The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump Organization INDICTED and Behind the Ad with Manny Oliver

Episode Date: July 2, 2021

Let's get right into it. Today we're dissecting the criminal charges brought against the Trump Organization and its Chief Financial Officer, Allen Weisselberg. From there, we shift gears and discuss Kevin McCarthy's latest statements threatening to strip GOP members of their committee assignments if they accept an offer from Nancy Pelosi to serve on the January 6 commission. Next, the brothers round out the conversation by mocking Tucker Carlson and his shameless claim that the NSA is "spying" on him.  The conversation later shifts as the brothers have a very special guest, Manny Oliver. Oliver is the father of Joaquin Oliver, who was killed in the Parkland shooting. He and his wife Patricia are the founders of Change the Ref, an organization that uses urban art and nonviolent creative confrontation to empower young activists and expose the effects of the mass shooting pandemic in our country. Manny and Change the Ref recently produced a powerful viral video called Lost Class in which they duped David Keene, former president of the NRA and gun rights advocate John Lott into giving a commencement speech in Las Vegas in front of 3,044 empty chairs, representing students who would not make it to graduation this year due to gun violence. Please be sure to tune in every Tuesday & Friday for NEW episodes of The MeidasTouch Podcast. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's not it. 20, 22, 23? No, no a little bit more but it's okay all right we don't have to go there happy birthday jordy just so everybody knows jordy is 28 hey years old i i know what i need to say to prove that i know you know ben did the math before the episode ben was like 2021 minus what year was Jordy boarding in? I don't think he did the math. I think he probably looked at our website or our stories that any of those just added a year. I would say there is a below 25% chance Ben knew that off the top of his head before the show without preparing. I would like to say this though. I

would like to say this before we move on from this is look guys, I am just so appreciative of you two. I'm so happy we've been doing this and I love you guys so much. And that also extends to the Midas Mighty and the Midas family, the Midas community. It's like, here's a quick story really quick that I think you'll get a kick out of. When I was in third grade, our teacher gave us a homework assignment. What do you want to do when you grow up? And I remember I did this whole report about how I wanted to be nice. And she calls me into the office the next day. And she's like, hey, I don't think you understood the assignment. And I'm like, what do you mean? She's like, well, you can't be nice for life.

I'm like, oh. And she was kind of right. When I grew up and got my first two jobs, None of my job titles included being nice. And so it's just such a crazy thing that when you combine something that you're passionate about, and then you meet that with doing something that you really enjoy, which is, you know, fostering like genuine relationships with people, it's the greatest feeling in the world. And I'm just so freaking excited now that things are getting back to normal, that we could start to get out into the community and start meeting everyone who we've been engaging with and just

our genuine real friends. I'm just so freaking excited. I'm so thankful that they're on with us in this mission. Is this the teacher I'm thinking of? Because you had the meanest teacher and different teacher? Different teacher. We don't have to get into the whole thing, but Jordy once had a teacher who called our parents into the office to complain about Jordy. And they were like, oh my gosh, what did my son do something wrong? Did he speak out of turn in class? Did he say something to the teacher brought in our parents to complain about Jordy, not saying like, you know, I'm concerned, like maybe he should go get checked out to the doctor. She yelled at our parents saying that Jordy was a disruption to the class and that our parents had to deal with it. But that was a different teacher. That's good. That's good to know. I was like, geez, this teacher don't be nice and stop sneezing. You're a disruption to everybody.

Can we talk about why I was sneezing though? So this story makes sense all the way through. We had a dog growing up who we all love very much. It turns out I was allergic to dogs. Didn't stop me from getting a dog as an adult, but we didn't realize until years later after he had passed that all of a sudden my asthma got a little bit better. I could breathe better and I was allergic to dogs. but the Midas Mighty showed up strong. Happy birthday, Jordy. A top 10 trend. Just bananas, man. Just bananas. Truly unbelievable. Happy birthday, Jordy. We love you very much. I know we give you a hard time, but it's all in good fun and we love you very much. That's why those Midas Mighty know that from past episodes, Jordy's nickname is Sneezy.

My cell is for that reason. Look, we have a great show for you today. We have Manny Oliver as a guest. Manny Oliver is the father of Joaquin Oliver, who was killed in the Parkland shooting. He and his wife, Patricia, are the founders of Change the Ref, which is an organization that uses urban art and nonviolent creative confrontation to empower young activists and expose the effects of the mass shooting epidemic in our country. What I'm most excited to talk to Manny about, and I'm sure you all saw this incredible event that Manny and Change the Ref did.

They produced this powerful viral video called Lost Class, where they duped David Keene, who's the former president of the NRA and gun rights advocate, John Lott, into a commencement speech, a fake commencement speech in Las Vegas, in front of 3,044 empty chairs, representing students who would not make it to graduation this year to gun violence. They made up the name of the school called James Madison Academy because James Madison's involvement in the Second Amendment. And I think they did it in Vegas because they thought that would actually attract these GQP members if it was Vegas and James

Madison. And sure enough, they pulled it off. This was the most incredible, I mean, I guess, as fellow ad makers, I guess we could say now, watching this ad. And I'm not just saying this because Manny is coming on our show. This is one of the most single powerful ads I have ever seen in my life. And when I say that, I'm not just saying that in the context of a political advertisement or any sort of advocacy advertisement. I mean, out of any ad like I've ever seen for any product or anything, period, this ad is easily one of the most powerful, one of the most effective advertisements I have ever, ever, ever seen. And I encourage you even feel free.

