Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - America Needs Compromise with Dick Gephardt

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

This week, Anthony talks with former Congressman from Missouri, and leader of the United States House of Representatives.  Mr. Gephardt’s new book 535 Not 1 describes his life and career in public service. Across his tenure he dealt with a number of pressing issues including inflation, foreign policy, terrorism and budget deficits, many of which are still currently top of mind…  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is OpenBee. book where I talk with some of the brightest minds out there about everything surrounding the written word from authors and historians to figures and entertainment, neuroscientists, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Sorry, I can't resist. Before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe, wherever you get your podcast, and leave us a review. We all love a review, even the bad ones. I want to hear the parts you're enjoying or how we can do better. You know, I can

roll with the punches, so let me know. Anyways, let's get to it. Not many people have had as much exposure to the American Congress as my guest today, Dick Gephart, having served 14 terms in the United States House of Representatives. The title of his book alone, 535, not one, tells you the kind of leader Dick was during his tenure. As a country, if we better understood the need to listen to each other, discuss our differences rather than fight and look to compromise, we would be way more productive. After all, there are 535 voices in Congress, not one. I'd like to take a second to recommend my friend Andy Astroy's great podcast, The Back Room. Every episode is a fun, incredibly honest take on our society and the political situation,

along with some brilliant guests. I've been honored to join Andy on the show, and you know anywhere that except me with no filter deserves a shout-out. Joining us now on Open Book is Dick Gephard. He's a former congressman from Missouri. He served 14 terms in the United States House of Representatives. He was a Democratic leader for 14 years. And he also ran for president back in the day, almost, I guess, 20 years ago now.

The book, which obviously we read and we thought it was phenomenal, it's 535, not one. And welcome to the show, sir. I mean, incredible run for you. Tell us about why you went into politics. You're a man that could have done anything. You could end up on the Forbes 400, but you weren't into politics to serve the country. Tell us why. So when I was in college and law school, Jack Kennedy was president, and I was really in admiration of him. I thought he was great. I thought of somebody with that wealth and their background and privilege could give their life to public service. Maybe that's what I ought to do. So that was my idol and my, you know, model.

And so when I came back to St. Louis, after law school, I went to the local Democratic organization because I wanted to start at the bottom of the ladder. I've always believed that if you want to do something, you've got to learn it from the bottom up. And a lot of people said to me, yeah, you ought to go to Washington if you're interested in politics and get a job with a congressperson. I said, no, I'm going back home to where I grew up. So I volunteered. The committeemen said, we don't have any volunteers here. What are you doing? I said, I just want to volunteer. He said, okay, you'll be the precinct captain of the second precinct. And your job is to go meet everybody door to door. And after you've done that, on election day, you pass out our sample ballot. If at 4 o'clock, anybody you've identified as a Democrat is not showing up, you get in your car and go out and try to convince him to come in and vote.

That's how I learn politics. All right. Well, there's some famous Missourians that have been in politics. You mentioned Jack Kennedy. What were your thoughts on Harry Truman? I loved Harry Truman. I thought he was a real authentic person. He grew up in Kansas City, the other side of the state. But I always felt his public service was what I wanted to emulate. And I always felt he put country over party and country over south. And that was the model that I wanted to follow. This is service. It is not for you. It's for the people that sent you there to represent them. And every day, in every way, you've got to put country over yourself, just like a Marine would or a Army veteran or whoever is a public servant. So that's why I wanted to get into it. And that was why my model was very Truman. But we've lost our way, sir. So something happened. I'm going to test the theory on you, after reading your book, it feels like our nation's public servants were in the military. And so they had the discipline, they had unity, maybe somewhere from North Dakota,

New York, Missouri, but they were bonded together by the military. And so there was a civic virtue to that. There was a pledge and oath to the Constitution even before they got into elected office. But now a lot of less people go into the military, less than 1% of our families now go went to the military. And it seems like we've become way more tribal and way more self-interested. Is that a phase? Is that something we can break, sir? Is that something that, I don't know, what do you think about what I'm saying? Do you agree with what I'm saying? Or maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. I'm asking you, you're more of an expert than me. You're totally right. I served in the military. You know, when I got out of law school,

Vietnam was going on. It was just starting up, really. And I knew I was going to be drafted. So I went out and enlisted in the Air Force, in the Air National Guard in Missouri. And I served in that for seven years. And when I went to basic training in Texas, I was with all these high school kids who had never been away from home and had much less education than I was privileged to have. And so I met a cross-section of America and we bonded. and we work together in basic training to get through it together, learning how to march, how to make your bed, blah, blah, blah. And it was a great thing.

