Will Cain Country - How Do Politicians Get Filthy Rich Off Public Service?

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

As questions surround President Biden and whether he profited off his positions in public service, Will sits down with Matt Lewis, the author of the new book, Filthy Rich Politicians: The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals, and Ruling-Class Elites Cashing in on America. Will and Matt discuss the various ways politicians make money off of their titles and offices, everyone from President Biden to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and some congressmen in between.  Tell Will what you thought about this podcast by emailing [e-mail] Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. How is it that politicians, without everything, ever having held a private job, get so rich. It's the Wilcane podcast on Fox News podcast. What's up?

As always, I hope you will download, rate, and review this podcast wherever you get your audio entertainment at Apple, Spotify, or at Fox News podcast. You can check out the Will Kane podcast on Rumble or on YouTube, and always follow me on Twitter at Wilcane or Instagram, see Wilcane or on Facebook to keep up with the latest episodes of the Willcane podcast. How is it politicians always end up so rich? Part of it is because rich people get elected to Congress, to the presidency. But a more concerning observation, fact of American public life,

is that politicians that were not previously rich go to Washington, D.C., and end up rich. How? Why? Well, Matt Lewis is the author of a new book entitled Filthy Rich Politicians, the Swamp Creatures, Lottay Liberals, and Ruling Class Elites cashing in on America. Matt Lewis is a columnist for The Daily Beast. He's worked at The Daily Collar. He's been a CNN contributor. He's written several books, and this newest book dives in to an issue that should be important to everyone, left or right, Democrat or Republican. I enjoy this conversation with Matt Lewis, where we debate, among other things, his opposition, his attitude toward Donald Trump.

But most importantly, why it is politicians get so rich. Here's the author of Filthy Rich Politicians, Matt Lewis. I'm Janice Dean. Join me every Sunday as I focus on stories of hope and people who are truly rays of sunshine in their community and across the world. Listen and follow now at Fox Newspodcast.com. Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy host of the Trey Gatty podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at Fox Newspodcast.com.

Matt Lewis, the author of a new book, Filthy, Rich Politicians. What's up, Matt? It's great to see you in person. It's good to see you, man. tell me this. Let's start here. Why are so many politicians filthy rich? Well, the first reason is that rich people tend to get elected, and that's not a surprise. And there's, you know, it's not necessarily even a bad thing, right? I think it makes a little bit of sense for people who've been successful at something to run for office. In fact, I kind of admire them a little bit. I think I'd probably

be on a beach somewhere. So, but, you know, it does sometimes create a little bit of, a distance between our average American citizens and our elected officials. The bigger problem isn't that the rich get elected. It's that the elected get rich. And that is, to me, the much bigger problem. And I think it's helping a road trust in members of Congress and politicians. Okay, let's start there. Let's start with the elected politicians getting rich. And that is certainly something that is so obvious that the American public could become cynical. Yeah, of course they do. But how is it? How is it that Joe Biden, for example, who has really only ever in his career been a quote unquote public servant, he's been a politician for really essentially his

entire adult life, as has Nancy Pelosi, although her husband is in the private sector, or even in your book, in the appendix, you have the 10 most wealthy presidents at their peak wealth and earning power, which I saw and was a little bit surprised to see Lyndon Baines Johnson as well in the top 10, because what was he other than ever a politician? So help us understand how the elected get so rich. Right. So the first way is a lot of rich people, they get rich first and then they get elected. And so that's part of it. And rich people tend to get richer for a variety of reasons, part of it being interest, part of it being most of their money comes from investments. so they're paying, amazingly, they're paying a lower rate than most people who work for a living.

But again, I think the worst thing are people who get elected and then get richer, especially when they're getting richer off of information that they're gleaning from their job. And so for me, Nancy Pelosi may be the most egregious example of this, right? And it's impossible to really prove insider trading, but some of the things that she's been involved in and her husband, Paul, specifically, really looks sketchy. And so I'll just give you one example off the bat. In 2020, Paul Pelosi bought hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock options and Tesla stop.

Five weeks later, Joe Biden signs of executive order mandating the transition of state, federal, and local fleets to zero emissions vehicles. You can imagine what might have happened to the stock of the Tesla stock options that Paul Pelosi bought. And so that is one example. Maybe it's a coincidence, but it looks very, very, very suspicious. And the people I talk to who really know about this are even more skeptical than I am. And this is bipartisan. We can find example of this on both sides of the aisle. But Nancy Pelosi is such a great illustration because it's not easy to dismiss it

a coincidence when you realize it's not the only trade that she has been just, she's experienced amazing timing on her inside into the market. There's, there's accounts set up on Twitter that follow Nancy Pelosi's stock picks because they just happen to be so well-timed. You know, I know that you've written about this, Matt, and you said, look, part of it may be that they understand what's coming down the line in terms of legislation or whatever it may be, and they make bets. And, and, um, You know, making bets on legislation is not necessarily the same thing as having direct insider trading knowledge. But what is the difference? I mean, they're making laws that tailor it so that their own private enterprises do better.