And I would never tell you stop listening to this podcast, but if you want to take a brief intermission and pause the podcast and look up the lost class on YouTube before you hear his interview, I highly recommend it. It's absolutely incredible what he did. And I think it's really important that we have Manny Oliver on any podcast, but particularly this podcast. We're obviously going to be talking about the Donald Trump indictments significantly on this podcast. But as we as Trump is in the news cycle, this time for the right reasons of being having the Trump organization indicted, we at Midas Touch just do not want to lose track of

other important issues. And focusing attention on the mass shooting pandemic in our country is just so vital. And so often we turn our attention away from efforts to have common sense gun reform in our country when other big ticket news items emerge. So we do want to pause and reflect on Manny Oliver's incredibly powerful story of the tragedy he experienced and the creativity he's brought to bear to bring justice and have the memory of his son, Joaquin, live on forever. Now, talking about Jordy's birthday, I think the biggest birthday present for Jordy is the indictments of Weisselberg. Let's go. Indictment birthday.

Indictment. This is so big on so many levels. Just real quick, as a New Yorker, July 1st, aside from my birthday, is known as Bobby Bonilla Day. And for those who don't know, Bobby Bonilla gets a million plus dollars on this day. He's an ex-Met MLB ball player who, based on a structure with his contract and Bernie Madoff and all of this crazy stuff, this man will get a million dollars every July 1st until 2035. So it used to be known to me as Bobby Bonilla Day, but now it's known to me as Trump Indictment Day. Exactly. Indictment Day, y'all. All right, well, Allen Weisselberg surrendered to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office Thursday morning, this morning, ahead of the 15-count indictment that was unsealed. And the heart of the allegations involve Weisselberg and the Trump

organization and its various entities within the Trump organization, falsifying business records, hiding bonus payments to executives, providing perk benefits that were never reported, such as a $200,000 car lease to Weisselberg, $359,000 towards college tuition, about $1.17 million worth of gifts that were provided by the company that taxes were not paid on. I think Weisselberg received, yeah, probably about between $1.17 and $1.7 million that were off the books. And just reading this indictment, one interesting point, if you look in the second count of the indictment, it talks about the defendants and unindicted co-conspirator number one in the County of New York elsewhere during the period from on or about March 31, 2005

to on or about June 30th, 2021, with the intent to engage in felonious conduct or a felony to which grand larceny in the second degree be performed. And it seems obvious to legal observers, it seems obvious to me, an unindicted co-conspirator, number one, is Donald Trump, as we know. A lot of debate, but I think, is it not a debate or a lot of debate? I said there's a lot of debate about who it is. Okay, there's a debate out there. But what's going on here, though, as well, is remember, there is a criminal grand jury out in New York City for charges against Donald Trump as well. That grand jury assembled about a month ago, maybe a little longer. And that process was expected to

take six months, which brings us to about November. And I predicted that there will be the criminal indictments of Donald Trump directly November. If you're Donald Trump right now and you've read this, you're having an incredibly bad day. Setting aside the fact that your corporation has been indicted criminally, you know that you are staring down a criminal indictment of you personally. You are fearing with every fiber of your body each day as the clock ticks closer and closer to the day that Donald Trump will ultimately be indicted. And it also has important implications on the way the Trump organization conducts business. One of the allegations here is that the Trump organization was not reporting the way it collected money, which would trigger certain serious ramifications on its various covenants and contracts with its lenders.

The Trump organization to survive primarily relies on junk bonds, basically Donald Trump going out to the market, scamming people to receive loans where he can't pay back those loans. And then kind of in a Ponzi scheme fashion, scamming. I was going to say, it's very made off. The whole thing feels very made off to me. Yeah. I mean, he would scam a new group of people and then he would just declare bankruptcy when he wasn't able to pay back the note holders. And he's been doing that his entire career. But one of the things that this indictment of the Trump organization will trigger, though, is all of the banks and all of the lending institutions out there, this would be a breach of various covenants that require a recipient of a loan to be in good standing. It would likely

trigger acceleration clauses. And it's also just obvious reading between the lines in this indictment that the Trump organization feels like just one gigantic Ponzi scheme, as I mentioned before, and that its financial condition is dire. So in addition to the indictment of the Trump Organization and Weisselberg, I think we need to think about the broader implications when you read this, that I think Trump will be indicted in November. And I think the Trump Organization

and its various entities will go bankrupt in the next 18 months. Well, the thing is, like you said, Ben, it's not a business that is flush with cash. They rely on these loans and these bonds to survive. And now that they are charged for fraud in these indictments, it's going to be very hard for them to keep these loans going and keep the business afloat. So this could have a devastating impact and will likely have a devastating impact on just the business in general. It's also worth noting that the indictment specifically says that this was a practice, paying people under the table was a

practice that they employed as well for other executives of the company. And so when you hear other executives of the company, you have to think who are the other executives of the company? Well, until 2017, it was Donald Trump himself and Ivanka. Now it's Donald Trump Jr. It's Eric Trump. It's the famous Matthew Calamari, who we hear on a lot of shows, who's a lot of these names just sound like they're out of like a cartoon. And then, you know, a handful of others. But if this was the common practice, you could be for absolutely certain, is that a phrase? You can be absolutely sure that Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka, that all of them were paid in a similar way to what Weisselberg just got indicted for. So I think this spells a lot of trouble for the Trump organization,

for Donald Trump, for all the kids as well. I know there are a lot of people out there saying, oh, but he's Teflon Don, nothing's going to happen. Well, we're starting to see all the consequences of this. This is a big, big, big deal. And I think the roadmap is laid for RICO charges going forward. And remember, this is how they took- I have that in RICO. Hold on. Let me fix him there, Ben. I'm not the lawyer, but you mean Rico. And let me tell you why I know that, because I watch Batman every single night, and the second Batman movie, Dark Knight, they bring

the mobsters up on Rico charges. Not Ryko. What the fuck? Rico charges, everybody. See, I'm an editor, so I could edit it in. Ben stays in the pod. I said Rico the whole time. I just know that our listeners,

knowing that I'm the lawyer on the podcast, were probably like, Ben, tell them that they were wondering if I was going to interject. And they got Jordy, who's maturity at 28. Yeah, mature 28-year-old Jordy. Tomato, tomato, gif, jif, Ryko Rico.

