WEBVTT - Drilling Deep: The Golden Age of Oil-Funded Influence, with Casey Michel 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:13.560 Hello, and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westerveldt. For years, 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:18.200 literally years, people have been pitching me their excellent books 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:22.160 on climate and policy and energy and democracy. And I 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:24.680 love all the books, and I never have time to 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:27.680 read them and do reviews, and I feel terrible about it. 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.720 So we're changing that over here at Drilled. We've launched 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.960 a series called Drilling Deep, in which we will be 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:39.319 talking to authors about their books. And the hack here 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.080 is that it won't always be me. In fact, it 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.360 might never be me, even though I. 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:46.800 Do really enjoy reading them and learning more about them. 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:50.520 This week, Adam Lowenstein, who is doing most of these 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:55.040 interviews for US, talks to Casey Michelle, the author of 0:00:55.280 --> 0:01:00.280 Foreign Agents, How American lobbyists and lawmakers Threatened democracy around 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:03.720 the World. The book was actually published last year, but 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:07.479 Michelle just wrote a really interesting piece in The Atlantic 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:10.440 that kind of updates the thinking from the book for 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:15.680 the second Trump administration. Just one quote, America has never 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:20.800 seen corruption like this. Michelle's book explored the web of lobbyists, 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:24.800 pr gurus, and former politicians who are paid to influence 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:29.920 the US government on behalf of foreign regimes and no 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:34.080 surprise here. One of Trump's first moves in office was 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:38.559 an executive order stopping enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:41.880 Adam had a great conversation with Michelle. I hope you 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.959 enjoy it. Check out the book. We'll link to both 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:48.600 the book and the Atlantic piece in the show notes, 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.000 and we'll see you back here soon for more drilling. 0:01:52.000 --> 0:02:08.640 Deep cool, let's get into it. 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:11.400 Yeah, good place to start is your recent piece in 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:15.520 the Atlantic titled America has Never seen corruption like This, 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:19.119 which pretty much sums it up. But let's start with 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:21.640 some of the arguments you make in that piece. 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.760 Yeah. Well, thank Adam, of course. First things first, thanks 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:27.839 for having me back. It's great to reconnect. Of course, 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:29.480 as we were just talking off Mike, I wish it 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:31.959 was under better circumstances, but that's the world that we 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:32.720 live in. 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:34.160 Thanks for coming back on. 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:38.280 And yeah, we left off at an interesting place during 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:40.040 the Biden years, and we might get into that a little. 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:43.760 Yes, the Biden years, I remember those fondly the past, 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:47.200 truly as a foreign country. Yeah. Look, so the article 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:49.120 that I have in the Atlantic that you mentioned just 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.840 the other day was not pegged to anyone news development, 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:57.880 anyone revelation, anyone exposure, or anyone international corruption network. It 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.839 was trying to survey the field over the last six 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:02.840 months or so, now that we're about six months into 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:08.800 the new administration, of just how frankly historic the scope 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.160 and the scale of the corruption emanating from and running 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:14.359 through the White House, and of course the broader kind 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:16.840 of world of Trump affiliates and the Trump family and 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:21.040 of course the Trump organization. Truly is what I have 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:25.079 found on my end is maybe not the most effective things, 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:27.040 but one effective thing that I found on my end 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:31.839 in my rioting is trying to examine historic parallels such 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:38.440 as they are throughout predominantly American history, of networks of valances, 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:43.240 of stories of corruption, almost all of which throughout the 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:46.960 predominant of American history have been domestic. Donald Trump is 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.160 by no means the first president of the first administration 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.640 that has been embroiled in corruption scandals. You know, I 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.280 laid out at the outset of the Peace it self 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:57.240 that you go back to the days of Ulysses S. 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:01.480 Grant and his family members in inner circles, It go 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:03.640 back to the days of Warren Harding and Teapot Dome. 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:05.440 Of course, go back to the days of Richard Nixon 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.360 and a Watergate, even though that is predominantly remembered as 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:12.160 a political story, which it absolutely was. There's also a 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:16.400 story of rank corruption, especially corporate corruption, regarding linkages with 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:18.800 with the White House, and that's all true. Those are 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.920 all scandals under themselves. Of course, Teapot Dome for nearly 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.919 a century was kind of the shorthand for presidential corruption. 