The MeidasTouch Podcast - Wisconsin Democratic Chair Ben Wikler REVEALS Secret to MASSIVE Wins over Republicans

Episode Date: May 10, 2022

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, we sit down with the Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Ben Wikler! Wikler is a mastermind of Democratic messaging with a proven track record and his insights are something all candidates (and Democrats at large) can learn from! In addition to this conversation, the brothers discuss the fallout from the Supreme Court vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, Clarence Thomas’s claims that he’s being “bullied,” new evidence that proves DeSantis’s justification to ban math textbooks was a lie, the bombshell report from Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper that former President Donald Trump inquired about shooting protesters and more! If you enjoyed today’s show please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! As always, thank YOU for listening. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: Buck Mason: https://buckmason.com/meidas Check out our friends' podcasts! The Mary Trump Show: https://youtube.com/politicon/  The Daily Beans: https://www.dailybeanspod.com/ Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why do fintechs like Float choose Visa? As a more trusted, more secure payments network, Visa provides scale, expertise, and innovative payment solutions. Learn more at visa.ca slash fintech. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner. This is the end of Bad MGM Casino, where the excitement is always on deck.

Pull up a seat and check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer. From roulette to blackjack, watch as a dealer hosts your table game and live chat with them throughout your experience to feel like you're actually at the casino. The excitement doesn't stop there. With over 3,000 games to choose from,

including fan favorites like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz, and more, make deposits instantly to jump in on the fun and make same-day withdrawals if you win. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. You don't want to miss out. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. The fallout from the draft Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

Republicans now banning contraception, IUDs, birth control, and passing laws to prosecute women for murder. And Clarence Thomas says, please stop bullying us at the Supreme Court. Defense Secretary Esper slams Trump in a new book for Trump wanting to shoot protesters. And Governor DeSantis' ban on math textbooks is exposed as a completely idiotic and racist PR stunt, what we all expected. And we are joined by Ben Wickler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. We have a information-filled episode of the Midas Touch podcast. Ben, Brett, and Jordy joining you live right now on YouTube, joining you on audio for audio podcast listeners.

Brett and Jordy, how are you doing this week? Ben, doing good. It's good to see you. Good to be back with the brothers. I know times are tough. I know we've certainly got a lot going against us right now, but we also got a lot going for us. We got a great, mighty community. I've never seen so many people fired up and not just on the Democratic side. I see just pro-democracy people of all kinds just firing up right now and really pissed off and rightfully so at what the Republicans are doing. But that's it. I hope everybody had a good weekend. Happy Mother's Day to all the Midas moms out there. Just want to send all of our love to everybody out there. Jordy, how's it going with you? Happy Mother's Day to

all the Midas moms out there. We love you guys. Thank you so much for tuning in week in and week out. You guys really are the engine that keeps this show going. I just want to make that clear and a shout out to our mom. Happy Mother's Day to you too, mama there. Love you, mom. Happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day. Love you.

And let's talk, though, about the attack on women, the attack on childbearing persons by the Republican Party, and the fallout from the circulation of this draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. We're starting to see legislation working its way through Republican legislatures of what their intent is. And their intent is to arrest and prosecute women. Let's just be very blunt what it is. And so in Louisiana, for example, we see legislation working its way through their legislature right now, which would define the abortion as anything that takes place immediately after fertilization. And then it would also take out the word implantation, thus saying that any ectopic pregnancy would have to be taken to term, even if that means that the mother would die as a result of the ectopic pregnancy. And so they literally crossed out the word in defining abortion. They crossed out the word in the

legislation and implantation. So even fertilization that does not have implantation. That's how aggressively they are making this definition. And the prosecution, again, would be for murder and homicide. We see Missouri will be automatically banning Plan B if Roe is overturned. We see in Arizona, their GOP Senate candidate is calling for the ban on contraception. You know, and that's that's where they're all going right now as well. These Republicans banning contraception. Louisiana, which I also just mentioned, is also voting to make the use of intrauterine devices a crime and a crime that would be prosecuted by the government for murder if you got an intrauterine device. So that's where it's going. And you have GOP senators like Marsha Blackburn, who are coming out against the case, the Griswold Supreme Court case, which legalized

contraception. You have senators like Cornyn in Texas who are now rallying and they have been, but they're more vocal about it now. Obergefell, which legalized gay marriage. And you have radical extreme views like that that are coming out. And that's what they want to pass. At the same time, you have Mitch McConnell, who's saying that if the Republicans take control of the Senate and the House, that he wants to see passed a national federal legislation that mirrors the state legislations where the government would prosecute women for murder, for having an abortion and availing themselves of reproductive care. And so when people are saying, well, I live in California, so I'll be okay. Or I live in New York, I'll be okay. Or I live in a state where the right to choose will be allowed in law. Well, the United States Constitution has what's called the supremacy clause. And so ultimately, if there were to be a federal law, for example, codifying Roe v. Wade, that would be the law of the land and that would supersede state law. Similarly, if there was a federal law that banned abortion on a nationwide basis, any of those state laws would not take place and abortion would be banned throughout the entire United States of America. And I wrote this in a tweet I sent the other day. I said, don't think for a second that Mitch

McConnell is not going to come out with a carve out for the filibuster to get that passed. That is the first thing Republicans are going to do when they change control. They are absolutely going to find a carve out to the filibuster and have a nationwide ban the same way they did with Supreme Court justices. That's exactly what they're going to do. And by the way, right now, we're lucky that we have President Biden in office who could veto legislation like that should it get to that point. But that's why 2024 is going to be so important also, because if Republicans get a Republican president in there, guess what?

That's going to become the law of the land. And what we're seeing is sort of a version of mission creep on this issue where Republicans have fought for decades and decades and decades to get this done. And guess what? If the Supreme Court goes ahead and overturns Roe v. Wade, they will not stop there. Why? Because Republicans need to motivate their base. Republicans need to keep their base riled up. So they're going to keep pushing more and more extreme and they're going to keep going because they need to throw their base some more red meat. So that's why you're going to start seeing these bans, these national bans. That's where you're going to start seeing these bans on contraception. That's where you're going to see

same-sex marriage become an issue. That's why we saw, whether it was a joke or not, we saw the far right radio host, Eric Erickson, throw out the concept of abolishing the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote. I don't find that very funny. If it was a joke, I don't even think he was joking. But the terms that he was using, I think, shows you everything that they actually believe about women. He said that women were being hysterical in their response. That is, for centuries and centuries, calling women hysterical has been a way to put them down and to silence them. I think it tells you everything. They are telling you what they are going to do. And when people tell you who they are, you need to listen and you need to take it seriously. And I hope all the people for all these years who have told you the worst that

could happen with Trump and with Republicans and people wrote it off as that can never happen in this country. I hope you put all those voices away. I hope you silence all those voices and understand that everything that we are saying and everything that they are telling you they are going to do, they are going to try to do, which is why we need to remain on guard, which is why we need to go on the offensive. And here's the thing. The Republican Party knows that this position is extremely unpopular. Around 70% of people want to see Roe v. Wade stay the law of the land in this country. And so what Republicans did is the National Republican Senate Committee, they put out this document that listed what Republicans should say. It's a list of talking points about how to speak about abortion.

And this is the way they describe it. They say, be the compassionate consensus builder on abortion policy. They try to position themselves here as the sort of moderate, compassionate ones, expose the Democrats for the extreme views they hold. So they're going to try to call Democrats extremists on this issue. They're going to focus on late-term abortions. They're going to focus on taxpayers paying for abortions. All this stuff, by the way, is not even stuff that is happening. They say forcefully refute Democrat lies regarding GOP positions on abortion, such as saying Republicans do not want to take away contraception, do not want to take away other health care, do not want to throw doctors and women in jail. That's what their talking points say. However, the laws that they are literally already trying to pass in states around the country run counter to this. And guess what? You could see this as all projection, right?

