Dan Koh: Like many families during COVID, Ben, Jordan, and Brett Meiselas were locked down and started a family text chain. They had a very simple goal: to do something other than screaming into the void. In just a few years, the brothers have grown the Midas Touch Network into one of the most successful media companies in the world, with a podcast with more listeners than the Joe Rogan Experience. Co-Founder Ben Meiselas joins us to talk about how he built the network, if Vice President Harris should have gone on Joe Rogan, and how to be unapologetically pro-democracy. Let's swear into the people's cabinet, Ben Meiselas.

Ben Meiselas: Ben Meiselas, welcome to the People's Cabinet. It's a bear, Dan, how are you?

Dan Koh: Good, good. How are you doing today?

Ben Meiselas: Doing fantastic. Glad to be on the people's cabinet. I love that you're launching this platform, and it's good to be a part of it right at the beginning.

Dan Koh: Yes, sir. Well, listen, I'm honored you're here. Your story, that you and your brothers have, the media empire that you and your brothers have built, is remarkable. Just seeing its growth, you know, 450 million downloads on, is on a monthly basis, is that what it is?

Ben Meiselas: If you take the YouTube views, and I think if you do the audio downloads on podcasts and you add that up together, that's, it's at something like that.

Dan Koh: And on the podcast side, that's number one in the United States, is that correct?

Ben Meiselas: I think the last time I checked, it's actually two and a half to three times as many downloads now as Rogan in a month.

Dan Koh: Not bad, not bad. Well, that's incredible. But it wasn't always like that for you. So I would love for you to take our listeners back to, you know, COVID, and when you came up with this idea. I think a lot of people have ideas when they're sitting on their couch at home, especially during quarantine, but not many people turned it into what you did. So if you could tell us a little more about how you grew the Midas Touch Network and as well as what problem you saw and were trying to solve.

Ben Meiselas: Yeah, you know, so me and my two younger brothers each have kind of our own skill set, if you will. My background is lawyer, Georgetown Law, a civil rights lawyer, represented Colin Kaepernick in his case against the NFL. I come from that background and a little bit of transactional work as well on the legal side. My other brother, Brett, the middle brother, digital editor at The Ellen Show and a bunch of other shows, and so good rapid response, very good technical editor, and knew how to do all of that. Our youngest brother, Jordy, marketer, ran some pretty big campaigns for sports leagues and things like that. So we all had that skill set. None of us really have political backgrounds. I mean, I interned on Capitol Hill and gave tours, I think, for Senator Clinton and for Congressmember Steve Israel. But that's the extent of my political background, going to George Washington University. I never really wanted to get involved in politics and didn't really even like politics. But then, you know, sometimes you can't really choose to not want to get into something that is forcing itself into your life in ways that are very harmful. And I think that's what we saw in COVID, what bad governance did to a country, and no governance at all or chaotic governance, which we're seeing right now, like, you know, Trump saying, like a miracle, it's all going to go away, inject yourself with bleach during COVID, and everything's going to be great, bragging about the stock market during COVID when it would have horrible crashes. And, but, you know, it happened, another day would go up, and it would crash, and this is, this is amazing, you know, just all of that. It was very traumatic. You know, as a family, we were text messaging each other, and then, using the skill set, we were just like, let's just post about it. Like, let's just, let's just get our text message thoughts out there. And then, you know, we would say, you know, hey, Brett, can you do a video? My other brother, Brett, can you do a video of, maybe we structured around this way, and the way I would do a closing argument at a trial, we would build videos to start getting our views, getting our perspectives out there in unique ways. So, you know, that started with building one video, and then five videos, and then, and then growing, and then eventually, somewhere around 2021-ish, kind of right around the insurrection, and right thereafter, we kind of identified, as we were growing through the videos that we would make in these, like, short one-minute, 30-second videos, that the problem was the media, and it was, but we say it was both sides in the issues. And we were saying the media wasn't unapologetically pro-democracy, that, you know, we viewed, then, if you go back to the videos, we were saying things that lots of people weren't saying back then. We were like saying, look, this Republican Party that's gone full-fledged MAGA, they're not supporting our democracy, so stop calling it conservative. There's nothing conservative about it. And we were saying that in 2021, and we also recognized in that time period, and lots of people were mocking us for it, which is crazy, in 2025, that we believed it was, ever, the future was digital. Could you believe, in 2021, people saying to you that digital is not the way to go, and you're wasting your time, and why are you doing this? Everybody knows that TV and linear is really where the impact is. And so, we've, I think, diagnosed the problem, corporate news. We diagnosed another problem, that one political party was not behaving within the democratic, democracy, small d, norms of what is going on. And so, with that message, you know, we took it from the perspective of, look, we're three brothers, let's just, let's just tell people how we feel about what's going on. And, you know, the podcast was born. We did everything independently because, know what I mean, one, because we wanted to be independent, but two, wasn't like we had lots of people who were like, yeah, we love it, we want to sign you, or whatever. So, we grew it on our own, bit by that. And we understood the importance, though, of doing it that way. And then we developed unapologetically pro-democracy media, and what that means, and deconstructing the corporate news cycle, where, you know, the problem is, on corporate news, on cable news, you don't really understand what the issues are. Oftentimes, they'll talk about the issue for about 30 seconds, a minute, and then they'll bring someone from, you know, who they say is, like, the liberal or someone on the left, and then they'll bring someone on the right. It almost doesn't matter what their background or experience even is, because they're both conflated in the way it's presented as the split screen. And then they fight with each other, and then you go to a commercial, and then you deal with that four times a day, you loop it 24 hours, and that's basically cable news. And I just think the viewer’s not left with any understanding of what's happening, what the issues are, what's the data, what does the opinion actually say? Because if you're going to talk about a court opinion, it's going to take you at least 5 minutes to explain the ruling so people can get adequate understandings of it. Or if you're going to explain the economy, you have to explain to somebody what a Treasury yield is, and why a 5-10, why is that going up a bad thing? You know, as, and when it goes up, it's supposed to be a good thing. No, it's a bad thing. And let me explain to you why. So, you have to, you have to lay out these issues on the economy, on the law, on social issues, with data, with facts. And then you can have an opinion, but I always lead with the data, and we kind of put that together. We deconstructed the 24-hour news cycle. We did about 12, what we call hot takes, in a day, about 15 minutes each. We devote a lot of attention to the topics, and then we have one or two live shows a day that tie it all together. So, we built that format, very regimented, almost like, you know, to the minute, what the programming looks like, predictability that you would expect on a network. And we built this network concept, and now, I think, we, I think we were early on it, and I think that's where everything has gone since we did it. So, that’s basically a short version of it.

