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Speaker 1: Well, Happy Friday, and welcome to a special episode of

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Speaker 1: The Chuck Podcast. So today my guest is Frankly, one

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Speaker 1: of probably the when you think of great documentarians of

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Speaker 1: our times, I think there's really two that stand out.

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Speaker 1: There's Ken Burns and his documentaries on American history, and

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Speaker 1: there's Alex Gibney, who has done some just groundbreaking work

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Speaker 1: on society and culture.

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Speaker 2: And he is out with.

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Speaker 1: Frankly, two feature length documentaries, almost episodic, but they're both

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Speaker 1: two hour documentaries on HBO.

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Speaker 2: On dark money.

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Speaker 1: One is a very specific it's sort of it's very

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Speaker 1: much on sort of how dark money, this ability to

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Speaker 1: take big money in politics put launder it through an

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Speaker 1: organization you'd never heard of. You know, Oh, Iowans for

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Speaker 1: Love or Americans that love America and you know, thanks

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Speaker 1: to Citizens United, and you're gonna hear a lot about this.

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Speaker 1: The ability to spend big money on politics, move big money,

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Speaker 1: and do so more anonymously than ever has never been easier.

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Speaker 1: And I'll be honest, I'm somebody who's been a bit

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Speaker 1: of a skeptic of attempts to try to reform and

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Speaker 1: get money out of the system. You know, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm one of those. I sort of bow at the

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Speaker 1: altar of Jeff Goldblum's character in Jurassic Park when the

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Speaker 1: old man is trying to tell you that he can

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Speaker 1: keep keep those dinosaurs from breeding because he made them

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Speaker 1: all female, and Goldbloom is playing the mathematician, the chaos

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Speaker 1: theory guy says.

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Speaker 2: Life finds a way.

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Speaker 1: Well, I've always felt that about money in politics, right,

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Speaker 1: money finds a way, And in fact, some of the

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Speaker 1: great reform efforts of our time have actually created the

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Speaker 1: disastrous situation that we're in today. McCain fine Gold, McCain

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Speaker 1: find gold has thought of as this great reform that

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Speaker 1: attempted to take big money out of political parties and

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Speaker 1: out of the system. But what all McCain Feinegeld ended

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Speaker 1: up doing is moving the money out of the political parties.

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Speaker 1: At the time one of the few places where there

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Speaker 1: was accountability, where they had to file it, had to

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Speaker 1: disclose that their donors were maybe not in this timely

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Speaker 1: of a fashion as people wanted to see, but they

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Speaker 1: could do it. And yes there was something called soft money,

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Speaker 1: but these people you still had to report where this

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Speaker 1: money came from. And so here was this incredible you know,

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Speaker 1: this legislation that was monumental at the time, and all

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Speaker 1: it did was was sort of shift the money out

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Speaker 1: of political committees and out of the politicians' hands and

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Speaker 1: into these third party groups.

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Speaker 2: Now we call them super packs.

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Speaker 1: But there was different sort of tax code versions of

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Speaker 1: this five oh one seed threes, five four c's, things

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Speaker 1: like that, and it is it is taken. It is

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Speaker 1: essentially hidden the money in playite right. You know, we

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Speaker 1: generally know where this money comes from, but we now

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Speaker 1: don't find out when they do it through third party

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Speaker 1: networks and channels. You don't find out about it until

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Speaker 1: after an election. And so we've gone from an election

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Speaker 1: that if you're ready for this in two thousand, where collectively,

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Speaker 1: collectively Gore and Bush.

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Speaker 2: Spent this is just twenty five years ago.

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Speaker 1: Collectively they spent about two hundred million dollars in their campaign.

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Speaker 1: You know, two hundred million dollars is what Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: just raised for his inaugural fund. Okay, it is two

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Speaker 1: hundred million dollars is a good first quarter for a

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Speaker 1: general election presidential candidacy. We've now got you know, you know,

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Speaker 1: you now can legally give I think a million dollars

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Speaker 1: to a party individually these days, and you couldn't do

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Speaker 1: that before, let alone money. You can give to a

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Speaker 1: third party group your money and you never have to

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Speaker 1: disclose it, or you can do it through a foundation

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Speaker 1: and et cetera. So the point is that we really

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Speaker 1: do have.

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Speaker 2: A mess in our hands.

