Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/31/24: DC Lobbyist REVEALS Washington's Dirty Secrets - CounterPoints Friday

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

Ryan and Emily are joined by Sam Geduldig and Brody Mullins to discuss how lobbying influences US policy. Brody Mullin's Book: https://www.amazon.com/Wolves-Street-Secret-History-Government/dp/1982120592 Sam Geduldig: https://cgcn.com/team-members/sam-geduldig/ Timestamps:(00:00) Intro(6:41) How Has Lobbying Changed?(19:29) How Do Special Interests Affect Elections?(22:53) Populism and Lobbying(34:36) Is Lobbying a Good Thing?(46:11) Media's Role In Lobbying(54:14) Republican vs Democrat Spending(1:13:21) Post-Debate ConversationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. It seems to me unfair that the political parties who you would think should be the most important voice in campaigns are the ones that face most onerous rules and regulations on their campaign donation. And the billionaires have no regulations. Let's just have a fair fight. It's the First Amendment. And I'm proud to represent my clients and tell staff or the members themselves why we think they got it wrong.

All right. Welcome to CounterPoint. Today, we're going to be talking about the corporate takeover of Washington. We've got an author over here, Brody Mullins, who wrote with Luke Mullins, the new book, which is destroyed. That's right, it was copied, to be clear. We can put the actual copy up on the screen here called The Wolves of K Street, The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government. We're also joined by Sam Godaldig, who represents that big money taking over big government. Sam is a lobbyist here in Washington. Do you go by super lobbyist or do you just go by lobbyist?

Lobbyist is fine. We'll go by wolf now. He is a wolf of K Street. And so we hope that people at the end of this program will have a full and rich understanding of how lobbying works and how legislating works in Washington based on this kind of investigation into the history of it. Sam, quickly start with you. You actually read the book, which is unusual for you. Tell us what you thought of it. I loved it. Brody did an incredible job. He outlined the careers of three mega lobbyists, people that changed the field. I was a staffer on Capitol

Hill when most of these lobbyists were kind of in their prime. So I didn't know them very well personally, but I definitely knew of them. They all had enormous shops and big influence and they were cutting edge. And Brody writes about that and kind of writes about how things got off the rails for him too. So I found it really interesting. It is interesting how terribly things actually turned out in the end for almost all of the characters in this book. And also terribly for us as a country. Like nobody won here. Even the winners lost.

But Brody, I want to start with you and ask you, let's say you've got a Ukrainian oligarch or an Israeli oligarch or a Russian oligarch. Although sanctions come into play. Well, let's go with the sanctions. Sanctions are a problem too. That's a political problem. An oligarch decides that he has a problem in Washington and it's always a he. And he needs this problem solved. So knowing everything that you've learned in your couple of decades of covering Washington influence, what would the influence peddlers in Washington tell an oligarch, foreign oligarch who's coming into town, here are the steps that you need to take if you want to move your position from where it is now to something more sympathetic? Get your yacht out of hawk or whatever it is that they feel like they need.

Well, I'll give you two different answers. In a normal world, the oligarch would hire lobbyists, Republicans and Democrats. And lobbyists are really translators. I mean, oligarchs or U.S. corporation executives are running their businesses or running their countries or running, you know, however they make their money. They're not focusing on Washington policy. And the policymaking process here is incredibly confusing and complex. So lobbyists in general are translators. They tell people, here are the people you need to talk to. Here's the story you need to tell. Here's how a bill becomes a law or how a resolution will get passed. And it's really about educating as many of the correct people as possible to get your message out on Capitol Hill.

The second answer, though, is if Donald Trump wins, the answer is that you hire Paul Manafort. Paul Manafort would probably be the most powerful unelected person in Washington if Donald Trump wins. Major character in your book. Major character in our book. And the way he's survived through so many years is making contacts with the most important people in Washington, working for President Reagan, working for President Bush after that. And if Trump is elected, there is one person in the world on the planet who has gone to jail for Donald Trump and proven his loyalty, and that is Paul Manafort. And if Trump wins, Manafort is going to be the guy to call. Well, Manafort's a good place actually to start going back in time. Sam, I'm really curious to ask you this question, given what you just said about watching people when you were younger and you were a staffer from that generation. But I'll start here because you document in the book the fascinating

story of how Manafort, Black, and Stone, names that are familiar to a lot of people, Roger Stone, of course, alluding to, changed the game. And lobbying itself has phases, has had sort of phases throughout the last 50 years plus of American history. What changed fundamentally about lobbying as you documented in the Wolves of K Street? Yeah, there's one fundamental change in the last 50 years. And that is that most people think of lobbying today as based on cozy relationships between lobbyists and lawmakers and and campaign donations and steak dinners and golf outings and that's just not how lobbying works these days lobbying is much more about mobilizing constituents getting business groups getting like-minded allies out in the

states to pressure members of congress to vote one way or another um paul manafort and roger stone started to change things that way. They were campaign guys. In the late 1970s, they were working for Ronald Reagan. Interesting story. Ronald Reagan back then was very similar to Donald Trump. He was an outsider. People think of him as the establishment Republican, which he is now. But back then, he was running against George Bush.

George Bush was the Eastern conservative establishment back when there were Eastern conservatives around. He went to Yale. He had the right pedigree. He worked at the RNC. And he was supposed to win the 1980 election or at least be the Republican nominee. Reagan beat him. Then Reagan beats Carter. Reagan comes to office and there's no Republicans in town.

There were no Republican lobbyists because one, Democrats had controlled Congress for 50 years. Two, the last set of Republican establishment figures were with the Nixon administration. So they were out with Watergate. Paul Manafort and Roger Stone had worked for the Reagan campaign. Companies started saying,

hey, who can we hire as lobbyists who has access? Who knows Reagan? And Stone and Manafort, who are literally 30 and 31 years old, basically said like, we can do this. So they started getting tons of corporate clients. And what they realized was that running a lobbying campaign is very similar to running a political campaign. You're just trying

to get 51% of your constituents, in this case, Congress, to vote for what you want. And so they started running basically political campaigns for big corporations. And so you also write about the wolves of K Street element of it. It feels like something out of a movie in the 80s, just absolute debauchery. You go through a bunch of lawsuits that women, particularly in the office, filed against these different partners. It sounded crazy. And some of these guys just sounded like a complete cliche. Was it Boggs who would ride in his top-down Lamborghini or Porsche on his brick phone, car phone, smoking five cigars a day? Hell yeah. How has that changed or has it not changed?

I mean, obviously, it's not exactly the same, but the culture still feels... I feel like the culture has changed in Washington. That was a very Mad Men 1950s mentality that we had in Washington through the 1980s. I think a lot of that has cleaned up. Is that right? Yeah, 100%. Did you see it clean up in your arc? It had been cleaned up by the time I was on Capitol Hill as a staffer.

I think, you know, the campaign finance law and the lobbying reforms after the Abramoff scandal really tightened things up. It's like 2012. Yeah, that sounds right. Brody broke that story, too. 2007 was HLOGO, which is the Honest Leadership in Government Reform Act or something like that. And basically what it said was lobbyists, like Sam, cannot buy anything of value for a staffer or a member of Congress. And the idea was let's separate the ties, let's break these cozy relations between lawmakers and staffers. Right. So that lobbyists can't register lobbyists, can't bring a staffer to play golf or can't buy dinner or go to Nationals game to sort of separate those ties. One of the results of that, unfortunately, the unintended consequence was a lot of lobbyists said, well, I'm just not going to register.