Ryko Rico. But I'll tell you where Rico will leave you. This is what maybe you were trying to say, Brett. Rico will leave you in Rikers, the New York prison. That's what you meant.

You meant Rikers. That's totally, I was combining them in a very clever way, Ryko and Rico. We've been having some good things on this pod. The last one we had,

the law doesn't move at the pace of Twitter, and now we have Rico will leave you in Rikers. Good job, guys. Yeah, well, to be fair, I didn't come up with that. That was Ben trying to save me from saying that incorrectly, but yeah, I'll take credit for the phrase. That's the status out there of the Trump

indictments of the Trump organization. Good day. And Allen Weisselberg. of the Trump indictments of the Trump Organization. Good day. And Alan Weisselberg. We will keep you updated. Do tune in to this weekend's edition of Legal AF, where we will be talking about these indictments of the Trump Organization. We're going to be talking about some recent Supreme Court decisions about organizations, nonprofits and PACs not having to disclose the name of donors. That was a big decision that came out recently. We're going to be talking about the Bill Cosby decision. on Legal AF. And now turning from the Trump criminal enterprise to the GQP criminal enterprise.

It's so interesting to me, Brett and Jordy, just to see Kevin McCarthy's priorities, not satisfied that he's blocked a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6th insurrection. When Nancy Pelosi created a standing committee, which includes Republicans like Liz Cheney, to investigate the causes and what happened in the aftermath of January 6th, Kevin McCarthy threatened any Republican who wanted to join this committee would be stripped of their committee memberships. What do you think about that? Well, I think first off, I think it's called the select committee. So I could get you back for the for the other thing. You're just looking at it. You called it a standing committee, standing sitting. A select committee is a type of standing committee that stands temporarily for a select amount of time.

I think they call it a select committee. That thing is made up. Well, secondly, I mean, like you said, it shows McCarthy's priorities. He is right now allowing a alleged child sex trafficker to be on committees. That's totally okay with him. He is okay with having Paul Gosar, who is an avowed white nationalist, go attend events with a Holocaust denier. But what's not okay with him is a show of bipartisanship to investigate an insurrection against the United States of America. This is the same Kevin McCarthy who was too afraid to meet with Officer Fanone. This is the same Kevin McCarthy who seems okay with

insurrection just in general. He refuses to even point the finger and say, yes, Donald Trump was at least partly responsible for it. Refused to answer the question. Kevin McCarthy is the biggest coward out there, and he's doing his best Trump impression and just looks so weak and spineless and like such a just fucking lunatic, this guy. And frankly, he's a joke and everybody knows it. I mean, Speaker Pelosi was very smart. She put Liz Cheney on the committee who was honored to be a part of this committee. And it was nothing to lose because Kevin McCarthy has already banished her from leadership because of her acceptance of the fact that Donald Trump lost the election. Adam Kinzinger, who's another one of these never Trump Republicans who's still holding strong. Basically, he had the best line. He just said, who gives a shit what McCarthy thinks? Who gives a shit? And I thought that was great. And some said, why should anyone care what McCarthy thinks? And where is Kevin McCarthy putting his priorities while all this is going on?

He is saying that Congress needs to investigate what? The domestic terrorist attack against the United States? No. He's saying that Congress needs to investigate Tucker Carlson's batshit claims that the NSA is spying on him. Dude. And he wants to put Devin Nunes, a.k.a. the man who sued a fake Twitter cow, in charge of this investigation. So that's what Kevin McCarthy is doing. He is a gaslighter. He is a liar. He is a Russian asset. He is a enemy to the United States of America. Anyway, you put it, Kevin McCarthy is everything wrong with the Republican Party and everything wrong

with America. And this is a guy who came into politics, positioning himself as just a classic conservative, a real politician who wanted to get things done. And he has just become such a shell of who he intended to be and who he claimed to be early on. What did you call him today on Twitter? McCoward. McCoward. Excellent meme. At least the cowardly lion actually found courage in the Wizard of Oz. There was good character. So I know no offense to the cowardly lion, but I just was calling McCarthy a coward. So, so true. One thing I want to, you know, I always like to give knowledge and part knowledge on the Midas Touch podcast. Just want to clear up my standing committee, select committee, special committee distinction just for everyone. I don't want

anybody to be wrong on this one. I like when they leave Midas Touch empowered with knowledge. So here's the deal. There's no substantive difference between a select and a special committee, but a standing committee is something entirely different. And the standing committee is like one of the kind of ongoing committees, and it's not a committee that's just kind of created the way this specific one is to investigate a discrete test. But Brett, you mentioned the Tucker Carlson story, which is just one of the weirdest things. It's like he's borrowing from that Trump playbook about the government spying on him. And, you know, Tucker wants to, you know, come up with this entirely just weird and bizarre conspiracy that the NSA is like looking into him. Just play the clip from the Tucker Carlson show. Now, last time on the show, we made a very

straightforward claim. NSA has read my private emails without my permission, period. That's what we said. Tonight's statement from the NSA does not deny that. Instead, it comes with this non sequitur. In part, quote, Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the agency. Okay, glad to know. But the question remains, did the Biden administration read my personal emails? That's the question that we asked directly to NSA officials when we spoke to them about 20 minutes ago in a very heated conversation. Did you read my emails? And again, they refused to say. First off, you're fucking Tucker Carlson. The NSA does not give a freak about you, Tucker Carlson. The NSA does not give a freak about you, Tucker

Carlson. Number one. Number two, Tucker Carlson does that thing where he just asks the question because they don't actually do any actual news. And it's like, we need to ask the question. Is the NSA going

after me? Is the NSA going after me? Is the NSA going after me? I asked the question to the NSA and the NSA to this day hasn't responded because I'm a fucking moron. My name is Tucker Carlson and they don't have to fucking respond to me. But here's the thing, though, where the NSA is like, you know what? Like, we're going to issue a response here. I was shocked that they issued a response, honestly. Well, here's the thing, though, is I think what they realize, though, is that he is a domestic terrorist and his lies actually escalate the threats that the biggest threats against our country. So the NSA issued a statement that says in June 28, 2021, Tucker Carlson alleged that the National Security Agency has been monitoring our electronic communication that is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.