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Speaker 1: Alex Gibney will tell you it's Citizens United, and I

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Speaker 1: think there's no doubt that the unintended consequences of Citizens

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Speaker 1: United has certainly created this. The question is what do

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Speaker 1: we do about it? Because I do think we're in

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Speaker 1: a situation where money is consuming Look, my friend Tony Coenheiser,

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Speaker 1: let's ease read all your listeners of of mister t

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Speaker 1: K out there, as he will tell you they answered,

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Speaker 1: all your problems is money, and in many ways that

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Speaker 1: has become I think the north star of almost every

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Speaker 1: industry these days, whether it's sports, whether it's politics, whether

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Speaker 1: it's you know, anything in business, you know, employee issues,

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Speaker 1: whatever it is, right, the way out of a mess

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Speaker 1: is usually by by some financial contribution or distribution, but

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Speaker 1: there is you know, and in fact I think the

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Speaker 1: problem is there's a lot of well, my donors are

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Speaker 1: good donors. Your donors are bad donors. So this so

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Speaker 1: called good billionaires versus the bad billionaires. Well, one person's

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Speaker 1: bad billionaire is another person's political ally, and one person's

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Speaker 1: good billionaire is another person's political opponent. And so the

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Speaker 1: question is whether who should be manipulating the democracy right,

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Speaker 1: the voters, the majority or a handful of people with

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Speaker 1: their own motivations. And I'll tell you this man, I

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Speaker 1: will say, you know, Alex Gibney has two different feature

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Speaker 1: link films, but the one about Ohio it's like a caper,

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Speaker 1: and I don't want to spoil it. It's a scandal

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Speaker 1: that if you're in Ohio you probably are familiar with it.

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Speaker 1: But essentially a candidate was able to take over an

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Speaker 1: entire state legislature. He was not even in office, and

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Speaker 1: he became speaker by recruit by essentially being able to

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Speaker 1: finance primary challengers in enough state legislative seats to make

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Speaker 1: sure he had the votes to become Beaker himself if

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Speaker 1: he too got elected. The point was, that's how easy

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Speaker 1: it was for essentially one company to write one check

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Speaker 1: and be able to get an entire legislature to flip

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Speaker 1: in their direction. This didn't flip parties, by the way,

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Speaker 1: just flipped having, you know, supporters of what they wanted

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Speaker 1: to get done, and when you realize how easy that

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Speaker 1: is now and you realize that the voter has been

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Speaker 1: cut out of this. You know, take the issue of

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Speaker 1: lobbying and one of the books that I've recommended and

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Speaker 1: people have asked me, you know, what's what's a good

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Speaker 1: book to understand how Washington works? And there's no one

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Speaker 1: book I have a I gave you five books in

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Speaker 1: a previous episode, but one of them is The Wolves

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Speaker 1: of k Street, written by Brody and Luke Mullins, two

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Speaker 1: reporter brothers. Brody Mullins a longtime investigative reporter for The

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Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, colleague of mine back in my National

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Speaker 1: Journal days. And look, it's a great read. This is

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Speaker 1: not like a boring book about lobbying. It lobbyists are

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Speaker 1: characters and you know, a good Let me just put

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Speaker 1: it this way.

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Speaker 2: The brothers are good storytellers.

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Speaker 1: But there's an essential thing, that conclusion that comes out

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Speaker 1: of it that to me is really striking, which is,

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Speaker 1: you know, when the lobbying industry first became a big deal,

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Speaker 1: it was in the seventies and it was really thanks

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Speaker 1: to Ralph Nator. Ralph Nator was sort of the you know,

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Speaker 1: had a very successful time becoming a citizen lobbyist of sorts.

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Speaker 1: Started Public Citizen and the pergs, both US PERG and

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Speaker 1: state level pergs, Mass PERG, Florida PERG, Colorado PERG, et cetera,

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Speaker 1: et cetera, and they were, you know, and they were

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Speaker 1: having some success at sort of getting government to either

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Speaker 1: regulate big business or push big business to be more

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Speaker 1: consumer friendly, you know. You know, it was thanks to

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Speaker 1: the pergs that got people to not have to wait

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Speaker 1: a week before their paychecks would actually get cashed by

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Speaker 1: the banks. Banks used to be able to hold your

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Speaker 1: money for a week before you had access to it

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Speaker 1: in your checking account, and they helped speed that up

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Speaker 1: to one to three.

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Speaker 2: Days, you know.