The rule applied to registered lobbyists. Registered lobbyists are people who spend 20% or more of their time actively talking to members of Congress or policymakers about legislation. And I imagine you don't spend 20% of your time. I don't. Right. So it's very easy to get around that rule by saying, I don't spend 20% of my time doing that. So lots of lobbyists just deregistered, and therefore the rules essentially didn't apply to them. So Sam, then, tell us what the life, you know, people at home, Ryan and I both been in Washington and around this, but for people at home, tell us what the daily life in the

daily routine in the life of a lobbyist looks like. It's not super sexy. You know, it's meeting with a lot of young staff, you know, I'm 51 now. But, you know, it's meeting with the staff to members of Congress and senators, talking to a lot of journalists, sitting in meetings with clients, their PR firms, their lawyers. You know, we've talked about like the political industrial complex. I consider all four of us solidly in it, in a source to you guys, been a source to Brody, trying to shift the debate in positive ways for clients and trying to kill things on Capitol Hill that our clients don't like. The book, I agree with Brody, it does feel like an era that's long gone. The book makes it sound like it was all madmen and these happy hours that were insane and

misogyny. And I haven't seen any of that. I think it's an interesting way to make a living. We get to talk to a lot of people, come up with strategies to make certain policies palatable or not palatable for the members that are going to vote on those policies. We focus on a lot of Fortune 500 work. At my firm, we don't do Faro work. So that kind of eliminates the Ukrainian oligarchs. How do you decide who to represent, though?

I'm at an all Republican firm. So for us, it's very simple. We try to take clients that we think Republicans will be aligned to want to help. What about you personally? Me personally? Me personally. Like, you know, when you're thinking of, I'm sure you've had less than savory characters approach you in the past. I'm sure you've turned people away. What's that like for you? The less than savory characters, you kind of get a vibe pretty quick if they're trying, you know, throwing around more money than maybe, you know, you would normally charge, you know, sets off like a little internal red flag. People assuming that you can do

things that you can't, you know, like one conversation is going to change everything. So, you know, I try to stay away from that personally. You know, it's a big industry. There's a lot of lobbyists in town. There's even more lawyers and more PR firms. Brody wrote about three really interesting slash ethically maybe challenged human beings. I don't see that every day. there's been people that have been wildly successful and, you know, every election turns kind of the tide on which firms may or may not get hired by certain clients. But it's a lot of blocking and tackling. It's a lot of meetings. It's a lot of trying to figure out messages that will move, you know, electorates in certain congressional districts or states to a place where

the senator or the member feels comfortable voting yes or no. One thing to add, I think, you know, like I said before, a lot of people think that lobbying is not the way it exists today. You know, back in the day when you worked for John Boehner, I think people think that you could go into John Boehner and give him a campaign check and he's going to, you know, put some provision into the law for you. And that just doesn't happen anymore. And it did happen. It absolutely did 20, 30, 40 years ago, especially when we had earmarks. But it doesn't happen now. And part of that is because of scrutiny of the media and the member of Congress exists. I mean, in my entire time of being a reporter, like the one thing you know for sure is a member of Congress will do anything it takes to get reelected. And if they're going to

do some sweetheart deal for a lobbyist buddy and get caught, they could lose their seat. So they're not going to do that. I would add the media landscape back when Boggs and Podesta and Manafort were doing what they were doing was so tight. You had three major newspapers, maybe four, a couple of network news shows that only ran a half hour every night. You know, now with cell phones and the internet and all the media kind of outlets that have popped up across, across DC, it's really hard to have a quiet conversation in a smoke filled back room. Like there's no secrets anymore. Nobody even smokes. That's true.

I won't reveal what you put in to get your nicotine fix before we started here. But it seems like... It was a sin. And it feels like... I'm curious if Washington has sort of adapted to this by concentrating power in the leadership positions. It's like a parasite host relationship in the way that the Congress, the administrative apparatus, kind of shapes itself sometimes to the lobbyists. For instance, Brody, you've covered this. The House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee, those would be the places that would regulate the people with lots of money. members of Congress who wanted to raise money from Wall Street would go serve on these committees

so that it would sort of then be subsumed into that. That's how the takeover ends up happening. But today, because there's so much anger at Wall Street and there's also, like you said, there's more attention on everything. Now a lot of people are like, actually, I don't want to be on the House Financial Services Committee because it's just going to get me in trouble. It's going to show that I took a million dollars from banks. Then I'll take some vote. Some bank will blow up. Then I'm going to lose my seat. So how are people, that's more on the Democratic side. It's harder, I think, to get called out for it. So what is the current state of fear of getting called a toady to corporate America? There is an incredible amount of populism in both parties right now. And there is kind of a notion

that these pack checks that ran kind of politics in the 90s are a double-edged sword. You can get a $5,000 pack check, and it can be turned around and used against you in a 30-second ad by your opponent or a primary opponent, which these are all things that didn't used to happen in the 90s. Primary opponents, the negative ads have gotten more kind of intense. Parties have more control, maybe. And outside groups do, too. You know, you've got all these, you know, these, I guess, super PACs that are funded by, you know, maybe one or two donors that are willing to do things that maybe the party

apparatus in the 90s would have never done, which has challenged a sitting member of Congress. So, you know, you take a check, a PAC check, which sounds kind of benign. All it is is a corporation's employees contributing to a fund to give to politicians that agree with positions the company agrees with or disagrees with. And it turns that contribution into maybe a 30-second hit. So, you know, you got $5,000, but it did like a million dollars worth of damage to your favorable rating as a member of Congress hoping to get reelected. So what do lobbyists do to get around that now

or to try to duck that liability? I think, you know, hopefully, you know, your clients aren't that hot that, you know, that would cause a problem. And it's our job as lobbyists to make sure that the members that we're trusting and they're trusting us to have serious conversations about how to move the ball forward in Washington on any issue that we're not going to put them in hot water. So, you know, if I'm going to sit there and talk to Congressman X and say, you know, here's a bunch of money, don't worry about it. It's all okay. And then he gets a negative ad run against him. You know, that Congressman's probably never going to talk to me again. So. You can't win too much.

We can't do it the way those guys did. It's interesting. You know, I said before that a member of Congress will do whatever it takes to get reelected. And obviously that means you need 51% of your constituents to vote for you. But you also need money. After Watergate, Watergate essentially, the Federal Election Commission was created and legalized political action committees. Companies started giving tons of money to Republicans and the Democrats and created sort of a pro-business center in the U.S. where in Congress, where both Republicans and Democrats listened to corporate America and listened to their lobbyists and listened to corporations in part because they're getting

this money. We rose to a point where about half, members of Congress get about half of their money from corporate PACs. And that made members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats more dependent on money from corporate PACs. And that meant that corporations created, that allowed corporations to create a pro-business working center in this country. That's now fraying because both Democrats are not taking corporate PAC money and some Republicans are not taking corporate PAC money because of the issues that Sam mentioned. So now what we have is members

of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, getting money from small donors. Small donors tend to be more ideological, less concerned about getting things done in Washington, and oftentimes trying to blow up things in Washington. And you have members of Congress on the right and the left who are now, instead of appealing to the middle and coming to these companies to get their money and see what they want, are sort of moving to the extremes, which I think has made politics more extreme on both sides. And so the other thing about corporate PAC dollars is that while there are problems with them, we know where they're coming from. We know how they're raised. They're regulated. They're disclosed. They're capped. Donations from billionaires and small donors, we don't know

who these people are. We don't know what they want. There's very little disclosure. And that's a bigger problem that we have in politics. And the political parties are still capped. So the super PACs and billionaires are doing whatever they want with no rules and no limitations. And the political parties, who I think we'd want to be the dominant force in politics, are no longer the dominant force in politics. And that's a problem. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I

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in the 70s. And so that's why we understood it in that kind of dialectic. But your point is a really fascinating one, because just last week and the week before, we were covering this race in Portland, Oregon. I don't know if you guys follow this at all. Sam, you wouldn't have because it's a Democratic primary. Who cares? I love Democratic primaries. It was Oregon's third district. Pramila Jayapal's sister was running. Right.