When I got to Congress, I got to interact with people like Bob Dole, who was a injured soldier in World War II, Bob Michael, who flew missions and airplanes in the Pacific, and a bunch of other people who had had military service. It really is an important experience, for any young person. And I have thought for a long time that we need to institute public service for every youngster. We can't take them all in the military. We don't need them. But there are other things that kids could do for a year or whatever. So they would have a sense of their responsibility as a

citizen of this fabulous democracy that we were given 250 years ago. So I totally agree with you. And we have lost our way because too many, not everybody, I want to be clear. There are a lot of great members of Congress now in both parties that are there for the right reason and do put country over self. But they need to all do that. And the military training or the public service for a year would help. You know, you got this amazing life story. You know, I see you as, you know, Clark Kent from Smallville, right?

I mean, you're a son of a milkman. You grow up. Your mom is heavily pushing on you, the Golden Rule. I want you to talk a little bit about that because that's always stayed with you. You go to Northwestern on a scholarship. You're studying speech and drama. And so take us through the personal odyssey of the upbringing, the college years, and then the eventual decision to go serve in the government. Sure.

So I was really lucky. neither of my parents got to high school. They spent maybe one year in high school and then they had to get out to go make money. It was during the Depression and before the Depression. So they didn't have a great education, but they were great people. My dad grew up on a farm, 30 miles outside St. Louis. My mother grew up in a little town, 30 miles outside St. Louis. It was the agriculture age, and they had great values. My mother, when I was five years old, would get down, on her knees and look me in the eye almost every day and say, Dick, treat other people the way you would like to be treated. And then she made it even more graphic. She said, before you say anything to anybody, think how you would like it said to you. Before you do anything to anybody, think how you would like it done to you. And in the Bible, we learned that you have to love your enemy as much as you love yourself. Finally, she said, Dick, Always be humble because you deserve to be.

So that was the great training that I had as a young person, and it stayed with me through the rest of my life. So I'm a junior in public high school in South St. Louis City, 1957, and I had a speech teacher who stopped me one day, and she said, I think you could get a scholarship to go to the Junior High School Institute at Northwestern five weeks between junior and senior and senior year, and you could go in drama. And I had never entered my head to go to college.

Neither of my parents got close to college. We had no money, none. And so I thought, well, what is this? So she helped me fill it out. I got the scholarship. I get on the train. That's the way we used to travel. And I go up to Chicago. I get on the L. I wind up at Northwestern. I went out on that campus and met all these champion debaters, champion extemporaneous speakers, champion dramatists. I thought I had landed on Mars. It was the first time I had gotten out of St. Louis in my life. So I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I had parents who gave me good values. I got a great education because of the benevolence and the gratitude from people who put up that money for scholarship. This is the land of opportunity.

I mean, this is the most awesome country in the history of the world. And I am the best example that it is the land of opportunity. So I want to talk to you back. I read the book and I wrote some notes down and I want to test some things on you. And I want to get your reaction to these things. You were born before the baby boom. You were born during the war. The baby boom starts in 1946.

It ends in my year, 1964. I feel like you were there before the baby boomers really took over. And then obviously President Clinton became president. You correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he was our first baby boomer president. And then we go into the baby boomers of Newt Gendritch, etc. And I feel they've really failed the country. And I'm just going to give you my there. And by the way, this is my generation.

I feel the baby boomer political establishment overpromised. They under-delivered. They undertaxed. They overpromise on governmental entitlements and spending programs. You know, Dick, let's just go back. George Washington to George Walker Bush, $7 trillion. Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, $27 trillion. And I feel like we've become very, very reckless.