Everything that they say that they're not going to do, they are going to do. So they say Republicans do not want to take away contraception. Guess what? They do want to take away contraception. So extreme to the point where that Arizona lawmaker wants to ban condoms. That's how sick and twisted these people are. That is not a popular or tenable position in the United States of America. That is straight handmaid's tale, Gilead shit. Republicans do not want to throw doctors and women in jail. They've already passed laws that would do this. They've

already tried to arrest a woman in Texas for murder and throw her in jail, despite that even being a civil crime in the state of Texas. These things are already happening. They want to put Fauci on trial. They want to put Fauci on trial. The Republican position here is as extreme as it gets. As we have said on every single show ad nauseum, the Republicans are radical far-right extremists. And it's time that everybody begins to call them that, including the media, who I still see say, oh, the conservative party, the conservative party position is X, Y, and Z. No, there's nothing conservative about these people. I know we say this every single time. These are radical right extremists. This is a fascist movement and it's time that we all start calling it that. And so who is the Republican base? The Republican base is the

weirdo Eric Erickson's. It is the people at Disney wearing the Nazi regalia, covering the Disney sign with the Santa's land. The people who are standing on the church talking, no screaming at the protesters saying, ha ha ha, your choice, your body is my choice now. This is a disgusting, disturbed party. So Jordi, let me just touch briefly on the example that you gave of the DeSantis Nazis with the swastikas in front of Disney. Notice they were wearing masks. So apparently it's okay for them to wear masks in front of Disney with swastikas, but they can't wear a mask to prevent the spread of a global pandemic. So let me just put that number one. Number two, and I wrote this in a tweet as well, the Republican response also to this draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade circulating and the horrors this is going to do to women.

The Republican response, like the typical abuser, is for Republicans to say that they are the victims. That was the number one thing that they've come out and say, and that's been a consistent talking point. And I don't even think they coordinate that talking point. I just think reflexive to their weak and disgusting ideology is this reflexive approach of we are the victim. So where do we see this? Well, we have Clarence Thomas, the most radical and extremist of the radical extremist right on the Supreme Court, whose wife is literally an insurrectionist who references him in text messages about the insurrection. related cases, when his wife was talking to the White House chief of staff, encouraging the insurrection, and his wife was in a cult when they met and was now the leader of all of the cultiest cult behavior of all of the MAGA stuff. Justice Clarence Thomas said, we feel that we are being bullied at the Supreme Court by what? By peacefully protesting and saying that this is horrific, what your ruling is,

that you feel bullied at the Supreme Court. Then you have a slew of Republican legislatures. All of the legislators, all of the protests that I've seen have been peaceful, have been loud, but peaceful protests. And those are peaceful protests in front of the Supreme Court. Those are peaceful protests on the streets of the city. Those are peaceful protests I've seen in front of the houses of Supreme Court justices organized by the neighbors. Which I think is an important point there. Organized by the neighbors who live in the block next to the Supreme Court justice, organized it.

But all of those have been peaceful. And the language, the gaslighting of the radical right extremists is, you are leading an insurrection against us. So let's not actually look at the real insurrection where people stormed into the Capitol building to try to kill lawmakers and obstruct the counting of electoral votes. I believe you're referring to a legitimate political discourse there, Ben. They call that legitimate political discourse. But the peaceful protests that are happening right now, the Republican legislatures in

typical gaslighting fashion are calling that an insurrection. You know what's bothering me, Ben, though? You're just saying Republican legislators. I mean, we had Ted Cruz called the protests in front of the Supreme Court mob violence. Well, I mean, first, let's go there for a second. Like you said, all these protests have been incredibly peaceful. And once the peaceful protesters showed up at the Supreme Court, they built a barrier around the Supreme Court to push people back, which then pushed the protesters into different areas.

So don't complain that the protesters aren't right there and that they're in a different area if you literally block them away from protesting in front of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court also a few years ago struck down the buffer zones at abortion clinics, which would have prevented the right wing protesters who were literally harassing and killing abortion activists and abortion providers. There was a 35 foot buffer set up. The Supreme Court struck that down, saying that they couldn't have that 35 foot buffer. And this whole case is striking down the right to privacy. So I'm really right now not too striking down the right to privacy. So I'm really

right now not too concerned about the right to privacy of these judges as they try to strip away these rights of American citizens. And I think one of the annoying things here is that I'm seeing not only people on the right, but people on the left also pick up these Republican talking points, which just happens so frequently. I saw there was a reporter. He was either from like the Daily Caller or the Daily Signal, the Daily whatever, some right-wing publication. And he posted a video of the protesters outside, I believe it was outside Kavanaugh's house on the block. And these protesters were holding candles. They were chanting things like, we will not go back. We will not go back. It was very peaceful, a very ordinary, peaceful assembly when you actually watch the footage.

But the way the tweet was framed was something to the effect of the tension here is rising as these protesters become angry and more violent. And then the people who I saw sharing that message, retweeting it, and then quote tweeting things like violence is never the answer. Violence is never the option here. We should never be getting aggressive like this. You are taking the Republican framing. You are taking the framing of a bad actor who writes for the Daily Signal or Daily Caller. You are amplifying that, and then you are legitimizing it by calling it violent and calling it bad behavior. When you look at the footage itself,

it was nothing of the sort. You think right into their playbook, you're playing right into their hands at this point. And the only people that I have seen criticize these protesters, they have universally been white men, often former Republicans, kind of never Trump Republicans and things like that. And I just want to say to everybody out there, before you reflexively start going after these protesters who are fearing for their lives, who are having a constitutional right stripped away from them, before you start criticizing those people for the way that they are expressing their voice, sit back and listen. Sometimes you just got to sit back. You need to listen. You need to hear what people are saying, especially the people who are being affected the most by these issues.

Sit back, listen to women, believe them, trust them. They are having their constitutional rights being stripped away, and it's not just going to affect them. It's going to affect all of us. Here's what I think these newscasters, though, and these interviewers should do on these Sunday shows, because I don't think that they are asking the right questions. Brett, pull up this photograph, though, that you posted of Tate Reeves. You pulled it up? Yeah. There's good old Tate.

Now, there's good old Tate Reeves, right? So Tate Reeves is the governor of Mississippi. I think the question that should always be asked to someone like Tate Reeves is, Tate, you believe that you should be the one to make the decision about women's reproductive health. You believe it's you. Just to be clear, you're the one who makes that call. Not her, not her self, not through her conversations with her doctor and her faith, you know, and, and her own, and her own process. You make that call and then just watch what he says, because, right. Cause you know what he'll say, he'll go, well,

it's the, it's actually the, no, no, you're the government, buddy. You're the one who makes that call over her reproductive health and you're the one who's going to charge her for murder. Just that's what you're doing. So just call it out what it is and stop being afraid of the debate and engage with these people on what the real issue is. They want, Tate Reeves wants to arrest women for availing themselves of their constitutional rights. That's what they want to do. He wants power over women's bodies. That's what he wants. And that's what they have to be called out for, you know, on the spot every second. And you can't be unequivocal. You have to be called out for, you know, on the spot every second. And you can't be you can't be unequivocal.