This allegation is untrue. Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the agency, and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air. NSA has a foreign intelligence mission. We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States. With limited exceptions, e.g. an emergency, NSA may not target a U.S. citizen without a court order that explicitly authorizes the targeting. Fairly clear. But Tucker Carlson then takes that statement and goes, you see, I did it directly address the fact that they're targeting me.

I mean, there are a couple of things going on here. First, let's acknowledge the fact that none of Fox News's quote unquote straight news shows are even acknowledging the story as a thing, which shows you something. No actual person who does any semblance of reporting is presenting this story as a real story. I think that tells you a lot right there that not even the rest of the network is buying what Tucker is selling. Now, I think there are some other options out there. I think A, Tucker is just completely entirely full of shit, which is very likely and very possible. I think B, maybe there's something coming out about Tucker that is really salacious and really

disturbing and really devastating to his image. And he's trying to get ahead of it by throwing this red herring out there that the NSA is spying on him and is leaking stuff in his emails and things like that. I think potentially, and this is just pure speculation on my part, but I think potentially there is some sort of very fucked up Tucker Carlson tape or something out there. I think another option- You think we got Tucker tapes? I think there might be Tucker tapes. Hopefully they're different than the Rudy Tucker tapes, but we'll go on from that. So then I think another option is if the NSA really did, in fact, come across his communications, that would basically mean that Tucker is communicating with foreign agents

or foreign terrorists. And it's possible that if that was the case, that the NSA would have come across his records in the process of spying on foreign enemies to the United States, which would implicate Tucker in a whole host of other issues if he's actually aiding and abetting foreign agents to the United States. No matter how you slice it, it doesn't look good for Tucker. Well, here's one thing, though, that we should remember. I mean, we know that the types of guests that Tucker has on his show is like Bin Laden's daughter or Bin Laden's niece. He has the Bin Ladens on his show because the Bin Ladens

profess that they're Trump supporters. Just think about how gullible and stupid you need to be where you literally, it would be, when I think about that South Park movie where they like go to North Korea and they just have like all these ridiculous things happen from like 15 years ago. I forget what the movie, you know, even is.

If you were to tell me that Fox News or in a show like a news station. Team America. Yeah, Team America, that they were having the bin Ladens like as their main guests on their show as the main advocates. And then the Americans who drape themselves in the American flag are leading insurrections against the American government and trying to kill all of the leaders in Congress and then going to watch Bin Laden's on the news station. I would tell you that's the fakest fucking movie in the whole world.

You know, that's some ridiculous parody. But literally, that is what is happening. were GQP members who are members of a fucked up weird cult called QAnon who dress in American flags, attack the Capitol building, try to kill our leaders, then go back after doing it and then watch propaganda with bin Laden. And then refuse to vote for investigations into those attacks onto the United States. And then punish people who do. Like when you were going down the analogy route, like it's like, it's like, it's like, I'm like, it's like if Fox was putting the Bin Ladens on the air to tell America how to act. Like there's no other, there's no other analogy needed in this situation.

It's that's what it is. I totally agree. And one of the things I agree with, and just so you know, brothers, like, did you know that while I've been doing this podcast, I've been eating a freshly? Do you know that? That is how much I like freshly. And I just want to be very clear. I, Ben Micellis, love freshly. I have a freshly order that comes to my house every Sunday and I use it for kind of meal control. I use it to, you know, eat healthy. And look, I'd be honest. I think that I am losing weight by having this meal control with freshly. I mean, like dinner time can be chaotic, especially

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which was exceptional. I put it in my microwave. I have a little technique, four minutes, 44 seconds. It tells you to do it more like 345 to four minutes. I like to up it to 444. And then I go to town and eat this freshly. I promise you, you will enjoy freshly. I stand behind freshly. And after this, we will come back with our interview with Manny Oliver. That's not America. That's not America. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast.

I have a special guest today, Manny Oliver, the father of Joaquin Oliver, who was tragically killed in the Parkland shooting. Manny and his wife, Patricia, are the founders of Change the Ref, an organization that uses urban art and nonviolent creative confrontation to empower young activists and expose the effects of the mass shooting pandemic in our country. And that's what it is, a mass shooting pandemic. Manny, welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Thank you. It's a pleasure being here. First off, my heart and our collective hearts go out to you, the pain and tragedy you've been through, and your ability to channel that pain, that tragedy into advocacy is something we just so admire and all of our supporters and admire. So thank you for that. And our hearts go out to you, Manny. I'm here for you. I'm here to work exactly on everything that you mentioned to prevent this from happening as often as it's happening right now.

And Manny, you refer to the mass shootings in our country as a pandemic. I think that is an apt name for it. You know, out here in California, where I live, we had a federal judge in San Diego recently, a Bush appointee. We see this across the country, basically glorifying these militarized weapons and these long judicial rulings and making the ability to have common sense gun reform, the most common sense, more difficult in our states and across the country. that seem to focus so heavily on the proliferation of this pandemic of mass shootings and not at the very most basic level want to come up with the most common sense solutions? We'll start there. Well, you're right. I think that's the result of decades of unfair, confusing propaganda from the gun industry.