And in an open race, Earl Blumenauer retired. And AIPAC decides that it's going to weigh in against Jayapal's sister. But because AIPAC has a kind of toxic relationship with Portland, they're not going to come in and be like, we think that Israel's war is going great. And we support this liberal Democrat. Because then everybody would just say, well, we're voting for Jayapal. So they created basically fake super PACs. Like they just propped up brand new super PACs and dropped millions of dollars into them at the very end so that they didn't have to disclose until after the election had already

happened. It's like a domestic version of the European Center for Modern Ukraine, basically, which is the shell group that Podesta and Manafort used. And so, boom, they pick a member of Congress just with this maneuvering. What does that do to Washington? Or is it in some ways a sideshow that it affects American policy towards Israel, but otherwise everything else just kind of goes on as it was and members just know, like, okay, if I step out of line on Israel-Palestine, I can have some completely random super PAC nuke me. Yeah, I mean, I think the same thing happens with corporate America. I mean, I remember stories a decade ago when Harry Reid was running for reelection and the pharmaceutical industry would come in at the last second and support Harry Reid.

And as a result, Harry Reid owed the pharmaceutical companies when he got back to Congress. Yeah, that was Obamacare, right? They cut a $150 million deal. Right. More recently, I heard a great story that big tech companies, when these anti-tech bills were moving through, or there was a question of whether it'd be a Senate vote, big tech industry went out to a couple of key states, ran tons of ads, and basically sent the message, we will destroy you if you vote for this bill. And there was no vote on that bill.

The Bitcoin folks did that in 2022, if you followed. They jumped into a bunch of races. Sam Bankman-Fried, actually. You're sending a message that... And I think the point here is that the government and the president and Congress are incredibly powerful, but not as powerful as big companies at times. When big companies come in and take people out, that means that these members of Congress who, again, exist to get reelected are going to be careful and not want to go against corporate America.

Yeah. I mean, that's incredibly interesting. One question for Sam, just sort of about the vibes on K Street right now, because I don't think, mostly when you're talking to lobbyists, they're like sort of what people would imagine as the elite, coastal elite sort of in their bubbles. You know, Sam, and last time we had you on the show, you did this fantastic report on what the differences between, you know, the what is the problem solvers caucus, right? The sort of elite coastal moderates and justice Democrats in the Freedom Caucus who have more populist constituents and also actually lower socioeconomic constituents on average.

I feel like you really understand populism in a way that the rest of the lobbying industry does not, even though it's kind of in their interest to understand it. Right. So what's the vibe? Give us a vibe check. Like, what are other people missing, if anything? I think there's some that have their heads kind of stuck in the sand and think that things just can't and won't ever change. And the last time we were on, we talked about, you know, the economic breakdown of some of the poorest congressional districts in the country, which surprises a lot of people.

Republicans have a lot more. The richest congressional districts in the country were held by Democrats. We, myself and two business partners, created the first minority-owned bipartisan lobbying firm in the history of Washington, D.C. A lot of people snickered. You know, it doesn't do fabulously well financially. I mean, the partnership's fun, and we have a lot of fun working on the issues we work on. And we try to identify regressive issues, whether it's higher gas prices or tax on tobacco products that just are punitive to poor constituencies. And after COVID, you can find a million stats that show the middle class has been completely wiped out. The wealthy are getting wealthier, the poor are getting poorer, and there's no more middle class.

Politicians have one job. It's just to get reelected. It's not to collect campaign checks. It's not to talk to lobbyists. It's not to do any of the things that I think a lot of people assume it is. It's to get reelected. And the best way to get reelected is take positions your constituents want you to take. So, you know, with the elimination of the middle class and these poor constituencies looking at different parties in a way that they haven't,

you know, recent polling shows Trump's doing really well with Black and Hispanic voters. And I think Trump, you know, supercharged a lot of this populism and a lot of this coalition shifting. When I was on Capitol Hill, you know, the Republican orthodoxy was social issues, Second Amendment, abortion, reducing regulations and corporate taxes and fighting the trial bar with like maybe a fourth leg of the stool being, you know, bash unions. Today, only one leg stands solidly. It's abortion and gun rights. And if you think that the reason Republicans are taking those positions is for campaign checks, I've got news for you. That's not why they do it. Mike Bloomberg spent a gazillion dollars on gun safety bills and hired lobbyists all over town. And the NRA went bankrupt. And they're

still powerful because they got a lot of people that live in congressional districts that tell their members how they want them to vote. Do you think most lobbyists spend a lot of time with the type of people who would either vote for Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders? I'm shaking our head over here. I do. I mean, I think you're somewhat of an anomaly. Yeah. I think that a lot of people in the industry would just like to see this time come and go. And I personally think we're stuck with it. I think something that's fascinating along the same lines is last year I did a study at the Journal where I took the 100 poorest districts in the country

and just put whether they're represented by a Republican or Democrat. 10 years ago, 63 out of the 100 districts were represented by Democrats, and that's what we would think, poor urban districts. In the last election, it was literally the opposite. 63 of the 100 were represented by Republicans, which are rural Trump districts. And the point is that that's your Republican Party. It's not the Republican Party that we think of. A lot of the Republican Party we write about in the book is the Reagan, pro-business, free trade, cut corporate tax. That party isn't really there anymore. And it'll be fascinating to see how that changes. Yeah. And so you've got a lot of progressive Democrats, like you said, not taking corporate PAC money anymore. Not as many as it should be. It's in the dozens. It's pathetic how low it is. But the trend is in that direction.

And then you've got a lot of these populist Republicans as well. So how is corporate America adapting? I think right now, I mean, the lobbyists who I talk to are, it sounds crazy, are literally scared. I mean, the people who they'd normally go to on Capitol Hill. Some good news, at least. Yeah. The people who they'd normally go to on Capitol Hill. Some good news, at least. The people who they'd normally go to for help aren't there anymore. A good example is Josh Hawley. Josh Hawley represents Missouri, not a state that's doing well these days. He is a Republican. I'm sure he used to be a Reagan Republican. He has three bills right now with Elizabeth Warren.

One would cap credit card fees, which is like a great idea if you're a Democrat. This is a Republican. Warren from a wealthy coastal state, by the way. Right, right. He's got a bill to make it easier to join labor unions, and he's got a bill to claw back bonuses for banks that fail. And these are all terrific ideas if you're a Democrat. The fact that a Republican is on those, like the Republican would even talk to Elizabeth Warner is kind of amazing right now, Elizabeth Warren.

And so, I mean, that just shows how the party is changing. And it seems like every time a pro-business Reaganite senator leaves, like Rob Portman, you get a J.D. Vance who's much more populist to replace him. And the Senate and the House seem to be slowly changing that direction. Another example, a year and a half ago, there was a bill in Congress to give the Federal Trade Commission, to give the federal government more money and more power to look into and block corporate mergers. This is something that Republicans would be against forever, giving the government more power to look into corporate mergers.

40, actually it was 39 House Republicans voted for that bill to basically tax big companies to give the government more power to look into corporate mergers. I mean, the political world is changing here. But here's what I mean about Washington adapting to this new system. As soon as there's this populist wave and as soon as people start to get control of their members of Congress again, like, all right, now Hawley is responsive to actual Missouri Republicans. All of a sudden, lawmakers don't matter anymore. And it's just what they call the big four. You know, the Senate Democratic leader, Senate Republican leader, House Democratic leader, House Republican leader. And then you've got 433 NPCs, basically, in the House who are just kind of told what the deal is that was struck between these big four.

You and I were talking last night about how it was much more interesting how things were able to get done, say, 10 years ago. But now, just as people are getting a hold of the system, the system is like, actually, we're not doing it like that anymore. Right. The collapse of regular order, which is how a bill becomes a law. Schoolhouse Rock, it passes the House. It passes the subcommittee, the committee, the House, the floor of the House of Representatives goes over to the Senate. The Senate goes through this similar process. And then if the bills are different in any way at all, they're, you know, they call it a conference committee where the, you know, there's compromises worked out and then it goes to the White House for either a signature or veto. And I don't have the stats on this, but

my guess is the bills that go through regular order in the last five, six election cycles, you know, Congress's is really, really limited. So it used to used to be the case back in the Podesta, Manafort, you know, Tommy Boggs era, where if you had the ear of an important chairman, say the Banking Committee chairman or the Appropriations Committee chairman, that chairman decided he was with you as a lobbyist and was going to insert your language in a bill. The whole system is different in that, you know, that smoke filled room or that quiet conversation was quietly inserted and voted on and the members on both sides kind of were team players in a way that they just

currently aren't. Yeah, we'll let that slide. No. Who cares? Yeah, the chairman wants it. This is his, you know, he's the chairman. Chairman's got to take care of me later. The prerogative of the chairman and, you know, the leaders were inclined to help the chairman.

