The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump’s Last Day with Mary Trump, Matthew Cooke and Matt Rosengart

Episode Date: January 19, 2021

The Meidas Brothers kick off the show by digging up evidence of each others failed career as rappers. Yes, you read that right. They then discuss how Trump's domestic terrorists are now begging for pardons. The brothers then welcome clinical psychologist and niece to Donald Trump, Mary Trump, onto the program to discuss the future of the Trump family, our country and how we break half the country from the spell of dangerous disinformation. Ben also shows Mary his best Donald impression. Next, the brothers welcome Matt Rosengart, a former federal prosecutor with intimate knowledge of the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 to discuss how we can codify our past norms regarding the transition process, which have now been completely violated by Donald Trump, into law. The brothers finish the show by speaking with Matthew Cooke, whose video 'A Wake Up Call to Republicans' took the internet by storm over the past few days.  Thank you for making the MeidasTouch Podcast a top podcast in the United States! Please make sure you are subscribed and rate this podcast 5 stars! --- 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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Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Ben Micellis here, joined by my younger brothers, Brett Micellis and Jordy Micellis. Thank you so much for making the Midas Touch podcast one of the top podcasts in the country. And I'm humbled. I'm honored by your support. The last we checked, it was the number 11 of all news podcasts, the number 33 of all podcasts in the country. We appreciate you so much. Mostly good reviews. We'll take some of the death threats that we get. But thank you so much. You know, we do like to, you know, bring our view

of politics, you know, inside your living room the same way we as the brothers chat with each other, you know, on a day to day basis. But we have a big week coming up. It's finally here. President elect Joe Biden will become the president of the United States, the 46th president. And I couldn't be more thrilled. This transition period has been fraught with things that I never thought would be possible in the United States of America. Transition Act. And he's going to be talking to us about that Presidential Transition Act of 1963, why it was so inefficient and ineffective today, and what we can do to improve it. We also have Mary Trump, niece of Donald Trump on the show. And we have Matthew Cook, whose viral video the other day was phenomenal. It was a wake up call to Republicans. You probably have seen it getting over five million views.

You cannot go through Twitter or any social media account without seeing this video over the weekend. I mean, this was all over the place. It was just such a amazing direct message. We're really excited about the guests we have on. It's good. It's going to be great. Jordy, how are you doing today?

I'm doing, man. I'm doing. I'm on the edge of my seat each day as we get closer to the inauguration. It's just like, it just needs to happen already. It just needs to happen. If you wrote what the hell has happened and transpired just over the last week, week and a half in a movie, you wouldn't believe it. Somebody tried to break into the Capitol to execute the vice president. It's like the stuff that's unfolding is absolutely ridiculous. We just need the inauguration to happen. Yeah, I never think that we would have predicted, Jordy, that there would be a coup against the United States led by a president of the United States.

It's just beyond belief. But Jordy, how's your health doing? You look a little bit better. I mean, are you doing anything differently right now? Are you hitting the inhaler hard? I'd say I'm actually a little worse today than I was the last time. Oh, no. I don't want to get the listeners up in a tizzy before we really get started.

So I'm fine. I did my nebulizer before. I accidentally posted a picture and my nebulizer has, well, I didn't accidentally post a picture. I posted the picture and it had my address and my phone number on it. So I realized after five minutes, took that down real quick. So that was kind of funny. I think you posted your address on Twitter.

And my phone number. Jordy, with all the death threats we get on a daily basis and stuff, I think next time, just try to keep your home address. I'm just, I will try to keep this stuff off social media. It's my suggestion. At this point, no expert here.

Hey, if you couldn't tell by now, we're three brothers. Ben's our oldest brother. He's our legal expert. Brett's our middle brother, two-time Emmy Award digital editor. I am the youngest brother, Jordy. As Ted Lieu would say, I ask the great questions, paraphrasing, of course. Brett, how are you doing, man? What's going on over at your side?

You know, I'm doing well, guys. It feels like the end of a nightmare is upon us. And I am extremely excited. It's still hard to believe that this nightmare of more than four years right now will soon be over. We have a little over 24 hours at this point, depending on when you're listening, until President Joe Biden will be sworn in as, like Ben said, the 46th president of the United States. But I think we all need to be celebrating the final day of the Trump presidency that we are finally embarking on a new America. And let's not forget, guys, we've had so many victories. I know it's hard to get you get caught up in just the minutia of the daily grind and all of Trump's criminality and these horrific Republicans.

But remember, everybody, we took back the Senate. We won the House. We won the presidency. of Americans, which still is far too many, but only 29 percent of Americans, according to the latest poll from Pew, support Donald Trump. So just remember where in the majority what we're doing is working and we need to continue to push and we need to continue to fight. And to be clear, that's the poll from Pew, not the poll from Q. I thought he said Q too. And the poll from Q believes that there will be a Bolshevik revolution in the next 24 hours and Donald Trump will emerge as the son in the next coming of Jesus Christ and single-handedly slaughter all pedophiles who are not actually the pedophiles who are in the Republican Party, who we actually know what they do, but are these other people. And Donald Trump will take over America in 24 hours. That's the Q poll. And the Republican Party has become the party of Q, the party of weirdos, the party of terrorists, and certainly not the party of conservatives.

But Brett, going back to our last podcast, before we get into the politics, I want to thank the Midas Mighty. You do your research. I, for some reason, I had no clue what we were even talking about and why I started going on a tangent and just saying cream on the inside, cream on the outside. You remember when I said that brett do we even have a clip of why i was saying that i i got that cream on the outside cream on the inside what's that song i have no idea i have no idea cream on the outside maybe it's just as i

will take the criticisms of the podcast when i go on tangents like that. And granted, I'm going on a slight tangent right now, but there was, we identified who the song was. It was by a group called DeRoe or DeRuff. I'm not sure if it's French, DeRoe, or if it's DeRuff.

But it is a rap group and it goes cream on the outside, cream on the inside, cream on the inside. Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream, paint job. Do we have the actual song, Brett? So Ben said he would bring in the clip to the next show. And Ben, you delivered, man. Well, I was thanks to the Midas Mighty.

Someone identified who it was. I promised I would find what the song was. Now, let me admit, now that I'm hearing it and now that I see it, I've obviously heard Ice Cream Paint Job before. I just didn't quite know from your rendition of it what it was. Well, he's getting the lyrics wrong. It's cream on the outside, clean on the inside. Is that the lyrics? I believe so. We'll have to check the tape, but I don't know.

Midas Mighty, you're going to have to tell us what's what's going on. That's right. But but look, if people know, hop rapper masquerading now as somebody involved in politics. And for a great deal of time, you know, I've been applauded by my clients and my legal clients for my hip hop prowess. Isn't that true, Brent? It's true. And not only is it true, but I actually brought with me, Jordan and I were speaking about this earlier. We have the video evidence of exactly what you speak. So let's just play this for everybody. So just so you could visualize this when you're listening. This has been sitting next to Eric Reid and Colin Kaepernick. And of all things, he decided to rap for them. Don't knock me to try to bury seven zeros.

Oh, Mario DeGeneres. Ain't nobody's hero, but I want to be heard on your hot nine seven every day. That's my work. And that right there, Brett, it's all about the Benjamins. I had won a court hearing. We were headed back from Pennsylvania. As attorneys do when they win court hearings. And Eric Reid played that at a Variety Awards ceremony

and said that that's what Ben does. So you do have it. But Brett, I want to be clear. I'm not the only rapper in the Mycellus family. A reverse. Jordy. Uno reverse. We always keep Bretttt's history so for everybody wanted to know there was a time period where brett wanted to be a rapper not like me as a lawyer who occasionally raps for fun but brett wanted to pursue a career as a rapper until our father literally told him and had an ultimatum with him and said, Brett, you're not being a rapper. Okay. You're not being a rapper.