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:27.920 But what we we have seen over the last five 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:30.680 six months now, you know, it blows all of that 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:33.240 out of the water. There really is no historic comparison 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:35.520 for the scope, the scale, and of course the speed 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:38.360 with all with which all of this has happened itself. 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:40.720 And you can talk about specific incidents of it. You 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.320 can talk, of course about the Katari Jet, the forms 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:47.480 million dollar luxury liner gifted from a foreign dictatorship directly 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.760 to a sitting president. You can talk about the crypto 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.040 and the meme coins. Of course, you could talk about 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.840 the Trump organization itself. That's all perfectly true, that's all 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:58.880 beyond anything we've ever seen before. But you could also 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.960 talk about the policy developments on how the administration has 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:06.000 really taken an absolute sledgehammer to whatever kind of anti 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.600 corruption bona fides the US once had, you know, going 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:11.279 all the way back, maybe fifty years or so in 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:13.599 the post Watergate era is when you can really begin 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.000 to examine the rise of this kind of anti corruption 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:19.799 regime or these anti corruption policies. Almost all of those 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:27.440 have been completely decimated, either unenforced, completely dissolved in terms 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.520 of some task forces, no resourcing for actual investigations themselves. 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:33.160 And of course what we've seen take place at the 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.680 Department of Justice with the clear quid pro quo in 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.760 terms of dropping certain prosecutions, including against our beloved mayor 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:43.240 here in New York City, who was allegedly going around 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:45.640 the world, especially in places like Turkey and asking for 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:48.599 a campaign financing, which was of course the reddest of 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:50.320 red lines. I mean, Adam, look, I could talk to 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:52.440 you and maybe we will talk for a full hour 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:54.520 about all of the developments out of it. That is 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:57.760 sort of the plan that's about the Trump administration. But 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:01.760 it was it was an exercise in trying to get 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:04.440 all of this into one single article. I still left 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:08.200 plenty of material on the chopping block, right. I don't 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:10.760 think I mentioned once maybe I mentioned in passing the 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.640 role and relationships of Jared Kushner and the billions of 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:16.520 dollars that the president's son in law has brought in 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.680 from dictatorship after dictatorship, as far as anyone can tell, 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.039 only because he is, of course, the son in law 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:25.160 of a sitting president. I mean, that's just one figure 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:27.720 among many that I had to leave out of this article. 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:30.839 The list goes on and on and on. 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:33.120 One of the things you mentioned in that Atlantic piece 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.400 is the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act. Can you talk about 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:40.599 what that law is or was, and what it means 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:42.840 for the Trump administration to stop enforcing it. 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.880 The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, it's known by its acronym 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.120 the FCPA, and that's what I'll generally refer to it 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:56.080 as this was really the bedrock of America's anti corruption 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:00.480 statutes or policies going back nearly fifty years. You know, 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:02.800 I talked a moment ago about about Watergate. In the 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.560 aftermath of Watergate and the revelations they were in and again, 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:09.120 it wasn't just about about a burglar at the Watergate hotel. 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:11.920 It wasn't just about the links that Richard Nixon would 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.840 go to to remain in power as Congressional investigators discovered 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:21.640 there were any number of leading American corporations secretly bankrolling 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:26.600 Richard Nixon's re election campaign in nineteen seventy two. Again, 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:30.080 this was contravening all manner of campaign finance law back 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:33.160 in the nineteen seventies. But it wasn't just that. It 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:35.360 was also that many of these companies were going around 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:40.080 the world and bribing corrupt officials in places like Japan 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.440 and South Korea, places like the Netherlands, but also places 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:48.600 like Saudi Arabia, and finding corrupt regimes, corrupt officials that 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.400 they could pay off to open the doors for American 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:54.520 business and American commerce and of course keep those regimes 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.560 in power for as long as they wanted as well. 