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Speaker 1: And now, of course it's it's it's instantaneous on those things,

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Speaker 1: but there was a time where banks got to hold

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Speaker 1: your money and it took citizens complaining together. So obviously

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Speaker 1: Nator is most famous for unsafe at any speed, the

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Speaker 1: infamous coveyor with the seatbelts. And without him we wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have airbags and seatbelts and all those things. Right, Well,

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Speaker 1: corporations thought, well, hey, if he could do that, we'll

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Speaker 1: start We'll hire our own lobbyists. And for the seventies

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Speaker 1: and eighties and nineties there were sort of citizen lobbying

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Speaker 1: groups and corporate lobbying groups, and they were often on

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Speaker 1: opposing sides. Well, in the last twenty five years things

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Speaker 1: have gotten so perverted and gamified that there's very few

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Speaker 1: citizen lobbyists anymore or citizen advocacy groups that have do

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Speaker 1: successful lobbying. There's some, don't get me wrong, they still exist.

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Speaker 1: But now what you really have is big businesses, sometimes

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Speaker 1: on opposite size, trying to manipulate government so that a

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Speaker 1: regulation doesn't hurt their business but hurts somebody one of

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Speaker 1: their competitors. So now you have armies of lobbyists essentially

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Speaker 1: out opposing sides, nobody worrying about the average voter. The

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Speaker 1: point is it is, look, money has obviously corrupted the system,

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Speaker 1: I mean massively. And when you look at what Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump is doing with this meme coin, which is just

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Speaker 1: a blatant bribery scam in plain sight. Okay, let's not.

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Speaker 1: It is absolutely that right. He puts out an announcement

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Speaker 1: that says, hey, I'm going to have dinner with the

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Speaker 1: top whatever it is.

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Speaker 2: Of his meme hold holders. So what does it do?

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Speaker 1: More people buy the coins so they can get access

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Speaker 1: to the president. You know, his club at mar A

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Speaker 1: Lago is a legalized bribe, right. He raised the price

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Speaker 1: after he became president. He doubled the cost of membership

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Speaker 1: of mar A Lago. And what does he do? Basically,

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Speaker 1: people now know they just buy a membership of mar

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Speaker 1: A Lago and they get access to the president and

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Speaker 1: likely the president's aids and likely all the cabinets. This

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Speaker 1: is this is this is basically legalized bribery and plain sight, right,

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Speaker 1: and there really is no other than thickle standards. There's

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Speaker 1: no legal way to stop this. And you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: old enough to remember when a lot of Republicans were

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Speaker 1: outraged when Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton hosted fundraiser, you know,

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Speaker 1: coffees in the White House where they didn't they were

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Speaker 1: essentially giving people access to the White House so they

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Speaker 1: could ask for money later.

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Speaker 2: And there was a lot of people uncomfortable with that.

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Speaker 1: And you know, boy, I think we all long for

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Speaker 1: the days when that was the scandal when it came

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Speaker 1: to money in politics, and now it's it's on a

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Speaker 1: whole other level. And I do think we've become numb unfortunately.

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Speaker 1: And this is where I'm I am, I am not.

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Speaker 1: I don't have a great answer in what works. I

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Speaker 1: think I fall into disclosure, disclosure, disclosure and limiting and

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Speaker 1: instant you know, and the transparency. I'm for the nascarization

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Speaker 1: of money in politics, meaning I think we should allow

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Speaker 1: unlimited donations to candidates, but we shouldn't be able to

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Speaker 1: have super PACs and third party groups. Fine, you want

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Speaker 1: to be a candidate for office, you want to take

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Speaker 1: a billion dollar check for Elon Musk. The only requirement

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Speaker 1: is that every TV ad you run you have to

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Speaker 1: say that I'm Joshmengi and this ad was paid for

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Speaker 1: by Elon Musk and this person and this person, right,

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Speaker 1: anybody that gave you, say over two hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars. You've got to actually name check them all

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Speaker 1: the time. You've got to say who you're paid for.