Dad doesn't curse, but that was the implication of what he said. We have that clip of Brett as his stage name, Bam. See that? That's a good song. I bet. Let me just say, guys. Ben's good too, but Ben needs to sing songs specifically from the 90s.

I think I either said that or tweeted that the other day. But Brett has some rhythm and I think Bam could have been something. Let me just say, guys, I stand by every bit of it. And maybe, who knows, maybe we'll relaunch the career with the new Midas Touch following. What do you think?

Getting into the political news, as Brett mentioned, the Pew, not the Q poll, had Trump leaving with a 90 percent approval rating, a historical low for any presidency. And you would think after a failed coup that Trump would change tactics. No, Trump has his cast of weirdos coming in and out of the White House. But I think we had Mike Lindell, the CEO, my pillow man, my pillow man coming in with his own Unabomber style manifesto about overthrowing the government, which he had. He had it out as he was walking. So a Washington Post reporter with a long camera lens was able to take a photo and show exactly all the craziness. And it talked about how Trump should declare martial law and and how Trump could overthrow the existing government. But I would say Donald Trump meeting

with my pillow man in the final days of a presidency to talk about martial laws about summarizes the Trump administration in a nutshell. Meanwhile, while the crazy my pillow man is trying to still overthrow the results of the election, We have the National Guard right now guarding the Capitol, sleeping out on the Capitol floors. You know who could use pillows? Our troops who are protecting the Capitol. If you really want to be useful, stop trying to overthrow the government

and try to support our troops. Try to support our democracy. Then there's been some great work by business people like Jose Andres, who's been handing out food to the troops and who's been helping be on the side of good. You know, if you're in this position of power, if you built the company, do what you can to help people stop. I'm just sick of these people using it to just take advantage of the American people and try to throw a stake into the heart of American democracy. I'm tired of it. Yeah. And look, I mean, Mike Lindell is a is a crackhead. He's a former recovering crack addict.

Um, there are clearly issues there. Um, there are clearly mental health issues, um, and mental health issues that we see along the lines of this QAnon strain that's overtaken the Republican Party. It's a self-entitlement morphed with real mental health issues. And I think that summarized, Brett, there's, you know, saw the story of, I think it's a real estate agent from Texas, right? And she flew in to join the insurrection. She was caught because there are videos, obviously. And she's now begging and pleading, you know, for a pardon, you know, saying that my president invited me and I should be entitled to a pardon for essentially leading an insurrection. Brett, do we have a clip of her? I think her name is Jenna Ryan and she's

the real estate agent. And let's see what she has to say. We're all going to be up here and we're going to be breaking those windows. We're going to be having to deal with the tear bombs, tear with the gas bombs. you have to get dressed warm, because we have to, because they're taking our shit. Like, they're taking everything. I do not feel a sense of shame or guilt from my heart from what I was doing. I thought I was following my president.

I would like a pardon from the president of the United States. I think that we all deserve a pardon. I'm facing prison sentence. I'm facing a prison sentence because I tried to overthrow the government. So I think I all deserve pardons. I flew to a seditious insurrection terrorist attack on my private jet.

And I think now I deserve a pardon. And I'm a terrorist. And like, I think that like, I don't know, like you want to give me a pardon there, Mr. President? I mean, I don't know, like, you want to give me a pardon there, Mr. President? I mean, I had to watch that clip like four or five times, maybe more. And just each watch, I got angrier and angrier. Like

what sense of entitlement? Like she just says it too, which is like, I think I deserve a pardon. I'd like a pardon because I stormed the Capitol. It's just like insanity. As I said on Twitter, though, Jordi, I think that, you know, I said this is a prosecutor's wet dream. I said that is what she said is a wet dream for a prosecutor, because what it does is it connects all of the insurrection and activities to Donald Trump. It's clear that what he was saying, I mean, to me, it's clear based on the words when he's saying fight and activities to Donald Trump. It's clear that what he was saying,

I mean, to me, it's clear based on the words when he's saying fight and go to the Capitol, means to fight and go to the Capitol. But it's also clear that to the followers, they exactly understood what the message was. It's been basically a reasonable person, you know, interpreting those words. If they interpret it as incitement and they are inspired by those words to do those actions, that's kind of what shows guilt and culpability. Yes. you know, the code is far more Cody than what Donald Trump said, you know, where they say, I got a thing and I want you to do that thing. And, you know, with the that thing out there and, you know, by the. That was kind of what the Raffensperger call was like. But this was like, we're going to the Capitol. We're going to fight them. We need bold action. Show strength. You know, because he didn't get his way on the Raffensperger call. So he's like,

I got to be way more. I got to step it up. I got to be a little more obvious about this. And the thing with Trump at the end of the day, though, too, is he's just such a coward. I mean, he said to everybody at the speech, he goes, I'm going to join you. I'll be there with you. We're going to march together. And then he lets all of those individuals go there, pursue the insurrection

that he told them to do it. And now they're all going to be federally prosecuted and they're all going to serve significant they're going to serve significant jail time. That's that's clear. And I've heard some people say, you know, is is Donald Trump going to, you know, pardon them? You know, I don't think he's going to pardon them at all. I mean, one, I don't even think he's allowed to being impeached. I think the Constitution precludes you to pardon anything arising out of an impeachment. It doesn't even have to be a conviction. So the culpability that he has in those actions, you know, which would further bring civil liability to him. So no, I do not envision that they're going to be pardoned, although there is a slew of pardons that are being planned. As you're listening to this, I believe you will have heard a number of pardon announcements today and tomorrow. And it's absurd the types of people he's going to be pardoning. And of course, the question is, is

there going to be a self-pardon, even though constitutionally it would seem to be infirm? It would seem to be that you can't self-pardon. Pardoning inherently involves other individuals. But it will be something to look at over the next 48 hours in this wild, in this incredibly bumpy, you know, bumpy is the nicest way to call it transition process. And then, Jordy, I think there's nobody who really knows this man perhaps more than Mary Trump, who is Donald Trump's niece. She grew up with the now president of the United States. She's been warning about his behavior now for a long time. Mary Trump, welcome to the show. Thanks, guys. It's great to be here. It's really good to be back at this really boring time in our history. Yeah, nothing's going on. Speaking of boring times, Mary Trump, your uncle attempted to run a coup

of the United States of America during this transition period. I know you predicted the worst. You were on our prior podcast when we were on Sirius, and you predicted based on his sociopathic behavior, based on your own studies, that he would bring us to the brink. But what we saw January 6th with an actual full-fledged coup attempt, did you see that coming? You know, not in its specific details, but I've been saying for a long time that it's going to be as bad as we can imagine and worse. We should put absolutely nothing past him and that nothing for him would be off the table if it served the purpose of either overturning

the results of the election or somehow changing the subject. So although it depressed me, it kind of broke my heart to see, you know, what he incited those anti-American, anti-democratic people to do. I can't at all say that it surprised me. And what kind of struck me about it, too, is at his core, he has no substance other than me, me, me, me, me. There's really no, at least as I see it, coherent ideology other than Donald Trump for Donald Trump's sake. And so I was just, it wasn't surprising when the people got into the Capitol building,

they really didn't know what to do. Like there wasn't a coherent message other than just to be anarchist, destroying things, and just kind of cowardly and weird. I mean, what was your take on it? Yeah, that's really interesting. You said that because as I was watching, as it was just starting, you know, it was really difficult to wrap one's head around it because so many things were going wrong in real time it's like what why are the police being overwhelmed so easily where's the national guard so it was hard to take it seriously because it seemed so easy for these people to get inside right and we could only see it from the outside for a while and honestly the first one of the first things I thought was this is so tawdry. Donald just demeans everything.