And before you knew it, you know, your language is stuffed in an appropriations bill or some other type of vehicle that's going to become law. These days, you know, members towing the line for their chairman is, I don't want to say it's not done because it still is, but the amount of media coverage from websites or mainstream media or, you know, bloggers makes everything such a transparent process. There's so much pressure on these members from different constituencies that care about different issues where these things really get nitpicked. And it's cratered the whole kind of legislative experience in a way where they're not getting almost anything done through committees anymore. And we have these, you know, these fits where we kind of bump up against a deadline and we have to fund the federal government and, you know, we'll pass, we call it a Christmas tree

omnibus type legislative vehicle that has, you know, some stuff that Chuck Schumer wants, some stuff that Mike Johnson wants and and it passes. And it's kind of how the Ukraine-Israel funding kind of came to be. Enough people decided something had to happen where the big four hash it out rather than the Foreign Affairs Committee. So if you're a lobbyist, then how do you do it? You just have to have somebody who knows Chuck Schumer and they'll get it in? Yeah, you know, I was going to rewind for a quick history lesson or reminder. So before Watergate, power was held by the government based by three people, the president, the House speaker, and the Senate majority leader. They were all guys. And there were just a few lobbyists. And if you had a relationship with one of those three or two

of those three, you get anything done you want. There's less scrutiny, like you said. After Watergate, the country rebelled against that system. We elected 50 or 60 reformers who came to Washington who changed government power and took power from the White House and moved it to Congress and moved it from congressional leaders and pushed it down to committees and subcommittees and gave everyone lots of power so that tons of people were committee chairman or subcommittee chairman. Tommy Boggs, one of the top lobbyists of that era, used to joke that when he went up to Capitol Hill and said, hey, Mr. Chairman, half the people would turn around because half the people were subcommittee chairman. And it showed that power was diffuse. That, as Sam was saying, has started to kind of boil back together where power is coming back to just the House and Senate leaders and the White House. If Trump is elected, that's reelected. That's really going to push things back to the White House again. I mean, Trump just openly doesn't do anything in Congress. He just legislates

and tries to create laws through the executive branch and through executive orders. So I think that if he is reelected, we're going to go back to that era where there's just a handful of really important lobbyists. Power will be not just in the Trump administration, but really just in the White House or really just in the Oval Office. I mean, he just does things on his own. So it's really going to bring us back to an era that we've sort of moved past from. That brings me to a question I really wanted to put to both of you. Based on an anecdote just of my own, I was once in a green room with a fairly high profile media personality. And I think I was ranting about lobbying or something like

that. And this person sort of took me aside and said, you know, a lot of people don't realize this, but lobbying is actually a good thing because otherwise nobody would know what to put in these bills. The lobbyists are the only ones who know intimately some of these issues because congressional staffers are 25, have a million things in their portfolio, and have no idea what is actually going on in this district in, let's say, Missouri. So I think that's probably true, but also ridiculous defense. I still, though, want to put that out to both of you to see if you have thoughts on, you know, maybe people like myself, Ryan, rage against the industry. You know, if we got what we wanted, just eliminated it, whatever, what are the downsides in that sort of hypothetical world?

You know, I was raised by two very liberal parents. My dad was a criminal defense attorney who represented violent criminals. And he raised me saying that, you know, you may not like my clients, but their rights to be defended make this country great. And I don't know that I necessarily like bought it when I was a kid, but I used the arguments against. You're like, this is good rhetoric. I used it against them when I became a lobbyist. My clients deserve the right to complain about Congress. It's speech. Like, yeah, like they don't do everything great. And, you know, to tell anyone they don't have the right to amplify their voice, to complain

that they're getting something wrong. And the more you get to know members of Congress, the more you know, they definitely are not exactly getting things exactly right. That's for sure. You know, it's the First Amendment. And I'm proud, represent my clients and tell staff or the members themselves why we think they got it wrong. And do you think they appreciate it sometimes because they genuinely are unaware of things that you bring to them? Yeah, I mean, depends if we're going in with someone that's really working hard against what we're trying to accomplish. But yeah, for the most part, you know, you know, we have a lot of clients. So, you know, it's not in my business model to, you know, kind of blow up one relationship over one single issue. So, you know, I, you know, sometimes I go in and it's for something very good that everyone here would think it's the right thing to do.

Right. And, you know, maybe the next week, not. Part of the history here, and you could talk about this a little bit, is that it was deliberate in the sense that lawmaking was privatized by Newt Gingrich. When Gingrich took over after the 94 wave, he got rid of what was called this Democratic Study Group. apparatus that existed in Congress where members could and their staff could get help doing legislation from basically people who were just technically proficient at it. And Gingrich just took an ax to it and said, you know what, and cut staff salaries, cut member office budgets such that it was just no longer, you know, physically possible for them to write legislation. Like, oh, that's, did he have a plan B? And yes, he did have a plan

B. It was K Street. And so then he also then at the same time insisted that, well, that was delayed, right, through the K Street project saying you got to hire Republicans because at the time there were so many Democrats from the legacy era of Democrats controlling Washington. Well, and ideologically, it made more sense for a Republican like Newt Gingrich, who was limited government, pro-free enterprise, pro-slash-pro-corporate at the time. That union made a lot more sense. And so, you basically privatized the function of legislating out to K Street. And it did become true that the only people that knew how to do it were K Street. Yeah. So I said before that lobbyists, good lobbyists are translators. They're also

subject matter experts. I mean, our federal government, all of our agencies are incredibly complicated, incredibly bureaucratic, incredibly hard to understand. The laws are written by lawyers who are not the easiest people to understand sometimes. So creating laws and legislation is very difficult. The and legislation is very difficult. The subject matter is very difficult. You're regulating industries that have incredibly complicated business models and plans. So you want experts writing the law.

Unfortunately, the people who are working in Congress are really 25 or 35-year-olds at most. They're not experts. It's not their fault. It's just that they haven't had that experience. So therefore, as you say, lobbyists sort of become the experts. I know for myself as a reporter, I rely on lobbyists lots of times to understand rules and regulations because they used to work at the EPA in the Aaron Waters subcommittee where they wrote the law. And it could explain to me why this law or provision is the way it is or isn't. The issue

is that, in fact, going back, the framers of the country knew that the government wasn't going to create rules and regulations in a vacuum. They knew there'd be these interest groups, lobbyists, they called them factions back then. What they thought, though, is that there'd be sort of a fair fight. It'd be labor unions against environmental groups, against corporate lobbyists. And what we've seen in the last 10 years or 20 years is that it was really just the corporate lobby out there. Unions have been decimated. Ralph Nader used to be incredibly influential. He doesn't exist anymore. Although when you try to get him on, he doesn't do Zoom anymore, he said. He would do it by phone. Oh, interesting. But he said he didn't want to do Zoom.

I did talk to him. The point is, in this era... He's a big character in your book, which is why I mentioned and reached out to Ralph for it. To roll back on that, in the 1970s and 1960s, Ralph Nader might have been the most influential person in Washington. People may not realize that, how powerful he was. It's kind of unthinkable. Exactly. That's kind of the point. Remember the scene in Mad Men? Have you seen?