I mean, I don't know how we have this and allow this to continue to be legal. Yeah. And the interesting thing is that as of now, most members of Congress that you've talked to will say that they want to – By the way, insider trading is already, as of 2012, it's been illegal and banned for members of Congress. Before that, it was actually legal. Amazingly, since 2012, it was called the Stock Act. It's been illegal. What I think we need to do, and what a lot of people think that we need to do,

is to ban individual stock trading for members of Congress and their immediate family. And right now, most people, even Nancy Pelosi, will say that they want to do. do it. But yet, it never happens. It never gets cut. The bill's never quite good enough. And you know how that game's played. Okay. So I want to back into that potential solution for just one moment. So let's go back to the rich people that choose to run for office. I mean, I agree with you. I guess there's, there's two sides to this coin. And that is, I guess it is admirable that somebody who's been so successful in life chooses to give back if that's what they're doing. in some way to public service.

The other side of that coin is, not only should we question, are they just doing this out of a sense of needing to serve, or are they doing this to further something? I don't even know if it is their stock portfolio. It could be any number of things that motivate these rich individuals. And then we have to put in compatibility with that is their ability to get elected because they are rich. it's like how do you get elected if you're not rich you have to raise a ton of money if you're rich you don't have to raise that kind of money for advertising and it becomes this situation where i don't know how heavily the playing field is tilted you have in another appendix on you know those serving right now but it's a little bit of a rich man's game to even get into congress definitely so my wife is a republican fundraiser um she worked for ted cruz josh holly uh king kuchinelli you've been on the list of sort of prominent conservative figures, she has been a fundraising consultant

for many of them. And a few months ago, we were like going for a walk. And we live in West Virginia. And so I said to her like, you know, the governor seats open. There's a U.S. Senate seat, the whole Joe Mansion thing, right? That means the house seat where I live is open. And I was like, you know, if the political environment was a little different, I wonder if I could run. And she was like, oh, no, you couldn't run. And I'm like, well, why not? And she she said, well, unless you're a self-funder, you need to be able to raise a minimum of $300,000 from your own personal network, like your Christmas card list, before I, meaning my wife, will even talk to you. So in other words, before she will talk to political action committees

and big-time donors, you have to raise like $300,000 from your own network. I'm like, well, I've been doing politics for 15 or 20 years. you're a professional fundraiser and even I wouldn't have it wouldn't even have a chance to get elected to the this is the key well the lower chamber and that's where I think is very important Americans have long been used to presidents being much richer than the rest of us but right now the gap is has just really widened and the average member of the lowly you know the lowly house the average member of Congress is 12 times richer than the average. average American household. And that, to me, is what is problematic. And it's feeding this image

that they're out of touch and that the game is rigged. You know, Matt, I have this vision of, and I think we all have whatever we consider to be the ideal vision of the American government. And, you know, as you and I both know well, William F. Buckley once said he'd rather be ruled by the first, whatever it was, 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than the faculty at Harvard. But, you know, the Jeffersonian citizen farmer, the guy that goes to D.C. for a finite amount of time, for eight years, whatever it may be, and then returns to his private life afterwards. To me, just as a Norman Rockwell vision of governance, is the way that it should look. It should look like public service, you know, truly some level of sacrifice for some finite amount of time. I am someone that happens to believe in term limits.

I can't see the downside, quite honestly. I don't know that you need professional legislatures. But, you know, first, is it a problem? Is it a problem that my vision is not reality? That it is people that have 12 times the average net worth who end up being the ones that write the law and serving. I mean, I think the obvious answer is yes, it's out of touch with perhaps the middle class, much less the common man. But do you see that as a real problem? Yeah. I think there's two things. The gap has widened dramatically in the past 30 or 40 years. Basically, during the last four decades, the average member of Congress has doubled their net worth. And the average person has kind of held steady and maybe even gone down a little bit. So I think the gap widening is problematic. I think that it lends to the notion that members of Congress are out of touch. But then I think the fact that it looks

certainly looks like they are cashing in, that they are using their perch to feather their nest. And insider training is one of the way. I think it's the only way, I think it's the most egregious way. But the fact that it looks like that, I think really erodes trust in the process. And, you know, when you have politicians like Donald Trump saying the game is rigged, well, there's a reason that resonates. And it's because it looks like it is rigged and because it actually is. And look, I'm not a radical.