And then when we found out later, you know, when we started getting details now, of course, there were some very highly trained people there who didn't did seem to know exactly what they were doing. And we can't discount that. But you know the horde that donald uh specifically was inciting they were just there to break shit you know and well desecrate everything um and that was one of in a weird way, you know, obviously the violence and the literal attempt to overthrow our government. And by far the worst thing, a way was just the disrespect, the utter failure to understand what they were doing. And I don't mean that to take away responsibility at all. I want them all to go to jail for a very long time,

but their total failure to understand symbolism and the meaning of what they were doing. What do you think Donald thinks of these people? I mean, I read that one of the only things that he was actually upset about was that the people seemed low class, quote unquote, low class, like out of all the things for him to be concerned about, he thinks, oh, they look dirty and low class. Like, do you think he actually cares about these people who are really I mean, many who whom actually did give their lives to them, not necessarily their life life, but their livelihoods? I mean, some of these people were actually quite successful people. They were school psychologists. They were police officers. I mean, what's what's to make of that and Donald's actual relationship and thoughts on the attackers?

Oh, he has nothing but contempt for them, except to the extent that their views to him. And this has always been one of one of the most fascinating things about his popularity among a certain group of people. As far as I can tell, he's never done anything, really, to make them think that he cares about them. So their willingness to believe that he does in the context of his just deep contempt for them is something that we're going to have to figure out, along with the fact that white supremacy has infiltrated our schools, our military, our police departments. You know, we have we have our work cut out for us. That's that.

I know it goes without saying, but we need to remember that. What do you think that going forward, your uncle Donald Trump should be most scared about? There are numerous investigations taking place in numerous states from D.C. to New York to Georgia, a number of civil lawsuits that once the veil of the presidency and the immunities attendant there too are removed, it's going to have to sit for depositions on sexual assault cases and other serious cases. What do you think he should be most afraid of? Probably what he is most afraid of is the loss of attention and the lack of relevance going forward. I mean, seriously, I don't want to hear him mentioned in the press unless it's in the context of his being a

defendant. But what he should be most afraid of, one of the things he should be most afraid of is my lawyer, Robbie Kaplan, who's not only handling my lawsuit, but in my view, the much more important lawsuit that's been brought by E.G. and Carol. Because, you know, mine's about money, which I obviously will bother him, but it doesn't prove anything about him we don't already know. He's a fraud. No kidding. He defrauded me. Right. Her case, on the other hand, will show once he is forced to give DNA and be deposed and stuff that he's been lying about the fact that he's a serial rapist and sexual sexual assaulter. So I think it's between Robbie Kaplan and the New York AGs who have probably been compiling information for decades and have access to materials nobody else does. And for those listening, the E.G. Carroll case was the sexual assault case.

And I believe in one of the aspects, Donald Trump tried to have the DOJ step in as his personal attorneys. That was also rejected. And depositions are scheduled to happen in relatively short order after he leaves the presidency. And your lawyer is also her lawyer. And so that case, do you have any sense when he's going to be deposed on that case? I don't. But I think within the next three to six months, that would be my guess. So anything about other than obviously, you know, the insurrection that took place. But this transition process in general, we're going to be speaking to a lawyer a little later on about the Transition Act of 1963 and how there were all these kind of informal things that we just took for granted. And we may need to have a new Transition act because we saw how it could be

used and abused. But anything else in this process that kind of stands out to you, you know, and just says, you know, here's something that needs to be changed. One thing for me was seeing lots of large law firms kind of step in as bad actors and finally become exposed, you know, so that was a unique thing. Anything else from your perspective that you said, wow, I never even knew this existed, but I'm glad it was exposed. You know, I never thought about the transition before in the, or what they call the interregnum, which is a weird term to use, but that's how people refer to that, 79 days.

I never really thought about it because it never mattered. The transition needs to be reduced from 79 days to one, first of all. Secondly, I didn't realize, again, not because I wasn't paying attention, but because like January 6th, it's totally ceremonial and ministerial. We never had to think about the certification of the Electoral College before. So I'd say things like being able to install loyalists at the last possible second at the upper echelons in government in order to hamstring the incoming administration and saddle them. I think it's called the burrowing and saddle them with government employees who can only be removed for cause, which makes it harder for the incoming administration to get its agenda fulfilled. We really need to look very carefully at the pardon power. And I think that, I don't know, I don't know if this

is possible, but just how much power the outgoing person still has, you know, in terms of access, continuing access to state secrets, continuing to be able to make appointments, actively interfering with the peaceful transfer of government, blocking the incoming administration from intelligence briefings, from funds that are required in order for, I mean, it's insane. But basically all of those things, which we've never had to worry about before, have been just like so much else during Donald's tenure have been shown to be weak because they depend upon tradition and decency. Now, we need to codify everything. But the easiest way to avoid all of that is the elections on November. I think it was November 3rd. It got called on November 7th.

Biden should have been in the White House on November 8th. Yeah, when you fire somebody at your job, you don't say, oh, why don't you stick around for another three months? You know, do whatever you want to the place. You pack their shit and you take them out. Like, in what world do we just let them sit there and wreak havoc on the place for months and months on end?

Although, I have to say, we are getting a garden of statues. Yeah, which he seemed like- Yeah, the Grover Cleveland statue. Everyone's super excited for Grover. Which it seemed like I saw somebody say today that it seemed like he just picked names out of a hat. There was kind of no rhyme or reason to the people who he chose to be on the statue.

I am sick of it all. And you have a lot of other family members, though, entangled in all this as well, unfortunately, which is the kids. And so now the rumor is, is that Ivanka Trump is out there. She's trying to rehabilitate her image so that she could rejoin society. Is she that much of a narcissist that you really believe she'll ever be able to repair her image after going on a four plus year crime spree? Yeah. There you have it. Sorry, was that too complex an answer? No, that's perfect.

Perfect. No, listen, these people, I've come to the conclusion over the last four years, in particular, because it's just it's sort of like a national disease. Arrogance makes you stupid. These people are so arrogant. They don't understand uh how things work they don't understand that after sticking with him until the armed insurrection they don't get to say oh wait a minute it didn't work you know yeah a failed coup is still a coup yeah i mean it did work actually um in some ways so the only thing that worries me is that money is a great leveler and rich people i i think are in a completely different like i think if you're rich it doesn't matter if you're white or black or jewish or muslim or nothing whatever it just matters that

you're rich if you're rich enough you you know? So I worry a bit that, that they will be allowed back into the high society that so matters to them. But that's different from having a political future. And that's something that we need to make sure it never happens. So do you think Ivanka has a political future? Do you think she's going, I mean, I think she'll try. Do you think she will successfully run for a seat, like a Senate seat in Florida, primary Marco Rubio? Well, let's put it this way. One of the reasons I hate all of them so much is that we have to

have these conversations about them, which should be absurd. Like there should be, you know, um, this should be a joke. We're all in an alternate universe. That's absolutely true. Yeah. So, um, what I would say to that is it's entirely up to us. It's not just Donald, all of his adult children need to be shut out, contained. They need to have all of their access stripped away from them. It all needs to be burned down. They need to be, their brand needs to be totally destroyed even more than they've already destroyed it. Corporations need to pull out.