I saw it. There was a scene in Mad Men where a corporation has a problem, and it turns out the problem is Ralph Nader. They're like, is there anything you guys, they're going to all their powerful firms working for him, is there anything you can do about Ralph Nader? And they're like, no. No, there is not. Well, Ralph Nader took on General Motors back when what was good for GM is good for the country. And he took them on and won on auto safety regulation, which shows, one, how much power and influence he had,

but also companies didn't have any influence until the 1970s or 1980s. And so today, the problem is there's nothing inherently wrong or illegal with lobbies. As you say, lobbyists have the right to petition their government. They have the right to raise money and give campaign donations. The problem is that lobbyists are the only voice being heard because the other side just doesn't have the resources that they used to have. So in fact, for our book, we spoke to a professor who had done a study and he talked to 70 corporate lobbyists and said, hey, who is the number one person you're fighting against? And not one of them said a labor union. So companies are not, the other side of

company fights isn't labor unions. It's really just other corporate lobbyists, right? It's company against companies these days. And so, and sometimes it seems like companies are just, or going back to the parasite host situation, sometimes you'll have people in Washington just kind of create, feels like create problems for corporations who then have to then come in and pay lobbyists who are their friends to solve those problems. Very much like how the mob would go to a small business and be like, would you like to put me on retainer to make sure that your window doesn't get smashed? Would you like me to advertise an Axios for a week?

Yeah. And they're like, what are you talking about? There's no crime here. My window hasn't get smashed. Would you like me to advertise an Axios for a week? Yeah, and they're like, what are you talking about? There's no crime here. My window hasn't been smashed. I've never extorted anyone, but you bring up an interesting point about Axios, right? It's like back in the day, back in the Tommy Boggs, Manafort era, our job, our job was to, you know, transcribe and track a mundane, boring committee hearing. Right. Well, now, BGov, or BGov is a Bloomberg function of their news outlet, or Politico Pro, or Axios, or Punchbowl, they perform these services more and more you know we're competing with media for jobs that used to be our jobs like those you know from south park those are derbs you know um

thoughts and prayers brody says in the book i found the most interesting parts of the book the media parts roll call was this sleepy uh did you write for roll call? Never did. No, but I see him in hallway all the time. You know, I wrote for Politico. Politico. It was two days a week, roll call. And then in your book, in like the fifth chapter, you talk about how they went to five days a week and ultimately seven days a week, not because they had so much content, they had advertising dollars. So, you know, like I listen to these conversations and you go on rants about lobbyists. And like, I feel this like it's all of us here. Like, you know, like we're journalists live in this political industrial complex where the media outlets or have a vested interest in taking the job that, you know, some kid used to do at a lobbying firm and transcribing a hearing transcript. And now,

you know, one click of the button and Bloomberg or Politico Pro or Punchbowl are doing it. And you know, no one is hitting this 20% threshold. So no one's registered. And, you know, I've just- Although you are registered. I am. Yeah. And you got all the- It's out of pride.

You have a lot of data on you. I do. Well, we can put this next chart up on the screen. No data on any of you three. Well, no, I mean, I think it's interesting because you probably rub elbows with a lot of people who don't register. So here's Sam, 2018 in the top, I think you were in the top 10 that year of registered lobbyists. It's actually incorrect to say lobbyists because there are a whole lot of people doing a whole lot of lobbying without registering in political contributions. This is some general stuff on the left and the right of the screen. You see total spending and lobbyists adjusted for inflation over time. And then on the right, although it only starts in, I think, 1998. On the right, you see in 2023, so last year, the biggest spenders, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Realtors,

American Hospital Association, Blue Cross Blue Shield. Down to the bottom, you get Amazon Business Roundtable, Meta, et cetera. But I mean, so Sam, that's a quarter of a million, $246,000 in contributions that year, 2018. It's actually less than I would have thought. And you see Seaboyden Gray, big conservative lobbyist up there. I think he used to be at the top, weren't you? There was a time when I was more gender number one or two. I just meant all of the, because you see the difference between Boyden Gray and the person underneath him, huge. So even the second highest person here, we're talking about $500,000. So it's actually less than I would have expected

because it's interesting because that's nothing for like an IE in a campaign now like independent expenditure a super PAC that's all spread out you know you can only give what is it

right that's around $5,000 that's several hundred thousand spread out among lots of members they'll come in with there used to be a cap some Supreme Court got rid of the cap I think but what's not the cap, I think. But what's not in... The cap on individual campaigns, but not on...

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on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. To Sam's point, what's not included in that is all the money that the Chamber and Business Roundtable and Amazon spent on Politico and Axios and events and all kinds of stuff like that. There's different things happening under the surface.

One quick story on that, and I want to hear your response to this. I was told that, and I think this is in my second book, that Pelosi, before she would take a meeting with a trade group, trade association, a lobbyist group basically, would ask to see Politico, The Hill, and Roll Call, which are the three print publications that are circulated free on Capitol Hill. And she'd go through and look to see if they had full page ads. Because those are $10,000, $20,000 a pop. That would have been smart. And if they had in each one, then that was a proxy for how much water they're drawing in town. How seriously do I need to take these people based on how much they're going to be spending in town?

It's like, oh, full-page ads in every single one. But it doesn't show up on Open Secrets. Right, but that wouldn't show up as... Although it might if they had to spend it through some lobbying show. But in any event, how does the media play a part in lobbying today in the way that it didn't before? It's a great question. So members of Congress get their information in various ways.

You can get it from your staffer. You can get it from a lobbyist. Or you get it from the media. And for the last few decades, members of Congress and staff read these publications where I work for many of them. I work for Congress Daily. I work for Roll Call. There's also Politico and Punchbowl. And members of Congress and staff need to read these publications to know what's going on on Capitol Hill. But the reporters are also writing stories about this credit card cap bill.

How is it doing? How many sponsors does it have? Is it getting a committee hearing? Does it have momentum? Does it not have momentum? Lobbyists and interest groups have realized if you can lobby the reporters, if you can influence those stories, it's another way of getting to a member of Congress, either through ads or actually talking to reporters. So one of our main characters is a guy named Jim Kordovich, who realized this first, that if you can go and be friends with the reporters who are writing the stories for Capitol Hill and get your client's message into one of those stories, you know, this credit card bill has got a lot of momentum. It's going to pass. You should jump on board. You want to be with the winner. Or conversely, you know, no one's going to, you know, this credit card bill has got a lot of momentum. It's going to pass. You should jump on board. You want to be with the winner. Or conversely, you know, no one's going to, you know,

this bill could get killed in subcommittee. It doesn't, you know, why waste your time becoming a co-sponsor if the bill is going to go? Anyway, they would sort of try to influence these stories to create momentum for bills or against bills. And he was sort of a genius at it. Yeah. Talk about how he did that because it's kind of a Washington. Classic, classic Washington. Until recently, he was's kind of a Washington- Classic Washington. Until recently, he was not registered as a lobbyist, but he would throw parties. He'd throw big parties in Washington. He'd invite reporters.

He'd invite members of Congress. He'd invite lobbies, whoever was a bold-faced name in D.C. And then he would send his guest list to Axios, or Punchbowl didn't exist back then, or Playbook. And people would write about his story to sort of further elevate the mystique about these great parties he would have. So everyone in Washington, all the players wanted to go to these parties. And he would sort of use them for his business. One, he would tell clients, hey, look at all these important people I know. But two, he would sort of befriend reporters who he could then go to and say like, hey, you know, this bill is coming up. You know, you should write about it or not write about it. Or here's, you know, he can sort of create relationships with

reporters to then try to pitch his client's interest to get to the eyeballs of members of Congress. So we'll add this in post, but I had to mention this was a couple of weeks ago, I got the Axios Morning newsletter. So it was May 10th. And at the top, I always look at who's presenting it that day because it's their corporate sponsor. It said presented by BP. And then down the second item, not even like down far at number 10, the second item was called Trump's big oil bargain. And it was basically criticizing Donald Trump for making a bargain with big oil in a newsletter that was clearly a bargain between the media outlet and big oil. And that happens literally every day if you read Playbook or Punchbowl or whatever. But in that sense, I mean, it's so egregious. I think if you had done that, I don't know, 20 years ago, it would have been a

lot, people would have been a lot more grossed out by it. It seems like that's changed. I remember 20 years ago or so, maybe 15 years ago, the Washington Post had this idea of having salon dinners where you would invite a member of Congress, I think, and you have sponsors pay for it. And people got fired over that. I mean, they were laughed out of town and everyone said, this is a horrible idea. This is pay to play. Now everyone does it. Right. It's the thing that funds, what, Semaphore, Punchbowl, it's like the main thing that's funding them is these corporate events, right? And the Wall Street Journal, we have big conferences all the time where people pay to sponsor the events.