revolutionary populace. My goal is to fix this or to reform it as best as possible to preserve this great experiment, right? I think we need to restore trust in our institutions and our elected officials. And I think that the founder's vision is exactly what you said. They did not plan on people coming to Washington, staying forever and making billions of dollars here. That's not what they did. So some of the reforms in the book would be banning stock trading. Another one would be a 10-year moratorium on lobbying. So you don't have that revolving door where politicians, they've cashed in in Congress. Now they cash in on K Street.

What do you mean by – so a 10-year moratorium on lobbying. So after you serve, you have to wait 10 years before you could join a lobbying firm? Yeah, that's right. So right now, depending on whether you're in the Senate or the House, there's like a one or a two-year cooling off period. you have to wait before you can start lobbying your former colleagues and tapping your rolodex. Some people like AOC and Ted Cruz have called for a lifetime ban on lobbying. And honestly, I'm not sure that that would pass constitutional muster. So what I'm calling for

is a 10-year moratorium. After you leave serving, then you would wait 10 years before you can start lobbying your colleagues. And who knows if that is actually workable? but more than one or two years, I think, would be appropriate. Hey, Matt, how do I reconcile what is clearly a shift that's happening in Congress? And as you point out, 12 times the average net worth of the average American from Congress with, like, I know how many of these congressmen live. And it's not the way that many people would imagine. I'm friends with Sean Duffy. He and his wife and I co-host a show together.

And Sean has described that life. And it's not easy. Like, he said, I slept in my office. Like, I had a pull-out couch in my office. And, you know, I'm on an airplane back home to Wisconsin every week. And then even when I get back home to Wisconsin, I'm out there campaigning on the weekends. Like, he described life of what it is to be a congressman. And it's not very attractive.

It's hard. So, again, I go back to this, like, okay, why are these rich guys? Now, I'm sure the rich guys, I'm sure there's a divide with. in Congress that you're talking about, aren't sleeping on their couches. You know, there's famously the image of the guys who share, like, dorm-like apartments as well, congressmen that all roomed together. But is that the tail end, like what Sean described in that image that not a lot of people know, is that coming into an end because of what you described, all these rich guys

that can afford to have a second home? I think that they are getting richer and richer compared, certainly compared to average Americans, right now more than 50% of members of Congress are millionaires. Of course, a million dollars ain't what it used to be. But compared to the, among average citizens, it's like 7% of us are millionaires, more than 50% of members of Congress are. But that still means that there's 40 some percent of members of Congress who are not millionaires. And some of them actually are broke, are in the red. And it's, it is experienced. I mean, imagine, like you said, you have to have, do you bring your family to D.C., right?

And if you do that, you're out of touch with the district back home. But if you don't bring your family, then that's not great for the children. And maybe that's not conducive to family values or family life. So there's a push and pool. D.C. is in a very expensive place to live. Trust me, I used to live there before I moved to West Virginia. It cost a lot of money to live there. So I think that even within Congress, there is a big financial disparity.

I mean, there are members of Congress who are very broke, and in fact, in fact, are in debt. That's why while I would ban stock trading, for example, and I would put a 10-year moratorium on that revolving door, I actually propose in the book raising the salary of members of Congress. Right now, the average rank and file member makes $174,000 a year. That's a lot more than the average American makes, but I would still. raise that because we're going to cut off extracurricular ways that they're making money. Let's pay them more money so that they can focus on we the people. And by the way, it may attract a different type of person to run for Congress because the rich

guys who are running for Congress are not running because of that salary. And if they are looking for financial return, it isn't coming in the form of that salary. So actually giving a little bit of a higher salary could attract people who are like, okay, now I can afford to step away from my life for a few years. Let's talk about history for just one moment. I was really surprised. So, I guess I didn't even thought about how wealthy George Washington was. You have him as the third wealthiest president.

And I mean, if I go back, Jefferson is fourth, Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, fifth, Andrew Jackson, sixth, Madison, seventh. The only contemporaries, really, are Bill Clinton came in at 10, JFK came in at two and Donald Trump at number one. So it's interesting to me that the founders, so many of the founders, were so wealthy. Absolutely. You know, some people talk about these rich, white, you know, guys, but they also pledged their fortunes and their lives. These were, they were elites.

