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Speaker 1: Pushkin. You might remember back in December twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 1: right around the time crypto founder Sam Bankman Freed was

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Speaker 1: arrested in the Bahamas. He was charged with various financial crimes,

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Speaker 1: and we also saw a lot of headlines about his

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Speaker 1: political donations, headlines with very large numbers attached to them.

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Speaker 1: CBS News reported one of those stories, the crypto entrepreneur

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Speaker 1: made about forty million dollars in political donations in the

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty two election cycle. So why do I care

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Speaker 1: about this now? I spent an awful lot of time

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Speaker 1: with Sam Bankman Freed, as I reported my next book,

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Speaker 1: because he sits right in the middle of it. And

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Speaker 1: whatever you think about how he made his money, his

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Speaker 1: eagerness to give large chunks of it away was fascinating.

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Speaker 1: But the contributions to political causes and candidates is turning

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Speaker 1: out to be yet another area where he's now in trouble.

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Speaker 1: And all those politicians he gave money to they might

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Speaker 1: have to give it back from against the rules. This

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Speaker 1: is on background. I'm Michael Lewis. In order to understand

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Speaker 1: the mess that Sam Bankmanfreed is in, I need to

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Speaker 1: know a lot more about the world of campaign finance

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Speaker 1: law that world's changed in the last decade. In twenty ten,

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court made a controversial ruling in a case

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Speaker 1: called Citizens United. Basically, the ruling said the corporations and

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Speaker 1: other groups can spend as much money as they want

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Speaker 1: to on elections. Citizens United also spawned the creation of

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Speaker 1: powerful political action committees called super PACs and so called

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Speaker 1: dart money nonprofits that don't disclose their donors. It's a

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Speaker 1: tangled web, and I need a guide. That's where Jordan

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Speaker 1: Libowitz comes in. He's communications director for the Center for

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Speaker 1: Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a campaign finance watchdog group.

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Speaker 1: When Sam Bankman Fried set up his own superpack, it

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Speaker 1: was called protect Our Future. It quickly became one of

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Speaker 1: the biggest political donors around, and Jordan Libowitz took notice.

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Speaker 1: He's been watching Sam bagman Freed even longer than I have.

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Speaker 1: When did he come on your radar screen? Like? When

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Speaker 1: did you first stop paying attention to him?

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Speaker 2: So there were articles midway through the twenty twenty cycle

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Speaker 2: about this new donor who no one had ever heard of,

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Speaker 2: spending huge amounts of money and pledging to be one

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Speaker 2: of the biggest donors in the election. Anytime someone is

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Speaker 2: spending huge amounts of money, that raises our eyebrows. But

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Speaker 2: crypto was still very very new to us. Then. We

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Speaker 2: didn't see crypto influence building for another couple of years.

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Speaker 2: But it was just here's this guy who got rich

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Speaker 2: and he's spending a lot of money. You know, it's

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Speaker 2: a name we recognize. It wasn't until FTX blew up

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Speaker 2: that we really started paying attention to him.

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Speaker 1: Do you notice any patterns in his giving? Like I'd

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Speaker 1: love to hear kind of what campaigns he specifically gave to,

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Speaker 1: but more generally, were there any patterns to the campaigns

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Speaker 1: he was giving to.

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Speaker 2: The first thing is that the giving was more ideological

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Speaker 2: than political. These are helping pro crypto candidates or ones

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Speaker 2: that could be beneficial to his business later on. The

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Speaker 2: second thing is he seemed to concentrate much more in primaries.

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Speaker 2: A lot of elections in this country, the general election

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Speaker 2: is not particularly competitive, thanks in part to gerrymandering or

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Speaker 2: to just the way states are. The actual election to

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Speaker 2: decide is the primary. So when we talk about him

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Speaker 2: as this massive democratic donor, most of his money was

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Speaker 2: going to influence democratic primaries that we know about as

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Speaker 2: opposed to helping Democrats be Republicans.

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Speaker 1: And in those primaries, what was he looking for in candidates?

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Speaker 2: So he had this idea of what the future should

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Speaker 2: look like. We know that regulation and laws around cryptocurrency

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Speaker 2: are coming. Who is going to be voting on that,

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Speaker 2: Who's going to be casting the deciding vote, finding people

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Speaker 2: who are likely to be friendly, and then supporting them

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Speaker 2: in primaries to make sure they are in Congress.