I mean, it's part of the business. Journal's a model now. I remember I was getting those types of emails from these media outlets. And you tried to blow one up. I did. I did. So I would respond like, if I pay this much, can I sit next to whoever the host is hosting? And will they absolutely vote yes?

Like, just like, you know, like kind of like, you know, like, I don't know, like the jerky boys on like, you know, like a prank phone call. So, and I mean, emailing with like a serious person and she's not getting my sarcasm or my irony at all. She's like 10 grand. Right. So I'm like, how much do I need to get a yes vote? You know, like just back and forth. And, you know, after a while she realized I was just, you know, goofing on her or whatever. So, you know, she goes dark. And I sent the emails to you guys.

I mean, like, it's not just the lobbyists. It's this whole city. It's like everyone in it. You weren't offended at the behavior. You were offended at the competition. Well, I'm offended at the moral preening over lobbyists are bad while I'm being asked to give money to a salon dinner that's not reportable, non-disclosed. So someone else can stuff money in their pockets and accuse lobbyists of being crooked? Like, at least we register.

At least our data is out there. That's all I'm saying. You put up a stat earlier from Open Secrets. There's 13,000 registered lobbyists in D.C. There's five or six million people who live in the Washington, D.C. area. And if you're not working for a school or a bus driver or work in retail or maybe a university or a journalism, you're here to affect policy and legislation. And what Sam's point is that he needs to register and disclose his activities, and there's millions of people

who don't. And that's not right. Well, although there was a point made earlier that the requirements to register created, in a sense, more corruption because people were just not registering. So I pose this question to both of you. What, if anything, do you think, based on your experience reporting this, living that, needs to change either in media or in lobbying or in the entire political industrial complex to make this system more fair? So I don't think we can regulate and we shouldn't regulate speech or money. I think we should do things to make things more fair and I think ultimately have more disclosure. Again, in your stats that you put up a few minutes ago, it showed in 2007,

however many lobbyists there were at that moment when we passed the law to ban gift-giving by members of Congress and lobbyists, the number of lobbyists every year went down. And that's crazy. For anyone who thinks there are fewer lobbyists today than there were in 2007, it's crazy. So people are just gaming the system. So there should be disclosure of everyone who's trying to influence legislation. I think that's totally fine. And then the American public can say, I like that or I don't like that and use their vote. I think the same thing for money. It seems to me unfair that the political parties who you would think should be the most important voice in campaigns are the ones that face most onerous rules and regulations on their campaign donations. And the billionaires have no regulations. We don't even know who they are, what they want,

and they're spending money however. You mentioned the example in Oregon. They're doing whatever they want and we don't know what they're doing. It seems like let's just have a fair fight. What they're doing with the Washington Post, for example. The salon dinners or? Well, no, what Jeff Bezos, billionaire. Oh, right, right, sure. I mean, we have to take the Post's word for it or Axios puts at the bottom of their letters that, you know, their partners don't affect the editorial content. So you just have to

take their word for it. Right, right. How would public financing change Washington? So there was a bill by John Sarbanes who actually, this is quite ironic, and we covered this briefly. John Sarbanes, the son of Paul Sarbanes, fought his entire career in Congress for public financing and against dark money in Washington. That was his one issue. He retired this year. He was replaced by a woman who won because she got millions of dollars in dark money contributions from AIPAC to BEAC. There's no doubt if you remove money from the system, the system will be better. I just don't

think you can remove money from it. I don't think you can remove money, but on the equalizing front, the Supreme Court's clear. They're going to let the billionaires and others do whatever they want. But his bill would have, the Supreme Court's clear, they're going to let the billionaires and others do whatever they want. But his bill would have said the federal government will match. And he had a clever way that corporations who got fined by the SEC, that money would go into a fund

that would then... So it is corporate funded. So it is corporate funded, yes. Putting more corporate greed in politics. CFPB is better at getting those fees or those penalties than maybe the SEC. So let's add them both in there. But it would match, let's say if you gave $10, it would match at six to one. And so it would try to level the playing field and get regular people the chance to come in and balance out the corporate money. I would just say as a Republican staffer, that would have been like, you know, my hair would

have been on fire. The idea of public financing, what a waste of taxpayer dollars for campaign ads that annoy almost every constituent. But the longer you're here and you're seeing the bedfellows change rapidly, like we are getting, Republicans are getting outraised, like three, four, five to one to Democrats these days. People don't realize that. That wasn't the case. And, you know, I could see- You mean like in swing districts? Like all the billionaires in this country, minus the two that are always mentioned, are Democrats. And they're giving heavily to Democrats. You know, like this whole fact check that they're all Democrats. That sounds like a

vibe statement. Well, but the thing is that the two that's as Sam said that like we just saw Seaboyden Gray right up there. So Seaboyden Gray is just quadrupling what the other guys were giving. And he was but he's like the Republican. It's true Democrats are rich. There are a lot of wealthy Democrats. Increasingly. That are giving their party like, you know, and I guess I'm not complaining about it. I'm just saying like, you could see Republicans move to a place where, you know, if they keep getting out spent three, four, five to one, maybe public finance. You know, it's just like, you know,

like I watch the statistics on Hispanic voters with Trump and it's like, you know, maybe, you know, Democrats might want to close the border soon if it keeps going in this direction. Like, you know, like you can't predict everything. And what's true today might not be true tomorrow. And when I was a Hill staffer, I thought we'd have a funding advantage as long as the day was long. You know, we're never going to lose this. Corporate America loves us. You know, we're fighting against- When did that change? And that's the end of Brody's book. Yeah.

You watched it unravel. How did it change? How did we get to a place where Republicans are no longer necessarily the place that's going to get the corporate contributions? I think Trump really sped it up in 16. In one election, he knocked off the Bush dynasty and the Clinton dynasty without spending a dollar. Two birds, one stone. Right. Didn and the Clinton dynasty without spending a dollar. Two birds, one stone. Right. Didn't spend any of his own money either. And he was outspent probably 100 to 1 in that cycle, I'm sure. And then certainly midway through Trump's term, corporate America started shifting on them, you know, they were not, you know, full-throated supportive of Trump. I think that's probably when, like, you know, that was the tipping point when

Dems really kind of started having a fundraising advantage. Exact same time he's sending trillions in corporate tax cuts through, I mean, through Paul Ryan. But how did you watch this happen? Both things happened at the same time. What was it like to watch that? Where on the one hand, your clients are getting the biggest gift they've gotten in decades.

Right. And at the same time, they're so furious at the people giving them the gift. The clients are furious at the person giving them the gift and the person giving them the gift is furious right back. And I think that was a little different. I feel like Trump just wanted to win.

He didn't care what it was at the time. For sure. Ryan had teed up this big win and he just took it. I agree with that. And what's really interesting is if he wins, most of that tax cut is up in the, in the early next year, that would be up to him. Much of that tax cut expires because they did it through reconciliation. Now the corporate tax is most of the corporate tax doesn't expire. But anyway, the whole ball of wax will be up for renewal. And- He's already allegedly promising, according to some reports, that he'd bring back a big tax cut for the rich. So that'll be interesting to see what actually happens.