They, you know, they were not rabble. They're Samuel Adams, but the Washington's, I mean, these were philosophers in the case of like... And they own plantations and they were farmers, but not like I'm out there with my own shovel digging or anything like that with a lot of help on their farms. One could say that, yeah. I mean, these were the elite. And many of them like Jefferson, for example, are philosophers and inventors. and just the Crem de la Crem. But I think the difference, I would say they were filthy rich, many of them, George Washington, to be sure.

But they also pledged their lives and their fortunes for this country. And George Washington, as you know, would have been executed if the revolution failed. And this is a guy who could have been king if he wanted. And so I think the difference between Washington and our current politicians, isn't money. It's that the founding generation we're willing to sacrifice and step aside from leadership. Washington does it two terms and then he leaves. He goes back to Mount Vernon. I think today's politicians are more interested in cashing in and they're not, they're not, they're not, they don't have that sacrificial mode that the founders had. And I, and I wasn't making a lot of help.

I mean, I know many of these guys were slavery. I know. I know. No, but. For anyone listening, I know many of these guys were slave owners. But I didn't know if all of them were slave owners. Like, I don't know. Did Madison own slaves? I know that Jefferson in Washington did. I don't know about Madison. That's why I didn't go all in on what help could have meant as slave owners.

So where are you on term limits? It seems to me if you limited someone's time and literal sweat equity investment in something, you would reduce the payouts. In other words, you can't spend forever in D.C. you can't then flip that. And if I can only serve four years or two terms, eight years as a center, whatever it may be, I don't flip as easily into lobbying because I haven't been there for two decades or whatever it may be. It seems like term limits solves, solves the wrong word, alleviates a lot of these problems. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you said solves because as a conservative, like, and as a Christian, not a great one, but as a Christian and a conservative, I don't believe in like a utopian world where we can fix these problems. Right. I think these reforms can mitigate human nature, right? Human nature says, let's get power and exploit it. Let's make money and exploit it. That's not going to be solved by any of the things I offer in this book. But what I do think we can do is institute reforms, you know, that would tamp down on it. And I do agree one of them is term limits. And I have to say, this is an area where I've changed my mind. For many years, I was against term limits. It started when, I think it's started when I remember as a boy, like Ronald Reagan was against term limits. And he didn't

want to, he did not want to stay in office himself. But he wanted future presidents, just like remember his boyhood hero is FDR. Reagan thought that a president, if the American public wants to keep electing him or her, that they should be allowed to serve, right? In other words, term limits are called elections. And the voters had a right to choose. I also feared that we would end up with a permanent bureaucracy. So if we're kicking out politicians every so often, we would have this permanent entrenched class of experts who were lobbyists and staffers and they would run the show even more than they do now. But ever since I started writing this book, and I think that's really when I had a change of heart, it just occurred to me that exactly

the way you just described it, that it would definitely mitigate the politician cashing in over the course of many years. I mean, like, Nancy Pelosi is a prime example. Most of the damage she's done in terms of the, at least the appearance of insider trading has come, like, in the last 15 or 20 years, not if she had been term limited after, let's say, six or eight years would not have been nearly as bad. All right. I want to explore two terms that you've already brought up in the course of our conversation.

And they may be places where you and I have some disagreement. I don't know. We're going to find out. So first, you said earlier in the conversation that you're not, I think you said, a rabble-rousing populist. I know you've, I think that you have pushed back on the, I know that you've pushed back on the sort of populist movement within the Republican Party and within conservatism over the past. It's probably a decade. I don't think it's not, it's pretty well correlated to Donald Trump, but it may have started. You could argue that it may have started. Yeah, I think you could argue it started with the Tea Party. You know, Matt, at one time, I would have, and if I fairly characterized you, and tell me if I didn't fairly characterize your position on this. But at one time, I would have, in fact, I think I wrote a column saying that we should reject populism. And I know I wrote a column at that time saying we should reject specifically, we being conservatives, Sarah Palin and Donald Trump. Because that time in my life, this is a decade ago, populism was the idea of sort of being ruled by the pitchfork mob and being really, really, not just influence, but beholden to the passions of the public at any given moment.