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Speaker 1: You have a of how much money he poured into this.

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Speaker 2: So the pack itself was twenty something million, I think

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Speaker 2: twenty three million, and then he I think he did

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Speaker 2: at least another ten million on top of that. But

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Speaker 2: then if he was also doing just as much through

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Speaker 2: dark money, we're talking about sixty seventy million, which puts

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Speaker 2: him easily in the top three, four or five biggest

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Speaker 2: spenders in the country, along with who names like George Soros,

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Speaker 2: Seon Adelson, the u Lines, the Kochs, those are the

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Speaker 2: kind of the big families of money.

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Speaker 1: So he was playing at that level. Yes, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of amazing.

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Speaker 2: What's really amazing is those other names I named decades

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Speaker 2: in politics and decades in political spending. He came out of.

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Speaker 1: Nowhere, Can we just back up a minute here, talk

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Speaker 1: me through all these campaign finance terms like dark money

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Speaker 1: and packs. I like a little campaign finance one oh one.

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Speaker 2: So normally when you're giving to campaigns, there's a limit

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Speaker 2: the FC sets the Federal Election Commission, and right now,

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Speaker 2: that's thirty three hundred dollars per election. If you're giving

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Speaker 2: to a candidate, more towards other organizations.

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Speaker 1: And where does that and where does that amount come from?

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Speaker 1: It's kind of arbitrary. Why can't I just give anything

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Speaker 1: I want?

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Speaker 2: So they set a fairly low limit, and then it's

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Speaker 2: index to inflation. So there's actually a big boost for

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Speaker 2: this cycle of I think four hundred dollars per election,

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Speaker 2: But generally it's to limit the idea of you being

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Speaker 2: able to just go out and buy an election. But

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Speaker 2: then we get these decisions starting with Citizens United and

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Speaker 2: Speech now versus the FFC, which essentially say book freedom

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Speaker 2: of speech prohibits the government from limiting how money can

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Speaker 2: be spent to influence elections and opened up corporations and

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Speaker 2: unions and nonprofits to give money or to spend money,

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Speaker 2: you have a put up collection committee or a pack

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Speaker 2: which has a higher limit, it's five thousand dollars a

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Speaker 2: year and has more regulations. Then you have what's now

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Speaker 2: known as a super pack, which you can give an

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Speaker 2: unlimited amount to with the two limits being that the

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Speaker 2: super pack can't give that money then directly to a candidate,

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Speaker 2: and it can't coordinate it spending with a candidate.

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Speaker 1: So there's still limits on direct giving by corporations and

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Speaker 1: individuals directly to the campaign exactly, but there's no limit

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Speaker 1: on doing whatever you want with money to help the

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Speaker 1: campaign without colluding it.

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Speaker 2: Right now, it's going to get murkier. After Citizens United

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Speaker 2: allowed nonprofit organizations to spend unlimited you have five oh

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Speaker 2: one c four groups which are known as social wealth organizations.

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Speaker 2: They're allowed to spend money on politics as long as

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Speaker 2: it's not their primary purpose, so as long as it's

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Speaker 2: less than fifty percent of their budget. Unlike all the

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Speaker 2: political groups are just named, they don't have to actually

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Speaker 2: disclose anything to the FEC. So the money coming in

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Speaker 2: is a complete mystery where it's from.

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Speaker 1: And it can do it can it do everything that

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Speaker 1: a super pac can do right exactly.

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Speaker 2: It doesn't have limits.

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Speaker 1: Sold Why would anybody have a superpack if they were

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Speaker 1: trying to disguise what they were doing exactly.

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Speaker 2: Well, you're not supposed to be disguiseding what you're doing.

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Speaker 2: All of this is done more or less with a

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Speaker 2: wink and a nudge. You don't say that I'm giving

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Speaker 2: you this money for the election, because that would make

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Speaker 2: it a political donation, and they can't take political donations.