Because the biggest beneficiary, $1.3 trillion of that was for corporate America. And is Donald Trump going to renew that? Or does he take some of that and give it to his constituents, which he could, you know, sort of more blue collar workers? Yeah, the, you know, the shifting demographics that the party is taking more seriously right now would lead you to believe that this Republican Party in 2025, whatever comes our way with the election in the Senate, it would not be the same as what 2017 brought us. Which goes right to the Chamber of Commerce, that the Ways and Means Republican chairman is launching an investigation into the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce will be the lead lobbyist for this corporate tax cut

bill that's being written by the Ways and Means chairman. I mean, the world is upside down, but how does that dynamic work out? That would be fascinating. Potentially the anti-swamp Ways and Means chairman because there's a lot of,

depending on who's elected, I mean, you hear a lot of that on the right these days and maybe not always, you know, walking the talk or however the phrase is on that question. The one, this is maybe, we'll see how you guys want to answer this. Is there anyone you could say is like the most corrupt member of Congress? Is there anyone? I mean, Bob Menendez is a real candidate. Is there

anyone? Or maybe even the most corrupt member of the political industrial complex? Are there standouts right now? That's a hard question. Some people would default to Hunter Biden, probably James Biden, Frank Biden. We go down the list. I always felt in my time covering Capitol Hill and lobbying that most people in Washington are good people here to do the right thing, hard workers. But it's always 1%. It was 1% of people who are corrupt and problematic. And that means that as a reporter, there's 5.35 members of Congress, you gotta go find them. They're the bad guys. And in lobbying, sort of the same way. But who the individuals are, I don't know.

I think right now we have probably 5.35 scandals going on right now with members of Congress. So some of those are already out there. What's post-Congress life like now for lawmakers compared to before? Like in the past, you do your 10, 20 years. Right. You go out, you set up a shingle, you get or you get hired by a big firm.

And you know lots of people in Washington. So that's why you're valuable. There seems to be so much more turnover now. There's a ton more turnover. Like if I were a 70-year-old member of Congress retiring right now, they might not know 90% of the people in the House. And so then that makes them worthless. And the staff, too.

I mean, it's, I guess I'd call it a brain drain. I don't know what else you call it. 20 years ago, I would assume the average term of a member in a safe district that were not concerned about getting beat would have been 10 terms, 20 years. I bet it's half that now. And the staff aren't staying as long. So it's become, and it's to your point about educating people, the members don't stay as long, the staff don't stay as long, and they're still dealing with really complex issues that you need a lot of time under your belt to become an expert on some of these really arcane issues.

When we bring a client in that can speak articulately about what a regulation means and if it's written this way, it means this or that. It's generally helpful. I really don't see anything wrong with it. Except the other side's not in there. It's like, you know, if an articulate, smart, well-briefed person can come in and talk to a 23-year-old who got there a year ago, has no idea what they're doing, by the end of the meeting, they'll be like, yeah, this guy sounds right. Ryan was a crunchy weed lobbyist back in the early aughts. And that was, you know, at the time, now it's just John Boehner. Other people are like, have lobbied on behalf of

cannabis. It's become a big business we talked about last week. But at the time, that was not a perspective that was well represented. Yeah. But also everybody knows what weed is. And so it's not the kind of thing you can kind of snow anybody on. I just don't agree that the other side doesn't have a voice. I mean, there's so much money in politics. I guess if it's another corporation, they do. Yeah. Or, you know, there's a million interest groups and think tanks that have positions.

I don't know why they take them, but they do. I assume they're well-funded. I assume there's someone out there that cares. And look, you know, every time a Republican tries to do something, there's a Democrat sitting on the other side of the aisle that doesn't want them to do it. And even on these like little municipal issues that end up in the omnibus bills, we were talking about earmarks earlier, and obviously that's different now, but there are all of these things that are crammed in it. Like Ted Cruz just got a big win in this direct flight from Houston to DCA. Things like that, not even necessarily partisan, but from a business perspective, you have one airline competing

with another, like those little types of things. If it was a big win, then someone was opposed, and I'm sure they were well-funded. Mark Warner. Yeah. No, that's fair. You know, whoever was on the other side was probably working hard to make sure Ted Cruz didn't win. And, you know, with a 50 50 or 51 49 Senate and whatever, three vote margin in the House, like, you know, it's it's just incredibly difficult to win at all. And, you know, that's kind of back to your book, the the environment environment that those three lobbyists were dealing with. They had 40, 50, 70 seat margins in the Democratic, you know, kind of controlled house. I think it had been 40 years of kind of solid Democratic control. It was just this environment with the media landscape the way it is that the margins in, in, in the house,

in the Senate, the way they are, it's very hard to accomplish a lot. Um, and, uh, you know, the executive orders, whether you're for them or against them are great for four years, but you're four years away from them all being completely undone when the opposing party wins. So, you know, if Trump wins, you know, it'll take a hundred days and wins. So, you know, if Trump wins, you know, it'll take 100 days and I'll have, you know, executive orders, you know, all day long every day and undo everything Biden accomplished. And that's no way to run a country either. So, you know, getting back to legislating probably would be a better solution for the country. More staff, higher paid staff.

Yeah. Well, I mean, really though. Yes, actually, that is my populist argument that I don't think would be, I'm glad we agree on this. It wouldn't be popular. It would be hard to sell to the public, but I think if you explain it to them.

But if you had a million dollar salaries for members of Congress and their staff, it'd be a better place. The public, the way to pitch it to the public, look, you get what you pay for. Yeah. If you insist on paying these kids $30,000 a year and never giving members of Congress a raise and having them, you know, they have to have a place in D.C. and a place back home, then you're going to get what you pay for. You're not going to get anything out of them. The people

who pay them are the ones that are going to get something. So yes, exactly. And also something we haven't spoken about is sort of race and socioeconomic background. The people who can move to Washington and live on a $25,000 or $35,000 a year salary are people who have money from their parents or don't have debts to pay or don't have children or don't have other expenses. So we're sending just a certain amount of people to Washington to run the government. Could not agree more with this. Yeah. And even they, their parents at some point are going to run out of being able to pay for them. So then they hit, they have a kid.

And now then the schools are so terrible around Capitol Hill that like there's a joke on Capitol Hill that as soon as a staffer has a kid, it's like, oh, they're going to start, they're going to go downtown, was what it's called around here. Go downtown. And they're going to quadruple their salary and move to the suburb. Yeah, I don't know that, you know, look, there's good lobbyists and bad lobbyists and successful ones and unsuccessful ones. It's not like, you know, like you just leave Capitol Hill if you're a staffer and you do really well in the lobbying sector. It's a different way to make a living. You know, not everyone's good at it. So I feel like that's a bit of a generalization. But I do think that diversity, when it comes to class, is a tremendous problem in this country.

You know, when I moved here, I was 22 years old, probably had a little backstop with my parents if I, you know, didn't have a job right away and knew that I could have my rent paid if for some reason I couldn't do it on my own. No college debt. No college debt, not much to speak of. And, you know, a lot of kids just like me show up here

and there's kids that don't look like us that wind up in Washington and struggle with, you know, getting enough dress shirts to wear under a suit or, you know, not really knowing how to hold a fork and knife in a way that, you know, is socially acceptable at a cocktail party. And the city, not lobbying, the city, you know, makes them feel unwelcome. And then, you know, we lack the diversity of very rural kind of poor, you know, kids that tried to come to Washington because they just gave up on it. Black and Hispanic kids that come from situations where they can't have a backstop on rent and they kind of cycle out and Washington looks exactly like us. And it's just like, here we all are. And, you know, I'm proud of how I made it in this city. You know, I think I did it by my bootstraps, but, you know, stepped over a bunch of kids that gave up too soon. And it's a lack of perspective,

a lack of diversity that, you know, now we're all in our forties and fifties and it's our turn. And there's nothing to see like, just like, you know, we've all convinced ourselves that, you know, we got here and everyone else can, too. And I'm not sure that's right. And it's not just a race thing. It's a class thing. It's class. And I think we need to do better. Well said.

