Meidas Mighty, I have two very important conversations to share with you today. And I want you to pay close attention to both of them, because I think they get to the heart of what this historic midterm election victory actually means for our country.
I sat down with Senator Bernie Sanders and Democratic Congressmember Robert Garcia, who is preparing to take the gavel as the next chair of the House Oversight Committee.
Two conversations. Two incredibly important missions. And one overarching message: The American people did not vote for a return to business as usual. They voted for fundamental change.
Look, I’m not going to hide the ball here... We have a tremendous opportunity in front of us. But we also have an enormous responsibility.
We cannot simply celebrate an election victory and move on. We cannot allow the Trump regime, the Trump crime family, and the oligarchs who have looted this country to escape accountability. And we cannot allow the political establishment to take this historic mandate and water it down into the same tired, incremental policies that got us into this mess in the first place.
We need to think bigger. We need to think about generational change.
And that’s exactly where my conversation with Senator Bernie Sanders began.
Bernie Sanders: This Is a Mandate to Take On the Oligarchs
I wanted to start by taking Senator Sanders back to early 2025, when he launched his Fight the Oligarchy tour alongside Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others.
Remember where we were as a country at that moment.
Donald Trump had returned to power. There was a dark shadow hanging over the country. People were scared. People were demoralized. The billionaire class was celebrating.
And Senator Sanders did something incredibly important.
He went directly to the people.
He traveled to communities across the country, including some of the most conservative parts of America, and he listened.
Not just speeches. Not just rallies. Actual conversations with people about what was happening in their lives.
And what did he hear?
People couldn’t afford health care. They couldn’t afford housing. They were worried about their children’s education. They were concerned about artificial intelligence and massive data centers moving into their communities. They were working harder than ever and still struggling to make ends meet.
Sound familiar?
Because here’s what struck me as we covered those rallies on MeidasTouch: The issues that mattered to people in conservative communities were virtually identical to the issues that mattered to people in progressive communities.
Senator Sanders told me about visiting the most pro-Trump county in West Virginia.
People there were worried about finding doctors, traveling hours to see specialists, the safety of their drinking water, and whether their children would have a better future.
These were the same concerns he heard everywhere else.
And that is such a profoundly important lesson.
The oligarchs want us divided. They want us fighting about labels. They want politics to be this endless game of red versus blue, conservative versus progressive, while they loot and plunder our country.
But when you actually listen to people, when you strip away the labels and the manufactured outrage, the vast majority of Americans want many of the same things.
They want affordable health care. They want housing. They want good jobs. They want wages with dignity. They want a government that works for them instead of a handful of billionaires.
Senator Sanders put it plainly: “The system is broken. People want and demand change.”
And now the election results have demonstrated just how powerful that message can be.
But I wanted to go further with Senator Sanders.
Because winning elections is important. Delivering results is what ultimately matters.
And he laid out a very specific agenda.
He called for reversing the devastating health care cuts imposed by the Trump regime. He called for Medicare for All, with a transition that would lower the Medicare eligibility age, expand benefits, and eliminate out-of-pocket expenses.
He called for raising the federal minimum wage to at least $20 an hour.
He proposed a wealth tax on billionaires that he said could raise $4 trillion over a decade, helping fund immediate financial relief for working families, tuition-free public colleges, millions of affordable housing units, and universal child care.
And he called for ending the war in Iran and U.S. military aid to the Israeli government.
Now, corporate media will inevitably try to frame these proposals as some radical progressive wish list.
But Senator Sanders made an important point about the public support for these ideas.
“These are not, quote unquote, progressive ideas,” he told me. “These are the ideas that the vast majority of the American people believe in.”
Exactly.
Why are we allowing billionaires and corporate media executives to dictate what constitutes a mainstream political position when the American people are telling us what they actually want?
We are the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Yet millions of Americans cannot afford basic health care, housing, or a decent standard of living.
That is not a failure of resources. It is a failure of priorities.