Dan Koh: Can you give our listeners a little perspective on the numbers that you've seen, in particular, the decline in ratings of legacy outlets, and how that squares with the numbers that you're bringing in on an almost hourly basis?

Ben Meiselas: What I love about the digital media landscape is that the numbers are all out there. You can't, it's nothing to hide. You can finesse them, like, you see them, like, they're literally there. You can see how many views we're getting on YouTube. You can see that the downloads are tracked about how many people play a podcast or don't play a podcast. So, so you go from, I think, on cable news, there's some vagueness on what the ratings are, how they're even tabulated, and what that means for advertising and all of that. And then you move to this space where you can see them. And so, you know, on a day-to-day basis, when you're talking about, you know, like YouTube, for example, I mean, we're doing, you know, in a 24-hour period, somewhere in the range of 20 to 25 million views within a 24 to 48-hour period on YouTube. And so, if you compare that to, like, a Fox, that's usually about 3 to 4 million more viewers than Fox is getting. And they put out twice as much content, if they just basically take their content from the shows and then also dump that on. So, they'll do about 40 videos a day. We'll do about 12 videos a day, and we'll still beat them by several million, you know, on, on usually a 24 to 48-hour period. And so, you know, usually, if you look at the charts, you know, we'll be, of all YouTube channels, and not just news, across all categories, you know, Midas Touch Network will usually be one, Fox is usually two, although there's times where they get ahead of us, and, you know, and we beat them. But it's a close race. But then, other corporate news, like, isn't even close, like ABC, CBS, MSNBC, you know, CNN, I mean, are probably doing 15 to 20% of the views that we're getting on YouTube. And then, when you talk about the scale on an audio podcast, like, we beat Rogan by about two and a half to 3x a month, but then the next tier of right-wing podcasts, we get more podcast downloads than all of them combined. If you add up all of them, like Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and you literally add them all up, all of them combined, we, you know, we get more, we get more downloads for them. And then, also, I think we've set a, we've helped set a tone also for others in this space, in a pro-democracy space too, to take the formula and see it, because you could see it. It's not like the biggest trade secrets in the world. I mean, you can see what we do every day and how we do it. And I like that, that we're inspiring other people to jump in and get out facts and data.