And we know how hot that can burn. And we also know how fleeting that can be. But I will say, Matt, I have evolved over time. And I think we all should. and we shall be honest about where we have or have not, like you just were with term limits. And my evolution has been this feeling, you brought up that permanent bureaucracy, that's certainly part of it, but this feeling as well that I've always loved the principled nature of conservatism, but I do think there's a coldness at times to that to see what the potential ramifications of the principles may be. There's a reason we hold principles, and we should see what the output is of those principles, while deferring to thousands of years of trial and error

on this. But I do feel like the Republican Party for much of my life was pretty cold to the travails and the problems of middle, you know, I should say to working class Americans, but I also think even growing into middle class Americans. And that the answer has always been, you know, a rising tide lifts all boats, a rising tide lifts all boats. Capitalism makes all of our lives better. Poverty's on the decrease. I could show myself and anybody else, any number of charts to say, look, you have refrigeration and you have this and you have that. The life is better because of all of these principles.

But I do, I think, in the past eight years, and we can talk about Trump specifically at some point, but I just want to talk about populism. I have become more attuned to the idea of, wow, there is a real sense within, you know, America, middle class and lower America. They have been left behind in a system, as you point out earlier, they do not feel is purely meritocratic. Absolutely. I mean, to me, some of it's a matter of semantics.

If populism is about having compassion for working Americans, by the way, you know, I write about in the book, my dad was a prison guard in Hagerstown, Maryland for 30 years. I live in West Virginia. I think that's been good for me, like that background and that experience, like, in my career and also, frankly, in writing this book, I think that's a good populism. What I'm against is what you were talking about earlier, right, like getting swept up by passions, by anger. I'm against the politics of victimhood. And so, like, what I would say with this book is there may be some people who buy it out of sort of Schadenfreude, right? Like, they're going to be like,

Matt Lewis is going after these fat cats, the ruling class. And if you want to buy the book for that reason, please do. If you want to buy the book to see me take down Nancy Pelosi as a swamp creature, like by all means do that. But in the book, and like my heart as I'm writing it, my sort of the deeper theme of the book is the reason we need to fix this, this problem is not because I want to get. get back at Nancy Pelosi or Richard Burr, a Republican, just to be, you know, bipartisan about it. Like, it's because I love this country and I want to preserve it.

And you can't have a country when the majority of the citizens believe the game is rigged and believe that their elected officials are cashing in and they're not, while they're not. And so, some people might call that a populist message. Maybe I'm a populist in a way. It is sort of a paradox. Well, I have to tell you, because, you know, Ronald Reagan is still my hero and still my favorite, certainly favorite living president. And some people in my lifetime, my favorite, thank you for corrected it.

He's not alive. No conspiracy theories here. I'm alive. In my lifetime, he's my favorite president. And in many ways, some people would say he was a populist. In fact, Henry Olson, the Washington Post columnist, wrote a book, making the case that Reagan was a populist. And so then I plead guilty. If he is, then I am. Do you think, Matt, have you evolved at all? Where are you, I know you have been opposed to the rise of Donald Trump within the Republican Party? Have you evolved at all? Where are you in regards to Donald Trump? Well, in terms of Donald Trump, I have to be completely honest with you.

Please. I find myself liking him more lately. And I honestly think it's compared to some of the other. Republicans in the field. Trump is so much, he's funny, he's authentic. I think there's a likability, and I think that is a vastly underrated aspect. It's not original to me. Other people have been making this observation very recently, in fact.

I think that the humor and the likeability and the fact that he's funny is the underrated political superpower. And you can see it compared to some of the other people in the field that do not have that. They might have other things, but they don't have that. I can't get past the character issue. I can't get past the fact that he's the first president, certainly in my lifetime, who attempted to stop the peaceful transfer of power. But I also think that the people, I have a lot of friends and relatives who voted for Donald Trump. These are people that I love, who were great people. And a lot of them did it for reasons that we're discussing in this conversation,

that, like, they feel like they're being left behind or that a lot of working Americans are being left behind. They feel like the elites in Washington didn't listen to them. They feel like the Republican Party, as you were saying, didn't really care about blue-collar folks out there. My mom lives in Pennsylvania, drove people to the polls to vote for Trump in 2016. And I asked her why. Like, mom, how could you do this? You know how I feel about it? him and she said, the people of Western Pennsylvania want their dignity. They don't want handouts. They want their dignity. And that was her reason. And so I think if I've come along on Trump, it's not that I've come along on Trump, it's that I've come along a little bit

on understanding the appeal that I missed initially. Yeah. And I understand I just did a recent podcast episode on this, Matt. Like the superpower you describe is real. That doesn't have to be necessarily an endorsement. I'm not sure we should be electing people that are funny and that are charming and that are magnetic and that fill a room. But I do know, and I've met Donald Trump and I saw the footage of him at that UFC event, I do know that that is a characteristic of leadership and that people do want to follow. There are other characteristics of leadership, like execution, like vision and policy. And I think you've written this, and I know I had him on Fox News tonight last week, Ron DeSantis has done so many great things in Florida, but he is

