Trump gives what would likely be a horrific direct exam, then you still get to cross examine, do a cross examination. So E. Jean Carroll's lawyer set a trap.

That's why she did it that way. And it is a brilliant it's a brilliant it's a brilliant trap when you think about it like that. I just it's just almost like unfair at this point. It's a brilliant trap when you think about it like that. It's just almost unfair at this point. You just have Donald Trump with all the attorneys in the world, every attorney in the world. This guy is a former president of the United States, and he has access to every attorney in the world. And I think it says everything that the attorneys that he ended up with are Joe Takapina and Alina Haba. I mean,

how absolutely embarrassing, how absolutely humiliating. And meanwhile, E. Jean Carroll has like one of the single best attorneys in the world with Roberta Kaplan. I loved Roberta Kaplan's line in her letter that she had filed where she just called trump out like that excuse about oh we want to just make sure that the logistics of new york city are okay she's like bullshit this is a direct quote she said if mr trump can find a way to attend wrestling championships political conventions civil depositions and campaign functions then surely he could surmount the logistics of attending his own federal trial. Boom, boom, Mike drop. I mean, it's just like, I would say it's like literally going against the majors,

but it's even like worse than that, you know? And Trump's excuse doesn't even make any sense. It's like the ringleader complaining of there's a circus. Like, yeah, it's all his, it's all his fault. It's so true. All right, Brett, take us home with DeSantis though Brett I forgot this has been a good episode I didn't realize we didn't hit this I love it we commented about how good our episodes are why not great episode guys

I know the Midas might agree if you like this episode you're watching on YouTube make sure to go right now subscribe to the podcast on audio and subscribe to our youtube channel but anyway folks ronda santos i i mean i i can't even like it's hard for me to think back even to like a few months ago or like a year ago and think about like being worried about this guy's presidential i know right because it's just so embarrassing watching him on the campaign trail like i'm almost i'm getting secondhand embarrassment watching the guy. He just has one disastrous week after another disastrous week. He's got donors fleeing him.

He's got nobody endorsing him in his own state. Like this is extremely embarrassing stuff, but there are real consequences to the games that he is playing. So I want to take that part of it absolutely seriously because Florida, South Florida, Fort Lauderdale, they had serious, serious, serious flooding last week from these storms. And when they needed help

and they looked to their governor, where was Ron DeSantis? Ron DeSantis was in Ohio going, woke, I'm going to destroy the woke. I'm going to destroy the woke. I'm going to destroy the woke, folks. And people are like, dude, my car's underwater. What the hell are you talking about, man?

And so that happens. That's followed by a severe gas crisis, a massive gas shortage in South Florida. Lines wrapped around the street for the few remaining gas stations that actually had fuel. I had people texting me who were down there. I got a lot of messages from people in Florida saying there's like one gas station anywhere, even in this part of the state where I can even find gas. And they look to Ron DeSantis and where the hell is Ron DeSantis? Once again, he ain't in Florida. Ron DeSantis was in South Carolina. And in this one clip that I'll show you here for the listeners

of this podcast, on the bottom of the split screen, you have the cars wrapped around the street, trying to get gasoline in Florida. On the top, at the same time, you have Ron DeSantis giving his speech in South Carolina, where in a span of 20 seconds, he says woke, I believe, seven times. And just listen to like, Ron DeSantis thinks this is like a winning speech. He thinks like he's probably like, good job, buddy. Way to go. Listen to this and just try not to cringe. So because the woke represents a war on truth, we have no other recourse but to wage a war on woke we fight the woke in the schools we fight the woke in the legislature we fight the woke in the corporations we will never ever surrender to the woke mob florida is where woke goes to die what excuse me it's like dude at least like make

sure the lights are on in your state metaphorically or literally before you go on these deranged rants out of state about the woke. Because you know what's dying in your state? The woke isn't dying. People are dying because of your stupidity, because of your policies. Focus on the basics of governing. Or is that too woke for you? Is it too woke to actually govern to do the bare

minimum, the bare minimum of running a state? That's all you got to do. The bare minimum tasks, but he can't even do that. And meanwhile, like there are all these other issues now that are stemming from it. I read the grossest study and I apologize if you are eating right now, you might want to put down your fork because this is a serious problem right now in Florida. If you're having soup, put down your spoon because it's pretty gross. Because these are the issues. Thanks for clarifying, Jordy, for the soup eaters out there. But literally, this is what's happening right now in Florida. Fecal bacteria in some Florida canals in South Florida has skyrocketed to about 150 times beyond safe levels after the recent flooding.