Dan Koh: So, a lot was discussed, and a lot continues to be discussed, about the 2024 election, where Democrats went wrong. There was obviously a lot of criticism or second-guessing about which podcasts, in which mediums, Vice President Harris went on as part of her campaign. What's your diagnosis of that, and what can we learn from 2024 and from what you have learned through building what you've done in Midas Touch Network?

Ben Meiselas: You see, I think, I don't think she should have gone on Rogan or any of those right-wing shows, as my own view, because I don't think living in a right-wing framing of things, I think it's all a trap, no matter what. I mean, the moment you go on, you know, a Rogan or a Charlie Kirk, they're already going to be framing things in terms of issues that really aren't the issues that need to be, you know, that need to be discussed. I think you need a healthy, vibrant, pro-democracy, pro-truth ecosystem, and that we shouldn't be chasing, you know, like, who could be the next left version of a Joe Rogan. I mean, to me, Rogan's a jerk, and he spreads lies. So, to me, someone on the left shouldn't be like, well, I need to be like a jerk and punch down, and, you know, and, like, to me, that's not the right way of thinking about it. I think you have to be really kind of loud and proud about your views and the truth of it. When I interviewed Governor Beshear recently, to see a Democratic governor of the ruby-red states supporting LGBTQ rights, and you ask him about it, and he'll go and say to you, he'll go, well, look, you know, people disagree with me in my state, but they appreciate that I truly believe this, and I'm fighting for the people. And, to me, that is the approach. And I think, if there was a mistake that was made, it was that, you know, it's like in tennis, being in no man's land or dead man's land or whatever you call it. You're either got to be at the net, or you got to be at the baseline. You can't be kind of in that middle territory. And I think that, you know, Democrats, or the non-MAGA is out there, are in this territory where, because the media elevates a lot of these MAGA views, I think that a lot of people, a lot of Democrats, I think the candidates, you know, didn't want to talk about the issues that were the most important, which I think we're seeing people talk about now. Like, I do think that there is a group of billionaires and oligarchs and people who are trying to screw over, you know, every, you know, we're screwing over everybody else. And, you know, housing is such an important issue. You got to make that very clear. And I think, overall, if you go look at every issue down the line, equality, even LGBTQ rights, even immigration, you go down the list of issues, people would side with the issues where the Democrats are. But Democrats are loud and proud a lot of times that, I think, that those are their issues, are their issues. And then it morphs into all of these kind of culture war issues, where you go on a show, and then they're like, so, what is a man? What is a woman? What is a, don't you care about the volleyball player? You know, and they, you know, they set the traps for you. And, at the end of the day, I mean, for me, my perspective is, I don't like you bullying people. I don't want you to punch down, and I want you to demoralize, you know, and I want you to try to mock people because of who they are and as their ability to exist as people. That's just not there. But also, I think the pivot is, a right-wing, why are you talking about all of these, like, what, why is that your focus, when also, you know, on a day-to-day basis, people can't afford to live in homes, and, you know, people can't afford groceries, and people can't afford things. So, I think you got to bring it back to those issues. I think that's what Democrats really didn't define, what it means to be a Democrat. And I think Republicans just lied.

Dan Koh: So, I think it's a creation of that. And do you think that we've learned from the lessons that you outline, both on the topics themselves as well as, you know, approaching online media in a way that's thoughtful to where the numbers actually are?

Ben Meiselas: You know, look, time will tell, hopefully soon, you know, and you'd have to see in the midterms, and you'll have to see what happens in 2028. But I do like to see fighting, you know, fighting for what you believe in, peaceful protests. I like to see Democrats going into red districts, speaking to people fearlessly, you know, and calling out what's happening right now in no uncertain terms, and not, you know, both sides in it, or just not being courageous in the face of it. So, I think time will tell, you know, ultimately. But I think we're, I think there's momentum. I mean, I think Trump and what the Republicans wanted to do is stop all opposition and resistance by this point. So, I think the fact that opposition and resistance is growing is a very positive thing. I think that a lot of Democrats, I think a lot of senators, Congress members, their social media game is really improving. They're using the different, you know, whether it's YouTube, TikTok, Bluesky, Twitter, less so, because it's manipulated by Elon and probably not a good metric of views. But you see them using this in ways that I think are helpful. You see them going on more podcasts and shows, and then you see a, you know, a pro-democracy ecosystem, online digital media, developing right now in a way that is getting more views and more downloads than the right-wing. Now, we're in a pretty short period of time, that's taken, you know, that's taking place. And I'm proud that we're, that the Midas Touch Network’s playing, you know, a role, a role in that. You know, I often get asked, you know, can you make this prediction or that prediction? And I always usually say, you know, I'm not really in the prediction game. But my suggestion really is that, what kind of, what, how are we boldly fighting for what it means to support democracy every single day? And I always talk about meeting the moment, and that's like, literally every second, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep. Have I programmed the network the right way? Have I elevated groups and voices that need to be heard? You know, have I done everything I can? Have I read the opinions? And if I've done everything that I can, and then have worked with everybody in my network and all of the hosts that work at the Midas Touch Network to do the same, that, to me, is how I judge success, and it's just every single day, relentless, relentless work.