missing that superpower. That's just the truth. That's not a rooting interest. It's just the truth. He's missing that same superpower that Trump has. You've got to be careful. And so like, I'll tell you, the first thing that got my attention, Matt, with Trump was like, and this is the really, really shallow way to put it, but he made all the right people insane. And that, and that is, that is cathartic and that's fun and that feels good. And maybe that's my base instincts. But then what I started to notice is that he was exposing something that I think, and perhaps unintentionally, but he was exposing something that I think existed anyway prior to him. And I think that so much of what we've experienced, which really manifested during COVID, was there. And all the reactions to Trump revealed him. uh, a tumor there. The fact that so much of the media is nothing but propaganda, that it'll openly lie or censor that, and by the way, and it applied to Trump, which you had, then I had to step back. And look, I don't like what happened on January 6th, but with so many different

accusations being lobbed at Trump, two different impeachments and, you know, all types of fake, um, fake, in retrospect, obviously fake stories that were scandals. When the guy says, hey, I don't think this election was fair, I'm not sure I saw it as this tyrannical moment that's attempting to thwart democracy. Now, and so much of it wasn't fair, I don't even have to go into, like, the actual voting and election. Like, just, you know, I think you would agree with this. Like, the censoring of a very important story on the eve of an election. That's election interference. And I don't know. I just think that there's something about Donald Trump that has ripped the mask in a way off of America. I'm not. I'm not. I don't know. I don't. I don't. I don't. I

I'm not sure that's going to, that's a painful process. I'm not sure it's healthy, but I also don't think it was healthy before that when we were pretending like this stuff didn't exist. Right. So I do want to be clear. I'm very anti-Trump. I know that. I know that. I know that.

I know that. But I do think that, let me, first of all, let me give him credit for three really great Supreme Court justices. And we've seen the fruits of that recently, and we will continue to, I'm sure, for a long time. The other thing I'll say is just in agreement with what you said is I think Trump exposed a lot of problems. And you talked about the media, which I've been a critic of liberal and biased media for a long, long time. The other thing I think he exposed was the impotence and the cowardice. of our political elites. And we saw, even in the Republican primary in 2016,

there were candidates that I thought. In fact, it was considered to be a very strong field at the time. And they sort of withered. Quickly. Very quickly. So they didn't have what it takes, number one, to make it politically. But then many of them, I think most of them kind of ended up. I think being tamed by Donald Trump.

And so to me, that also, that was like the second loss for them is like he beat them and then he beat them into submission and I think kind of humiliated them. And so he was right. He exposed that these Republican elites were actually kind of empty suits, I would say. And that, you know, that was a very eye-opening thing. And look, say, it's like, it's like Andrew Jackson. I have a lot of problems with Andrew Jackson, but there is a Jackson era for a reason, right? And there was, there's going to be a Trump era.

There's no doubt about it. We're in the Trump era. We're going to step aside here for a moment. Stay tuned. Listen to the all new Brett Bear podcast featuring Common Ground, in-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle, along with all your Brett Bear favorites like his All-Star panel and. Much more. Available now at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. For what it's worth, Matt, I know that you're anti-Trump and I know you're saying that for some of the audience as you sort of give me, you concede to a few points or to some of the benefits or strengths of Trump.

But I was curious to have that conversation with you. I mean, we're both conservative. And I think if I'm hearing you correctly, it's the same for you. It's the same as it could. be for any number of my friends who would also describe themselves as conservatives. In my private life, forget my public life. They just come back to his personality and his character is the ultimate hurdle you can't. You can't leap. Yeah, that's where I am. But I mean, if we were to get on the list of issues, whether it's like lower taxes or the right to life, you know, I'm pretty much a pretty hardcore conservative, although some of that has even been redefined, as you know, over recent years. Like, I'm very anti-Russia, which used to be kind of a