You have to be unequivocal. You can't equivocate as Democrats about that. I want to go also and talk about before bringing in our guests. We got to talk about this, this this what's going on in Florida with the math textbooks, this thread by Judd Lagume, and Judd does great work with his public records requests. And he really kind of drills down, I think, into a lot of issues, particularly with corporate finance of politicians. And he's been especially great with the way that companies have been funding the politicians who

are responsible for the insurrection and exposing all the companies who have went back on their promises, saying that they were not going to contribute to people involved in the insurrection, and then quietly started donating money in the past few months. He always calls those companies out. He's doing incredible work. Yeah, so shout out to Judd on all the great work that he's doing. But for those who don't really remember what this story is, so Governor DeSantis banned textbooks or a whole series of math textbooks in addition to

other educational topic textbooks, because he said that the textbooks promoted critical race theory. We've highlighted the issue on previous Midas Touch. One, how are math textbooks anyway related to critical race theory? We also highlighted on the show that there was some relationship between textbook companies that would give donations to DeSantis. And so there was that aspect in there. But here's the thing that Judd has helped exposed on this. So first off, I didn't realize this. This is extra horrifying that they actually have in Florida a CRT education committee. And it's a group of about 16 individuals who review textbooks to try to locate CRT to then eradicate the textbooks of CRT. No one's really talked about that aspect because what is talked about in Judd's Twitter thread that highlights these issues and in his article is that of the 16 CRT

reviewers, there was only like one individual who like has the most radical extremist background. It's an individual who's a member of Moms for Liberty, which is agenda, is to ban biographies of Martin Luther King Jr. That's like their main goal is to ban Martin. So this person is on the CRT committee. So then there's the fact that there is a CRT committee that looks through each page of a textbook with a magnifying glass essentially and goes, no CRT, no CRT, possible CRT. And then they prepare reports that go to DeSantis to determine if it has CRT or doesn't have CRT. And if it does, he sends the books back to the publisher to remove the CRT. So what the fuck is going on? This is a horrifying thing that's going on there that they've now basically used, which we always knew from the outset that CRT was just a code word for promoting diversity because actual critical race theory is a concept that's taught in grad school as like a very

highly specialized area in certain areas of law that looks through things through a critical lens. CRT has never been taught ever in any school, public school, high school. So CRT is just code word for, we need to see if there there's diversity and promoting equality in textbooks. And so the CRT committee, only this one person who wants to ban MLK Jr. books, literally, it just seems like she generically writes to everything like racist. This has racist themes. No one else saw that. But on that basis alone, they banned the math textbooks. Yeah. Well, I think it comes back to something that we said on the show probably like two years ago at this point, which is that Republicans were okay with democracy as long as it supported

white supremacy. As long as they were in power and were going to stay in power, democracy was okay. But once the balance of power shifted and all of a sudden other people were getting a voice, that democracy became a problem. And so now at every step of the way, they are trying to get rid of democracy. And this attack on CRT is an example of that. If you could clear out education, if you could clear out the public education system of books that reference race, of books that promote diversity, books that promote equality, if that's your main attack, that's why DeSantis doesn't say anything when people hold Nazi flags with his name next to it. That's his base. Those are the people that he is appealing to. And that's why I think this fascism

that is going across America right now is so dangerous. And we see Florida as sort of ground zero for this brand of fascism that is spreading very quickly through all of our cities, through all of our states. And that's why we really need to be vigilant. We really need to stay on guard because this thing's real. Like we're in it right now. Like this, and here's the thing, Brett, in the future, this is going to happen. You talked, Brett, what was the word that you used? I never heard it, but like, I wanted to like add it's the thing, Brett, that you talked about. You talked, Brett, what was the word that you used? I never heard it, but I wanted to add it to the phrase, like mission. Mission creep?

Yeah, mission creep. This is such an example of mission creep, though, right here. Just look at what the Orlando Sentinel's headline is. Only one reviewer complained of critical race theory in Florida math. It's the perfect example of mission creep because what the Sentinel didn't realize it did. And what a lot of people don't really realize that they're doing when they read this is they've almost accepted the idea of the reviewers. It's like we've accepted now that there is a CRT review panel that is analyzing books for CRT. And now the headline is, well, well, well, only one CRT reviewer found it, which is extreme.

But how are we even accepting of the fact that there is a made up CRT panel that's a racist body that's looking with a magnifying glass to determine if black and brown people are depicted in math books and if they are to send it back to the publisher to get rid of it. That's what's not being talked about. Yeah. It's sort of like we need another term for that specifically, like mission creep breeds like journalistic creep or something. I don't know what the term is, but the idea that the normalization of these tactics all of a sudden then goes into the media and it gets regurgitated out in headlines and in articles as something that's normal.

That's how these things are normalized. Like all of a sudden, it's not about, isn't it crazy that this whole department exists and that we have this psycho on the board who is making decisions about our kids' education? No, that part becomes normal. And it's just about, oh, this person did X, Y, and Z, and it becomes this both sides issue. And I think that's a lot to blame actually for where we are right now. I think the entire Trump administration, the entire, please, the entire last decade plus has been a masterclass in this journalistic creep towards fascism, where you just accept craziness as normal and report it out as if it's another side of the same coin when we are so far beyond that.

And then what you'll have, and then what you'll have, you'll have people on the left then just debating the book, debating that specific textbook, not regarding at all the CR, this made up weird CRT committee, this one lunatic, but people on the left would be like, well, actually that book, I could understand. No, no. Everyone take a step back and just understand how crazy this really is. And it doesn't just start with CRT, but I want to go back to what you said. For the longest time, I mean, it's unfortunate, but the Republicans have been smart about how evil they really are. They've been playing the long game here. And it really all stems from just horrible, horrible gerrymandering.

They've just, sorry, go ahead, Beth. I don't mean to interrupt you. Go finish your thought. No, no, no, please. Please interrupt. No, no, no, because you're going to then just say that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Stays in the pot. Interrupt me. Come on. Well, here's what I was going to say. This is why you're wrong, Jordy.

Yeah, Ben is going to say, here's why I disagree with you, Jordy. I don't disagree with you, Jordy. despotism, anti-democracy, both now presently and historically, is the norm internationally. Why America was this shining beacon example was that we were radically pro-democracy. That was a radical concept that we could actually embrace and accept a democratic system of checks and balances that exist. So if you look historically, you always had dictators, you always had fascism, you always had strong people, you always had fake propaganda. That's been the historical norm. And it's when we've let down our guard as a country that you do have the fascism kind of creeping back in and the fragility of this

American experience. That's what we're fighting for right now is that it really is on the line. But we could say, hey, we give the GOP credit. We give all these people credit for what they've done in the propaganda, not actually giving them credit in terms of the propaganda. But it's really easy to lie every single day. It's really easy to be a horrible human being. It's easy to play to people's worst. But what made America great is that we always brought out people's best. And that is where, when we were talking about bipartisanship, that's what set us apart. And then to Brett's point, you have the Republicans just saying, you know what? The demographics have shifted.

And because the demographics of this country have shifted, we just can't support that experiment anymore. We're done. But they're too chicken shit to say that out loud. So they go and they pretend and they gaslight and they do all of those things. And then some of them aren't even too afraid to say it out loud. Now they're actually starting to just be very blatant about it, including this guy, Ryan Kelly. He is running for Michigan governor. He tried to make the argument that democracy is actually the gateway to socialism and communism, which is why we cannot allow democracy in America. This is a legitimate comment he made during a rally. Maybe we should just play it because I'm not making up things here. This is literally what he said. You talk about Marxism and communism in relation to socialism.