I felt how Americans identify themselves with the gun as that being something that is patriotic or loyal to the nation. Like, I can see the guy holding guns with the American flag on the back and feeling proud of that. And it's been years and years of false statement, years and years of using the Second Amendment as a sales pitch for people to purchase a weapon because you have to protect yourselves and you have to protect your country. I thought we had an army that will be taking care of that part. I'm a civilian. I just want to live here and become a good person. So why is it that I need to carry a weapon to protect myself if there's law enforcement out there and I pay my taxes? Shouldn't I deserve that right to be secured? Apparently not. Apparently you have to get on board the idea that you have to protect yourself from others and others will need to protect themselves from you.

That's how now we have more guns than people. And the only nation that has more guns than people. And a lot of us seem to be OK with that idea. Now, some others like me, wife, and like many others, like you guys, we think that we deserve better. We think that a society should not be afraid of each other, should not be following a path that puts guns over kids, just to mention, because it's not only over kids, it's over humans. We have 100 people dying per day. So it's going to be a slow process to get back to what a normal society should look like.

One of the strangest things, too, you mentioned the Second Amendment. You know, you have these Republican appointed judges who are strict constructionists, every single word matters. Yet in the Second Amendment, the words well-regulated appears, and they don't even read the words well-regulated. I mean, to me, even if those words didn't exist, the common sense reading of an interpretation would be, well, it needs to be regulated, like everything, like cars and like events and everything needs to be regulated. But the words are literally there and they ignore those words, which is one of the frustrating things to me as a lawyer there. Well, they jumped that part. You know, this is, again, this is just using propaganda in the way that the Nazis used to work with the propaganda and how you manipulate a society.

They bring out the Second Amendment and just go really fast instead of doing what you're proposing here. Like, let's read it the way that it should be read and let's understand what it says. Nobody goes over those details. You can ask going owners, why is it that you have a gun? And none of them is going to answer, oh, because I want to be part of a well-regulated militia, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's not true that the Second Amendment is the reason why we're buying guns. The reason why we're buying guns is because we have technically been forced to buy guns. The way that they promote this idea,

it's incredibly powerful. And this is when we answer with the same power, with the same ability to bring a message to society so everybody can see the other truth, the one that it's trying to save lives and not sell guns. Manny, your organization, Change the Ref, recently and very famously produced that viral video,

which was called The Lost Class, where David Keene, the former president of the NRA, and John Lott thought they were giving a commencement speech in Las Vegas. And they showed up in front of 3,044 empty chairs representing the students who would not make it to graduation this year due to gun violence. I want to talk about that event and the planning of it. But before that, I want to talk about Change the Ref, generally, and its founding. And you channeled your tragedy into creating Changing the Ref. And so can you explain the foundation and formation of Change the Ref

and what its mission is and how it channels creativity to combat this propaganda, this militant propaganda from the right that you're just referring to? Yeah, I love to share the reason why it's called like that and what we do. My son, Joaquin Oliver, was my best friend and son. And I lost him during the partnership. Okay? Joaquin was one of the 17 victims

that lost the battle against Van Bynes that day. Joaquin loved to play basketball. And I was the coach of his team on on what it became his last season he was a very athletic dude and and a lot of knowledge about the game rules and everything i have no idea i'm not athletic at all and but i he wanted me to be the coach because that way he could i could choose the players that he wanted to play along with him. So it was like a teamwork that we were able to put together. I choose his friends.

So we had the happiest and most cool team, coolest team in the season. One day, Joaquin got in trouble with the referee and they had an argument and the referee threw him out of the game. I came into the court, tried to fix everything. And that was a big mistake because I was thrown out of the game in less than 20 seconds. So that is me and Joaquin driving back home. And this is Joaquin telling me, hey, that I think that we need to change the ref. That referee will never give us a fair game. He doesn't like you. He doesn't like me. He doesn't like us at all. So if we want a fair game, we need to do something about it. Two weeks later, my son was shut down. He was shut

four times with an AR-15 inside his school. I started looking at what happened. And a few days later, I realized that there's a bunch of referees in Washington that are not making the right calls. There is a lot of referees in Washington that have been paid by the other team. So they keep away from giving us a fair game. So let's change the ref. And let's honor what Joaquin mentioned to me that day. And everything makes sense. And now we have this organization, a nonprofit, that is becoming very notable in terms of creativity because that is exactly what we do. We use art and advertising to send a different message

than the one we were talking about at the beginning. And we're reaching a lot of people. So that's our mission here. We connect very well with the youth, which is great. And I'm not doing anything different than what I was doing before Portland. This is what I used to do. Now we just have a new mission and a new product and a new brand. And that's my song.

So I want to talk about this event. I just gave a brief description of about it. One of the things that I found so interesting is that David Keene and John Lott thought they were rehearsing for a speech at a school called James Madison Academy. It was something that was just kind of completely made up. So tell us about this event. What made you think about it and ultimately how the event was pulled off? Well, we work, you know, in a very, we try to keep it very professional when it comes to the advertising

final product. We have worked with the most creative people from the world. And in this particular case, the very beginning of this idea started in the office of Leo Burnett. And this is how we connect. They know that, they know that Change the Ref is willing to do this and more. And this is when we start planning the whole process. What change of ref is willing to do this and more. And this is when we start planning the whole process. What is it that we want to do? How are we going to do it?

And when do we want to do it? There was a time sensitive issue here because of the graduation season. It's when you send a message, you try to keep it on the whatever is happening around society at that moment. So this was not a campaign that could hold more to bring it up. It had to be during the graduation season. It had to be in Vegas because the chances are that this type of person will be excited to go to Vegas and spend the whole weekend and give a speech to the James Madison Academy. That is not a real academy. James Madison is the guy that came out with the second amendment.

So we try to put all that together that will ensure that these guys will show to what will be the act, the graduation act, that it needed a rehearsal. Sorry, we need to rehearsal what we have to say tomorrow. You can't just go crazy and say whatever you want. So that's how we did it. And they showed. And the whole conversation has been about how we did this. You know what? It doesn't really matter.