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Speaker 2: What they can do is give money to politics. So

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Speaker 2: let's say I want to help your campaign for Senate

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Speaker 2: and I want to spend millions of dollars to do so.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to write a check for two million dollars

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Speaker 2: to a dark money group and tell them, you know

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Speaker 2: this is because I support your mission, go out into

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Speaker 2: what you want with it. They can then spend that

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Speaker 2: two million dollars on ads that will help you. But

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Speaker 2: as long as I am not saying, hey, I want

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Speaker 2: you to spend this money to help him, then we're

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Speaker 2: in the clear. And that's a problem.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So so since twenty ten, if I, if I billionaire,

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Speaker 1: want to go try to buy a Senate seat for

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Speaker 1: someone without any letting anybody know, without anybody able to

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Speaker 1: see my money, give it to you dark money group

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Speaker 1: with a wink and a NOD and you go and

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Speaker 1: buy as much litical ads or whatever as you as

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Speaker 1: you want with that, and nobody will know where your

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Speaker 1: money came from. That's good, right.

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Speaker 2: The five oh one C four group needs to disclose

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Speaker 2: its donors to the IRS, yep, But there's not a

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Speaker 2: there's not that overlap between the I R S and

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Speaker 2: the FC and.

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Speaker 1: The IRS not could disclose it publicly.

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Speaker 2: Right, And because you're just writing this check for general purposes,

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Speaker 2: you're in the clear. And it gets even more of

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Speaker 2: an issue in that to make a political donation, you

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Speaker 2: can't be a foreign national writing a check from another country,

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Speaker 2: but a dark money group can take that legally.

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Speaker 1: The Saudis could put a billion dollars into a dark

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Speaker 1: money fund and without as long as they didn't tell

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Speaker 1: them what to do with it, and the dark money

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Speaker 1: fund can go and buy election.

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Speaker 2: So they're not supposed to spend any foreign money on elections.

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Speaker 2: But could it be happening.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, that would be that. But that would be illegal, Oh,

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Speaker 3: incredibly illegal. Sure, But what's done legally is what's amazing.

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Speaker 3: I mean, my two thoughts now that you've explained this

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Speaker 3: to me that pop to mind is that one if

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Speaker 3: this is true that I can get the same results

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Speaker 3: from a dark money group as I can from a

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Speaker 3: superpack with my money. The only reason I'd go with

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Speaker 3: the superpack is if I wanted everybody to know that

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Speaker 3: I was giving the money exactly Otherwise I would and

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Speaker 3: maybe I would Maybe I'd want like the Senator who

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Speaker 3: I get elected to know it was my money.

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Speaker 1: So so, but it would be it would be positively

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Speaker 1: advertising the fact. But otherwise I just wouldn't do that.

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Speaker 1: I would go with this, this other entity. The second

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Speaker 1: thing that like this, this is this has bewildered me

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Speaker 1: for a long time since the citizens in the United

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Speaker 1: decision is given how easy it is to get money

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Speaker 1: into politics, unlimited sums of money into politics to influence

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Speaker 1: elections without anybody knowing where the money came from. It's

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Speaker 1: amazing how little money there is in politics. If you'd

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Speaker 1: told me in two thousand and five that these laws

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Speaker 1: we're going to change, i'd a thought in a presidential

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Speaker 1: election cycle, one hundred billion dollars would be spent on

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Speaker 1: Senate on congressional seats in the presidential election. But it's

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Speaker 1: nothing like that. Is that a weird reaction or do

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Speaker 1: you do you agree with that.

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Speaker 2: The big, big cost is TV ads. There's a limit

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Speaker 2: to the number of ads you can run, right, But

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Speaker 2: generally the very very rich do not necessarily want to

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Speaker 2: spend all their money on one election.

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Speaker 1: Right. So the limiting factor isn't the money. The limiting

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Speaker 1: factor is the effect that money can have. Given that

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Speaker 1: it's so easy to legally hide your campaign contributions and

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Speaker 1: give unlimited sums of money to help the candidates of

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Speaker 1: your choice, how is it even possible to break the

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Speaker 1: law or why would anybody break the law?

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Speaker 2: Sloppiness, It's very easy to hide these things and to

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Speaker 2: get away with it. You have a designated group that

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Speaker 2: is run by someone you know who is going to

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Speaker 2: spend the money the way you want it, and you

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Speaker 2: give them the money and they do it, and your

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Speaker 2: hands are clean. What you don't do is say the

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Speaker 2: quiet part out loud. You don't say I am doing

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Speaker 2: this and I am breaking the law.