It starts with democracy. That's the ticket for the left. They want to push this idea of democracy, which turns into socialism, which turns into communism in every instance. Yeah, that's that's un-freaking-believable, Brett. But that is the new norm of the GOP. I want to talk to Ben Wickler. There's probably no one better to talk to right now than Wickler, who's the chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, about how Democrats can win in states like Wisconsin. We've been providing the roadmap here on the Midas Touch podcast, I think, as we've had the interviews with Karen Berg from Kentucky, as we've had the interviews with Gloria Johnson from Tennessee, as we had the interviews with McMurrow, Mallory

McMurrow from Michigan, as we've had the interviews with Emerge and their great leader, Ashanti Gholar, who joined us on the podcast. Like when you talk to people about the views of the Democratic Party, about health care, about education, about worker rights, about decency, about not banning books, you know, and about all these things, you win elections. Not banning social security, not raising taxes, not raising taxes the way Republicans want to raise taxes. Democrats can flip these districts. And Ben Wickler will talk to us about how Democrats can and will win in 2022. Just a note for all of our listeners and viewers. We conducted this interview with Ben Winkler prior to the decision overturning Roe v. Wade leaked. So we're not asking Ben Winkler those questions in the interview if you're wondering why.

But nonetheless, it is a great interview with Ben Winkler. And we'll play that interview now. But before playing the interview, I do want to talk about one of our sponsors, Buck Mason. I know Brett and Jordy love Buck Mason. I love Buck Mason and I've loved Buck Mason for at least like a decade at this point. It's because it's so hard to like find clothes that I like. It legitimately is so hard. And we all got our favorite go-tos, right? You got shirts, sweaters, jeans, the stuff you wear all the time. And when I get dressed, I realized that all of my go-tos are Buck Mason gear. Buck Mason's clothes are second to none. They're timeless. They never go out of style. Everything I own fits great right out of the box and they become my new favorite instantly because Buck

Mason makes all the essentials. You got your jeans, you got your shirts, you got your jackets, all the go-tos and so much more. I love the tailored look and fit of the t-shirts even after wearing them and putting them. I've never had a shirt fit me better than a Buck Mason shirt. They're so comfortable. They're so comfortable right out of the box and you can wash them a million times. They always stay comfortable and soft and they fit you perfectly. Even after wearing them, they look just as good as the first time I wore them. The curved hem tee, ooh, mwah, the curved hem tee, so good. It's fantastic. And GQ loves it as much as I do. They called it the best t-shirt in the game. And I got to agree.

I wear Buck Mason, I think literally every day. I think if you took out my wardrobe and if you go through the Midas Touch podcast, the video clips, you will see me in Buck Mason probably nine times out of 10, maybe 9.9 times out of 10. And I will say, once you try Buck Mason, they will become your go-tos too. So head over to buckmason.com slash Midas and get a free t-shirt with your first daughter. What? A free t-shirt with your first daughter. What a free t-shirt. This is a, guys, what are you doing right now? Go to buckmason.com. That's B-U-C-K-M-A-S-O-N.com slash Midas. That's M-E-I-D-A-S. And get a free t-shirt with your first daughter, buckmason.com slash Midas. And now let's go to our interview with Democratic Party Chair of Wisconsin, Ben Wickler. And welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast.

We are joined by Ben Wickler, chair of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin. Ben, welcome to the pod. Ben, thank you so much for having me on. So, Ben, you were elected chair. What if we just kept doing that the whole. Ben, Ben, you were elected chair. What if we just kept doing that the whole Ben, Ben, Ben, elected chair of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin in 2019. Now, in your second term and you've overseen a string of statewide victories, including Wisconsin's defeat of Trump in 2020. What's been your experience as party chair and what have you learned these past years?

It has been intense, if I was going to choose one word. Wisconsin is the tipping point state. It is the quintessential battleground. It's the only state in the country where four of the last six presidential elections have come down to less than one percentage point. It was the tipping point state for Trump in 2016. It was the tipping point for Biden when I became chair in 2020. And Republicans essentially are on a permanent war footing trying to shred not just Democrats, but democracy itself.

So it's sort of like whack-a-mole with a, I don't know, electoral Avengers style Clash of the Titans showdown situation all the time. And what we've found is that the only way Democrats can win in this context where we have a state Supreme Court and now U.S. Supreme Court constantly issuing decisions against us, where we have a Republican hyper gerrymandered state legislature that's constantly trying to bend the rules, constant BS investigations that are you're trying to bend the rules, constant BS investigations that you're trying to trump up evidence of fraud. The only way we can fight back and win is if we organize in every square inch of the state, rural, urban, suburban areas across lines of race and ethnicity and gender and geography and generation, and have a permanent communications infrastructure and voter protection infrastructure so that we don't just wait till the election comes along and hope that everything will be fine.

You have to stay on the attack. And I think that's a lesson that is probably worth learning nationwide and something that I'm honored to be working with a team that deeply, deeply understands. You just cannot give up a second or an inch. You have to fight everywhere all the time. And that's the credo, your credo, fight. But also part of your credo is fight, include, respect, and empower. What does that mean? What does that mean to you? I'll tell you what it means to me, but what does it mean to you? So when I ran for chair in 2019, I spent thousands of hours talking to folks all over the state and developed this as the platform with my running mates, Felicia Martin, who's a county board supervisor in Milwaukee, and Lee Snodgrass, whoo that is at the center of the party's values now as well. And we actually do strategic planning around the stuff we have to do and then how we're going to do it is with the fire values.

The idea is, first of all, I've already spoken to the fight. You cannot cede anything. You have to be ready to define what the battles are about. Go after the other side and lift up your champions on your side. Include and respect really does mean that you don't take anyone for granted and you don't write anyone off. And I think Democrats sometimes have this sort of ludicrous debate between persuasion and turnout. And in fact, to win a state like Wisconsin, you have to do both. And in some ways, they're not that different.

The things that turn us out and that persuade independent voters and the occasional even Republican swing voter are the things that unite our side, that connect with values that regular people have, and that divide their side. So they're attacking our schools. Well, we believe in public schools. We believe in funding public schools. And we don't believe in book banning. And when we go after the other side on the fact that they're doing something so profoundly unpopular with echoes of some of the worst moments in the history of humanity, that unites us and energizes us and splits them because they're beholden to an extremist faction on the far, far right.

The worst edge of the Trump Republicans who are trying to ban books in school districts around the state and the country, they don't represent the majority. So including respects really, you know, it means being intentional about making space, lifting up the voice of building partnerships with Black and Latino and tribal nation and API voters across Wisconsin and rural voters who often think that Democrats not only have ignored them, but hate them. And it means actually listening to and engaging and showing up on issues that matter to them and then looking for the things that bring everyone on our side together and empower the last piece, which is really central to how we think about organizing here. The goal is not just to get people to do stuff. The goal is to equip people so that they

are the heroes of the story and that they become organizers themselves to mobilize other people. They become leaders who can move up the chain. They could run for office one day, but right now when we hire an organizer, that person's job is not just to talk to voters or to call volunteers and ask them to talk to voters. It's to go have one-to-one meetings with people in their communities and ask them to become leaders of teams. And then it's the old Obama model. It's to go have one-to-one meetings with people in their communities and ask them to become leaders of teams. And then it's the old Obama model. It's to launch neighborhood action teams that actually run the voter contact programs in their area and figure out what does it take to organize this community. Sometimes that's, you know, have two people in the truck so you can drive the half mile down the gravel road to the farm's front door. Sometimes that's have a contact in every apartment building in an urban neighborhood who can

let the volunteers in and actually knock on doors there. It's different in every community. And we want the experts, the people on the ground to have the power to shape things, to do stuff that actually works and then get the results that we need to win on a statewide basis. So all the time with our staff, with our volunteers, with our local county party leaders, we want to basically provide lots of training and support and help people unleash their own power and creativity.