New York City's trying to cancel its contract with the Trump organization. They need to be investigated. Donnie, as far as I'm concerned, should be indicted for inciting an insurrection, and all of them should be doing nothing but defending themselves against charges. So that's down to us. We can't forget it. Donald has shown just how capable people like him who have his resources, who have his connections are rehabilitating or staying in the game when they should have been discarded a long time ago. And Mary, that's why we here at

Midas Touch are, you know, we're keeping the heat on all the people who incited these insurrections, where we're going after Hawley and Cruz and Boebert, and we're going to continue to go after the Trumps if, you know, obviously not you. You know, I'm going to go after the Trumps, Mary Trump. You know, with your expertise as a psychologist, you know, your family aside, do you think there is a way to bring these ardent supporters back to reality? How do we deal with the QAnon crisis, this disinformation craze? Just how do we reel people into reality? Because even yesterday I was walking around my block and one of my Trump supporting neighbors, he actually just took down his flag a couple of weeks ago. It was a big victory moment for me to see that.

But I heard him talking to somebody. Obviously they were both not wearing masks at the time. And he was saying, yeah, you know why the COVID numbers are so high here in LA? It's because they get $12,000 for every COVID death. Of course they get 12,000. And I'm like, where do they get these things from? Like, how do we solve this? Cause how can we move forward and talk about real policy if they're living in an alternate universe? Yeah. That, that is something that we need to grapple with now.

It's going to take a long time. But I look at his supporters as belonging to three different groups. There's the 22 to 28 percent of them who always exist. They've been around forever. They'll be around forever. But one of the points of liberal democracy is to contain them. Unfortunately, because they were represented by 100 percent of the federal government for two years, their ideas and their ideologies, such as they are, have metastasized. So then you have the people who are just your knee jerk Republicans.

They don't pay that much attention. They're low information voters. I'm a Republican. I've always been a Republican. We need to divide the government because they don't pay that much attention they're low information voters I'm a Republican I've always been a Republican we need to divide the government because they don't even know what that means and they don't understand it doesn't work anymore and that's it like they don't even think about it I'm not worried about those people because as soon as Biden comes in they're going to say he's my president I didn't vote for him but that's the way it works and then Biden is going to start doing stuff that's going to help people. And that's going to lower the temperature. It's the people in the middle I think we need to worry about, the people with authoritarian personalities, the people who are susceptible to things like QAnon and OANN and Newsmax. Discover the magic of Bad MGM Casino, where the excitement is always on

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So we need serious regulation. The FCC has to start actually doing something, whether it's another version of the Fairness Doctrine or whatever, and they need to do the same thing with companies like Facebook and Twitter, etc., because I don't know if it's the main reason, but one of the biggest reasons we're in this mess is because these things have been unregulated and people have just had the stuff shoved down their throats or put directly into their veins for years now. It just seems like a hole that once you kind of start interacting with content like that, you just get sucked in via the algorithms on YouTube or Twitter or Facebook. And next thing you know, you start following people who are kind of

borderline and then it gets a little worse and then it gets a little worse. And sure enough, you're just in it. And I feel like the irony of it is a lot of these people who kind of get sucked into the QAnon and things like that are people who are downtrodden in life in some way. And it could be financial, but it could also be that they're outcasts from their families, that they, you know, lost the job. They had a failure, there was a death in their family. They're filling some void with this. And they kind of get sucked into this notion that, oh, like there's this external force out there.

We don't have to worry about it. There is a plan. Trump knows all, you know, let's put all of our faith in this. And then they just keep moving the goalposts nonstop. And they so villainize the other side, Joe Biden, Democrats, when the irony being that the policies that Joe Biden is planning on implementing will probably help the vast majority of these people more than anybody. So I think one of the ways that we could, you know, start breaking through is exactly what you said is once, once the more. Once the less hardline people start kind of getting a sense that, oh, there are things being implemented that are helping my life,

maybe they'll break out of it, maybe not. I think we have a long road to go, but we need to definitely take people back to reality. And Mary, what do you think in terms of the doing stuff? Look, any stuff is better than what we've had where there was no stuff. You know, the Donald Trump. I'm taking many meetings and doing many phone calls. That's the daily schedule every day. And that's my Donald Trump impression that people like. That's why we're the number. Mary approved.

Mary approves my Donald Trump impression. I got worried there for a second that Donald had somehow infiltrated. That's what we thought last time that that's possible. So, so what stuff, I won't do the impression anymore. So what stuff are you looking forward to in the incoming Biden administration in the first 100 days? Well, from what, from what I've heard, he's doing a lot of it right away. Like I'm sure he's already prepared the executive orders.

He just needs to sign them. First of all, COVID, COVID, COVID. You know, get the Defense Protection Act going immediately. So we're, you know, continuing to, not continuing, we're starting to create more PPE, fix the vaccine rollout, federal mandates for mask wearing, social distancing. Personally, I think he needs to shut the frigging government down for six weeks and pay people 85% of their salary to stay home. So that'll be huge. But things like getting us back in the Paris Climate Accord, the JCPOA, as far as that's possible. And the reason I'm saying those things is because we need to reestablish our connection to our allies quickly. And I mean, that may not necessarily matter to a lot of people in the country. But I think just having our reputation,

kind of our very bruised reputation, rehabilitated a little bit, will have some ancillary benefits. But in terms of things more direct, fixing the problem at the border, people can't be allowed to think that that's okay. Giving the dreamers citizenship, for example. And again, these things don't affect Donald's base and they obviously support those things, but we need to start modeling behavior that helps them understand that, you know, cruelty is not a governing principle that works. OK, it just destroys us. And I think between those things and holding all of these people accountable and, you know, just to take a step back. One of the main reasons we've gotten to this point is because we've never held people accountable ever in our history. Robert E. Lee was allowed to be rehabilitated. The man who betrayed his country, fought a war against this

country that killed 650,000 Americans, all so that he and other white men could maintain the privilege of torturing and murdering Black people. He was a president of a university. He has universities named after him. He has statues all over the place. That's why. So we need to make it clear that that's not acceptable. None of this is acceptable. If you're an enemy of this country, you are going to be indicted, convicted, and imprisoned for a very, very, very long time. And I think that'll make people set up and take notice. Meanwhile, the economy is going to get better because COVID is going to be handled the way it should have been handled before 400,000 of us died unnecessarily. Sorry. Sorry. I could go on and on.

Mary, has anybody ever done in an interview with any of the shows you've done and you've been incredible? Has anyone ever done a Donald Trump impression in asking the questions to you the way I just did? Never. There we go. Jody, do you want to ask a closing question? Yeah. I started off the beginning of the show telling everyone I ask great questions. Now, Ben's going to if you have one second. Where's the guy who's only person who agrees with me that Donnie's the stupidest one yes okay so that's exactly the question so the question is over the summer we had a great chance to catch up and you told everyone that you thought donnie don jr is is donald trump's

dumbest child now six months later are we still sticking with that answer yeah and the beauty of it is not only is he the stupidest one he's also the one who incited an armed insurrection and may actually go to jail let's hope so let's hope yeah stupidity incubates the evidence which will seal the fate of the rest of your family members that bretticellus wants to destroy. Brett is keen on destroying the Trumps. Mary Trump. Other than you. Not you, Mary. So much.

The other one. The bad one. Mary Trump, appreciate everything you've done for the past four years. Your book was incredible. And all of your insight, you know, has been both great, prescient, spot on. And thanks for supporting Midas Touch. We really appreciate it. Yeah, I love talking to you guys.