And we have to change those priorities.
The Oligarchy Is Bigger Than Trump
One of the most important parts of my conversation with Senator Sanders was about something I discuss frequently on this network: generational and international change.
The authoritarian movement did not begin with Donald Trump. And it will not magically disappear when Donald Trump leaves office.
These oligarchs have spent decades building political, economic, and media structures that protect their wealth and power.
And they are operating internationally.
Senator Sanders discussed Elon Musk’s involvement with right-wing political movements overseas, the extraordinary concentration of global wealth, and the influence of wealthy authoritarian governments.
We also discussed the corporate ownership of media and the power that billionaires exercise over the information Americans consume.
Think about that for a moment.
The same people who benefit from the rigged economic system increasingly control the platforms where we debate that system.
And then we wonder why corporate media spends so little time discussing wealth inequality, universal health care, or the influence of money in politics.
Senator Sanders also raised serious concerns about artificial intelligence, including job displacement, privacy, democracy, and the enormous power of technology companies.
He pointed to the growing resistance to data centers across the country as evidence that Americans are demanding a greater say in how these technologies affect their communities.
This is why independent media matters so much.
We cannot allow the people who profit from the system to be the only ones explaining the system to us.
And we cannot think about democracy only in two-year election cycles.
We have to build something lasting.
As Senator Sanders told me toward the end of our conversation, Democrats cannot afford to fail working-class Americans at this moment.
“The Democrats cannot, at this enormously important moment, fail the working class of this country.”
I could not agree more.
Which brings me to my second conversation.
Because while Senator Sanders laid out the agenda for economic justice and structural change, Congressmember Robert Garcia laid out something equally essential.
Accountability.
Robert Garcia Has a Message for the Trump Regime: Lawyer Up.
I have to tell you, Meidas Mighty, I was very excited to speak with Congressmember Robert Garcia.
And I started with the message he delivered immediately after the election.
Two words.
Lawyer up.
I love it.
Because for years, we have watched the Trump regime operate as though the law simply does not apply to them.
We’ve watched the grifting. The corruption. The abuses of power. The cover-ups. The attacks on our institutions.
And we have watched Republicans in Congress enable it all.
But now the House majority has changed, and Robert Garcia is preparing to lead the Oversight Committee.
So I asked him what exactly he meant by that message.
Garcia said it was directed at anyone who had harmed or exploited the American people, including members of the Trump family, former administration officials, corporations and CEOs accused of ripping off consumers, and people involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.
He made something else very clear.
Affordability and accountability are not competing priorities.
They are connected.
Think about what Americans have experienced.
You’re at the grocery store, and the prices are outrageous. You’re at the gas pump, and you’re paying more than you should. You’re worried about your rent, your mortgage, your health care, your children’s future.
And then you turn on the news and see the Trump family getting richer and richer.
That is not disconnected from the economic pain people are experiencing.
Garcia told me Democrats intend to make affordability and accountability the two cornerstones of their agenda.
And I think that is exactly right.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time.
We can fight to lower costs for working families while investigating the people who have abused their power and enriched themselves.
In fact, we must do both.
Subpoenas. Investigations. Public Hearings. Real Oversight.
I pressed Garcia on what happens next.
Because I know what so many of you are thinking.
Enough with the speeches. Enough with the empty promises.
When are the subpoenas coming?
When are the Trump family members going to have to answer questions?
When are we going to hear from the whistleblowers who were ignored or silenced under Republican control?
Garcia explained that Democrats will not formally take control of the House until January, and that the coming months will be spent preparing so they can begin investigations immediately upon taking power.
He also said his team has already been speaking with potential witnesses and expects more people to come forward once Democrats are in the majority.
And he described an effort to recruit top lawyers, investigators, policy experts, and communications professionals to support the committee’s work.
This is important.
Because effective oversight requires more than fiery rhetoric.
It requires investigators. It requires legal expertise. It requires preparation. It requires following the evidence wherever it leads.