And we've squandered this wonderful bounty that the greatest generation and, frankly, your generation left to us. And so, you know, am I wrong? And if I am wrong, correct me. And if I'm right, how do we fix it, sir? Well, I think you're right. I never believe that you can, on a sustained basis, spend more than you take in. When you're in a recession, you have to spend more than you take in because you've got to get out of the recession. But in normal economic times, you should balance your budget.

That was the economics that I learned in college. That was the economics that I learned from people at the Congressional Budget Office and older members who were on the scene when I got to Congress. So, you know, I was alarmed when Ronald Reagan, and I liked Ronald Reagan a lot, but I thought he had a bad fiscal policy because we didn't need to run big deficits, which he ran. He wanted to cut taxes, and that's fine. But he wouldn't pay for those tax cuts with spending cuts. So when George Bush, H.W. Bush came in, I was already, I was in the leadership of the Democratic Party. Newt Gingrich was my counterpart. And the president kept calling us down to the White House saying we need a budget summit. We got to do something about this deficit, which was a fraction of what it is today. And we said, we agree. And so I led the Democratic effort and we put together 150 members, House and Senate. for nine months, and we negotiated the biggest cut in the deficit that had ever been made.

And when we got it done, Newt Gingrich was supposed to produce half the votes. I was going to produce half the other half, which was a good deal. That's the way you do it. And Newt said to me one day during the budget summit, I'm not going to vote for this. I said, well, the president told me you would? He said, no, I'm not going to vote for us. So I went back to Dick Darmann and I said, he's not with us. He said, no, the president talked to him, and he promised he would vote for it.

Well, as we're announcing the deal in the Rose Garden, he's back up on the hill doing a press conference, said, no Republicans should vote for this. So we lost on the first vote. I had to go back to President Bush and Dick Darmann and say, cut defense a little bit, and maybe I can get some liberals on. And we did, and we pass it by one vote in both houses. So that's how hard this is, and that's how important it is. you've got to have a balanced budget in normal times. And somehow people, no matter when they were born or when they grew up, they miss this memo. Yeah.

And it's an important problem. And sooner or later, we're going to pay the price. That's my worry. And how do you get back to it? You've got to get people who are willing, and I'll say it one more time, put country over party, country over self to solve the damn problem. So it's interesting. And, you know, I, you know, the legislation they're referring to is pay-as-you-go legislation where you guys put up bipartisan guardrails and you made a contingent.

If you wanted to cut taxes, no problem. Find something to cut in the budget. If you wanted to raise social expenditures, no problem, raise taxes. You know, Bill Clinton thankfully adhered to pay as you go. And he pushed through a tax increase in 19. 1993, which he said was going to pay for these services and a result of which we were running a budget deficit for a few years. But by the end of the decade, Mr. Clinton was producing budget surpluses. And the CBO, which you and I both know is nonpartisan, projected a $5 trillion budget surplus from the year 2000 to the year 2010. We destroyed that. So tell us what happened, sir, because you know what happened. Tell us what happened. And tell us what happened. And tell us

us could we get back to it? Is it possible to fix it? It's very possible to fix it, but it takes commitment and courage and a willingness to get the problem solved. So to give you the backstory, so we go through that with George H.W. Bush, then Clinton comes in. Clinton called Tom Foley, who was our speaker then. I was majority leader, and George Mitchell, who was the leader in the Senate, down to Little Rock for a dinner right after he got elected. Just the three of us and Hillary and Bill. And the subject of the dinner was, what should be our priorities

when the administration starts? And everybody had different ideas. When I got my turn, I said, Mr. President, we just went through a difficult process to get the first big down payment on balancing the budget. That is job one.