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Speaker 1: You've got to wear their logo, if you will, just

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Speaker 1: like NASCAR drivers where the logos of their sponsors, you've

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Speaker 1: got to wear the logos of your donors. You've got

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Speaker 1: to say their name all the time. And here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: If you did that, I promise you most donors would

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Speaker 1: come up. You know, I've got a friend of mine

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Speaker 1: who regularly gives donations, but he always gives it in

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Speaker 1: to federal candidates, but only he only gives one hundred

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Speaker 1: ninety nine dollars at a time. And you know why

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Speaker 1: only give one hundred ninety nine dollars at a time,

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Speaker 1: because he doesn't have to You can, you can take

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Speaker 1: anonymous donations under two hundred dollars, but any donation you'd

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Speaker 1: take in a federal campaign of two hundred dollars or more,

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Speaker 1: you've got to identify who in the FEC database, in

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Speaker 1: the federal election database, who gave you, everybody who wrote

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Speaker 1: you a check or sent you money of two hundred

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Speaker 1: dollars or more. So I do believe those thresholds you

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Speaker 1: could you sort of can create market incentives to prevent

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Speaker 1: sort of you know, certain things, so unlimited contributions, but

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Speaker 1: if they give you more than a ninety ninety nine dollars,

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Speaker 1: you've got to name check them all of your paid advertising,

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Speaker 1: all the time, not just once, not just sort of

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Speaker 1: in a small print at the bottom, you know where

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Speaker 1: you see that. Sometimes democratic mailers will have to let

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Speaker 1: you know, the union paid for to when you look carefully,

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Speaker 1: these super PACs paid for by Americans who love Americans.

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Speaker 2: Who the hell is that group? Right?

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Speaker 1: That's the that's the sort of the misinformation money We've

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Speaker 1: got to get out of politics. I think what Americans

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Speaker 1: accept is competition, transparent competition. And so ultimately I'm a

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Speaker 1: Sunshine guy. I believe transparent s with speech. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if we can limit speech. I believe good speech

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Speaker 1: will drown out bad speech. In this case, I'm hopeful

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Speaker 1: that Sunshine can do this. But I understand the frustration,

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Speaker 1: and I know some well meaning people who think we

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Speaker 1: should have you know, maybe they publicly funded campaigns. The

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Speaker 1: problem with that is that either you're everything's publicly funded

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Speaker 1: or none of it is. You can't sort of go

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Speaker 1: half in and half out. And whenever we've played with

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Speaker 1: public funding, there's always a mechanism to go around it, right,

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Speaker 1: And of course wealthier candidates or popular candidates who can

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Speaker 1: raise a ton of money have been.

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Speaker 2: Able to do that.

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Speaker 1: So there, you know, whatever it is, I think we've

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Speaker 1: got to come up with a system that does a

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Speaker 1: couple of things.

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Speaker 2: Number one is prevents dark money. That you just can't

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Speaker 2: do this.

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Speaker 1: I don't believe if you want to get involved in

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Speaker 1: anything funded by American taxpayers, you don't get to be anonymous.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, and I know the argument for anonymous money is, well,

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Speaker 1: it might be on you know that the person giving

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Speaker 1: the money, you know, doesn't want the blowback. Well, then

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Speaker 1: don't get involved in politics, right if you're trying to

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Speaker 1: manipulate the system in your favor. You know, the price

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Speaker 1: of it mission is public disclosure. And if it's not

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Speaker 1: important enough to you for you to publicly disclose yourself,

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Speaker 1: then okay, then you do. You're not participating. You get

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Speaker 1: an option to do it. But disclosure is the price

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Speaker 1: to essentially buy a member of Congress by a US

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Speaker 1: senator or by a president. But the way we're doing

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Speaker 1: it now, which is a sort of open, you know,

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Speaker 1: and it is sort of in some ways, we've made

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Speaker 1: it where, you know, there's an old joke. I think

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Speaker 1: it's Ever Dirkson that said this, you know, a millionaire

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Speaker 1: and a millionaire, and eventually you have real money, and

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Speaker 1: it's like it's a billionaire and a billionaire, and eventually,

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Speaker 1: you know, we're starting to talk about real money. But

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Speaker 1: I think there's certainly the cynicism that's out there, the

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Speaker 1: distrust of politicians and politics all centers around how important

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Speaker 1: money has become in manipulating the system.

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Speaker 2: And so.

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Speaker 1: I do think the only way you can get because

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Speaker 1: right now, anytime you try to limit money, limit donations

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Speaker 1: in different ways, one party belo it's going to hurt

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Speaker 1: them more than the other, and so then you get

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Speaker 1: sort of a part of everybody gets into their partisan

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Speaker 1: corners about the issue. Ultimately, I think transparency is one

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Speaker 1: of those things that everybody should be for. You know,

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Speaker 1: I'm old enough to remember when Mitch McConnell, who was

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Speaker 1: a big opponent of McCain fine gold, his alternative solution

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Speaker 1: was instant disclosure.