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Speaker 1: I'm laughing, because, as we'll hear after the break, Sam

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Speaker 1: bagmanfree did say the quiet part out loud, of course

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Speaker 1: he did. On background. We'll be right back. I'm back

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Speaker 1: with Jordan Livewitz of the Center for Responsibility and Ethics

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Speaker 1: in Washington. All right, so let's talk about Sam Beckman Freed,

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Speaker 1: who is among the seven hundred and forty two things

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Speaker 1: he's accused of is making illegal campaign contributions. What do

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Speaker 1: we know about them? I actually, even though I've been

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Speaker 1: marinating in this world for eighteen months, I haven't paid

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Speaker 1: that much attention to his political life. So you're probably

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Speaker 1: going to educate me.

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Speaker 2: So there are actually two kinds of illegal political activity

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Speaker 2: with Sam Beakmanfried. So the first one is something called

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Speaker 2: contributions in the name of another. When you give money,

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Speaker 2: there's one really really important rule, and that is it

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Speaker 2: has to be your money. So what he is accused

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Speaker 2: of knowing is taking money that just people had put

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Speaker 2: in their accounts in the business.

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Speaker 1: So it's it's it's messy, and it looks like you

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Speaker 1: can accuse him of of using other people's money to

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Speaker 1: make campaign contributions. Does that happen? How often have you seen.

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Speaker 2: That, like taking money out of a business to do that.

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Speaker 2: There's pretty much effort. This was a new one for me.

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Speaker 1: So this is a new one. But I'm just this

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Speaker 1: is what about the general idea of like, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: rating your grandmother's bank account and stealing it and giving

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Speaker 1: you a politician. Does anybody as any has anybody ever

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Speaker 1: been put in jail for taking other people's money and

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Speaker 1: giving it to politicians.

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Speaker 2: So I remember there was one some years ago where

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Speaker 2: basically a guy used his wife's money and tried to

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Speaker 2: hide it so she wouldn't know, and he just admitted

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Speaker 2: it paid a fine. There's things like that, like contribution

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Speaker 2: in the name of another is sometimes you know, I'm

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Speaker 2: going to give a bunch of people money to make donations,

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Speaker 2: and then you know, all my family and then all

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Speaker 2: your family gave maximum donations, but it was really my

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Speaker 2: money to begin with. This is the opposite of that.

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Speaker 1: This is what you're saying is it's such a rare thing,

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Speaker 1: and probably because people never care enough about a politician

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Speaker 1: to steal money from others for them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, It's definitely not something we see every day.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, right.

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Speaker 2: So, he in an interview talked about how while he

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Speaker 2: had given thirty some odd million to Democrats, he gave

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Speaker 2: pretty much the same thing through dark money donations to Republicans.

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Speaker 2: To hide that he was giving Democrats and republicans, he

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Speaker 2: wanted to be seen just as the Democrat guy, but

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Speaker 2: he was doing these hidden dark money donations to hide

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Speaker 2: that was coming from him. And the two rules again

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Speaker 2: are that you can't do it explicitly tagged for the politics,

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Speaker 2: and you can't do it to hide the decay from you.

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Speaker 2: And he just went out and said that, yeah, I

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Speaker 2: did both of those things.

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Speaker 1: So his crime is confessing it.

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Speaker 2: The crime is doing it. But yes, he would have

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Speaker 2: gotten away with it hypothetically pretty easily. I mean, there's

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Speaker 2: a decent chance that it could come out in the

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Speaker 2: course for prosecution as we see where money went. But yeah,

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Speaker 2: essentially we would have not known about this kind of

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Speaker 2: thing if he did not say it to the press

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Speaker 2: that he was doing it.

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Speaker 1: How often do people go to jail for campaign finance contributions,

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Speaker 1: not taking campaign finance money and like using it for

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Speaker 1: other purposes, But how often do donors go to jail

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Speaker 1: for how they've given the money?

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Speaker 2: Very rarely. It's not something the DOJ tends to bring

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Speaker 2: just on its own.