I mean, I can share with you how we did it, some things, because I want to do it again. I want to keep some things to us. But this is not about that. This is not about that. I just read an article this morning in the Wall Street Journal, and it's about John Lott putting himself in a victim situation. Dude, there were 3,044 empty chairs. 140,000 people have lost their lives since Joaquin was shut down. And you're trying to let people think that you were a victim. No, you're not. Yes, you drove all the way from Montana to Vegas.

Big deal. And you were part of a campaign that probably is creating a lot of awareness. So you should be happy. You should be happy that finally you're part of something that is sending a good message to people. And can you tell us about some of the other events? And obviously this one got a lot of attention, but I want our listeners to know about some of the other campaigns that you've run, because this is not just a unique thing that you've done. You've consistently been coming up with creative and new approaches,

which we admire here because one of the things we've tried to do with our organization and kind of connecting with the youth is re-envision the way political ads are made and re-envision the way messages are told. And that starts with art because you have this massive propaganda machine every day with Fox News and OAN and the Republican Party in this cyclical, you know, echo chamber just pumping out messages. And sometimes to combat that, you got to be creative. And the same old boring messaging doesn't work, which is why I think Change the Ref is so effective. So if you can tell us about some of the other campaigns and initiatives you've run that are kind of similar in creativity to this. Well, before that, I got to tell you that with this one, we made it all the way to Fox News, which is great. They had to cover the story. They had no other option.

They had to cover the story. We have done more than 23 campaigns, I think. Besides, we have a one-man show that was on tour a year ago. And then because of COVID, we need to stop it. It's called What My Son, My Hero. What I do, I can recall

two great things that we have done. Like two years ago, there was a whole debate around the fact that you could download blueprints and print at home 3D parts of guns so you can put them together. And actually, you could print a weapon at home without leaving your house. They started that debate, and we came out along with Alma in Miami, and we created a

3D printed image of Joaquin. And it's called the 3D printed activist. So that was a crazy thought. But we were already thinking outside of the box. And the fact that I was part of a team that was putting together a real size, like human size image of Joaquin, it looked exactly like Joaquin, was already kind of weird. But we need to do weird shit to make our point. So it was great. I mean, it had a lot of media attention. The 3D activists went to France, to South Africa,

to be in New York. So that was great. And then a month ago, no, this is November. I'm sorry, because of COVID, my timing is so, it's not easy to track. The Unfinished Vote campaign, it's using artificial intelligence to bring back Joaquin on a video, asking people to go and vote. That was the masterpiece this year in all the festivals. We got like a lot of lions and a lot of awards everywhere, in every Clio Awards. And we were the advertiser of the year, according to Clio. And the fact that a nonprofit, a nonprofit that it's led by a young activist that became a victim, it's named the advertiser firm of the year. That's a lot. That means they're really looking at us as a powerful way of creating a new narrative. And that goes along with what we

thought three years ago and our plans. We knew that, and we still know, and I still say that politicians are not able to fix this in such an easy way. It's not only you're going to vote for this guy and he's going to fix things. No, we had Obama, we had Clinton, we had all possible options that you will think, wait a minute, how come they didn't fix it? And we keep listening to these people. Well, because the whole debate that happens inside Capitol Hill, I don't deal with that. We talk to people, and I believe that in a certain amount of time,

just like the tobacco industry analogy, the gun industry will vanish. And at some point, it won't be cool anymore. And they will have no other option than follow the same path that the tobacco industry went through. Manny, that's why I think what you're doing, especially engaging with the youth is so important. You know, one of the things that I look at is Lauren Bobbert or Bobert, her age, she's my age. And I think to myself, wow, we both were born the same time. We both had the same educations. We probably both watched Saved by the Bell or whatever our childhoods were at that time. And yet all of the messaging and all of the information

about how dangerous these war weapons are and the proliferation of them. Someone like a Lauren Bobbert, who's my contemporary, is out there holding these guns and frankly looking like a freaking idiot. No true gun owner holds guns the way she holds them. As we talk about it, it's cosplay. But what I love about your strategy is that it's generational. I think you have this long term view and it's steeped in some cynicism. But the reality that you know what the current ref. Yeah, it may be hard to change the current ref right now, but they're getting older and older and older. The new refs that are coming in, that's what changed the ref is.

The new refs are coming and we need to arm them with the truth. Correct. Exactly. That's exactly what I try to say, but it will take me 10 minutes to say what you just said. Well, Manny, we're here by your side, shoulder to shoulder.

If you ever need Midas touch for anything, how could our supporters and those listening out there help change the rest? through the tragedy like we did, the fact that we can do these amazing campaigns, it opens a door. It opens an option. You don't have to stay home crying and going through a process that it's so hard to, probably we never will be recovering from that pain, but we can be part of a solution so no one else has to go through it. So I need people to visit changestheref.org, go and check the last class so you can see exactly what we're talking about in here. We always have a call to action. We don't do these campaigns without giving an option, like a solution. This is what we want. We stay with one thing and then we change to another one. The addition of all those things will create these regulations. We are not chasing the guns that are

out there. That will be an impossible job. I don't want your guns unless I use it to melt it and create a sculpture. But we are trying to get regulations in place. So anyone that has a gun is qualified for that. And I'm not asking for a tremendous change in what's going on. Let's just put some order in here. I have a motorcycle. I had to go through a test to ride my motorcycle. I was in the dealer for a whole day, signing papers one after the other. And finally, every year I need to renew my certified motorcycle, the color of the motorcycle. So there's a whole tracking process of me being a motorcycle owner and being allowed to use it, ride it, because I could hurt someone else. How is it that we don't put that same effort on guns? Other countries have done it, and it works.