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Speaker 2: I think people should run with instant disclosure.

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Speaker 1: I'm surprised campaign reform advocates today aren't saying, yes, what

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Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell introduced twenty five years ago. It's that and

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Speaker 1: then some. But the bottom line is, we know we

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Speaker 1: have to do something about this. There aren't a lot

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Speaker 1: of easy answers citizens United. You know, if you want

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Speaker 1: to make the argument that corporations also can go into

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Speaker 1: free speech, fine, but we've got to know you're the

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Speaker 1: ones buying this speech. If you want free speech, you

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Speaker 1: shouldn't be able to hide while exercising your free speech.

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Speaker 1: If you want access to the public debate, you're more

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Speaker 1: than welcome to do it, but you've got to show

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Speaker 1: your face. You've got to disclose that it's your money

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Speaker 1: doing it. Corporation A or Corporation Y. So, And in fact,

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Speaker 1: I do think that's the that's the least partisan solution

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Speaker 1: that might actually have some some effort at at least

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Speaker 1: slowing down the growth of influence of money and politics.

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Speaker 1: So that's the Chuck Todd solution there, which is the

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Speaker 1: nascarization of politics. Where are your donors? If you will

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Speaker 1: show us your donors, put them on your jacket, have to,

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Speaker 1: you know, stand by your donors. You're welcome to as

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Speaker 1: big of a donation as you want, but you've got

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Speaker 1: to let the public know I'm bought and paid for

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Speaker 1: by these people.

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Speaker 2: I promise you.

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Speaker 1: If that's the law, people will want to limit how

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Speaker 1: much they want to be associated with an individual political candidate,

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Speaker 1: or whether that candidate wants to be associated by in

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Speaker 1: that kind of for that kind of price, with any indie, visual,

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Speaker 1: corporate or billionaire interests. So with that, I hope you

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Speaker 1: enjoy this conversation. Again, Alex Gibney, He's been on this

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Speaker 1: beat a long time, and like I said, I've I've

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Speaker 1: been I've been a cynic myself on what is realistic

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Speaker 1: when it comes to regulating money in politics. But when

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Speaker 1: you see this story about this Ohio scandal and how

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Speaker 1: easy it was to manipulate essentially an entire state legislature

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Speaker 1: in one election cycle, our system is broken and we're

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Speaker 1: going to have to figure out how to fix it.

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Speaker 1: So with that, enjoy this conversation.

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Speaker 2: All right.

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Speaker 1: Enjoining me now is Alex Gibney. Right now, He's got

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Speaker 1: two whether we call it an episodic series or two

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Speaker 1: feature length documentaries, but The Dark Money Game has debuted

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Speaker 1: this month on HBO with back to back feature length

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Speaker 1: documentaries essentially on the corruption on how the corruption of

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Speaker 1: money in politics. And you may say, don't roll your

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Speaker 1: eyes at me on this one, money in politics, and

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Speaker 1: trust me, I can get cynical too, and I get it.

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Speaker 1: But what Alex Gibney does, and money's always been a

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Speaker 1: through line for him, But in general, what he does

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Speaker 1: is he tackles in many ways tackles some of the

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Speaker 1: more complicated subjects that we have to deal with in society,

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Speaker 1: and he makes it watchable, he makes it digestible, he

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Speaker 1: makes it accessible. And let me tell you, I think

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Speaker 1: dark money, which is a story we can't we journalists

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Speaker 1: haven't done a good job telling. We've tried, we haven't

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Speaker 1: made it as compelling to the voter as it should be.

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Speaker 1: I will say this, I think this is the best

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Speaker 1: attempt I've seen yet trying to get people to understand

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Speaker 1: how corrosive this is become to our political system. Alex

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Speaker 1: Gibney joins me. Now, Alex, good.

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Speaker 2: To see you.

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Speaker 3: Good to see you, Chuck.

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Speaker 1: I want to start with this larger issue of trying

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Speaker 1: to take the scandalous nature of money in politics right now,

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Speaker 1: which is I would argue it's been somewhat of a

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Speaker 1: I don't want to call it a through line in

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Speaker 1: your work, because you've you do a you can get

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Speaker 1: into a variety of things. But this is not the

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Speaker 1: first time you've tackled money in politics in your various documentaries.