Republican thing, although, as we both know, the Soviet Union's not there anymore. But, like, right now that's a big, that's a huge divide in the Republican Party. There's a huge conversation, and I would say, even maybe schism over whether to support you. Ukraine or not. And based on kind of my Reaganite worldview, it's a no-brainer. But because the world is changing, I think other people are saying, like, are making arguments against that. Yeah. And I would count myself among that group who's skeptical of our larger. The thing is about Ukraine and Russia specifically, they're impossible to separate from two things. Our larger global war-trotting, you know, globe-trodding with war, it's hard to separate what's

happening in Ukraine from the experience the American people have just had in Afghanistan and Iraq, even though it's a different issue. But it's hard to separate that fatigue. And secondarily, it's also hard to separate it from the propaganda machine that we've all been subjected to through the past, specifically what has it been three years, starting with COVID, where on something so important with clear ramifications, I mean, we are toying with potential nuclear war, that we can't, it's yet another subject that's been placed upon the table of seemingly no rational discourse or debate. And I think that is a large, large part of the pushback. Totally. And let me bring it back to my, I'll do some shameless self-promotion here and

promote the book, filthy rich politicians, because I think it actually, there is a common theme here that I'll tie together. And one of it is people don't trust the so-called experts or the elites anymore, right? No doubt. And maybe there's a good reason that the elites, the experts, and the elected officials have abdicated a lot of the responsibility. They don't actually earn our trust anymore. And so that's a theme, I think, of filthy rich politicians. And it goes back to what we're talking about with Trump and these elites, the so-called ruling class, even within the Republican Party, do they, if they want to preserve not only their power, but this country, they need to care more about regular folks out there working hard and playing and playing by the rules. And like

I write in the book, I don't want a mob with pitchforks and lanterns to show up at my door. What I want is a mob with well-typed resumes, much safer and better for America when that's what they do. I said there was two terms I wanted to bring you up, and it's perfect segue because you just used it again. Elites. We talked about populism together and Trump. I also want to address this issue of elites, which you talk about in the book. You know, elite gets thrown around a lot. And I think there is a fair rebuttal. And maybe it's those on the left that often make this charge. Like, who do you mean by elite? You know, because it's, elite isn't necessarily defined by wealth. It's not just filthy rich individuals. There's something more. It's like

it's certainly not old money versus new money, but it's, I don't think it's necessarily Northeast versus West Virginia or Texas, although that plays, there's elements of all of this in it, I also think there's a lot to viewpoints. Like, do you, are you curring or carrying the, it used to be manners. Now it's like opinions. Like if I sat in a room in 1910 and even though I was a rich oil Texan, you know, they quickly ferret me out as not elite because I didn't have the right manners or didn't speak the right way, right? But now that same version of it is, do you have the right opinions? That seems to be the defining factor of elites. Well, I think you're right. So first of all, depending on the genre that you're in, elites can be

good or bad. If you have a heart attack, you'd love an elite cardiologist. If you're about to go in and rescue somebody, you want an elite strike force of Navy SEALs or something. So elite can be good in a certain context. In the political context, it's still confusing, right? So, like, Ted Cruz is married to a Goldman Sachs executive. He's an Ivy League graduate and a member of the most elite body in the U.S. Senate of 100 members. And what world is Ted Cruz not an elite? Or, like, Josh Holly.

Like, how on earth could Josh Holly not, by every definition of, his, you know, academic pedigree, you name it, working at McKinsey or whatever, like he is by definition and elite. And the only way to say he's not is to say, well, like, well, elites are people who push progressive, you know, are rich people who went to Ivy League schools who push progressive viewpoint. So it is, I think at some point it's, it's kind of a matter of semantics. But I guess it's, I do think at some point it is that viewpoint, right? Like, like Josh Holly, I think is he Yale? If Josh Holly walks in, if he walks, I think there's a Yale club in New York City. I wonder if Josh Holly walks into the Yale club, how is he received? You know, is he welcomed with the other

elites? Or is he shunned by those elites? Yeah. That's a good point. He's probably not welcomed, actually, because he doesn't have the mainstream elite opinion that they would have. So which reflects that it's not about money and it's not about your degree. It's not about these things. It's about whether you maintain good standing within the group. In order to maintain good standing within the group, you've got to have the group's opinions. Yeah. To me, I am using it to represent people.

In my book, I'm using it to represent people who are. who are kind of at the top of the pyramid in terms of wealth and class and education. And that's the shorthand that I'm using. I mean, my book, I'm bandying about terms like the ruling class and the swamp and latte liberals and all these. And these are all, you know, shorthand and they're great, great headlines. But when you try to dissect any of these terms, it becomes, you know, you know, Very debatable, you know, and so it's even what's a conservative now versus what's a liberal.

That's a tough debate. It's been a lot of evolution over the past decade. Let's go back specifically to the book, Filthy, Rich Politicians. And we left it, and I said I would come back to Nancy Pelosi. But I actually would love to, we know the answer to Nancy Pelosi at some point. We know about the trading. We know about her husband. Will you please do your best explain to me, Joe Biden?