We have to get it done. Clinton agreed. And that's what we did. We then engaged in another nine-month exercise to come up with the spending cuts and the tax increases to get that done. By 1997, we had it done. We had surpluses, as you just said. And so it's the hardest thing I ever did in public life. I had to talk to every member because we had to produce all the votes on our side alone because we had the Congress and we had the presidency. That's fine. We did it. I tell the

story in the book of Marjorie Mesvinsky. You know, we had, we were going to lose the vote. And she was a freshman. And she had told me, I will lose. I'm from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It's a wealthy community. I will lose if I vote for this. I said, I know. And we'll try to help you win. But you've got to do this. This is about the country. It's not Bill Clinton. Forget the Democratic Party. It's the country. And she did it. And the Republicans stood in the aisles and waved. saying bye-bye Marjorie. That's okay. That's what you're there for. Did she lose? Sure, she lost because of that vote. And a lot of others lost because of that vote. We lost the control of the house for the first time in 40 years. That's okay. Why in the hell

are you there? Are you there for getting reelected? Yeah, well, that's the citizen. No, I'll play cynic with you. Yeah, of course I am. I like the power. and so I don't care about the country. I just want to do things that serve my personal interest. How do we break that fever, sir? I think people just, it's their value system. And I don't, I'm not smart enough to know how we change that enough.

I do think just so people don't become hopeless that there are a lot of members, including a lot of young members in both parties in Congress today. There's a group called the Problem Solvers, you may have heard of them. There's 30 Democrats, 30 Republicans in the House, 10, I think 10 and 10 or 5 in the Senate. They work day in and day out to come up with bipartisan compromises that were like what we did. And so that gives me hope. That group needs to be expanded. If I were a leader there today, I would work my butt off to get that group to be much larger so that you can get things done.

It never changes. It's just hard work and courage and a willingness to put country over party and self. Well, amen. And you write that this book is a love letter to the democracy. And you are thinking about the 535 people in the sense that it's a collective. It's not one person, right? It's not one person who's this sort of narcissistic entity that only cares about themselves. But how can you make the spirit of confidence? compromise. Am I right in thinking that or what am I missing? No, that's the reason I wrote the book. Yeah. Was that I wanted citizens who were interested to understand that when you're in Congress, you're part, a small part of one person in a committee of 535 people that is trying to make tough decisions on behalf of all of the American people. And I try to get people to understand the magnificent of this gift. I'm in awe of it still today. Why? Because I saw it operate. I saw it in action. I saw how difficult it was. But what you get from that, and people say to me all the time,

Congress is dysfunctional. It takes too long, blah, blah, blah. I say, yeah, it's all of that. It's a committee of 535 people. Just think if you're on a committee of 535. But what do you get from all that BS that you go through. Let me tell you, I saw a lot of tough controversial decisions get made. And when they were made, half the country was pissed off about the compromise. Yes. But they were willing to grudgingly live with it because they thought the process by which it was done was fair. Okay. You would never have that if one dictator made all the decisions for all the rest of us. Okay, so that's a good point to bring up the word dictator. Make some predictions for us for November. Your former colleague, President Biden, is a few years younger than you. Sorry,

believe he's 81. Is that too old to run for president? And what's the prediction that you have for the coming election? I think everybody ages differently. My sense of Joe Biden is that he still is really sharp and really wants to do this job for the people, that he's, that he's, He's committed as that kind of a public servant. I am very worried that he will lose or could lose to Donald Trump. Donald Trump has an ironclad base of probably 46% of American voters. I think that's his ceiling. But with third parties in the race, he could easily win because only 54% of voters are available to Joe Biden.

So if any of them scatter off to other third party candidate off ramps, then Trump will win. So it's going to be a very close election, and nobody can tell you how it's going to come out. Okay, but I got to push you a little harder. Who's going to win? I hope and pray, Joe Biden. I work on it every day.

It's really important that we continue to be a democracy. I think Donald Trump is dangerous. I think he has already told you what a second Trump term would be. I think it would be much different and much more dangerous than the first term. I don't know if he can pull it off, but I think he wants to be our first dictator and president for life. He already has pretty much control over the Supreme Court. He has a lot of control now over the Congress because Mike Johnson pretty much follows his orders on what will come up and won't come up in legislation.

So if he gets the executive branch, he's got the triumvirate. And I really fear for what would happen. Okay, well, I appreciate you bringing that up. I'm with you on that. We're at the point in the podcast where I come up with five words, Mr. Gephardt, and then the author response to the five words.