Now, one of the great things that we get to see here at Midas Touch is we get the perspective nationwide of speaking, not just to national candidates, but state representatives. And we've highlighted quite a few here. We've had Karen Berg from Kentucky and her speech went viral. We had Mallory McMurrow on. We had Gloria Johnson on the show from Tennessee. And the commonality between those three is they were all in plus five to plus 12 Trump areas. And we asked them, we said, so how'd you do it? Like, how'd you flip these Trump areas? And they just said, we didn't take anything for granted. We knocked on doors, we talked to everybody, and we shared what our beliefs was. And when people realized fighting for their social security, we were fighting for their health care, we were fighting for their jobs, and they see the loony tunes going on on the other side, they go, well, you're some serious people. And that's critical because when you don't have that and you're not fighting every day, you have people like Ron Johnson, the worst senator in the world, not just in the United States.

I don't know if you knew that about Ron Johnson. He is the worst senator ever to exist in the world. But you wonder, how is someone like that get elected in a place of such intelligent and smart people like Wisconsin. And he filled a void, though, that just people weren't paying attention, really, it seems like. And you're shedding a light on what's going on there. Why is that race particularly so important to you? And do you think we can draw on these lessons from local candidates? A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And what those local candidates told you, those are the same things that I hear from Democrats who run and win in Trump-winning areas in Wisconsin. Look at Ron Kind, who is one of only three members of the House

who ran and won twice in a district that Trump won in 2016 and 2020, and he was reelected both times. Now it's an open seat. We have three great candidates in our primary who are carrying that idea forward. Or Steve Doyle, who's in a state assembly race district in Western Wisconsin that consistently votes both Republican and Steve Doyle. And if you go to mrbypartisan.com, you can find his website. But he's someone who's not shy about explaining his values when he's talking to voters. And in the Senate race, you see Ron Johnson. He has been running a scam for the last two terms. And what he does, what he's done in the Senate race, you see Ron Johnson. He has been running a scam for the last two terms. And what he does, what he's done in the past is that he goes on far right talk radio and Fox News

and pushes the most extreme, absurd conspiracy theories. Then he tries to run ads appealing to more mainstream voters that paint him as Mr. Thoughtful Independent Businessman and relies on people not actually finding out what he's doing, which is actually offensive to both the far right base and independent voters and Democrats, which is that he's been lining his own pockets. This is a guy who in the Senate, when Trump was pushing his giant tax giveaway for the rich, Ron Johnson looked at that and he said, I'm not going to vote for that because I know a certain rich guy who is not getting enough from it. He has two

thumbs. This guy. And Ron Johnson added a provision for owners of corporations like the one that he owns, which are pass-through companies. Now, if you own a pass-through company, most small businesses are organized that way. It's just taxes, regular income. And most small businesses don't generate so much income that you're in a top tax bracket. But Ron Johnson decided to treat the income from pass-through companies as a totally separate thing. He passed, he insisted on a tax provision that was put into the law that gave him an amount of money that he won't disclose, but he sold his company shortly thereafter and

doubled his net worth. And his biggest donors who happen to have their giant corporations organized as pass-throughs who put $20 million into his campaign in 2016, his biggest donors, just three people, walked away with $215 million in a single year, thanks to the bill that he wrote. It is the most corrupt, paid play, self-serving kind of politics you can imagine. And he thought Wisconsinites weren't going to notice. And so we have been talking about this, holding press conferences about it, tax day protests outside of his office. Folks, we and others have been running ads about this. And he was finally asked about this in a

televised town hall. And he said, well, did I benefit? Yes. Did my donors benefit? Yes. And then he went on to say some other stuff like, oh, but lots of other people benefited. The reality is 61% of the benefit went to the top 1%. The middle class and working class in this country got basically nothing from this tax bill, and he's going to pay the price for it. His approval rating is now just 36%, which is astonishingly low for a Republican two-term senator up for reelection. And he's one of the most incumbent, excuse me, vulnerable incumbents from either party, maybe the most vulnerable incumbent in either party in the country. And if we defeat him, we can either hold the Democratic majority in the Senate or expand

it to the point where we can actually pass the voting rights and child care and other stuff we urgently, urgently need. So the Wisconsin Senate race is it's second only to the governor's race, in my view, which I'll talk about as well. But it's incredibly energizing because it's an example of standing and fighting for values that do unite us, that do divide them by speaking the truth about what Republicans are doing, trying to distract and divide us while picking the pockets of people, white, black, and brown, left, right, and center. That's the Republican strategy, and we are going to bust it up. I want to get into the governor's race in a second, but I do want to stay on Ron Johnson for a beat because I was looking at his fundraising numbers, and I found something interesting in them because for every kind of quarter, he was raising like a half a million dollars, $600,000. In Q4 of 2021, he raised $629,000. And he had said that he wasn't

going to run for reelection. That was his whole thing. I'm not going to run anymore. I'm going to retire after this. Then he broke his promise not to run. And then the last quarter he took in, I believe, $7.1 million. Think about that. $7.1 million he had previously taken in $629,000. What's going on there? Do we got to dig into that? So Ron Johnson, his closing argument in 2016 was that he was not a professional politician and he wasn't going to run for third term. He has broken that promise. And he is now just the swampiest of swampy professional politicians you can get. There are a whole bunch, not a large number numerically as a percentage of the public,

but there's a bunch of folks whose backs he has scratched in office by giving them this giant tax cut by serving the most extreme agendas. This is a guy who voted. He was one of only six senators to vote against the ban on surprise medical bills. Almost everyone from both parties says, yeah, no surprise medical bills. Ron Johnson is so in the pocket of special interest that he's like, no, I think those are great surprise medical bills. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he is, there's a fight over whether a bunch of jobs from a federal contract with with Oshkosh defense, whether there should be union UAW jobs in Wisconsin or whether they should be low wage,

nonunion jobs in South Carolina. You would think that as the senator from Wisconsin, he would always fight for jobs in Wisconsin. No, he did. He was asked and he said, it's not like there aren't enough jobs in Wisconsin and said he wouldn't lift a finger to try to move those to our state because he's trying to bust unions that much. He is just so in the pocket of far-right big money special interests that they are now repaying his favors. And this for us, I mean, we don't have the Uline family, which poured $70 million into Republican direct candidate contributions last cycle.

They're not on our side. But if folks become monthly donors to us, you hire the organizers who recruit the field, the neighborhood teams who do the voter contact and tell people the truth about Ron Johnson. If I could just plug, if folks go to wisdoms.org slash donate and become monthly donors, that is how we fight back against this guy. He is trying to essentially collect a return on his political investment. And he's no doubt promising further returns on people's financial investments in him, just like he did last time. It is not what this country should be doing, but it's how the Republicans have operated their reverse class war on the ultra rich against everybody else.