That's about 40. No shit. No shit. No, no, no. A lot of shit. A lot of shit. Massive shit. And that's about 40 times higher in these canals than one would expect to find if they

tested the water in a used toilet but don't worry folks ron desantis is out there out of state talking about the woke woke woke woke woke dude can't even run the state and then he has all these other kinds of issues happening ron desantis is literally throwing feces on the people who live in florida while he's out talking about woke in South Carolina. I mean, just literally turned his state into a cesspool, legitimately turned his state into an actual cesspool. And then like this morning, there was this other weird thing where all these people in Florida were woken up by an emergency text message, a test, you know, like when your phone goes off with like an Amber Alert or something. Everybody in the state who had their emergency alerts on was woken up at 4.50 in the morning by an emergency alert message. And then I looked up, like I went on the Florida website that had like a list of like when these things are scheduled for.

And it turns out they had them scheduled at 4.50 a.m. every other month. So they had one in February. Apparently they had one scheduled for June, for August, for October to wake the citizens up at 4.50 AM. I mean, that is just deranged right there. And of course, when it happens, people complain, what does DeSantis do? I'm going to get to the bottom of who did this. Like the schedule's right there on your website, dude. Maybe if you were focused on your state, you could figure it out. Then there's the gas crisis, as we were talking about before. And just to really sum up the incompetence of these Republicans, and especially what's going on in Florida, Marco Rubio, who has got to be the most useless person on the face of

the earth, at least in the country, He goes, he like does like a selfie video where he's complaining like there's a real problem with this gas shortage down here and they need to do something about it. They need to do something about it. It's like, dude, you you're the they you're the fricking government. Ron DeSantis is the frick. Who's the day that you're relying upon? Do your job. Just watch this video of like, This is the senator from Florida, Marco Rubio, complaining that he doesn't know why there are these issues in the state of Florida, which I would normally say, maybe you should call your state senator,

but that's you. Play this clip. What's happening right now in Miami and in Fort Lauderdale with gasoline is crazy. You can't find gasoline anywhere. This has been going on since Sunday, and they're blaming it on the floods that impacted the port. And I know that was a factor, but it's been four days. This should have been figured out by now. And they're blaming it on consumer panic. Yeah, people are panicked because they got to get to work. They got places to go. And you either can't find gas or you have

to wait in line for like two hours down the street where you're probably going to run out of gas while you're waiting. So yeah, people are panicked. And of course they're filling up saying, don't fill up. Of course you're going to fill up because you don't want to make, you don't know the next time you're going to have to make a two hour line. And they keep saying it's going to get better, but it's not, they got to get this thing fixed. This is crazy. They got to get this thing fixed fixed this is just utterly crazy do you think he knows what his job is i don't think he knows what his job is no the answer is all them all they all think they're podcasters or vloggers and stuff like you're a senator okay we're we're

podcasters here we could comment on what's going on okay it's your it you're supposed to be doing the work i don't know who you're shouting out to they need to fix this they need to look you are the they ron desantis is the they look inward buddy look in the the the the nba playoffs are going on right now yeah and so just to analogize this with sport it's as if a coach looked at his team at halftime and said hey someone's got to figure this out you guys are you guys aren't playing well today i don't know i don't know someone's got the players looking you you're the guy you're the coach what do you man this is this is honestly it i'd say it's pathetic but it it's far beyond that can we get into if if we're moving on i i want to do make a point about desantis and his his future moving on. I want to do make a point about DeSantis and his, his future. I'm moving on. We're moving on. Where are we going? Where are we? We're moving on too. You're right. Are we at the end? We are kind of at the end.

I mean, we may be, you know, where do you want to move on to? All I want to say is DeSantis right now, I don't, and this is a little bit of a hot take. It's an opinion of one. I know the brothers don't necessarily agree with me on this one. I just don't see him running at this point for president. I don't think he has the one. He obviously doesn't have the it factor, but he actually doesn't have the backing, nor does he have the infrastructure ready to sort of turn that key. And also don't discount the fact that there's still the law down there in Florida that a sitting governor, they can't announce a presidential run without giving up the ownership of their governorship. And so he's got a lot of things sort of working against him there.