And I don't know. Maybe it's inseparable from the conversation that we are. I think it is inseparable from the conversation we're having at least on the right about the potential for influence peddling and corruption. How is Joe Biden wealthy? I mean, and he is wealthy. He's not on your top 10 list. He's multiple homeowner, beautiful homes all over. And he's not really had a career. He had a two-year window, essentially, where he wasn't running for office and he was not yet. He was just finished his term as vice president. So it wasn't all made in those two. years. So how is a guy who basically has been a politician in D.C. since the 1970s, right, since the 70s? How is he wealthy? So, first of all, if he is the big guy, if he's the big guy on Hunter Biden's laptop, then that's how he's wealthy, right? Right. That's currently that is unproven and impossible for, you know, to document or anything like that. So what I'm going off of are, disclosures and finance reports and things like that. And if you go by those, Joe Biden was telling the truth when he said, I am one of the poorest members of Congress for most of his life. He bought a big house in Wilmington that he appeared to be underwater on for a long time.

He was not very rich. I mean, he was making, you know, 170 some thousand, whatever. it was at the time to be a U.S. Senator. So that's a lot more than the average America. He's making a good salary, but not millions and millions of dollars. His wife is like a college professor. So she's making a decent salary as well. But again, not millions and millions of dollars. But really, it's that three-year window that you were alluding to, right? He leaves the vice presidency in 2016 and it's public speaking gigs. It's book deals. He was like a professor at Penn State, although I don't think he ever actually taught any classes. And so he made, according to the report, something like $15 million in three years. And so by the way, Matt, we can say two things about that.

That's a lot of money in terms of like book deals and speaking gigs. And so what we can say about that is two things. It's a little suspicious, but the whole big guy thing is a house of suspicions, right? You're right. We don't yet, actually, Hunter's text from a few weeks ago is the closest we get to some implication of quid pro quo. But even if it is on the up and up, I think that's part of your filthy, rich policy. That's part of your thing. Like, you know, I know what I would make from a speaking gig. And Joe Biden's more famous than me, even when he's done being vice president, he's more famous than me. But I can do some extrapolation. And these fees are really high, which just adds to the dirtiness of the whole thing of getting rich being a politician. Even if

you're not doing deals with the Chinese Communist Party. Exactly. No, I think that's, that's totally, totally right. Even if this is just utter, like, let's assume that he's squeaky clean, and this is, like, completely boring, the fact that he cashed in that quick and made that much money based on the fact that he, and in the case of Biden, like Hillary cashed in even bigger. Right. But that's because people thought she, they knew she was, they knew, scare quotes here. They thought she was going to be president.

They thought wrong. But with Biden, I don't think there was the same assumption. So he was able to just sort of cash in. And so to me, the Biden example is the most telling. It's not extraordinary. This is just if you've been a normal politician sort of clawing your way to the middle, you're going to cash in and become a millionaire, whether it happens in office or right after you leave office. Now, the other thing I'll say about Joe Biden is the family stuff, and it's not just the recent stuff, and it's not just Hunter Biden.

Joe Biden has two brothers, Frank and James, both of whom have long cashed in on the name, have traded off of being the brother and have really implied that they might help people that they're giving speeches to get things before their brother. there was an Atlantic article that I found that I put in my book. When Joe Biden ran for president in 1988, way back in 1988, his campaign raised about $11 million. 20% of that $11 million went to Biden's family. So that's, and that's not, this is not conspiracy theory. This is not scandal. This is like the Atlantic reported on this. So again, it goes to the point.

You don't have to be looking for crazy conspiracies to know that this game is rigged. Like, just read the Atlantic and you'll find it. Yeah. I guess the way to internalize that is the potential influence peddling scandal, I would hope, I would hope, would be a unique problem for a politician in Washington, D.C. If not unique, a more rare problem. I'm pretty skeptical, Matt. I'm pretty cynical. The stuff you're describing, sadly, is a dime a dozen.

It's politicians all over the place. And that's your book, Filthy, Rich Politicians. It's really fascinating, Matt. I'm excited that I got a chance to talk to you and finally meet. I started out saying in person, but virtually, but not over social media. And everyone should go check it out. Filthy, rich politicians. I appreciate your time, Matt.

Thank you. It's been a pleasure to be here. There you go. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with me. Matt Lewis again, check out filthy rich politicians, the swamp creatures, latte liberals, and ruling class elites cashing in on America right now, wherever you pick up your books. I'll see you again next time. Listen to ad free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members, you can listen to this show, ad free on the Amazon music app. It is time to take the

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