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Speaker 1: They use it to season the dish, to make yeah,

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Speaker 1: just to make it look like there's more things this

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Speaker 1: person did.

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Speaker 2: The prosecutions we tend to see are usually for the

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Speaker 2: misuse of money after it's been given.

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Speaker 1: On background. We'll be right back. I'm back with Jordan Libowitz.

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Speaker 1: We're now in this situation where people running the bankruptcy

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Speaker 1: at FTX are making the case that you just made

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Speaker 1: a little earlier. The money he gave away wasn't his money,

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Speaker 1: it was the customer's money, and so the candidates who

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Speaker 1: receive this money need to give it back. And first,

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Speaker 1: have you ever seen that situation where campaign contributions get

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Speaker 1: clawed back?

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Speaker 2: So claude back is something we don't see very often

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Speaker 2: at all, but is a thing they's likely going to

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Speaker 2: happen in this case if it is in a legal

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Speaker 2: contribution and found to be one. I believe the VC

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Speaker 2: rules already have thirty days to give it back or

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Speaker 2: to try to get it to the original person.

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Speaker 1: So he could only give a few thousand dollars directly

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Speaker 1: to the candidate, right, So the big money was, you know,

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Speaker 1: in a dark money entity that the candidate theoretically had

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Speaker 1: nothing to do with, that was helping the candidate without

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Speaker 1: the candidate knowing how.

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Speaker 2: Or to the packs or that gave funds to packs.

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Speaker 1: But those super packs presumably can like vanish overnight and

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Speaker 1: reappear as something else. I mean, those seems. It seems

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Speaker 1: to me like if I had a super pac that

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Speaker 1: had spent ten million dollars of Sam bankmun Freed's money

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Speaker 1: and it looked like I was going to now have

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Speaker 1: to give it back, I might just close the superpack.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a real problem that we have. It's

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Speaker 2: kind of playing whack a mole that we will find.

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Speaker 2: We'll find a dark money group that has violated the law,

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Speaker 2: file a complaint, and then they've already you know, spend

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Speaker 2: all their money. They've shut down shop. They've said we

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Speaker 2: no longer exist, we are no longer an entity, and

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Speaker 2: they'll go start up another one in another state, do

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Speaker 2: it again. By the time you know, we can find them,

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Speaker 2: they've shut down, keep moving right.

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Speaker 1: So it seems it just seems highly unlikely to me

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Speaker 1: that this money is going to come.

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Speaker 2: Back if he gave it to I know, he made

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Speaker 2: major donations to the potal action committees that back Democrats

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Speaker 2: in the House and Senate. Yep, those are not going anywhere.

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Speaker 2: Those are not the fly by night organizations. Those are

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Speaker 2: the big players. So they're going to be on the hook.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting. So they they're stuck right your organization crew, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: file an FEC complaint against SBF in late November. Can

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Speaker 1: you explain that, like why and what response you've gotten

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Speaker 1: and where it might lead.

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Speaker 2: Right, So, our complaint was about the dark money. That

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Speaker 2: he said that he had given this, that he had

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Speaker 2: directed it specifically for certain Bublicans, and that he did

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Speaker 2: it to hide his name, which is really silly.

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Speaker 1: If he's going to go tell everyone, tell everybody that

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Speaker 1: he's done it, why it doesn't really make it doesn't

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Speaker 1: really scan this crime.

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Speaker 2: Right, So we're asking the FEC to investigate. We haven't

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Speaker 2: really heard anything, but the FEC moves at glacial pace,

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Speaker 2: so we won't for a while. They have to investigate

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Speaker 2: it in their votes and they're more investigations, so it'll

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Speaker 2: take a while. But basically two things can come out

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Speaker 2: of it. One finds of some sort obviously will not

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Speaker 2: be to the level of, you know, the money he

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Speaker 2: was playing with, but also being able to see a

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Speaker 2: full accounting of how much money this was and where

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Speaker 2: it went. The way to fight dark money is to

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Speaker 2: bring it out into the open. The whole idea is

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Speaker 2: hiding it, so being able to say, hey, he actually

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Speaker 2: spent this much money through these groups to help these people.

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Speaker 2: It's about transparency and that's what we're working for here.