I would not be shocked personally, seeing how things continue to just totally play out against him on his own networks, on the Fox News of the world and across that nagiverse landscape, if he doesn't eventually run and put his hat in the ring for the GOP nominee. Okay, so I'll start off by saying I agree with you. If he were a reasonable human being, he should not run. And it's set up that he will inevitably, if he does throw his hat in the ring, the guy is going to get crushed and humiliated.

Now, where I'm not sure if your prediction will be true or not, it falls on two kind of main things. One, the guy is an extreme narcissist who just craves power. That's number one. And he thinks, he's kind of has that Marjorie Taylor Greene syndrome where because he won in a state with a lot of people who kind of support him and he's got a super majority and is able to push through all these hateful bills easily because he doesn't need the tact of a politician to do it because it's all a layup for him. He thinks he's like the greatest on the planet, even though he's not a good politician at all. So he's got this arrogance. He's got this narcissism. That's one. Two, and this goes straight to your second point, Jay. He's kind of pulling an illegal campaign move right now. And by the way, Trump rightfully called him out on this. And here's what I mean by that. While he may not be raising money for his own political campaign because he has not declared. He's got

a super PAC and the super PAC is running ads against Trump and running ads against, you know, putting their name out, running commercials and the super PAC, he's coordinating with the super PAC and that's illegal, but he's coordinating with the super PAC because he's not declared his candidacy yet. So he's in this gray area of the law right now where he's saying, what I'm not a candidate. I could coordinate with the super, but they want to say nice things about me. That's all good.

They want to get a raise all this money. That's perfectly fine. It's not me. It's it's them. So he's got this war chest. He's got these people working on his behalf. However, he's trying to kind of playing dumb and separating

himself from it so that that's my kind of overall view in it but jordy you're 100 was right because when you look at like the endorsements and stuff nobody like even in florida is endorsing him and he keeps getting humiliated like he did this trip to dc where he thought he'd be greeted by like the republican establishment as some sort of conquering hero. Look, we have somebody who could, you know, beat Trump and he could, this guy could be in the lead. And then like everybody he meets with, like right after he meets with them

is like, oh, that guy's horrible. Like I'm endorsing the other guy. Like imagine being that bad. And then the other thing too is if he does decide to take Trump on for that GOP nomination for the, you know, for the Republican nomination for president and loses his own state of Florida, which we said many times in the podcast,

he will to Trump. Absolutely. There is no coming back from that. No coming back from that. Here's an example, Jordy. He met with this Republican Texas representative, Lance Gooden, immediately right after the meeting. The guy goes, yeah, I'm back at Trump. Like instantly. Imagine being so repulsive that

the best next option is to endorse Donald Trump. Dude, even the Florida, the representative guy, his name was like Greg Stobe or Stobe or something, a Florida representative. He was complaining. It was all in this Politico piece. He was like, in the five years that I've been here or whatever, my five years of Congress, I've tried to reach out to DeSantis and his staff a billion times. I'm a congressman in Florida. He has not once returned my calls. He has not once talked to me. And now he wants my endorsement. I mean, this guy has zero political skill, zero political tact. He is just about as unlikable as Ted Cruz. Like he really is just a repulsive human being.

When you meet him, nobody actually likes the guy and he thinks he's hot shit because he's in an easy situation right now, to be frank. But you see even Fox now kind of like turning on it all. And again, this is only a few weeks after they had the, they had the baseball catch with them.

You know, they, they, they had the baseball catch with him. The baseball catch? They totally turned the tide there. I'll just show you a quick example of this Larry Kudlow clip who was in the Trump administration. Dude, what the hell was that baseball catch? I'm sorry. That was the weirdest programming thing in the entire world. Yeah, Fox, they're a whole bunch of weirdos, dude. They're a whole bunch of weirdos.

But look who they have. They have Kudlow on Fox to just talk shit about desantis and his focus on woke and disney and they're like yeah disney they're basically just like yeah disney's gonna kick desantis's ass watch this i just want to observe that governor desantis is close to making a fool of himself with his walt disney obsession this has been going on now for months and months and months. And I would argue that it is unseemly. Number one, a governor should not be come crashing down on, if not the biggest one of the biggest business.