Before I let you go, we're talking about former members of Congress who move on. One of the most successful is your boss, John Boehner. Maybe the most successful, and he took a completely different path. He was like, I'm just going to work with the weed people. He blazed a trail. He blazed a trail. Absolutely genius move. But you have a fun story about

his transition from having an entire kind of suite of assistants as the Speaker of the House to not becoming that. Can you allow to tell that one here? He never confirmed this to me, so it's hearsay, but I have it pretty good. So he was the Speaker of the House, and after he stepped down from the role, he lost his Secret Service detail fairly quickly after he stepped down from the role, he lost his Secret Service detail fairly quickly after he stepped down. And he was learning about Uber. Didn't quite know exactly what it was. He had Secret Service taking him everywhere for four years. So a friend puts Uber on his phone. Another former member, right? Another former member, I think, put Uber on his phone, the app.

And he does his first Uber. He's proud of himself that the Uber comes and there's a young woman in the backseat and he's confused, why are you here? Oh, it was when you were, it was Uber pool? And then the Uber picks someone else up yeah you know bayner's like no we're going that way it's like well i'm gonna pick up johnny or whatever over here so you know bayner's riding in the back of a you know toyota corolla or something with two millennials and uh they're like you look like john bayner because i am i hope hope the Uber smelled like weed, by the way. He's probably wanting to smoke.

I don't know if he did. And so he's complaining, you know, I'm running around with, you know, 23-year-old kids in an Uber. What's going on? And they quickly figured out it was the toggle button was selected to Uber pool. So I think he took two or three rides with Uber pool before he figured it out. He kept winding up in Arlington on the way back to Capitol Hill. So I think he took two or three rides with Uber Pool before he figured it out. He kept winding up in Arlington on the way back to Capitol Hill.

Came face to face with real America. Any final thoughts just on, you guys have both been very generous with your time, but anything we haven't

mentioned you think might be helpful for people to know? I just feel like this period we're living in is fascinating. You know, when my brother and I

first started writing this book in 2017 it was about the rise of corporate power. And when we were wrapping it up last year, we realized, oh crap, this era of corporate power may be coming to an end. And this era that we're moving into now with both Republicans and Democrats going after big business, going after corporations is just fascinating. In a normal world, corporations and corporate lobbyists like Sam would sit here and say like, oh, all we need to do is elect a Republican president, everything will go back to normal. But if Donald Trump wins, it's still the world, this world is still upside down. So

it's just a fascinating time to be around and follow this. People are pissed. Oh, yeah. Well, the book is called The Wolves of K Street. This is Ryan's copy. You can't see the cover because he took it in a lazy river. That's exactly what happened. If you're wondering why he has a new computer, he left it in the rain. All kinds of like water-based crises in your life recently, Ryan.

But you both have been so generous with your time and so candid. We really appreciate you stopping by the show. Thanks. Thanks for having us. Excellent book. Can't recommend it enough. The Wolves of K Street. Thank you.

Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships.

I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it.

Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who did make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie.

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So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. All right, Ryan, I thought that was a lot of fun and super interesting and also, importantly, not the type of conversation that you hear outside independent media and maybe even outside this show because it's one of those relationships we were talking about media a lot. It's one of those relationships that a lot of outlets are not willing to burn. It's not something, it condemns them in many cases, so they're not willing to dive too deeply into it. So I thought it was really fascinating. Not the type of thing you see every day. Yeah, I hope people like it because it's hard for me to tell because since I've been immersed in this for 20 years or something, like it's sort of like water and the corruption just washes around you.

But I think it's important for people to understand how the system is structured now. Because if you want to change it, you've got to understand what it's like now. The corporate money and big money is so good at adapting and finding new ways of pushing its message that it's something you have to constantly be on guard for, like with the example of how now you got Josh Hawley, who's pushing legislation like a Democrat, with a Democrat, Elizabeth Warren. Meanwhile, the system is saying, like, actually, we're not going to give individual senators input anymore. Right. Who cares? On how we legislate.

Right. We'll just do an executive action or an administrative agency. And this is one of the things that I find interesting. Chevron is quite literally on the docket. In the next couple of weeks, we're going to hear a decision in the Chevron case before the Supreme Court. And you and I should debate sometime the merits of doing something like that, which would cut down in these administrative agencies' ability to make decisions in a legislative vacuum where Congress hasn't made a decision. This case is involving some fishermen in Maine, Massachusetts, one of the two. I don't know. I mean, I think because of the way these cabinet agencies have grown, there's a real problem just in that gap when you look at how broken and gridlocked Congress is too. There's a lot that needs to be fixed.

This goes back to what we were talking about last week, where there was this study, an annual study that asked people, basically, do you live in a democracy? And the top 10, in the top 10 of people, countries where there were the people in those countries said they live in a democracy, you could not find the United States. You found China in that list. So people need to ask themselves what's going on that people here in the United States are less likely to say that they live in a democratic country than people in China. All we want when we're complaining about lobbying, I think what we really want is the ability of people collectively to determine how they are governed.

To be represented. Self-government. Right. You want representative self-government. Yeah. And the sense among most people is that we do not have self-government right now. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. And Washington is really uncomfortable with, quote, representative people, even if they're members of the House of Representatives. And that applies to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and it applies to Matt Gaetz. It's just true across the board. Who could represent the panhandle better than Matt Gaetz? Exactly. The panhandle is sending their best.

And for people on the right who find Brooklyn bartenders to be vapid and out of touch, there's a representative from that district and you should take it up with- Her bar was in Manhattan. Oh, was it actually? I didn't know. But like so many of the bartenders in Manhattan, she didn't live in Manhattan. Right. Up in the Bronx. There you go. Oh, that's right. The Bronx. But anyway, the point remains that Washington is very uncomfortable with people who actually represent the American people if they don't happen to be from like a wealthy suburban district or a blue

coastal city. That gets really uncomfortable right away. And not in the way some lobbyists like to say, which is we just need compromise. Well, that compromise is just oil for, it's just grease in your skids, basically. And there's kind of different kinds of corrupt lobbyists. There's some that are just massively distorting the system, like strip mining the wealth from around the world and from the American people and sending it to their clients and taking a piece along the way. That, to me, is the most destructive kind. The others are like just cabbies in Cairo. You ever been to Cairo? I haven't been to Cairo. So, for instance, you get off at the airport. Cairo is super confusing. One of the most confusing places you can ever imagine.

And so you're going to have all of these taxi cab drivers who are just there to kind of exploit the confusion and just make a whole bunch of extra money off of tourists. So it's like people just kind of fleecing tourists and the corporations in that analogy are the tourists here in Washington who are getting fleeced by the lobbyists. That I care less about. To fight each other, by the way. I mean, it's like. Fleece the corporations. That's kind of fun.

I got to drive a cab. In Cairo? One of the cabins let me drive. It was pretty crazy. Were you on the other side of the car? No, he let me get in the driver's seat. No, but I mean, was the driver's seat in Egypt on the other side? No, it's normal.

It's like American. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. I was thinking of the British Empire the driver's seat. No, but I mean, was the driver's seat in Egypt on the other? No, it's normal. It's like American. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I was thinking of the British empire and cars and all that good stuff. No, they stuck with the,

the, I mean, but the right way. Yes, they did. But it's crazy. Did she get rid of the metric system? They're very,

seem to be very few traffic laws. We have now devolved into the conversation about Egyptian traffic laws. We should probably wrap up. That usually means that we've gone on too long. But anyway, we hope everybody enjoyed that conversation. Just as a reminder, if you're having any issues with the links, they're going to YouTube and Spotify is going to be in the email. It's going to be in the episode description. If you're having any problems, support at locals.com. Copy Breaking Points Premium at gmail.com. That will flag producer Griffin, who is here to help so that no breaker is left behind. Premium subscriptions get you this full show early, and they get you all of CounterPoints on Wednesdays early to your inbox

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and in your inbox every morning, you can sign up at BreakingPoints.com. That's right. Get the full show, help support the future can sign up at BreakingPoints.com. That's right. Get the full show. Help support the future of independent media at BreakingPoints.com. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids,

promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success.

You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John.

Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, My father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up.

They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process.

Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.