Dan Koh: You talked a little bit about X and Elon Musk, and I know that one of the pillars of the Midas Touch Network from the very beginning was combating misinformation. So, I'm curious in your thoughts on this, because, you know, I think we all have examples. I just saw one today. There was a tweet that someone put out that Chelsea Clinton received $83 million or something from USAID. Of course, it was a complete lie. There was no community note. Someone asked Perplexity, the agent, to fact-check it, that, that ask of Perplexity got 44,000 views to the 1,000,001st tweet. Then Perplexity responded, saying it was false. That got 14,000 views, right? And so, there's so many examples of that on every single day. And as big as the Midas Touch Network is, I'm sure it's challenging to be directly combating that kind of engine at all times. And so, I'm curious in your thoughts on how we best and most effectively combat the kind of misinformation we're seeing everywhere, but in particular, X.

Ben Meiselas: Well, I don't think you give up on X, you know. There are some people who totally shut it down. I understand it, you know, and I appreciate and respect the reasons why some people have left. We haven't left because our philosophy is, you know, you stay in the fight, no matter what, no matter where you are, and you don't leave it. But also, it's important to note that X, of all of the platforms, is actually one of the smallest, if you look at it in terms of, you know, its actual, you know, not to say it's actually small, but when you compare it to a TikTok, and if you compare it to a YouTube, and even if you compare it to, like, a Reddit and some of these other platforms, it's actually one of the smaller. Now, it feels bigger because journalists live on X, and because they live on X, unfortunately, they frequently buy into right-wing narratives that occur on X, and they buy into that framing without even necessarily realizing. The reason it's being elevated, obviously, is because, you know, at least that's my opinion, is, but it seems obvious that the algorithm is promoting certain types of people and certain types of content, and it's suppressing other types of content. You know, how it's doing it on the back end, you know, the tech stack, it's not clear to me, but it seems pretty clear when you look at what type of content is being elevated. And, of course, Elon Musk, a repost from him with all of this content elevates that. So, in my view, I don't give up on it, but I also am not putting all of my resources, you know, there. I mean, to me, what we've built on YouTube, and what others are building on YouTube, is the way of the future. To me, the algorithm actually reflects a true sense of kind of demand for content, and then focusing on other technology like that, too, to meet people where they are, and then to encourage people to communicate in communities in real spaces, just outside of the digital. So, you take digital, and then you bring it just into the real world with real-world, you know, interactions and fostering a real community of people.

Dan Koh: So, as we approach the midterms, are coming up quicker than we think, and then also the 2028 election, what advice do you have for Democrats on how they should think about this ecosystem today? And where do you see the kind of shifts in the landscape happening, even in the coming year or a few years?

Ben Meiselas: Yeah, I mean, I think that you have to embrace that, too. The digital-first strategy is important. I think you have to shift from the days where you were just hoping that your local newspaper would pick up a story, or your normal Commerce Department would pitch a story to, you know, one of the few big publications, and maybe they'd get back to you or don't get back to you. I mean, every, any congressional office, any Senate office, can also be its own quasi-media network and its own home base to get out messaging in ways that are more profound and bigger than if they were to even just try to pitch their story through some corporate news prism. So, they're armed with the tools, whether it's YouTube, Substack, Bluesky, to some extent, X, whatever, to go and utilize that. I think that they should continue to go on shows like ours and others that are out there to get their voices out there. You know, and then, ultimately, though, I think that, I think it's important that they have, they just speak directly to the people. I think a lot of, you know, you know, there's something that Trump did during the campaign, you know, that is, you know, it's wild that it works, to me, you know, is that he'll show up at a fire department to give them a cold pizza, and he'll take a photo with them. He'll shake their hands. It gets media attention. He leaves, and then he cuts their pensions and their retirements and their unions. But he gave them cold pizza, but he showed up and gave them cold pizza. And I think that there's a view that doing that is, like, why would you even do that? Like, isn't it so obviously, you know, kind of stupid and contradictory and all of those things? Well, to some extent, I think that you can call out the phoniness and fakeness of what Trump did, because it absolutely is phony and fake. And you should call out, he's giving you cold pizza, and he's taking away your retirement, and he's taking away your pension, and he's gutting and destroying your union. But, see, I think Democrats got to go out there and shake hands and look at people and just tell people, I care about you, also bring pizza that's ready to eat, not cold pizza, but, but you show up, and you let people know, like, I care about you. Like, I hear your pain. I know what you're going through, and I want to fight for you people. And people want to hear that. And then they also want you to do that. And I think, too, I think sometimes Democrats or, you know, whoever, you know, over-intellectualize the issues that focus group and think about it so much, when it's just like, I hear your pain, I want to fight for you, I'm going to be your fighter. Watch me go out and fight for you. Here's what I'm going to do for you. Here's what I did for you. I'm with you. What are you going through today? And then listening, also hearing people's pain, what they're really going through, and letting them know that you're committed to fighting for them. And, you know, I think part of the growth of our media network, too, is that we listen, we listen to what the community says, we hear what they're going through, and we actually try to systemically address what they're experiencing and be helpful, you know, as much as we can.

