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Speaker 1: I'm Kevin Cirelli, Chief Washington correspondent from Bloomberg TV and

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Never Enough Time, which is why I'm so

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Speaker 1: glad we have the sound On Extra podcast and joining

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Speaker 1: us on the show today his first time on the show.

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Speaker 1: Someone I've covered for years, Douglas Holtz Eakin, a former

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Speaker 1: CBIO director. He's also a president of the conservative think tank,

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Speaker 1: the American Action for him. He also recognized him because

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Speaker 1: he was the chief policy advisor to the late Senator

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Speaker 1: John McCain's presidential campaign. Adam Hodge another friend of the

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Speaker 1: sound On program. He's former communications director for the d

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Speaker 1: n C. Now he's a senior vice president at s

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Speaker 1: k D Knickerbocker and served in the Obama Treasury Department.

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Speaker 1: You know, I was struck by this, and we were

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Speaker 1: talking about this in the break. All the good stuff

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Speaker 1: happens in the break. We're talking about this in the

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Speaker 1: break about just what it's like to testify before Congress. Doug,

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Speaker 1: you've testified multiple multiple times. What is that like to

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Speaker 1: go before the Financial Services Committee like chairman, like Treasury

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Speaker 1: Secretary monution did today? Uh, and have to like sit

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Speaker 1: there for hours and get grilled well, I would point

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Speaker 1: out that they don't really care too much about how

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Speaker 1: you feel when you're on the other side of the table.

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Speaker 1: I testified always means one time on China, and they

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Speaker 1: took breaks for lunch. We stayed, We answered questions. We

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Speaker 1: were there so long and it was so cold that

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Speaker 1: my teeth were chattering, and I could not answer by

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Speaker 1: the end honest food. Like there I was testifying a

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Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, and and the woman next me

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Speaker 1: lean never goes what's the policy and bathroom breaks? And

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Speaker 1: I leaned over and said, there aren't any, So what

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Speaker 1: do you do panics? Wait? What do you do if

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Speaker 1: you're testifying and suffer? Wait? You can't say there's no

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Speaker 1: like code word. I have seen witnesses stand up and

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Speaker 1: walk out as fast as they can come back, I

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Speaker 1: mean because they I have never walked off suffer. I

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Speaker 1: also never drink anything before I testified. Well, what do

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Speaker 1: you do the night before? Like do you get like?

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Speaker 1: Is it? Is it? Like? How do you prepare for?

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Speaker 1: Like I mean, we know, like the high profile hearings

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Speaker 1: and the crisis PR firms for like the Michael Cohen's

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Speaker 1: of the world, but for the wants of the world.

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Speaker 1: How do you prepare for a hearing? Like? Do you study?

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Speaker 1: Do you do you have staff like write your questions?

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Speaker 1: How does that work? I study a lot. I you know,

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Speaker 1: we we prepared testimony, so there's a lot of stuff

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Speaker 1: in there. Make sure I understand my own testimony, and

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Speaker 1: everything's in staff. That does help me, have a great

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Speaker 1: staff to help me. Um, But mostly I just walk

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Speaker 1: around and worry. I imagine, I imagine questions someone might ask,

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Speaker 1: and I imagine answering them, and then I imagine, oh,

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Speaker 1: what are they gonna do? What's the trick question? How

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Speaker 1: are they gonna make me look bad? And this is

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Speaker 1: even when there's no good reason for them to make

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Speaker 1: it look bad. I'm just there, right and and uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: And you were telling me that Congresswoman Sheila j accidentally

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Speaker 1: he was on the program today. Really terrifying just because

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Speaker 1: you just don't know. So the opening question is, did

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Speaker 1: you know that my whole family was on an American

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Speaker 1: Arrolans pension? No? Why would I know that? No? I

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Speaker 1: had no idea congresswoman, But then you're thinking, where is

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Speaker 1: she going with this? Adam? When you're prepping, like when

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Speaker 1: you were prepping the Treasury Secretary of the Obama administration.

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Speaker 1: I mean, is the goal to be boring? Like is

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Speaker 1: I mean, is the is the goal to or do

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Speaker 1: you get the questions ahead of time from Republicans from

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Speaker 1: I would assume no, I mean is it is it

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Speaker 1: kind of just like kind of baptism by fire? And

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Speaker 1: I mean, how do you how would describe it? I

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Speaker 1: think there's always an attempt by this this Stavid Treasury,

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Speaker 1: and we were always blessed to have just a great staff.

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Speaker 1: We would try to get a sense of what direction,

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Speaker 1: what members were looking to hear from, and if there

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Speaker 1: was a specific policy or angle that you knew they

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Speaker 1: wanted to get into, you wanted to try to help

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Speaker 1: answer their questions. Do you have like that channels with Republicans?

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Speaker 1: I think some of the Legislative Affairs staff would be

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Speaker 1: calling members offices and had been testified a number of times.

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Speaker 1: He always understood it was an important responsibility to try

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Speaker 1: to be as as thoughtful and to answer the questions

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Speaker 1: as as often as possible. He certainly never or you know,

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Speaker 1: didn't get the bathroom bricks when he wanted them to.

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Speaker 1: And he knew he had a set time to to

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Speaker 1: go and he was going to answer members questions. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: you have foreign leaders. We had a couple of times

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Speaker 1: where the finest minister of you know, of whatever country

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Speaker 1: was in town and you kind of had to get

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Speaker 1: back to meet that that that meeting, and you try

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Speaker 1: to set that in advance. But sometimes there's just a

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Speaker 1: topic where the hearing goes on long and you're there

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Speaker 1: to answer the questions because that's part of the coequal

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Speaker 1: branch of government to give and take between an administration

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Speaker 1: in the back, not for the secretary, that's for sure. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I actually remember that would testifying is away games.

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Speaker 1: There are no home games. We're gonna leave it there,

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Speaker 1: Adam Hodge so called teak, and all testifying is away games.

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Speaker 1: There are no home games. That's awesome. Kevin's really chief

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Speaker 1: Washington corresponder from Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Radio. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: listening to the sound on Extra