He is one of the prime avatars in that fight, and he should not be in the Senate. And speaking of whiz Dems, you have said that reelecting Democratic Governor Evers is possibly the single most important thing we need to do in order to save our democracy. Why is that? At one level, the Wisconsin 10 electoral college votes have tipped the last two presidential elections, and it's critical to be able to tip them again. The thing that happened before 2016 is that Scott Walker, Republican governor, passed voter suppression laws that made it much harder for people of color, especially black voters, young people, and low-income people to be able to vote. There's a bunch of very well

documented studies about exactly how this effect took place. And Donald Trump won Wisconsin by less than one percentage point in 2016, after hundreds of thousands of people who you would have expected to vote did not. And social scientists have traced that to the voter suppression laws that Scott Walker signed. Fast forward to 2020, Republicans again attacking the right to vote, but Governor Tony Evers holds strong, goes to court, battles and fights for the rights of Wisconsinites to cast ballots. And Joe Biden wins again by less than one percentage point. So Republicans now have passed 14 different bills through the state legislature, through the state assembly and the state Senate to try to restrict the right to vote and mess with our election administration systems. And Governor Evers has vetoed every single one of them.

If a Republican governor, if a Republican becomes governor, they will sign those bills, mess with people's right to vote, and they could tip the election right there. But that's not all. The Republican plan for 24 is to try to suppress their way to victory, and if that doesn't work, it's to overturn the election result. And if you look at the states where they passed the laws to make this easier, they're all the states where they have Republican governors now, and they don't add up to enough electoral college votes to actually pull off a coup. They have to add Wisconsin. Wisconsin is the next closest state where they have not been able to pass these laws. So when they think about how to overturn the election, Wisconsin has to move into their column. And Wisconsin's governor is the person who certifies the election. So literally, the path to a Trump coup to succeed where he failed in 2020 requires having a Republican governor in place who will invent some votes or come up with a fiction about fraud or send the wrong group of electors to Congress. makes it incredibly important for the future of the entire country, for democracy, for the next

generation to elect Governor Evers, who's a brick wall on this stuff, who will never waver, and shut out Republicans. The Republicans running for governor, all of them are planning to dissolve the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission if they take office. One of them, the leading Republican contender, is refusing to say if she would have certified the 2020 election if she were governor at the time and there's another one who's trying to decertify the 2020 election now it is that extreme and it sounds like it can't be true but this is this is what these people are talking about on the campaign trail the the the fate of the nation's next presidential race hinges on wisconsin's governor's race in 2022.

It's a dangerous choice when the choice on the ballot is literally the choice between democracy and fascism. And that's why, you know, everybody go to WisDems.org slash donate and help support because we have these big money interests who are coming against us who want fascism in America. And we need to fight back. One of the wins Republicans just had. I want to talk to you about this, get your thoughts, is the Wisconsin Supreme Court just approved these horribly Republican drawn maps. How did that happen? What does it mean for November? Should voters be concerned? You know, I don't want anybody to sit home because they think, oh, you know, these some of these races are a lost cause. But, you know, what's what's given to us straight? What's the deal here? Sure. So the maps that were just chosen by our state Supreme Court,

they are a profound punch in the face of democracy and of voters all across the state. And they raise the stakes. They make it more important to turn out this fall. And let me explain why that is. So when Republicans came into power in 2010, they got a trifecta. They gerrymandered the living daylights out of Wisconsin. We're, by some measures, a democracy desert, one of the least democratic places in the country. The chance that a voter's vote can determine who has the majority in the state legislature is almost nil because the maps are so rigged. So because of that, a fair maps movement arose across the state that, for example, organized people to get their county boards to pass referenda that called for fair maps at the state level. And then Governor Evers ran for governor on the total deep conviction

that we need to have fair maps where everyone has an equal say in determining our state legislature. And that was a critical piece of his campaign. It's a reason why voters totally support him. He followed through in every way. He created a commission to look at fair maps. He proposed maps to the, well, then Republicans proposed their own hyper-gerrymandered set of maps. He vetoed those maps. It went to the courts. Historically, it's gone to federal court. This time, a right-wing group sued to the state Supreme Court. They got the state Supreme Court to take over with their fourth free right wing majority. The state Supreme Court announced the new maps should be based on the 2010 maps, the

incredibly gerrymandered ones, and said that they would accept whichever maps had the least changes to those maps, which is essentially rigging things up front. Nonetheless, the governor proposed a set of maps that had minimal changes, but would make things substantially more competitive. Republicans proposed maps with a lot more changes than that. One state Supreme Court justice, who is sort of like John Roberts,

occasionally does something in line with his stated principles and the law, even if it doesn't always serve Republican interests, although it mostly supports Republican partisan interests. He switched over, sided with the three more independent jurists, and chose the governor's maps because they actually didn't make the least changes. Then the U.S. Supreme Court, in an unsigned shadow docket opinion, looked at Wisconsin's maps, decided that they allowed too much Black representation because the number of majority Black legislative districts rose from six to seven and the black population in Wisconsin had increased, the U.S.

Supreme Court zapped them down and said that the state Supreme Court needed to do another look and either prove that it needed to expand black representation to meet the Voting Rights Act or choose a different set of maps. So at this point, the governor says, well, I'm happy to, you know, give you more data about this. The state Supreme Court, the governor says, well, I'm happy to give you more data about this. The state Supreme Court, the conservative justice switches sides. They reject getting any more evidence. They decided to choose the state assembly's hyper gerrymandered maps, reduces the number of majority black districts from six to five.

But now it's too late, according to the Supreme Court, to revisit whether they're voting rights act violation and essentially draws lines to lock in Republican power in the majority of districts across the state. What this means is that the governor's race becomes incredibly important because the chance of getting Democratic legislative majorities, especially in a tough environment, becomes very low. This is a battle now fundamentally about whether we'll have a goalie, a governor who can veto Republican laws. And everything we care about on every issue and democracy itself is on the line with whether we have a governor like Tony Evers, who's willing to use a veto pen, or we have a far-right radical Republican like Rebecca Clayfish, who was Scott Walker's lieutenant governor, who would essentially

take a meat axe to our constitution and to voting rights and democracy in our state. And does it ever surprise you? I mean, just surprise you about where we are with our two political parties here in the United States. You have one party, the Democrats, genuinely just trying to help people, right? Trying to find ways to reduce taxes, trying to make the world a better place for everyone to live in. And then you have another party who thinks Disney is filled with pedophiles, who wants to go testicle tanning. How do we, the normal sane people in this country, sort of take back our narrative and break through the noise of this GOP craziness? The strategy that I have found to be really effective that we use a lot here, it's rooted

in a body of research around something called the race class narrative and what it essentially says is that when the right takes these in like totally wild divisive extreme stances to try to mess with us and demonizes different groups of people what we have to do is not only point out that they're doing that but point out why they're doing it which is is that they're constantly trying to divide us and to demonize people in order to distract us while they pick the pockets of people right, left, and center, white, black, and brown. The strategy that they've been using over and over, it's exactly what Trump did, right? He ran for office talking about banning Muslims from America and hurling horrible racist insults at Mexican

immigrants, talking about building a wall. And he comes into office and what does he do? He passes a giant tax cut for the ultra rich and insults pro-corporate judges into courts all the way up to the Supreme Court. And that's it. He doesn't pass any other major bills. He doesn't do infrastructure. He doesn't finish building his wall, none of the other stuff. It's just a con for the people at the very top. And that's what we see with Ron Johnson. That's what we saw with Scott Walker. He came in talking this, that, you know, Tea Party right-wing thing.