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:01.440 And when these revelations came out, right, we're talking tens 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.600 hundreds of millions of dollars, significant amounts of money. When 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.680 these revelations came out, you know, it wasn't just a 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.440 scandal that American companies are going around the world and bribing, 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:14.280 you know, autocratic regimes in places like Honduras. It is 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:16.960 also that when those revelations came out, all of a sudden, 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:21.560 all manner of anti American forces and political parties and 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:24.720 movements could point to those regimes and point to those 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:27.600 American companies and say, look at what is happening, Look 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:29.600 at what the US is doing, what it is allowing, 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:31.320 and look at what these American companies are doing in 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:34.800 terms of smothering any kind of democracy again, in places 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.199 like the military dictatorship South Korea, autocracy on Honduras, so 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:41.240 on and so on. It's funny I was rereading this 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:43.560 earlier this morning. Some of the congressional testimonies, some of 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:47.920 the biggest benefactors of all these revelations were things like 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:51.240 communist parties. Again, remember the nineteen seventies, near the height 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:52.679 of the Cold War, and all of a sudden, the 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.520 Communists can point to officials in Italy or the Netherlands 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:57.320 or wherever it is, and say, look at just how 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.240 corrupt the Americans and their lackeys in power here are. 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.240 So that's all kind of a long winded way of 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:05.720 setting the stage for what legislators ended up doing in 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:09.680 nineteen seventy seven, realizing just how damaging this was to 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:13.719 American policies and an American foreign policy especially, they passed this 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.840 thing called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which is really 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:19.760 I want to make sure to kind of convey just 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.960 how monumental this was. This wasn't just the first time 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:25.160 in American history that it was now a crime for 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:29.680 American corporations or American businessman to bribe foreign officials. This 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:33.120 was the first time anywhere had ever passed anything like this, 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:35.960 the first time in global history any country had made 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.040 it a crime to engage in bribery, not in that 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.520 country and specifically, but a foreign country in and of itself. 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.000 So again, what the FCPA does is it makes it 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.480 illegal for any American in any American company, any American 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.800 business person, or any foreign company that's listed on an 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:56.200 American stock exchange, even if they're not technically American companies themselves, 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:01.320 to engage in bribery abroad in any country around the world. 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:04.320 And this was nineteen seventy seven, This was nearly fifty 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:06.760 years ago. And that's really, again I used the term earlier, 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.920 the kind of the bedrock from where we saw over 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.240 the ensuing decades, all of these other anti corruption policies 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:17.079 really stem from that really declared American leadership in this space. 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.040 We eventually saw it replicated in places like Canada. The 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.480 European Union, United Kingdom, but also really set the kind 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:26.840 of the baseline for where American anti corruption policy would 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:28.880 go from there. So then eventually you had things like 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:31.920 Shell company transparency. Eventually you had things like new task 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:35.840 forces dedicated to targeting and seizing and returning dirty money. 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.600 Of course, you had the Department of Justice prosecuting all 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.640 around the world corrupt networks. Again, that was a long 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:46.079 winded way of saying the FCPA was wonderful, and technically 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:49.160 it is still on the books, but in one of 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.040 the very first things that Donald Trump did in returning 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:55.720 to the presidency was announced effectively it was no longer 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.200 going to be enforced. As he saw it, it was 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.000 a quote horror show of a law that prevented American 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:06.520 businesses from engaging in routine business practices abroad and damaging 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:10.160 American competitiveness, which is just a nice little euphemistic way 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.319 of saying American companies and American businessmen should be able 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:17.560 to bribe whoever they want without being concerned by without 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.920 being worried about prosecution from the Department of Justice. It 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:26.040 was devastating to see. It was a monumental, even generational setback. 