So we should copy what other nations are doing. And I'm talking about first world nations. I'm not talking about third world nations. But I'm very confident. I'm very confident that things are going to change. But again, I love the fact that you also agree with me that it's going to require a little more time. And I'll be here, I promise you, I'm not stopping doing what I'm doing. There's no nothing more important for me than what I do today. How would you get that message across to people who may get sort of, you know, dejected, get a feeling of helplessness as they're fighting this, being like, oh, it's just going to keep happening and happening. How would you tell those activists to keep going and keep fighting, so to speak? Well, these days I've seen a lot of coalition.

There's a lot of groups doing different things. But at the end of the day, it's kind of the same thing. So I see more and more people involved. There are more chances to get involved. And there's more people like us, like more vocal people, more doing actions that show that we can be stronger than what we look like. And they are actually weaker than how they look like.

So things are changing. Same thing on the political map. There's a lot of legislators and representatives that really, really can push forward and move things around. But because it's a majority thing, it's going to take more time. The final decision is the voter.

Again, back to the youth. Every election, we have more young people voting and less conservative people voting. It's a matter, it's how nature works. I'm sorry. And I believe in progress. And the same way that we, a few years ago, it was, you wouldn't think that two men could get married. And guess what? If you have a retail store today, you should have a rainbow flag on your window

because that means that you're a cool guy, you're friendly, and you're a progressive person. It is exactly where the country should be heading to. So I have that hope, and I'll do my best to make that happen. Manny, your strength is admirable. Your creativity is inspirational. And we are so privileged to have you on the Midas Touch podcast and have our listeners hear your story firsthand. We'll be watching what you do next. Make sure you send it to us and we'll be happy to amplify it. And we would just love to stay up to date on everything that Change the Ref is doing. That's changetheref.org. Manny Oliver, thank you so much for joining us on the Midas Touch podcast.

Thank you, guys. Have a good day. Stay safe. You too. We'll be right back after these messages. What's up, Midas Mighty? We've got new merch in the merch store. Brett, tell them about it. New merch line. This is in addition to the hit lines Club Democracy, Vaxxed and Relaxed. We now have two amazing new designs, in case you haven't seen them yet. We got the, it wasn't rigged. You're just a loser shirt. Fan favorite. Totally a fan favorite. I am loving it. And it's just my favorite like graphic to see all the time. It just makes me smile to see that phrase because it is so true. And today we are announcing the Midas Touch for the people line. We got a for the people tea.

We got for the people mugs. We got For the People totes. So get yours today at store.midastouch.com and keep sending pictures of you rocking your Midas Touch Pro Democracy gear. We love to see it. Thank you so much for all your support. That's store.midastouch.com. Let's go. welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast it was so inspirational to have Manny Oliver all of the work that he's done all of the work he's planning in the future the strength that he and his wife and his family have and those who have built change. The ref is something that is so incredibly admirable. And I just look forward to having further conversations with Manny and supporting his efforts.

Turning to another topic. I mean, everybody now knows and endues this horrible, tragic devastation in the Surfside community. The collapse of the building there where many people lived. The death count is already high. There are still 100 plus people who are missing. These are elderly. These are families. These are children.

It's just horrific. It's really everyone's worst nightmare. I mean, to have a building just collapse like that. And of course, we're learning that there were structural defects that could have been fixed. And one of the things though that happened today that I am just fascinated by, I'm not sure if you saw this, Brett or Jordi, but it was a meeting at a large boardroom with federal and state officials who were working shoulder to shoulder to help during these trying times. And just play with you, Will Brett, what Governor DeSantis had to say about Biden and the Biden administration's efforts here. Well, thank you, Mr. President. And you recognize

the severity of this tragedy from day one, and you've been very supportive. We in Florida, you'll drive up and down these coastal roads, you'll see these buildings, and I've driven by that building, probably never thought twice. And then something like this happens, and you recognize in each individual unit, there's an amazing story. And lives have been shattered irrevocably as a result of this. We've already identified, unfortunately, fatalities. People who've been 92 years old have been the matriarch of a wonderful family. We have families with kids missing.

And we even have young newlyweds who hadn't even been married a year who were in the tower when it collapsed. And so the cooperation has been great. The local, both the municipal and the county have been fantastic. And you guys have not only been supportive at the federal level, but we've had no bureaucracy. When we're dealing with FEMA, we're literally getting requests routed from local to state to federal in no time, and the approval is happening. And so that really, I think, is important. And so we've had people, this is the first response

in Florida's history outside of a hurricane where all of our urban search and rescue teams were mobilized. It's like a different human being. It's like just such a bizarre thing to watch after the past four years of division and everything that we've gone through. And I don't want to give DeSantis too much credit here because, you know, one minute and 20 seconds of good doesn't undo the rest. But that really shows that when you break people of the Trump spell, what there is level, on a federal level to actually get throwing towels and laughing as people were suffering from the ramifications of one of the worst hurricanes that Puerto Rico ever experienced with literally thousands of preventable deaths and the government not reporting the numbers accurately, no one getting information, no infrastructure, no support being given to Puerto Rico. And then you see this, and I'm not sure if credit's the right word, or I don't want to give DeSantis cover,

because he will quickly go back to the base, we all know, and he will do the Trump rally. It's possible by the time this podcast airs that he goes back and says something. But it just shows you, though, that politics does not have to be a circus. It doesn't have to be nasty. It doesn't have to be painfully disturbing the way Trump's brand of politics is. And I think that people need leaders to lead. And people, humanity, human nature, has instincts for bad, which can be preyed upon, and have instincts for good. And leaders like Joe Biden bring people together and support each other and bring out the best. But the Trump brand is to inspire hate, to inspire division, to use lies. Look, there's a reason why in our history of humanity, there's been way more dictators than there are democracies.