And what did he do? He smashed unions that represent working people, which he never talked about on the campaign trail. This is, they have one move, and that is to try to polarize people, divide them from each other, and then rip them off. And when we point that out and we go on the offense about this stuff, they cannot defend it. They will scream and yell and smash the table to try to distract people. But we have the goods on them. And staying on the offense to make sure that people know that Democrats are going to fight to actually lower middle class taxes and raise taxes on billionaires, pave roads, fund schools, do the stuff that everyone relies on, no matter your

politics. That is a position of strength for us. That's the basis of every democratic victory. And we got to stay on that front foot all the way through 2022 and 24. And now building off that, I know you at The Wise Dems has a year-long organizing theory of change. Can you tell us more about this and where people could outpower it? Absolutely. So the big idea with year-round organizing is that if you just show up at people's doors a week or two before the election

and try to convince them of something, that does not build a relationship. It doesn't build trust. It doesn't build an awareness of actually which voters we need to be talking to. So we start so early that, in fact, we never stop. We've had a continuous program for the last five years in our state. My predecessor chair launched it in 2017, and we have just sustained and expanded it. And the result is that we now have these teams all over the state that our organizers have built.

When someone becomes a monthly donor, what they're funding is an organizer who's going into a community and talking to people who've lived there for a long time and figuring out who's the local leader, who should I be working with to launch a team that'll run continuously. And then the conversations we have, when we're a year out from the election, we're not saying, vote for X, Y, Z. We're saying, what issues do you care about? What matters to you? We're actually listening. And leadership starts with listening. You have to find out what is in people's minds, what they believe to be true, what matters to them before you can connect about those things. So that's how we build our base. It's also how we build our electoral muscle. And it's how we win local elections. Like on April 5th, we had local

elections all over the state. The right tried to build a red wave. They poured smear campaigns, targeting school board members, all the hideous stuff that you've seen across the country. But in community after community, we fought them to a standstill. Instead of a red wave, this was essentially a draw. We won 54% of the 276 races where the state party was involved in supporting the candidate. And that kind of debunks the idea that Democrats are doomed. What it says is you actually have to show up and fight if you want to have a fighting shot. If you want to win 54% of the time, you got to show up 100% of the time. So that's the core of our strategy. It's to listen to people and talk to them in all

different kinds of communities. It's not to rely on some model that says there's no reason to show up in this or that county. We have to be everywhere all the time. And what we find is that the kind of core values that unite us, they run through rural and suburban and urban communities alike. We all want opportunity for our kids. We all want to be able to breathe the air and we all want everyone to pay their fair share to make all that possible. Sometimes you have to talk about them in a little bit different ways or ensure that you have local messengers who have an accent that matches the person who answers the door. But to do that, you need to have a vision about building a democracy that goes beyond just what happens on election day. It's really about connecting with people and making sure it's fight, include, respect, and empower. It's making sure people know that

they're the heroes that we're waiting for and that we need them all the time if we're going to make this work. Ben, there was something really subtle that you said that I picked up a few questions ago, I think in a question that Brett asked. You referred to the right wing in Wisconsin or even nationally as the radical right, and you didn't buy in and use the term conservative or that these are conservatives and it's been a motto that we've been saying over and over again that stop calling these people conservative there's nothing conservative about any of their views they're as extreme as you get and they don't deserve that mantle of conservative anymore was that did i pick that up was that an intentional way of, of, of your

framing these things? And do you agree that that's important that not that, that other political leaders around there not fall into the trap of calling these people conservative? You did pick that up. And there's, I will expand on your point. You know, if you ask Republican voters, the vast majority of them identify as conservative, but that masks the fact that their party is profoundly fractured and divided. There are some people who vote Republican because they think about conservative things and they assume the Republican party is in fact conservative in a way that they identify with. But there's a radical right Trump Republican faction that has no interest in conserving anything that is trying to rip the country apart and wind up with the

bigger half that wants to trample on our fundamental freedoms the freedoms that you know people have fought and died for uh in order to preserve and lock in power for themselves and those at the very top of our country and if most if you do focus groups with republican voters most of them will reject factual descriptions of what their leaders have done because they cannot believe how profoundly they have been betrayed. They think that it is Democratic bias spin because it is just shocking, shocking what Republican elites think they can get away with by preying on their own people. And there is nothing conservative about the way that they're operating. So you're exactly right. And I think speaking in a way that helps make clear

to voters whose side we're on and whose side they're on is helpful to them. It is a service to them to find out how much they've been taken advantage of by cynical elites that are profiting from their pain. If the Republican Party actually looked at itself in the mirror, it would break into multiple chunks in the space of about an hour. I could talk to you all day, Ben. And I genuinely want to talk to you all day. I guess, okay, one other thing I want to talk to you about, and I want to know what your thoughts on this are. So while I think the national media is atrocious, I mean, on the one hand, you have Fox News, which is just injecting fascism into people's bloodstreams. I think the

other media wants to play this like a foregone conclusion. Biden's in power. The headwinds are against the Democrats, like not actually looking at the data. I can go on and on. But I do think local media, and I've seen it in debates recently where they press the candidates on a lot of the big lie and the election stuff. I think there is some saving grace in some of these local networks and local politicians who are calling these people out. And I've seen in these local debates, these Republicans are like, they don't know what to do when they have to answer a real question from a person. Are you seeing that at a local level as well? Absolutely. And it's so interesting because, you know, a lot of Republican politicians are used to

being in these right wing echo chambers. There are so many right wing talk radio stations across the Wisconsin and across the country where Republican politicians just can expect softball after softball. But most people still get their news from local TV. And when people actually have to, you know, string multiple sentences together, they often fall apart. It is everything we can do to get Republicans sentences together, they often fall apart. It is everything we can do to get Republicans in front of cameras helps our case, especially when we actually can explain the facts that are relevant to what they're saying.

That's why a lot of Republicans stop doing town halls, why they don't have debates, all this stuff. But when there's accountability, the winds of truth can blow through their stuff like cobwebs. And I think that we have an opportunity this election cycle to get these folks on record and use the next six months to ensure that journalists are showing up at the places where they are and hearing what they have to say. This is part of why Ron Johnson is so unpopular now, that there's actually been news coverage of stuff that he says when he thinks he's only talking to Republicans. It is repellent to most, you know, to Republican elites and activists. It's repellent to most of the public. And what Democrats stand for, those are fundamentally uniting ideas that can win the country. They can win politically. We just have to be bold and stand up for them. Be bold. Let's win. Ben Wickler, thank you for joining the podcast.

Thank you so much, Ben. Thank you so much, Jordy. Thanks so much, Ben. Take care, guys. We will be right back after these messages. With the most compelling interviews. Please welcome Congressman Adam Schiff. Molly John Fast. Mike McFaul. Andrew Weissman. Barb McQuaid. Glenn Kirshner.

Colonel Alexander Vindman. Former Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. And all the appropriate profanity. Lawsuit to block that s**t. Captain Douche. Bulls**t. Immigration Executive Order. Anyone that's stupid should just not be in Congress.

Renowned cowardly f*** face Kevin McCarthy. The leader of the douche. Even Mary Trump agrees. Joining this binder full of women curating the news from the left with appropriate f***ing profanity. Listen weekday mornings to The Daily Beans. Left-leaning news from a woman's perspective. We make the news bearable by making it swearable. So put some beans on it with Dana Goldberg, Amy Carrero, and me, Alison Gill.