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Speaker 1: You've tackled it before. This felt like, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: like it's like we always say no, no, no, no. This

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Speaker 1: is really bad. And yet no, no, no, no, now

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Speaker 1: it's worse. And the dark money, the five oh one C.

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Speaker 1: Four is the fact that we can hide money now

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Speaker 1: in ways in this post citizens United World is really complicated,

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Speaker 1: and you decided you found, I think, a more compelling

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Speaker 1: way to tell the story. But just in general, how

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Speaker 1: much of a challenge is it to make this campaign

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Speaker 1: finance issue accessible to the general public.

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Speaker 4: It's hugely challenging, and I think in part because of

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Speaker 4: what you outlined earlier. In other words, we're all cynical about, oh,

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Speaker 4: sure there's money in politics, we get it, but.

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Speaker 3: We don't really.

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Speaker 1: There's that great set line from an old senator ever Dirkson,

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Speaker 1: a billionare and a billion there, and eventually you get

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Speaker 1: get to real money, right, you know, it was, And

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Speaker 1: it feels that way sometimes in campaign finance. Oh he's

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Speaker 1: got a billionaire super pack, he's got a billionaire super pac,

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Speaker 1: and we all just sort of, you know, roll our eyes.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, but I don't think we really get it in

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Speaker 4: terms of where it's got to at this point and

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Speaker 4: exactly how it works. And so that's why and I

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Speaker 4: had done this, you know, I'd been on this beat

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Speaker 4: for a while some years ago. I did a film

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Speaker 4: called Casino Jack in the United States of Money, and

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Speaker 4: it was about disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who I give

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Speaker 4: a sort of tip of the hat.

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Speaker 3: To in Ohio potential, but.

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Speaker 4: That one was not that did not break through because

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Speaker 4: it people are like lobbyists money.

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Speaker 3: I'm saying.

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Speaker 4: What people need to understand is that we've created a

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Speaker 4: system of legalized bribery. And I think most people don't

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Speaker 4: really understand. Most people get emotionally the idea of a

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Speaker 4: bribe and they're deeply offended by it. So if we

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Speaker 4: replace campaign finance with legalized bribery, now we're talking. Now

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Speaker 4: we're talking about true crime, and we're talking about the

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Speaker 4: real problem, which is a few people getting advantage over

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Speaker 4: the rest of us, and they're the ones who are

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Speaker 4: insisting that the policies work for them, not us.

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Speaker 2: So I want to dig into Ohio confidential. Yeah, I'll

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Speaker 2: be honest.

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Speaker 1: I look as a political reporter, I was certainly aware

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Speaker 1: of what was happening in the Ohio legislature. I was

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Speaker 1: looking at it in terms of, oh, this is interesting.

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Speaker 1: Is this going to put Ohio a little more competitive?

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Speaker 1: Are our voter is going to punish the Ohio you

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Speaker 1: know that, I'll be frank. That was the prism with

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Speaker 1: which I was looking at at that story at the time,

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Speaker 1: and in many ways I didn't I didn't fully appreciate

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Speaker 1: the totality of what happened. But the way you presented

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Speaker 1: the story of essentially it felt it's it's a You

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Speaker 1: almost do it as a as a caper, right, you

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Speaker 1: got a lobbyist.

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Speaker 3: Paper, it's a it's a it's a true crime thriller.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a true crime story.

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Speaker 1: You have a lobbyist, a disgraced politician, and an energy

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Speaker 1: company and they get together and they literally take over

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Speaker 1: the Ohio state legislature.

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Speaker 4: That's right. And and it starts with a death, violent

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Speaker 4: death by gunshot, originally possibly murdered, de deemed by the

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Speaker 4: police to be suicide. And indeed I kind of envisioned

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Speaker 4: that as sort of my there was a nod to

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Speaker 4: that movie Sunset Boulevard, where William Holden tells the story

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Speaker 4: from the from as he's floating in the pool after

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Speaker 4: he's dead, and so Neil Clark, who's the crooked law

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Speaker 4: is to kill himself, kind of tells us the story.

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Speaker 2: Are you convinced he killed himself.

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Speaker 4: He pretty convinced that he killed himself. The telltale sign

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Speaker 4: if he you know, maybe the clue is he's wearing

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Speaker 4: a Mike Diwine T shirt.