I don't like Disney's politics either. They're woke politics. My guess is Bob Iger is going to change that. But whatever. DeSantis should make a deal and stop already. He's not running against Walt Disney for president. No, as we've been saying, he has no campaign skills. He can't debate and he can't negotiate. Donald Trump would be in a room with Disney working this out. DeSantis problem was

it was easy to slap Disney around. They had that dumb CEO, but he's gone. Iger is here. And DeSantis is no match for Iger, who's 10 steps ahead of DeSantis on every move. Rough, rough, rough, rough news for DeSantis when, you know, even Fox sees the writing on the wall for you there. But that's the Republicans. I mean, we brought you through the Republican rake stepping in the House, through the courts, through the governorships and through the media. And that's what you have here, just a complete group of clowns, honestly, just across the board. But contrasted with actual leadership on the Democratic side, with people who are actually trying to help people, with people who actually

don't want to torpedo the economy, but want to actually decrease the deficit, who want to have social programs that help the people who need them the most in this country. When you look at it and you see everything that's going on, to me, and I hope to everybody out there listening and watching, the contrast could not be clearer. And that's about it. Ben, any final words? I was just thinking, the way the Republicans are negotiating when it comes to like the debt ceiling, right? It would be like if you're trying to negotiate a raise with like your boss, right? And you basically tell your boss right away, are you going to give me a raise? And the boss is like, I'm open to the conversation. Like, let's talk about it. But I'd love to hear what you

think. And then your response is, I'm going to kill you. And your boss is like, what? It's like, yeah, I'm going to murder you if you don't kill me. Well, can we take murder off the table, please? And then maybe we could have a rational conversation. I mean, that's just how they approach everything. I mean, it's not just, you know, they're arsonists, they're professional rake steppers. And, you know, and look, there are real ramifications to what they're doing. And I know they're so desensitized to death in their death cult. You know, I know millions of people can die from a global pandemic. And then MAGA Republicans will be like, well, that's as dangerous as a fajita. It's like, what are you talking? Like, it's like a real, like, we take global pandemics, like seriously here, like they'll

have a cousin die. And they'll be like, you know know they won't even like discuss it and they'll be like well yeah it's not that dangerous it's like yeah your cousin just died or like your family member just died like isn't that a shocking event in your life that maybe they should have got a vaccine or like taking things seriously you know and then they just go on and they keep on saying it you know and and it's because it's like all a cosplay game to them, right? Like there's, they don't think through that there are real ramifications here, you know, and there's the nefarious aspect of it too. Like, you know, there are these MAGA Republicans who aid and abet Vladimir Putin. And then, and then when they cosplay though, their whole, you know, their whole view, it's like, okay, well, you know, so, so

at the end of your scenario, what? Putin then invades all of Europe? If you take what you're saying to your logical conclusion, MAGA Republicans, the outcomes that you want would actually be completely disastrous. The fact that you would threaten America to default on its full faith and credit? Just destroy the world? Destroy the world unless you're ridiculous, unless Pell Grants get eliminated. What? You're going to destroy the world unless Biden eliminates Pell Grants. You're going to destroy the world unless Biden removes access to the Head Start program. You're going to destroy the world unless Biden's student debt relief program doesn't take effect. You're going to destroy the world

unless money isn't repealed from funding the IRS. And as Biden said, okay, you want to talk about your wacko ideas? I'll talk about them. I'll talk about them. But let's fund our government first. And let's make sure that the debt ceiling raises, please, so that we could not default on our debt. So, Brett, I think going back to before, I think to your point, we covered all of the professional rank stepping at all of these levels compared to normalcy. And that's what this network's all about, what we're promoting at the end of the day. You know, normalcy, intelligence, humanity, compassion, you know, and I think all of that's really true patriotism right there, right? Not performative stuff,

just truly walking the walk and not just talking the talk, you know, and doing the hard work and just being, just be good people, folks. That's at the end of the day, like just be good, normal people. None of this Marjorie Taylor Greene, MAGA Republican dangerous stuff. Everybody, thank you so much for watching this episode. Do us a favor, hit subscribe. We're on our way to 1.5 million subscribers here. If you just watch on YouTube, make sure you subscribe on audio as well, wherever you get audio podcasts. It's free. Just search Midas Touch Podcast and subscribe on audio podcast. To all our audio podcast listeners, make sure you subscribe to the Midas Touch YouTube channel and help us get to 1.5 million subscribers. Check us out at patreon.com slash Midas Touch, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash M-E-I-D-A-S-T-O-U-C-H.

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