I just want to say thank you. You actually brought me out of the deep depression I was in before I got on with you. I love talking to you. I love your work. Keep at it. We have a long road ahead of us. Anytime you need me to help, I'm here.

Thank you so much. We love you, Mary. Stay strong out there. Thanks, guys. Right back at you need me to help, I'm here. Thank you so much. We love you, Mary. Stay strong. Thanks guys. Right back at you. Talk to you soon. Bye. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. I'm really glad that I was able to do that impression for Mary Trump of Donald Trump.

You did the impression, Ben, but you didn't do a breakout. I was hoping for a wrap. You know, you have to sign. You have to like you can't go both impression and we're going to try to destroy the Trumps and a rap all in one. So I just tried my. All right. I just gave my Donald Trump impression to Mary. It changes every time, though. It changes literally. By the way, by the way, Mary remembered my question from last time, not your guys'. So just want to put that out there. We all know that Jordy is the standout star in the Midas Touch brothers.

So moving, though, to a topic that probably doesn't shock me. Parler, the home of insurrection and QAnon and conspiracy theories and fascism and anti-Semitism. They were obviously booted from the Amazon servers. They were booted off of the Apple platform. They were booted off of the Google platform. But would it shock you, Brett, if I told you that they've rebooted servers with the Russian Federation and that they're now just basically full-fledged entity of Russia? Russia, again, what a shock. What a shock, Ben. Russia, if you're listening, give Parler a platform. It just it makes me so just sad and just shocked that, you know, Republicans always talked about Ronald Reagan, who said, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall. All of our policy, you know, and the Republicans line up until Donald Trump was Russia is the biggest enemy that we have. And so to so diametrically change the position and to basically treat America. Remember, Brett, when we had a military expert who basically said the way Trump has run the United States, it's basically been like a principality of Soviet Union, of Soviet Russia.

And it was Malcolm Nance who said that, right? Yeah, it was Malcolm Nance. And we see it with the way that, you know, he treats our allies. All of a sudden, it's like everything was flipped, like America became bizarro America. And everybody who was our friend was no longer our friend. And everybody who was our enemy were now our friends. And people who we used to put pressure on, like Kim Jong-un, for example, were now, oh, he's such a great guy. He writes me beautiful love letters and I love him so much. It's like these are our enemies. These are really bad people. And this administration right now is leaving America so much worse off than any other administration. I mean, weaker, dire situation, weaker, sicker and embarrassment on the international stage. If you want to be tough, you know, and these people on the, you know, who call

themselves Republicans, I don't even use that name anymore. They're fascists, they're terrorists. But these people want to be tough. You know, basically kissing Putin's ass is supposed to be tough. Going to North Korea and bowing to Kim Jong Un, is that supposed to be tough? That makes America just look stupid. And by the way, show me results, like show us the results on paper, too, because right now, North Korea is much more of a threat today than they were four years ago. Right now, Russia is much more of a threat to America today than they were four years ago. The Trump administration has also been in the pocket of China. They've encouraged China to amp up their concentration camps like we are just doing everything wrong. We have it's been an affront to human rights. The things that America has done in these past four years is

nothing but shameful. And I'm excited, though, that we can now have a new president and that we could reenter the world with our allies, with people who are for democracy. and allowing student loan payments to be further deferred and to be stayed. We're trying to figure out how agencies can help reunite children that were forcefully separated by the Trump administration at the border as a means of trying to deter families from coming here that we just straight up, you know, ripped families apart from their parents as the United States and threw children into cages and let them sleep on tinfoil. I mean, that's those were the images of America going around the world. Focusing on wearing masks is going to be a major Biden initiative. Just simply saying it is a significant advancement, getting vaccines out into the public.

I mean, you know, this Trump vaccine distribution, they called it Operation Warp Speed. Obviously, under the Biden administration, they're not going to use the dumb label Warp speed anymore because it was not warp speed at all. And it conjured images of basically rushing things without doing it effectively. And the vaccination, Trump promised what, Brett, 20 to 100 million vaccinations and we're not even 1% there. It's a mess. And they shift the blame to the states. The states shift the blame to the doctors. It's just a whole mess. And it's been the problem since the beginning of covid where you need a federal strategy to handle a catastrophe of enablers who just bent over to every beck and whim of Donald Trump and couldn't stand up to the guy. It's one thing like during the Nixon years, when you had a Republican party who would stand up to criminality, who would stand up to things that were against the American way.

These people just gave in to every single thing. And now they're trying to rehabilitate their images. In practice, what could you possibly do, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, to rehabilitate what you've just done over the last four years? The best example is Lindsey Graham, who the night of the insurrection was like, I tried everybody. I'm done. I'm done with Trump. I'm done. And then like the next day, Trump was golfing and he's like, I'm back. Well, I saw this on the news the other day, and it was actually a good point. He gets yelled at by a few Trump loyalists at the airport, and he just flips back to being a Trumpist works. It's the textbook definition of terrorism. So Lindsey Graham literally kowtowed to terrorists who were threatening him at the airport. And instead of saying this is wrong, this should not happen to me. This should not happen to anybody in American democracy. He said, OK, I'll join you again. All right. I'm back. I'm back, baby.

And we had other, you know, a slew of resignations now happening. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar has resigned. Very courageous of him to say that. I'm being sarcastic, of course. You know, Alex Azar saying that I had enough when I saw the insurrection. So I'm going to resign the last day. Yeah. The most bizarre thing of the resignation is his resignation date is the 20th. That's not resigning that you're leaving on the day that the presidency is up. And then we have the resignation, of course, of General Services Administrator Emily Murphy. Midas Touch made a video about Emily Murphy. Now, if you recall, Emily Murphy was the Trump loyalist who refused to just simply sign her name to the paperwork based on the President Transition Act of 1963. to a budget, access to information from the government, because what you want to avoid

is a disruptive transition where all of a sudden you begin and you don't know what's going on. So it's supposed to allow for a seamless transition. Of course, that was not that did not take place in this case. And so I think it is as she resigns, Brett and Jordi, I think it's worth reflecting on the President Transition Act and whether there needs to be changes so that we could avoid specifically what took place here. to us, an individual who has written about this, Matt Rosengart, former federal prosecutor, who is delved into these issues of the Presidential Transition Act. As a federal prosecutor, a lot of the issues that we're seeing now about whether or not Trump will or will not be prosecuted and his family members will or will not be prosecuted. I want to ask you about that,

Matt. But first off, thank you for joining the Midas Touch podcast. My pleasure, Ben, and thank you for doing the great work that you guys are. Thank you. And, you know, one of the strangest things that we've all, you know, learned who weren't in the weeds of the Presidential Transition Act is just how much power was given to this appointee of Donald Trump from the General Services Administration, Emily Murphy, who wouldn't sign the transition papers, which for a period of time severely hamstringed the ability of the Biden administration's transition process for them to learn things during a global pandemic. And so we at Midas Touch had to make a video.

You may have seen the video. And Brett, if you can play that before we start getting into questions. Meet Emily Murphy, a political hack, a traitor appointed by Donald Trump to lead the General Services Administration, the GSA. What has Emily done? Rooftop sex parties. Emily was A-OK with alcohol ragers and rooftop sex parties at taxpayer expense at her government office. Sedition.