You can give me a word, a sentence, a sort of a raw shot test at the end of our event here. So the first word, I'm going to say the word Republican, And you say what? Ronald Reagan. Okay. I say the word Democrat. And you say what?

Franklin Roosevelt. Okay. Democracy. America. Okay. Compromise. Everything. Okay.

I mean, that's really the whole essence of your book, so I'm glad you said that. Okay. My last word for you, sir. The word is Gepphart. Golden rule. Okay. All right. There you go from your mom.

Yeah. Listen, you've had an amazing life, sir. You're a great American. You're a great American patriot. And for me, I'm very proud to call you friend. And a lot of people don't know this, but I started the Salt Conference 15 years ago. And you were my first speaker. I will forever be grateful to you for that.

And the title of the book is 535 Not One by Dick Gephart. And I am very grateful to you for joining Open Book today. And I look forward to see you soon. Thank you, Anthony. We came from the same place. Amen. You're my friend. Didn't we ever, man.

Didn't we ever? Well, 28 years, under five presidents, what a phenomenal career of service to the United States. The big takeaway from this interview was our need to compromise. And sometimes, and this is really hard to say in this environment today, but sometimes accept political sacrifice in the pursuit of a greater good for the country. If America could do more of that as a nation right now, we'd be so much better off. Dick's story about people coming together to pass the pay-as-you-go legislation is super important. I don't think I can overstate what pay-as-you-go did for the United States during the 1990s. We went through massive deficit spending in the 1980s.

The 1990s were a period of fiscal conservatism where we were not increasing social services unless we found a tax increase. or we were not cutting taxes unless we found a place to cut the U.S. government. The government has now exploded its spending, much as a chagrin of these great people like Dick Gaphart, and frankly, believe it or not, even Newt Gindrich and Bill Clinton worked on this level of fiscal prudence for the United States. People lost their jobs in the Congress to pass this compromise bill. But remember, last time we ran a budget surplus in the U.S. was in the year. 2000 with approximately $240 billion budget surplus. We had things figured out then.

It would probably take 25 years to correct the mess we're in now, but we would need a return to the type of leadership that Dick Gephart represented, not the political expediency of today. And this is the reason why I love the book so much, 535, not one, tells this great story. All right, you want to come on the show? Yeah. Well, let me ask you back. Dick Gephard. Do you remember him? He had the red hair and he was in the U.S. Congress.

If you don't remember him, that's okay. I want to talk to you more generally. All right. So what do you think about going into the U.S. Congress and spending 28 years of your life as a member of the House of Representatives? That's a long time, no? Well, I wouldn't want you. Okay. So I can. I don't like the governor that we have. I don't think she's strong enough. And it's almost pathetic. She doesn't know what the hell she's doing.

I think she's like ruining New York. And the job is too big for him. I thought Julian Bloomberg were excellent. I think Eric's a good guy, but the problem with Eric is that he's got a, well, he's not getting any help from the governor. You know, she's terrible, mom. Yes. All right.

But if you're, she's slipping now every day. But if you're in the House of Representatives, you have to compromise. Are you somebody that knows how to compromise, ma, or it's your way or the highway? You like boss and everybody around. You're a little bit of a dictator, right, ma? You're a little bit like Mussolini, right? A little bit, right? My friends think my family.

Yeah, that's for sure. I'm like children because I have me on my mom. All right. Are you, Tyne Magazine? Yeah. Cool. All right, but you don't know how to compromise. Let's face it, you wouldn't be in the House of Representatives for 28 years because you don't know how to compromise, right?

It's your way or the highway, right? Yeah. Yeah. At least you're being honest, ma. It's good to have this level of self-awareness at age 87. God bless you. All right, ma, thank you for joining Open Book. Okay, I love you, Mom.

All right, I'll call you later. I am Anthony Scaramucci, and that was Open Book. Thank you for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends, and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. While you're there, please leave us a radio. or review. If you want to connect with me or chat more about the discussions, it's at Scaramucci on Twitter or Instagram. I'd love to hear from you. I'll see you back here next week.