And Garcia laid out four specific investigative priorities.
First: Trump family corruption.
The financial dealings, the conflicts of interest, the allegations of self-enrichment, and the questions about how members of the Trump family and their associates have profited from political power.
Second: DHS and ICE.
Garcia wants to investigate alleged abuses involving immigration enforcement, detention facilities, and the people and companies profiting from those operations.
Third: Corporate corruption.
This includes companies accused of exploiting American consumers, as well as corporate interests with ties to the Trump administration. Garcia specifically raised concerns about practices like surveillance pricing and the ways large corporations can extract more money from working families.
Fourth: Jeffrey Epstein.
And this one is critically important.
Garcia promised an investigation focused on justice for survivors, public hearings, and bringing their stories into the open.
For too long, the Epstein scandal has been surrounded by secrecy, powerful interests, and unanswered questions.
The survivors deserve answers.
The American people deserve transparency.
And anyone who participated in criminal wrongdoing should face accountability through the legal system.
These are not optional responsibilities.
This is precisely what congressional oversight is supposed to do.
The Election Was the Beginning, Not the End
There was another part of my conversation with Garcia that I think deserves special attention.
I asked him whether the massive Republican losses might finally cause some members of Trump’s own party to break ranks.
After all, a lot of Republicans who thought they were coming back to Congress in January are now out of a job.
And Donald Trump played an enormous role in that.
Garcia said he hopes some Republicans will finally demonstrate the courage to stand up to Trump.
But more importantly, he emphasized that this election represents the beginning of a much larger movement.
“This is not the end,” he told me. “This is the start of something new.”
Exactly.
I want everyone to understand this.
The midterms were a historic victory. But they were not the finish line.
The goal is not simply to replace one group of politicians with another.
The goal is to change the trajectory of this country.
To make government work for working people.
To confront corruption.
To defend democracy.
To build institutions and movements that can withstand the next authoritarian threat, not just the current one.
And to restore some basic decency to our political system.
We Cannot Let Them Get Away With It
Meidas Mighty, I want to leave you with this.
I think these two conversations fit together in a very powerful way.
Senator Sanders explained what we need to fight for.
Congressmember Garcia explained how we need to hold accountable those who have inflicted so much damage on our country.
And both are absolutely essential.
We cannot have genuine economic reform while allowing corruption to flourish.
We cannot heal our democracy by pretending that the abuses of the Trump regime never happened.
And we cannot build a better future if the same oligarchs who helped create this crisis are allowed to continue buying our elections, manipulating our information, and exploiting working families.
So yes, Democrats should introduce legislation to lower costs, expand health care, strengthen workers’ rights, and improve people’s lives.
Every day.
And if Donald Trump wants to veto popular legislation that helps the American people, let him explain that to the country.
But at the same time, we need aggressive, relentless, lawful oversight.
Subpoenas. Investigations. Hearings. Evidence. Accountability.
No more looking the other way.
No more allowing the powerful to operate under a different set of rules.
And no more confusing political victory with the completion of our mission.
The American people delivered a mandate.
Now it has to be honored.
I want to thank Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressmember Robert Garcia for joining me for these incredibly important conversations. I encourage you to watch the full special edition of the MeidasTouch Podcast, because there is so much more in both interviews that deserves your attention.
And I want to thank you, the Meidas Mighty.
You refused to back down when things looked darkest. You helped build this independent media movement. You stood up for democracy when so many powerful institutions failed to do so.
And now we have to keep going.
My brothers and I wrote WTF America?! The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy because we believe that understanding how we got into this mess is essential to finding our way out. Thanks to you, the book has now spent two consecutive weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. You can find it wherever books are sold.
But the most important chapter of this story is the one we are writing together right now.
The election was a victory. The work of rebuilding our democracy is just beginning.
Thank you for everything you do. Thank you for being part of this movement.
We love you. We appreciate you.
And as always, keep fighting.