And now Emily Murphy created chaos by unlawfully refusing to sign paperwork to permit a smooth transition to president-elect Biden, placing our lives at risk. Matt, how did we get here? You wrote an article recently in the Daily Journal called Time to Amend the Presidential Transition Act in 1963. How did we get to this place and what can we do? Yeah, Ben, just by way of background, I'm now, as my friends would say, who are still with the Justice Department, sort of on the dark side. I spent about 10 years with the Justice Department as an assistant U.S. attorney and in various positions and am still very much connected to issues that come before DOJ and sort of issues of the day. And one of the things that I think we've all seen, and maybe was the genesis for the good work that you're doing with your brothers, is just how much power any president has and how we can no longer really rely, I think, on norms or good faith or cooperation on the part

of a president during the administration and, as we've seen in the past month or so, tragically, in connection with the transition. And I think there's going to be a need, and I think President-elect Biden is focusing on this, for legislation in various areas. I mean, for example, Ben, we've been counting on good faith of presidents to not, for example, hypothetically, or maybe not, to call foreign leaders and say, we will give you aid if you do this. We've been counting on norms and good faith of incoming administrations not to meet with foreign leaders, in this case, or foreign governments, enemies, including Russia, for example, to obtain dirt on political opponents. In connection with the Transition Act, what we've seen in the

past two months is that since 1963, when the act was passed, incoming administrations generally, again, would act consistently with norms, cooperation, and good faith by, when elections are generally called, absent extraordinary circumstances, pledging cooperation, conceding and pledging cooperation. What I got to thinking about, given all the controversy, is why? Why does the president have so much power? How can a president, why can a president really effectively withhold transition funds? And the answer is really found in a relatively obscure statute, the Presidential Transition Act of 1963. And it gives very, very little guidance and allows a president to effectively withhold transition funds at his whim. Basically, the statute leaves it up to the general service administrators,

arbitrary decision-making under the control of the president to decide whether and when to turn over the money. And there's very little guidance in the Transition Act in regard to when she can act. So the issue really becomes, should there be a trigger? Should the statute be amended to make a transition mandatory? And that comes down to those words, apparent winner. And under the current statute, basically the general services administrator, who in this case is a Trump lackey, gets to determine arbitrarily and capriciously with no other standards really in guidance whether or not the apparent winner language has been triggered. And one of the things that you discuss in the article, though, is moving that authority away from a political appointee

into something, I think, a bit more bipartisan. Is that correct? Right. If you think about it, it's sort of preposterous for a relatively low level official like an Emily Murphy in this case to have 100 percent authority in regard to when to trigger the transition, when to trigger funds. And as President-elect Biden said, it could literally cost lives. So a couple of ideas that come to mind that I think that the incoming administration, and this should really be a bipartisan issue. This is something Congress should consider, I think, on a bipartisan level is, for example, appointing a bipartisan commission, maybe made up of five individuals who serve for a 10-year term, three Democrats,

two Republicans, or vice versa, who determine based upon, let's say, when 90% of the votes are counted, whether the transition funds should in fact be deployed. The point is, it's absolutely preposterous for all of the authority to rest within a political long period of time. And it enables somebody in this case with authoritarian proclivities to really start tampering with systems and making the life of a future president, you know, more difficult. We see just as recently as this week, Trump wanting to appoint a new general counsel for the NSA whose sole job, and it's fairly undisputed, is going to be to try to harm the Biden administration and to try to be a mole, essentially, to continue to give intel to, you know, to Donald Trump. Right. Can we prevent that as part of this amending? Maybe

it's not in the Presidential Transition Act, but do you think the process should be shorter and there should be safeguards that prevent against these final days of kind of tampering and destruction with the future administration? I would definitely add that to the list of much needed legislation. As disastrous as this administration has been, it shines a light on so many problems that we've got, not only in connection with this short two-month transition period, but in regard to President's sitting administration. So yeah, we're now faced with a situation where, to borrow a phrase, deep state, the outgoing administration has implanted somebody beholden to Devin Nunes as part of their deep state, which is rather ironic. So there should

be legislation to address issues like that as well. With regard to this particular example, Ben, my suggestion is rather than asking for permission, ask for forgiveness. And what I mean by that is take action, fire this person, deal with litigation after. Former federal prosecutor, I would be remiss if I didn't pick your brain about where you think the proceedings go from here, both the political proceedings with respect to impeachment now going into the Senate for a hearing on conviction, and also just briefly your thoughts on the criminal proceedings. We know that the U.S. attorney in D.C. is having an investigation. We know there are state investigations in Georgia and in New York. Let's start with the political process, impeachment and now the conviction in the Senate, that trial.

What are you hearing there? And then on the criminal investigations taking place, what are you hearing there? And then on the criminal investigations taking place, what are you hearing there? Well, you know, on impeachment, my thinking candidly has evolved. It's an open question. There's not a lot of precedence, I should say, in regard to whether or not a president who's no longer in office can be impeached. I think there's a moral imperative and a legal imperative to move forward. In terms of the evidence, if I were to look at this as a prosecutor, either in the impeachment realm, which is political, or in the criminal realm, which is not or should not be, there's overwhelming evidence of criminal misconduct here. When I was at the Justice Department, there was an old phrase that still exists,

conspiracy law is the darling of a federal prosecutor. And what's meant by that is the statute is so broad, all one needs to show, all prosecutor needs to show for a conspiracy is two or more people agree to commit a crime. There is no doubt if you look at the evidence that two or more people, including, by the way, the president and all the president's men, agree to commit a criminal act. What those criminal acts are range from sedition to various other federal statutes involving, you know, rioting on governmental property. So, you know, to borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill, I don't think we're in the beginning here or the middle or the end. I think we're at the end of the beginning of this process. And as more video comes out, as more facts come out, we'll see how far this goes. But good prosecutors,

like good impeachment managers, will follow the evidence where it takes them, and it could go all the way to the top. And all the way to the top, meaning you think that there is a legitimate possibility that Trump would be charged. I mean, you believe the evidence is overwhelmingly there. And in a criminal setting, it's kind of a slam dunk case. If you're if you're a if you're a prosecutor on this one, don't you think? We'll see how far it goes. I'm not willing to say to slam dunk against the president. But, you know, there are two types of evidence, as you know, there's direct evidence and there's circumstantial evidence. And it certainly seems that there's plenty of circumstantial

evidence and circumstantial is certainly as good, if not better in some cases than direct evidence. You know, the other thing it brings to mind is we were talking about sort of unwritten rules and norms at the top of this conversation. Robert Mueller was hindered from being as aggressive as he wanted to be. It's now come out by the Justice Department policy of not indicting a sitting president. That's something I think that might be revisited as well. It's not a law, it's a policy. In terms of whether federal prosecutors go after the president, we'll see what happens in regard to the president pardoning himself and whether that's legally effective or not. I think it would not be. But from statements made by the United States attorney in Washington, D.C., and his successor, whomever that might be, it doesn't seem like he's intimidated

by this president or the president's men. And I take him at his word that he's going to follow the evidence. And if you just look at, frankly, the speeches on the mall during the president's rally, there's a lot there, circumstantially and direct. And what investigators are going to do, both in Congress and at the FBI, and they're all over this issue, is looking at chatter, looking at emails, potentially subpoenaing emails. And I think what they will find, without speaking specifically to it, is traffic in regard to conspiratorial conversations leading up to the riots. If people like, without naming names, certain high ranking members of the administration were involved in that, they've got real problems.

Matt Rosengart, thank you for joining the Midas Touch podcast. And let's stay tuned to the beginning of the, what'd you say? How'd you phrase it? End of the beginning. I think we're at the end of the beginning, if I didn't butcher it. But kudos to Churchill for that maxim. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Ben.

It's a great interview with Matt Rosengart. That presidential transition act needs some updating. That's for sure. You don't need any more Emily Murphys. That's for sure. No more rooftop sex parties. No more Emily Murphys. No more rooftop sex parties.