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Speaker 1: But it's not going to change the system.

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Speaker 2: No, we need Congress to change the system.

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Speaker 1: Because the system still is that the laws are still

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Speaker 1: in place to if you're just more a little more

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Speaker 1: clever about it, you do this and no one will

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Speaker 1: ever know. It's this interesting thing about the game, sort

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Speaker 1: of like what the game is now with dark money,

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Speaker 1: like who or let's assume that Democrats get as smart

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Speaker 1: at using it as Republicans. Okay, they're there now, so

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Speaker 1: but then it may become it may become something that

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Speaker 1: incumbents like more than challengers.

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Speaker 2: You know that that is the problem of having incumbents

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Speaker 2: be the ones who who rate the laws, because this

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Speaker 2: definitely benefits incumbents.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: What we're seeing a lot of bipartisan outrage is there's

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Speaker 2: been a lot of dark money campaigning around Supreme Court nominations,

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Speaker 2: and for the first time, when Biden announced his pick,

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Speaker 2: there was a dark money operation ready to back it,

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Speaker 2: and there were a lot of outrage Republicans. Now, there

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Speaker 2: was the same kind of thing on the other side

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Speaker 2: a couple of years earlier, but no one really likes

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Speaker 2: it when there are tens and hundreds of millions of

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Speaker 2: dollars being spent against what you want. Yeah, So the

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Speaker 2: hope is that, you know, we can find a happy

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Speaker 2: medium where enough members of Congress are just done with

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Speaker 2: this and want this influence out of politics.

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Speaker 1: Okay, how do you feel This is a very wily

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Speaker 1: minded question, but how do you feel about Sam Bangmin

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Speaker 1: free You've seen You've been sitting in this world of

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Speaker 1: people doing kind of nefarious things with dollars in politics.

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Speaker 1: Like on your outrage meter, what does he score?

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Speaker 2: Oh? I love him. I want them all to be

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Speaker 2: like him and be that sloppy and that outrageous that

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Speaker 2: everyone is angry at him and he just admits to things.

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Speaker 2: Please more, Sam Bankman freeze less people that are running

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Speaker 2: it through you know, complex webs of LLCs and five

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Speaker 2: oh one c four groups and just moving the money

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Speaker 2: between them in ways that it makes you know, you

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Speaker 2: need a forensic anthropologist to like figure out just where

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Speaker 2: the money is coming from and going to give me

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Speaker 2: a guy who's like, yeah, I'm spending a bunch of

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Speaker 2: money and I'm also doing some of it illegally.

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Speaker 1: He's kind of parodying the system.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's because the system as it exists is

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Speaker 2: fairly ridiculous. You know, he is the the he is

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Speaker 2: the political spender America deserves after putting this system into place.

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Speaker 2: But also because he's so outrageous, people get angry about.

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Speaker 2: And that's what we need people to get angry about

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Speaker 2: this kind of thing. We want and need people to

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Speaker 2: be putting pressure to make change because it's not going

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Speaker 2: to happen without that. And if it takes some crypto

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Speaker 2: bros doing some ridiculous things to get us there, then

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Speaker 2: that's what gets us there.

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Speaker 1: So Sam Begman Freed making American great again, intentionally or unintentionally,

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Speaker 1: I'll thank him for you. I don't think he'd be

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Speaker 1: that appreciative. Jordan Libowitz is the communications director for the

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Speaker 1: Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Let's end today

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Speaker 1: by answering a question from one of our listeners. Here's

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Speaker 1: one from Reuven Learner. He writes, I've been a cryptocurrency

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Speaker 1: skeptic for a long time, but there are, as you've said,

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Speaker 1: real true believers have the FTX and other crypto collapses

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Speaker 1: led anyone to abandon their belief that it's good and practical,

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Speaker 1: not because they've lost their money necessarily, but because they

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Speaker 1: now see how how high the hurdles are to it working.

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Speaker 1: So in general, this is a funny it's a funny question.

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Speaker 1: In general, I have found in my life people don't

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Speaker 1: change their beliefs, that they do everything they can to

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Speaker 1: avoid changing their beliefs, and especially as when they're as

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Speaker 1: dug in as people are on crypto. That the crypto

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Speaker 1: people are all religionists. They're different religions. There's the Bitcoin

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Speaker 1: religion and the Ethereum religion and the Ripple religion and

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Speaker 1: all that, and they can be at war with each other.