And who doesn't like that? Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. Great interview with Ben Wickler, huh? Ben. Ben's just a good name. I've never met a bad Ben aside from Ben Shapiro. Too many Bens. Apparently there are room for more than one Ben on the Midas Touch podcast. Ben's great. Ben racked up so many wins in Wisconsin during his time there. And I think he's a guy who we all need to be listening to. People like to talk about democratic messaging and strategy and stuff. Ben Wickler is the guy who we should all be paying attention to. Before we get out of here, we got to talk about this Esper book, this stuff that's going on. Let's just zoom past the part of the fact that this guy held all this crucial information for

a book. We're going to come back to that. It drives me absolutely mad every single time that people save this information for their books a year later when the information is no longer quite as relevant. But we need to talk about some of the substance of it. I'm not even going to say the name of this book because fuck it, don't buy it. But let's talk about the information of it. Let's look at it right now. So the former defense secretary, Mark Esper, he said that President Donald Trump inquired about shooting protesters amid the unrest that took place after George Floyd's murder in 2020. He recounts that incident and many others in the book. He is one of these guys who said that, oh, I only stayed

in the administration and didn't say anything because if I left, there would have been other people around him that would have given him dangerous ideas. It's like all these people think that they were the person who stopped Donald Trump from being batshit crazy. But guess what? He was crazy. He did all this. That's the only way they could sleep at night, if they rationalize themselves as the hero in the story. And meanwhile, they're the villain. They're not the hero.

They're not the hero. And that's how they see themselves. So here's what Esper said. Esper said the president was enraged. He thought that the protests made the country look weak, made us look weak, and us meant him. And he wanted to do something about it. We reached that point in the conversation where you look frankly at Joint Chiefs of

Staff General Mark Milley and said, can't you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something. It was a suggestion and a formal question. And we're all just taken aback at that moment as this issue just hung very heavily in the air. So that is how Trump wanted to deal with protesters. He wanted to shoot them. Not only that, one of the most crazy batshit things that came out of this Mark Esper book as well was that Trump wanted to bomb Mexico. You heard that right. He wanted to send missiles into Mexico to, quote, bomb the drug labs. This is a real thing that the president of the United States was thinking about. And not only did he think about this, he apparently asked the question multiple times and had to be told by people, you know what,

you can't do that. That's a war crime. That's provocation. It's illegal. You're actually not allowed to do that. You'd create an international incident, which Trump said, well, they don't have to know we did it. It could be anybody who did it. Trump didn't even want to take the blame for it, which is perhaps the most batshit crazy part of this entire cockamamie plan. This guy was president in the United States. And here's what I also want to emphasize about this and why this stuff actually is still relevant right now. Because if Trump does run and if Trump does win, guess what? Guess who he's going to put alongside him? He is going to put alongside him, Yes, men who will say yes. When he says, let's bomb Mexico, who will say yes. When he says, well, let's shoot black lives matter

protesters. This is a sick and deranged man who needs to be kept out of power. And 60 minutes who did an interview with Esper reached out, you know, for their report on this all to Donald Trump, to get answers to the questions that to the accusations that were made in this book. And perhaps the most telling was one of the questions where he said, where 60 Minutes asked on a couple of occasions, President Trump suggested to Esper they attack the drug cartels with missiles, to which Donald Trump said no comment, which I think says it all. We all saw Donald Trump Jr. last week say, I can't believe everybody's acting like this is a bad idea. Like really taking out drugs is a bad idea.

And that's sort of also indicative of how all these people argue. If you notice that, Jordy, it's like they take it to like the extreme. You're like, yeah, you know what? Bombing Mexico is probably not a smart idea. Probably bombing one of our allies, bombing a neighboring country, probably not the best idea. And they go, oh, you're pro-drugs? Oh, so you love drugs. They'll emphasize the one outcome in their argument that's like, you can't even argue because no, nobody's going to say that, that they're pro-drugs. We're just not pro-bombing a country that sits right below us and starting an international fucking war, Don Jr., you psychopath. But here's where I'll give Esper a little bit of

credit. I know we're giving him crap, rightfully so. At least he came out and said it. I'm sure there are other people in the administration who have still not said crap about what they saw and what they heard. And that's it, though. That's it. Don't get fooled. Cause I saw, I saw Esper. He's doing his media tour. He's doing his billboard book tour going around on TV. And you know what though? He's playing a very sympathetic card. He comes across kind of likable during these interviews. Like, Oh my God, I'm so happy. This guy's speaking up. Don't get fooled by that. He had this information. He could have said this the next day. He could have put a stop to this stuff immediately, but he waited so he could sell books. Here's what I like to do. I like to take the information and then not buy the books.

That's my strategy here. I think it's the best strategy. Take the info. That's why I think Substack is going to solve every problem ever because you don't have to wait to put out a whole book. Just make a Substack, write to solve every problem ever because you don't have to wait to put out a whole book. Just make a Substack, write your little thing, have people subscribe. There you go. If you have any information, just come out and say it. Anyway, I just want to say, there's so much positive energy out there right now from activists across the country. And so all is not lost. And while times are tough, I've never seen energy like this across the country. I've never seen anger. I've never seen passion like we are seeing right now on the pro-democracy side of things. And I will say that

pro-democracy side of things is also spanning Democrats, independents, and former Republicans, and even some current Republicans who I've seen speak out after this Roe v. Wade decision and say, this is a bridge too far. And you think all this crazy stuff that Republicans are spreading and wanting to do like ban contraception and so forth, they think it is batshit crazy. I think Republicans have overextended themselves in a way, and I hope that it backfires big time. I wanted to give a big shout out to Beto O'Rourke, who had a pro-choice, pro-abortion rights rally in Houston, Texas, turning out about 5,000 people. That was a mega crowd, which I love to see in the state of Texas. We need to start seeing rallies like this across the country. We need

everybody to continue to speak out, to stay loud. Don't let anybody silence your voice. Don't let anybody try to tell you that you're not protesting in the right way. Stay peaceful, get out there, take to the streets if you have to. But what we need to do right now is I'll speak up, register people to vote. Every time you get annoyed, every time a Republican says something that pisses you off, register five more people to vote. Send it to your friends. Ask them, is this the America that I want to live in? Because right now, this may be one of our last times to decide the fate of the United States. This may be one of our last times to decide the fate of the United States. This may be one of the last times to decide whether we are going to remain a democracy or if we're going to slip into

the throes of fascism. So we need you to be active now more than ever. I want to thank everybody for tuning into this episode of the Midas Touch podcast. I want to thank our guest, Ben Wickler, chair of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin. Be sure to donate to the Wiz Dems. I want to thank our sponsor, Buck Mason. You know what I've got to give a shout out to also? Mary Trump, who was on the last show and was just so fantastic. And I wanted some headlines from that interview. Mary Trump, make it some headlines. And if you haven't already, you need to start listening to the Mary Trump show. Mary Trump, everybody knows is one of the brightest minds fighting for democracy. She does these brilliant interviews and strategy sessions with leaders on the left,

which are defining the political conversation and are giving us hope for the 2022 election. She is truly teaching us how to fight. And her incredible guests have included Ellie Mistal, David K. Johnston, Tara Setmeyer, Martina Navratilova, Katie Couric, Fiona Hill, Malcolm Nance, and many others. And not to brag, but yours truly, you're looking at some of Mary Trump's guests right here. Mary takes on current events and the many challenges our country's facing with the goal of helping Dems win the midterms so we could take back our country. So make sure you subscribe at youtube.com slash politicom to join her every Tuesday and Thursday

at 7 p.m. Eastern, 4 p.m. Pacific. That's youtube.com slash politicon for the Mary Trump Show live. And you can also find the show wherever you get your podcasts, except for Spotify. She's not on Spotify. And we will see you there. Sometimes we hop in the chats during the Mary Trump Show live and love watching the episode and engaging with people. Thanks again for watching this episode of the Midas Touch Podcast. Be sure to subscribe. Give us a five-star rating

and tell all your friends and continue to stay optimistic and fight for democracy. This is a big year and we need you all in this fight. Jordy, take us out. Shout out to the Midas Mighty!