Please. The rooftop sex parties part was just the most wild aspect of it. I mean, she legitimately, though, did look the other way. And this was reported that there were actual sex parties taking place on the rooftop of the building that she was supposed to control. And she turned the other way to it. Who said government was boring, guys? But that video where it does say sex parties? You know, I just remember

when people looked at that, they were like, what the? What's she getting into? Because I think we were one of like the first real people, one of the first real groups to dig that information up and reveal it. And then people were like, what? And then they looked it up and they're like, holy shit, it's a real thing.

Like, stop these sex parties. Emily Murphy and this edition. And this edition to God, just another disgrace. And so, Brett, I read normally this is a time where we would celebrate the achievements of an outgoing administration. We've heard the reports that Trump wants this military sendoff from Andrew Air Force Base as he cowardly leaves and refuses to show up at a peaceful transfer of power at Biden's inauguration for over 150 years. This didn't take place. How more cowardly just can you be, Jordy, than to just refuse to show up at the inauguration? And it's like refusing to shake the hand of the other team. It's just it's exactly that. No, and there's no bigger act of cowardice than what what's being displayed right now.

The fact that he can't the fact that he is not strong enough as a person to admit defeat and come to something that I think every presidency prior to him, maybe except for one has attended. It's it's absolutely ridiculous. I think the QAnon folks, guys, though, need to get their story straight a little bit because they're off on 4chan coming up with all these ridiculous conspiracy theories. And I don't think they're doing it with any sense of irony or sarcasm. I think this is some of the stuff that they're starting to tell themselves. One of one viral moment that's going around is that Joe Biden has been arrested. The deep states in disarray. Trump and Biden have actually swapped faces like the action movie Face Off.

And when you see Biden being sworn in as president, It's actually Trump being sworn in as president. And he has been practicing Biden. So that is that really? Yeah, really going around. This is really going around. They think that is. But, you know, if that's the case, guys, then why are you so upset that why are you so sad that that Biden's going to be president if it's just Trump?

Yeah, yeah. That means Biden's going to Mar-a-Lago. Yeah, so, you know, in that case, you shouldn't be too concerned about what's going on. Trump wants this like military send off because he views himself like a like a dictator. It's going to be the most embarrassing moment ever as he just like waddles like a little penguin to the helicopter to Air Force Two. Wait, hashtag Penguin Trump. Oh, hashtag Penguin Waddley Trump. Trump waddles.

You know, the penguin is probably a good analogy. But before we wrap up the show, though, I really want to bring in Matthew Cook. Matthew is the creator of the viral video, A Wake Up Call for Republicans. But Matt's been cooking up these viral hits now throughout this election cycle. Matt, I went back and saw all the other work in addition to the one I got over, what, five, six million views. I'm sure by the time this airs, it'll be over 10

million views. It's it's climbing like crazy. But all your videos, Matt, are amazing. Is it okay if I call you Matt or Matthew? Am I getting too familiar with you before this podcast begins, Matt? Look, we're all brothers here. It's four brothers. I love it. Welcome to the family. You call me whatever feels right. Matt feels good.

Matt, welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. I want to play the clip just to remind everybody of the video. It's about nine minutes long. We'll just do about 30 seconds of it, and then we'll be right back and talk to you. This is a wake-up call for Republicans. America elected Joe Biden by over 7 million votes, and you're confused because you didn't see us flock to his rallies and cheer his smackdowns like we were at a pro wrestling event during a global pandemic. We don't wear matching hats or have no more malarkey flags waving from the backs of our trucks. Do you know why? Because Biden is not

our tribal warlord. We believe the job of a U.S. president is to represent more than one interest group. That's why 81 million of us turned out. He's not a tribal warlord. You have the Trumpians all apparently look up to this guy like a tribal warlord. And it's why one of the reasons we're in this mess, all the disinfo that's out there. Matt, what inspired you specifically to make that video

and when you made it within the past few days? Well, I mean, I think it's maybe important to just start off by saying, I didn't want, I don't want to make that video. I don't want to talk about this topic. I don't want to, I don't want this to be a conversation that we're having. This is a national health crisis that we're in, where we have millions and millions of people who have been bred and fed on a false identity, that if we're going to really connect it historically, this is something I like to point out as often as I can. This isn't 1700s. This is 1600s. This is Salem witchcraft, mass hysteria, fear that's based on paranoia. And it's paranoia that is driven so deeply and whipped up into such a frenzy by right-wing media

deliberately and opportunistically that people have a persecution complex and they literally think their life is in danger. Now, you know, there's certainly an argument to be made that there's a willingness, you know, to be victimized to that extent so that you have an excuse, a reason to evade responsibility. But also I think we have to look at, you know, the culture that we live in, that we all participate in to a certain extent, that as human beings, we're drawn toward conflict. And sometimes we need to take a step back and remember the bigger picture and remember that a lot of the issues that we talk about today, Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King, to think about him right now at this time and to think about his legacy and

what he was fighting for and how that connects to Black Lives Matter and the idea that Black Lives Matter would be a partisan movement, as opposed to the biggest human rights movement in history, and not just exclusively a movement that exists right now in time, but that has been going on again since the early 1600s, since the first 20 human beings were brought over as forced labor,

and that that ongoing human rights struggle has continued up until this day in various forms. So the genesis of that video is I'm an American citizen. I live in this country. I'm not a native to this country, but I'm a native to this world. And if I'm walking down the street, it doesn't matter where I am. And I see a house on a fire, then I want to go either run into the house or get somebody who knows how to put out that fire. So this is just common decency. So I'm just a person. I'm not a

political commentator. I've done that work a bit. You know, I've kind of brought into that role. It's an uncomfortable role for me because I don't really consider myself that. I'm just a person. I'm just a citizen of the country who needed to say some things because I felt like we've been so inundated by, of course, not only the gaslighting, the massive gaslighting that takes every word, every word that we have in the English language has been turned around, twisted upside down and inside out until it stabbed itself in the back. All the meanings lost, distorted, even words like democracy.

How, how can the phrase black Lives Matter be? There's nothing to discuss. I think, Matthew, one of the most powerful quotes that I saw today in regards to that was from Rex Chapman. And he basically said, if you refuse to say the words Black Lives Matter, I don't want to see you having an MLK quote on your Facebook page. And that resonated a lot with me. And I think from, you know, what you were saying was you kind of not being a political person per se, but just putting yourself out there with your thoughts, what you were seeing. I think that's why the video resonated with so many people because you were really, I mean, the video is just so incredible because it's black and white. You're on a black backdrop. Basically,

you're just, you know, everyone is just forced to stare into your black and white. You're on a black backdrop. Basically you're just, you know, everyone is just forced to stare into your eyes and listen to your words. There's no other distractions and you just lay it out so clearly when you were doing that, who, who, I know you were talking to Republicans at large, but do you have anybody in your life who needs to hear that message? Did you kind of have anybody specifically who you were thinking of, or were you kind of just doing this to kind of generally a message to kind of everybody who's been under this sway of this information? I'm not a sociopath. So I consider every human being my brother and sister. So I'm talking to my family. I'm talking to my family, whether they're in my family, or they're my neighbor, or they're my neighbor or they're my country folk or they're my global sister or brother. We got to, you say, hey, you're destroying your life. And because I love you and because I'm in your life, you're

destroying my life too. And that's what this is. This is an abusive relationship. So I just, I'm just talking to my family. And also just, you know, our white brothers and sisters who are so complicit and have been so complicit. And this isn't just the Republican Party. This is the majority of white America. You know, that's a way we have to look at this as well. You know, and the complicity of the so-called moderate, you know, which needs to be brought up whenever we're thinking about Martin Luther King,