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Speaker 1: But once they kind of have their position, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's hard to change. However, I'll give you a funny exception.

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Speaker 1: Several of the people who work for FTX and who

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Speaker 1: were true believers when it all blew up, have decided

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Speaker 1: that crypto is all bullshit, and they just they just

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Speaker 1: it's like some spell was broken. And I think maybe

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Speaker 1: it helps to lose all fifty million of the dollars

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Speaker 1: you thought you had. But something happened in them, and

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Speaker 1: it was quite noticeable. Anyway, I noticed it because I'm

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Speaker 1: so used to people never changing what they believe, so

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Speaker 1: there're three of them, so I know three people who've

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00:27:16,076 --> 00:27:22,676
Speaker 1: changed their beliefs. Ruven has identified yet another error of

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00:27:22,676 --> 00:27:24,596
Speaker 1: a mine, and here's what he has to say in

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00:27:24,636 --> 00:27:29,956
Speaker 1: a PostScript. Please stop saying backslash in URLs. The slash

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00:27:30,036 --> 00:27:33,276
Speaker 1: leaning to the right is a slash, but leaning left

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00:27:33,716 --> 00:27:37,876
Speaker 1: is a backslash. I know I'm pedantic, so this isn't

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00:27:37,876 --> 00:27:41,156
Speaker 1: my fault. This is the producer's fault. Yeah, I don't

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00:27:41,156 --> 00:27:42,916
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about, but they're supposed to stop

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00:27:42,916 --> 00:27:44,396
Speaker 1: me when I don't know what I'm talking about, and

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00:27:44,436 --> 00:27:47,316
Speaker 1: they didn't do it. So we will not do that again.

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00:27:47,996 --> 00:27:50,236
Speaker 1: And it's easier to say slash. So you saved us

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00:27:50,236 --> 00:27:52,756
Speaker 1: a syllable for the rest of our lives. Thank you,

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00:27:52,836 --> 00:27:57,636
Speaker 1: Rubin on Background is hosted by me Michael Lewis and

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00:27:57,676 --> 00:28:01,996
Speaker 1: produced by Catherine Girodeau and Lydia gene Kott. Our editor

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00:28:02,116 --> 00:28:07,476
Speaker 1: is Julia Barton. Our engineer is Sarah Bruguerer. Thanks to

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00:28:07,516 --> 00:28:11,236
Speaker 1: our SVP of production read a Cone, our show is

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00:28:11,276 --> 00:28:15,516
Speaker 1: recorded by cofer Ruth at Berkeley Advanced Media Studios. Our

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00:28:15,596 --> 00:28:18,996
Speaker 1: music was composed by Matthias Bossi and John Evans of

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00:28:19,076 --> 00:28:23,756
Speaker 1: stell Wagonsymfonet. My old friend Nick Burtel composed our theme song.

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00:28:24,876 --> 00:28:29,036
Speaker 1: On background is a production of Pushkin Industries. Don't forget

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00:28:29,036 --> 00:28:32,756
Speaker 1: that we have a website atr podcast dot com in

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00:28:32,756 --> 00:28:34,876
Speaker 1: case you want to send me a question or a complaint,

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00:28:35,156 --> 00:28:37,556
Speaker 1: or anything at all. I'll read the questions, I won't

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00:28:37,556 --> 00:28:42,476
Speaker 1: read the complaints. That's atr podcast dot com. To find

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00:28:42,476 --> 00:28:47,396
Speaker 1: more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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00:28:47,516 --> 00:28:50,396
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts, And if you'd like

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00:28:50,436 --> 00:28:54,156
Speaker 1: to listen ad free and learn about other exclusive offerings,

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00:28:54,756 --> 00:28:57,116
Speaker 1: don't forget to sign up for a Pushkin Plus subscription

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00:28:57,476 --> 00:29:01,956
Speaker 1: at pushkin dot fm, slash plus, or on our Apple

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00:29:02,036 --> 00:29:03,836
Speaker 1: show page.

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Speaker 2: I