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.120 The Silver lining is it's still on the books, and 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.640 a potential future administration could of course begin reinforcing it. 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.280 But it was a very clear sign of the direction 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:37.880 this administration was going to go in. 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:44.280 That raises an important distinction, which is the direction of travel, 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.320 the direction of corrupt travel? I guess which is The 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:53.600 FCPA focuses on American companies illegally or unlawfully or unethically 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:58.000 influencing governments around the world. Your book, Foreign Agents, which 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.360 we talked about last year, focuses on sort of the 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:06.079 reverse direction of corruption. Obviously it's all interrelated, but focuses 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:14.160 on the government's authoritarian regimes around the world hiring US officials, politicians, 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:17.800 influencers of various kinds who have access to the US 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:22.560 government and can shape American policy. What is the state 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:26.400 of the corrupt Union when it comes to foreign influence 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:28.880 on the United States? 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:35.720 The state of affairs right now is I don't know, terrible, terrifying, unsettling. 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:38.160 Yes, it depends if you are making money or not. 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:40.800 Oh sure, sure, it depends on what kind of line 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:42.800 of work you're in. And I suppose what kind of morals, 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.120 if any, you have about or scruples I should say 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:47.880 about working with some of those the most heinous regimes 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.280 around the world. Again, just as a little bit of context. 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:52.280 I know Adam and I spoke about this in the past. 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:55.280 In the United States of America, it's not illegal. It's 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.000 perfectly legal for you or I or any other American 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.680 to go lobby on behalf of not only any cause 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:04.280 that we want, but any regime that we want. You 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:07.079 and I can right now go talk to our legislators 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:10.200 about how actually wonderful the regime in Saudi Arabia or 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:13.600 the United Arab Emirates or Gabone or Venezuela or whatever 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:17.400 it is might be. That's predominant because in the First Amendment, 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:19.559 we have the right to petition the government for redress 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:21.640 of grievances, which is just an old timey way of 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.319 saying lobbying. You and I can go lobby for whatever 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.880 cause we want. That is not illegal. All Americans have 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:31.480 to do is register their work. If they're being paid 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:33.720 to do that by these foreign governments. They just have 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:36.000 to register with the Department of Justice and declare what 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.320 they're doing and disclose how much they're making and so 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:40.800 on and so forth. And you and I can go 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.080 online to the Department of Justice website and take a 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:45.480 look through that database of all of these American lobbyists 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:49.400 we're selling themselves to regime after regime around the world. 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.520 And again, as you just laid out, it's not even 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:55.480 just traditional lobbyists, right, these kind of traditional lobbying firms 0:13:55.480 --> 0:14:00.280 in DC. It's a pr specialists, it's consultants, it's of 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.800 course many former members of Congress or of Cabinet or 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:09.040 previous administrations themselves. It is, you know, a whole kind 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:12.760 of constellation of American industries are now congealing within the 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:17.400 one broader umbrella industry of foreign lobbying. And because of 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:20.480 Donald Trump's first term, again, this is now a multi 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:25.080 billion dollar industry itself. These are extremely effective lobbyists. These 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:28.760 are extremely effective networks at implementing policies that these foreign 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:31.600 regimes want to see implemented. And again, it's things like 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.760 arms sales, it's things like the lifting or prevention of sanctions. 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:38.080 It's even things and we were talking about this off 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:41.400 my in terms of climate it's even things like fast 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:47.560 tracking energy policies that benefit hydrocarbon producers and pushing off 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:52.760 or gutting green or clean tech reforms that again, places 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:56.040 like China or Azerbaijan or Saudi Arabia, the major oil 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.320 producers do not want to see pursued. It's been extremely 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.920 effective because because of Donald Trump's first term, there was 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.680 kind of a rising salience about some of these threats 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:07.320 because it's not just that their lobbying officials. What a 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:10.280 lot of folks realized is that these lobbyists were really 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:14.640 enmeshing themselves in the highest levels of American policy making 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:18.640 in any ways, crafting American foreign policy that should have 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:21.680 been crafted by American legislators of those in the White House, 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:25.320 but instead was being directed by these foreign lobbyists themselves. 