The concept of democracies is a blip within a blip within a blip of human nature. And we've progressed in a direction to embrace the concept of a democracy where everybody can try to have a voice. But the norm is sometimes to fall prey to strong men and fear tactics. And that's where human nature has gone before. And so the idea of that Trump brand of politics and how toxic it is, that's the word I was looking for before. It's toxic nature. In that room, I saw what America was. I saw what America used to be, that there will be strong differences going to have to or going to believe that he has to fall back on the QAnon Trumpists and all of that. But, you know, for that one moment, we see remove the Trump cancer and you see kind of a healthy politics for that brief second. Yeah, it gave me a glimmer of hope. And it was really only something at this moment in time that Joe Biden could accomplish. I mean, if anything is Joe Biden's brand, it's giving an olive branch to the other side. It's compassion. It's showing empathy. It's bringing out the best in people. And that's what we saw there. And it's

a shame that it took such a horrific tragedy here for this to get done. But you could almost imagine like what would have happened if there was a President Hillary Clinton while COVID hit? What if there was a President Biden while COVID hit? I assure you that there would be a lot more meetings like that between the president and Republican state governors to actually deal with the problem rather than the way Trump took the pandemic and then himself infected all these Republican governors and his base to actually do the opposite of what was helpful for the pandemic at the time and encourage people's worse instincts and make them a shoe masks and make them say that they are not going to get vaccines and that they're not going to be kind to their neighbors in terms of helping with

the pandemic and social distancing and doing everything that was what brought this pandemic under control. I mean, that's what happens when you have competent leadership at the top. And that's why it's so important that we have President Biden in there. I mean, it was really heartwarming to see. Brett, I totally agree. And then switching gears for a second, I want to highlight other positive news in the Biden administration. Biden announced his fifth wave of judicial nominees as Democrats aim to maintain a quick pace of confirmations to the federal bench. Biden announced eight new federal judicial nominations on Wednesday, continuing this rapid pace of nominations. This is a central priority

to Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The overall number of nominations and hopefully appointments soon will put Biden on the fastest pace for judicial confirmations and a first presidential term in more than 50 years. The last president to have seven confirmations by this point was Richard Nixon in 1969, according to a White House official. And this is so incredibly important. President Donald Trump, I hate even saying that, when he was president, was able to confirm more than 230 federal judges during his term in office. And I can't even begin to tell you just how damaging that is going to be. These are life term appointments. These are judges. We hear about these Supreme Court decisions,

but what we don't hear about is a lot of district court decisions, which is the first court that these cases go to. And then the court of appeals, which is the next court that these cases go to, and then the Court of Appeals, which is the next court that these cases go to, where most of the decisions happen because a lot of these cases don't go to the Supreme Court. And you get a lot of bad rulings. I mean, you think about that ruling, it was not a Trump appointee, it was actually a Bush appointee. You think about that ruling in San Diego overturning the gun reform laws in California, not just overturning them, but paying homage to how beautiful of a war weapon the AR-15 is. And the opinion talked about how the media was overblowing any crisis about guns, and it was just fake news. I mean, this was in a federal judge's opinion, issues. And it's just aligning that bipartisan

support with our politicians have to overcome the gerrymandering and the voting laws that are meant to keep people from voting and all the voter suppression aspects. So this is good news that the Biden administration is rapidly nominating federal judges and would be on pace to nominate more judges than Trump if the Democrats can keep the Senate, which we need to fight for at the end of the day. But I want to thank everybody for tuning into this incredible birthday edition of Jordy. I want to check you guys on one last thing before we sign off here. A little bonus. Yeah, I'm going to check you guys on one thing. You guys clearly don't watch enough Tucker Carlson, which is a good thing for YouTube. For those who are listening, the brothers make me watch all the crazy right wing media stuff as the youngest brother. So I'm watching Fox just to find clips of the craziness to give to Brett and Ben. The Tucker cadence is not how you guys had laid it out before. The Tucker cadence is like a question statement and then following

up by two different questions. So here's the example I'm going to give you. Ready? It's like, look, I'm not saying Tucker Carlson eats his own boogers, but he's never denied it. And if he wouldn't deny such a thing as simple as eating his own boogers, then can we believe he doesn't? Why would a non-booger eater go so long without answering these questions? Huh? That's pretty good. That's pretty good. It's good to have a good Tucker cadence. You guys make me watch so much. I just, I'd mimic the guy when he fucking talks. It's pretty good. That's my Tucker cadence. That's pretty good. It's good to have a good Tucker cadence. You guys make me watch so much. I just, I mimic the guy when he fucking talks.

It's the worst. Well, Jordy. That's pretty good there, Jordy. Jordy, great Tucker impression. We love you. Happy 28th birthday. Thanks, guys. And thank you, everybody.

Enjoy the rest of your birthday day. Thank you to all the Midas Mighty for having happy birthday, Jordy, be the number 10. I also want to say, if you are in Las Vegas, we bought one of the biggest billboards out there. And I'm not even just talking in Las Vegas. I'm talking in the world. We bought one of the biggest screens in the world. I'm sure a lot of you have seen it. It's went viral on social media. We've already seen people going to the billboard, taking photos in front of it. Keep them coming. We love it. We get a big America is back billboard highlighting the successes of the Biden-Harris administration over there at the Harmon Corner.

So go check that out. And this weekend, well, first off, have an incredible July 4th weekend. Happy Independence Day. And, you know, Mr. Donald Trump, former guy, you know, owner of an indicted company, is doing a rally that he's actually not even welcome to. Not even DeSantis wants him to do this rally in Sarasota. But I'll just say, keep your eyes open for some things that might happen during this rally. And we'll talk about him next time.

But there you have it. Ben Brett, birthday boy, Jordy, signing off, fighting with you every day to save our democracy. Shout out to the Midas Mighty!