which should be all the time, the greatest human rights leader in our country, modern history, is the complicity of the moderate, the so-called moderate. Again, you know, this is one of these cases where a word has been flipped upside down. It's not moderate to fight a revolutionary war for independence and not include the people who are in forced labor camps or the guys who don't own land or women. One of the things we say around here too, is if you're silent, you're complicit. So thank you for speaking up and doing everything that you do. What do you think the best thing to

do is really break through the clutter and break through this whole disinformation age that we're in, the OANs, the Newsmax. How do you think we combat that? Well, I think we give it no quarter. I mean, I think that there's an attraction, there's both an attraction and a kind of a hypnosis that takes place when we engage. And we have to be very, very, very careful the way we engage, why we engage, and the purpose of that engagement. Because it's easy to engage for profit. It's easy to engage for entertainment purposes only. And I think that completely destroys both our power, our legitimacy, and our righteous

power. So when we engage, it needs to be, you know, strike first, no mercy with love. You know, the ultimate combo of all the karate dojos that we've been all studying so diligently. But really, that we're very clear, that we don't give that it is, it's that we're very clear that we don't give an inch to fascism, that we're clear about what first amendment rights mean. They mean the government can't arrest us for expressing ourselves and throw us in a dungeon and torture us for our political beliefs. It doesn't mean you can libel and slander and incite violence.

And it certainly doesn't give you the right, as I said in the piece, to demand and force media platforms, whether they're public or private, to broadcast hate propaganda that leads to not only violent insurrection, but mass hysteria based on a lie propagated for selfishness. So how do we deal with it? We give it no quarter. We enforce the laws that exist. We throw out any congressperson. We go after any media outlet or platform that knowingly and deliberately is giving safe passage to terrorist threats. We do all the things that this movement pretends to be about. We actually do it. And I think everyone at this point knows somebody who's been sucked into the hysteria in some way. And so I think it was very cathartic to see you lay it out like that. And for people to have, even if they're not showing the video directly, they could go armed with a line to sort of find common ground and help kind of bring somebody back to earth a little bit. So that was really the intention.

And that was the intention I had going into it was made this free people who have the capacity and interest and willingness to be free of it. Because it really is like being, it's like a possession, it's a mental possession, emotional, psychological. And then for those who are free of it and who are feeling at all worried or unclear as happens in an abusive relationship you

know you wonder well maybe there maybe i maybe i can be better or i should find a way to kind of unify with this or work with it or give it a little, you know, and I think that's our natural instinct when you're not, when you're not a psychopath, your instinct is to empathize and to find common ground and to compromise. And in this case, that's not the tool that we need. And so the intent was to fortify people and,

and share my experience, strength and hope with everybody. Matt, what comes next from you? You doing any more videos that you got planned in the next week or so? Well, my stand-up comedy tour, obviously, is going to be one of my videos. I have a piece that I'm working on now about the gaslighting and just making sure that we remind ourselves, don't use the language of the gaslighting and just making sure that we remind ourselves, don't use the language of the gaslighter. There's so many instances in which something's called partisan politics for a way.

What are you talking about? That phrase is just used to kind of instantly discredit somebody under the premise that they are a tribal supremacist, that it's kind of sociopathic, whatever they're doing, it's for them and it doesn't pertain to all of humanity. Well, that's a case of like really seeing the world as you are. Right. If you call it, hey, that's just partisan politics. What world do you live in? Because I'm I want to eradicate poverty. Yeah. That's even, Matt, when, like, I don't use the term conservative anymore because they're not a conservative party. So when you go, this right-wing conservative, Matt Gaetz, okay, Matt Gaetz is a freaking terrorist, anarchist, conspiracy theorist. Don't give them that name, conservative, you know, and I've been referring more to, I used to say progressive, liberal, but that plays to me into dichotomies that don't exist. To me, it's right now, you're pro-democracy, and we could refine pro-democracy

and make it better, or you're authoritarian, you're anarchists, you're fascist, you're QAnon. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's levels of granularity within a pro-democracy movement, and there needs to be distinctions, but even treating them as a political party, the, you know, Republicans, to be a political party, you have to exist within a democracy and they just don't do that. Yeah. I mean, and we're really talking about, you know, what are, what are democratic values about? Well, democracy means people rule, but what does people rule mean? It means human values. It means human values versus materialism. It means caring about making sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to fulfill their potential

for themselves and also for us. Because when we crush a group of people or we crush a person, that's not only a horrific thing to do ethically for them and their family and their immediate community, but it reverberates. We are a species that's dependent upon each other. We're interdependent. That's a healthy thing. It's not something to be gaslit and to believe that multiculturalism is some sort of tolerance. It's sustainable. It's what allows us to really thrive is by, you know, learning from each other in that way. So we're really talking about an ideology of survival and of sustaining ourselves and of having a human society, having organized life in the next hundred years or self-destructing, you know, and these, this is, it really is kind of, kind of common sense. And what I hate about the conversation is that it takes away from what are the plans

that exist? Jeffrey Sachs has this $175 billion a year over 20 years. We can eradicate global poverty. Global poverty. That's less than 1% of the combined incomes of all the wealthy countries in the world per year. It's less than 25% of our military budget per year. That's a great conversation. What does reparations look like? That's an interesting conversation. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about all the plans. How are we going to do that? How do we mobilize that? How do we make repairs on the damage that's intrinsically intertwined with the systems that we have for the descendants of Native Holocaust and the descendants of slavery? How do we do that? What does that look like? Let's give airtime to that instead of giving airtime to gaslighters. Just prosecute them.

Matt Cook, thank you so much for joining the Midas Touch podcast. When you do the new video, please send it our way. We'll be sure to amplify it through our channels. We love the work that you're doing. You can follow Matt at the Matthew Cook, C-O-O-K-E. That's on Twitter and Instagram, at Matthew Cook Official. Check him out there. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. Thank you for your incredible work and look forward to having you back on the show in the future.

My pleasure. You guys are great. Thank you, Matt. Dude, Matt Cook was one and he was awesome to interview, but I mean, those videos are really, really good. I mean, he's very talented. I feel like he just, you know, he stares into your soul with those eyes, Ben. He just stares right through you and could speak to you on a level and just to speak with him. I wanted to ask him.

I wanted to ask him, damn, I wanted to ask him if he scripted that out because that's nine minutes. And based on the interview, I think he just, that's just his stream of consciousness. Just like really just on it. I'm sure he scripted it out, but even if something is scripted out it's still impressive as hell to get through nine minutes without stuttering without missing a beat and skipping a word and to make every single word count even i couldn't even just get through the sentence i just said doing that but this guy was able to do nine minutes on it and was able to do it powerfully. And that's why I think, you know, everybody was was so rocked by it. Well, he well, we he crushed.

I thought this show was great today. I mean, from having Mary Trump to Matt Rosengart to Matt Cook, three incredible perspectives. What I am most excited about, though, is that the next time we speak, the next time we have our podcast, Joe Biden will be not the president elect, but the president of the United States of America. Remember our victories. We won the presidency. We won the House. We won the Senate. Senate, and we appreciate your support of our podcast as we turn our eyes on the seditious caucus and the Republicans who tried to enable a dictator but ultimately failed, and we need to hold them accountable. Thank you so much for listening to the Midas Touch podcast. Give us a five-star review. Tell your friends about this podcast.

And we will see you at the end of the week. This has been the Midas Touch podcast. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.