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:29.360 And Adam, I can't remember when you and I spoke last, 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.320 but I believe it was after, maybe right around the 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:37.640 same time as the conviction of former Senator Bob Menendez, 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:42.360 who was before his conviction, was the chairman of the 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:46.160 Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the most powerful member of American 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.280 Congress in terms of crafting American foreign policy. 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.960 And a Democrat, which bears emphasizing in this moment. 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:54.080 He is one of the leaders, was one of the 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:58.040 leaders for a long time of the Democratic Party, and 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:03.040 as we also learned recently was secretly moonlighting, conspiring to 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:07.080 act as as the jury found and guilty of a 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:10.760 foreign agent for the military dictatorship in Egypt. He was 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.720 secretly lobbying his colleagues in the Senate, secretly ghost riding 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:18.720 on behalf of his patrons back in Cairo. And he 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.800 was the first American member of Congress to be convicted 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:25.800 on these charges and was recently sentenced, And if I 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:29.640 remember correctly, he is actually now in prison on a 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:33.760 very lengthy stay for again acting as secretly a foreign 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:37.680 lobbyist on behalf of not his constituents back in New Jersey, 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:41.480 but the military dictatorship back in Egypt. So again, this 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:43.160 is just all kind of a little bit of the 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:44.680 scope and scale of what we see on the foreign 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:47.440 lobbying side. Fast forward to where we are right now, 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:49.920 the current administration saying, no, we're not going to enforce 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:52.400 any of these foreign lobbying laws. We're only going to 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:56.200 target those that are engaged in traditional espionage. If a 0:16:56.320 --> 0:17:00.520 foreign agent, a foreign lobbyist is somehow somewhere getting a 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:03.640 hold of classified information and sending it back to their 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:07.080 patrons and benefactors elsewhere, we will prosecute that but if 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:09.600 they're not disclosing who they're working for, if they're not 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.240 sharing with the American public who's actually paying them, we're 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.240 not going to prosecute that whatsoever. So it really seems like, 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:17.520 and again it's going to take years to really figure 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.320 out the breadth of this. Very much seems like we're 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:22.760 back in the golden era, back in a golden age 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:26.159 of these kind of foreign lobbying network being able to 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:28.240 operate in the shadows without the rest of us having 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:29.640 any idea what they're actually doing. 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:32.240 I wanted to ask you about what the state of 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:36.640 the influence industry in Washington is right now, because, on 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:40.760 one hand, and as you just referenced, there's tons of 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:46.600 money to be made from foreign governments seeking influence sway 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.399 access to the Trump administration. What I wonder though, is, 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:53.160 on the other hand, is the fact that the administration 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.280 is so shameless in some ways, or the fact that 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.439 Trump himself is such a you know, as has been 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:02.359 widely report, or it makes decisions based on who talks 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:04.679 to him most recently, who flatters him the most, whatever. 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.640 Does that make it harder for some of the traditional 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:12.080 levers of influence in Washington to do their work, because 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:15.439 I feel like they at least sell themselves as having 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:17.840 access that the average person doesn't have. But if you 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:20.880 can get access to the decider through Fox News, then 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.080 does that mean you don't need to hire Brownstein or whomever. 