Dan Koh: So, I think more of that needed. You talked a lot about being in the community and listening to people. My final question to you is around community. I think you and I both talk to, all the time, and we hear from friends and others, that people are feeling very distressed, they're feeling incredibly scared. They know, they know neighbors who they've long respected and known to vote Democrat and voted for Trump in the last election, or they're people who have just kind of thrown up their hands at the entire thing at this point. So, my question to you is, what is the message that you could give listeners, what's the one piece of advice that they could take to that kind of person, a converted MAGA voter or a disaffected voter, that would get them engaged or excited to be part of the process again, get excited about the Democratic Party again?

Ben Meiselas: You know, and this is, I think, why we've been effective, because I've actually never looked at the network of, how do I make somebody a Democratic voter? And that may sound like a wild card, so, like, what do you mean, that's what you do? And for me, it's about values and principles that happen to align more closely right now with a particular party that, that isn't the one that is fascist and authoritarian and trying to, and trying to overthrow and engage in a hostile takeover of the federal government. I think that we lead with values and principles in the network, even before the politics. And the pitch, therefore, is a more authentic one about bringing empathy and love and truth and objectivity back to things. Let's go through the court opinion. Let's go through the footnotes. Let's talk about the economy. Let me explain to you what a tariff is, why tariffs are not going to work. Let me explain to you what's happening in the bond market. Let's have the top expert here, the top expert there. Let me play the clip and show what they're saying. So, I think that if you go to a MAGA person, or you go to someone, and you go, you know, that this guy's, you know, you're doing, you know, you should, you know, come to my team, or do that, to me, you're already going to hit a wall in the conversation. You know, to me, what corporate news has, and the cable news cycle that's rage-baited people, what MAGA has done, what the whole, everything has done, is, I think, has removed empathy, connections, and, and it's, and truly, you know, fighting for your fellow American and coming together. And so, to me, at the highest level of what we're doing as a network is, we're focusing on those ideals: truth, empathy, love, respect, democracy. And when you start to want to be, when you start with those values, even before you're going, oh, this political party, here's how you should vote, you start with the values. You build relationships on these values that we should all, like, we should support our allies. There's a reason we should be supporting Ukraine. There's a reason we should be not liking when people at the CDC are losing their jobs. And now, there's a reason why we should like health and science. And this isn't just fighting, fighting, fighting, that we should, there's a reason that we should care about these issues. Here's why we want to have our family members live good lives and prosperous lives. We don't want billionaires to steal our money. To me, when it's framed around those issues, which I have the highest deeply held convictions of, then some of the other issues, and then the politics of it, starts aligning, because who's fighting for these issues, and who's opposing these issues, versus starting in the reverse order. And, and I think that that's how we've always framed things here. And I think that's how we just built authentic connections with our community. I hope that wasn't too abstract of an explanation, but that's how, that's how I think about things, more in my kind of hierarchy of, of where our attention is focused.

Dan Koh: Ben Meiselas, Midas Touch Network, check them out on everywhere you can get your podcasts, on YouTube. Thank you so much for coming on the people's cab.

Ben Meiselas: Great to be here. Looking forward to, looking forward to following all the success here.

Dan Koh: I'm Dan Koh and that's it for the People's Cabinet today. Follow us on social media. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and see you on Tuesdays for new episodes. Let's go.