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:27.000 You know. It's funny, Adam, and far be it from 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:31.119 me to feel any kind of bad about any of 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:36.440 these figures. But yes, there was even through Trump's first 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:38.800 term and certainly well into the by and earra, there 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:42.919 was a playbook that they had followed for years and 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:46.120 years and years for decades, and it was an extension 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:49.120 of an outgrowth of what traditional lobbying for domestic causes 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:51.720 looked like. Right. It was the kind of the back 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:55.479 room conversations. It was having one on one meetings. It 0:18:55.720 --> 0:19:00.080 was in some cases donating directly to a young a 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.879 member of Congresses, or even a presidential candidate's election or 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.199 re election campaigns. I mean again, it's there was no 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:10.119 real kind of secret sauce to any of it. It 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:12.359 was about who you knew and who you could access 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:13.840 and what kind of doors you could open. And now 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:16.400 what we see with Donald Trump's second term is that 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:20.119 that playbook certainly still exists. And of course much of 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:21.800 it does come down to, at the end of the day, 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.600 who these figures, knowing what doors they can open. But 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:30.359 the range of tactics and tools now available has just 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:33.520 been blown out of the water, you know. Again, to 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:35.120 get back to what we were talking about a few 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:37.840 moments ago, I never in a thousand years thought I 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:40.600 would ever see the day that a foreign regime, in 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:43.919 this case out of Katar, would be able to gift 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:48.720 a four hundred million dollar luxury liner a airplane to 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:51.520 a sitting president. And yet, and yet here we are. 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:54.600 I never thought I would see a world in which 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:59.280 a sitting president has direct access to not only the 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:02.760 so called coins, but of course is more than willing 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.159 and more than happy to host these effective pay to 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:09.480 play dinners for both Americans and non Americans alike those 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.800 who have given or invested the most amount of money 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:16.159 in a specific crypto venture. And of course I never 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:18.359 thought that I would actually see I should have had 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:20.080 an idea with Trump's first term, but I never thought 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:21.880 I would actually see the day where he's sitting president 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.199 has his real estate company gallivanting around the world and 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:30.160 signing up deals in dictatorship after dictatorship, foreign country after 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:32.679 form coach. I mean, this is all just unprecedented and 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:36.600 completely uncharted waters, as we talked about earlier, completely without 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:41.480 any kind of historic precedent. And I don't know how 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:45.800 traditional lobbying firms are adapting, but I do think it 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:48.520 is indicative that one of the key figures that has 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:50.680 opened up Donald Trump to the world of crypto and 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:54.840 crypto related investments is someone who emerged from that traditional 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:57.760 lobbying world, and that is our old friend Paul Manifort, 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:00.680 who was Donald Trump's first campaign manager and sixteen helped 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:03.879 launch into the presidency, eventually jailed on foreign lobbying charges 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:05.880 and then pardoned by Trump, and now in the last 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:08.840 year or two has emerged as this key player in 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.480 the crypto space that we know from other reporting, has 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:15.760 led Donald Trump directly into that space and of course 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:18.399 opened up all manner of new areas of influence. So 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:22.360 there's a man of fort is many things, but there 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:24.280 is a certain skill set that he brings to bear 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:26.640 in terms in terms of opening up avenues of influence. 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:30.560 What are the currencies of influence these days? You mentioned 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:32.919 crypto being a big one. You know, there's been some 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:36.959 reporting about you know, the Saudi government, among others, really 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:41.960 going all in on AI and data centers to woo 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:45.920 the administration and its tech oligarch backers. But what are 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:48.560 how are they? What are they trafficking in these days? 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:53.359 Well, I mean, look at the barest element of explanation 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:56.800 is money, right, It's it's whatever means of financing directly 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:00.600 into the American president's pocket, his family's pockets, his business pockets, 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:04.119 his allies pockets. It's whatever the vehicle of value is. 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.240 And if that's opening up a new resort in Vietnam, 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:10.119 Trump Resort in Vietnam, so be it. If that is 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:13.720 spending three hundred million dollars or investing three hundred million 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:16.000 dollars on a Trump meme coin so you can have 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:17.840 dinner with the president, so be it. If that is 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:21.080 an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates agreeing that 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:26.040 it will exchange or participate in exchanges using that Trump 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:29.520 meme coin or whatever the other crypto venture is, you know, 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:32.520 so be it. I mean, it's funny that you mentioned AI. 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:34.119