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Speaker 1: He wanted to send a message, right, Yes, that was

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Speaker 1: that was his suicide.

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Speaker 3: Note. That was a clear that was his suicide. Note.

435
00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:33,120
Speaker 4: It's like, don't forget look at Mike Dwines and Malmon

436
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:36,520
Speaker 4: in this case. Uh and people have nobody's come to

437
00:23:37,040 --> 00:23:38,520
Speaker 4: any illegal conclusion about it.

438
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 3: But but I think that was the message he was sending.

439
00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:46,600
Speaker 4: But it's you know, suicide is tricky. I say tricky.

440
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:52,679
Speaker 4: Suicide is tragic and it's mysterious. But at the same time,

441
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 4: I think he was also clearly trying to send a message.

442
00:23:58,320 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 1: I will tell you what, and you tackle this a

443
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 1: little bit. As much as I wanted to see the

444
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:07,359
Speaker 1: politician get brought up on charges, as much as I

445
00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:09,479
Speaker 1: wanted to see the lobbyists get brought up on charges,

446
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:14,520
Speaker 1: it bothered me that only a couple of executives got

447
00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:18,240
Speaker 1: brought up on charges. I just googled this morning. First Energy.

448
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:22,320
Speaker 1: There's still a there's still a company. I'm just I'm

449
00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:25,439
Speaker 1: sorry when you get caught doing what you're steal. You

450
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 1: want to steal a billion dollars from Ohio taxpayers, how

451
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:29,880
Speaker 1: are you still in business?

452
00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 4: Well, the question is why are parts of HB six,

453
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:37,680
Speaker 4: which was the bill that they essentially bribed to get,

454
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:39,480
Speaker 4: still in operation.

455
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 3: Some of it has been dialed.

456
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:44,120
Speaker 2: They haven't repealed it, right, it's not repeal now.

457
00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:46,639
Speaker 4: And this is I mean, just for for the viewers

458
00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:48,679
Speaker 4: who haven't seen it. I mean, this is the most

459
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:52,960
Speaker 4: bald faced kind of bribe where executives from First Energy

460
00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:59,399
Speaker 4: dumped sixty six zho million dollars into a slush fund

461
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:07,199
Speaker 4: for the use by Ohio politician named Larry Householder. He

462
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:11,199
Speaker 4: uses it first to get to be Speaker of the

463
00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:12,480
Speaker 4: House in the Ohio legry.

464
00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:18,440
Speaker 1: He basically hacked What I would say is he used maga. Okay,

465
00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:22,200
Speaker 1: he used the divide inside the Republican Party in Ohio

466
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:25,640
Speaker 1: in that period. I'll just paint a political picture, right.

467
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:28,720
Speaker 1: We've seen this sort of in a lot of Republican parties,

468
00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: from the sort of the pre Trump establishment to the

469
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:37,399
Speaker 1: Trump Maga establishment and Householder, you know, very cleverly. This

470
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been able to work in many years, but

471
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:42,919
Speaker 1: it could work here because there's there is this movement

472
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:47,439
Speaker 1: of new MAGA adherents who want to push out the

473
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:50,120
Speaker 1: sort of the non MAGA Republicans. So he seemed to

474
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 1: use MAGA in primaries to primary his way into getting

475
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 1: the votes he needed to become Speaker. Again, did I

476
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:00,679
Speaker 1: paint that picture correctly?

477
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:01,480
Speaker 3: You did?

478
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:04,880
Speaker 4: But even more than that in the few swing districts

479
00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:08,160
Speaker 4: that there were, and Ohio is an extremely jerry mannered state,

480
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 4: but in the few swing districts that there were, he

481
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 4: used massive amounts of money to make sure that his

482
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 4: GOP candidates got elected. And then they owed him, and

483
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:21,439
Speaker 4: they owed him big time. And he had a way

484
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 4: that they could pay him back, and that way was

485
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 4: to pass this signature bill that was written by First Energy. Okay,

486
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:33,960
Speaker 4: that was the quid pro quo, and the bill was

487
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:39,840
Speaker 4: give us a one plus billion dollar subsidy for our

488
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 4: failing energy company. So from the First Energy executive standpoint,

489
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 4: it's a good return on investment. You dropped sixty million

490
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:50,880
Speaker 4: dollars in Larry Householder's lap and you get back one

491
00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:53,359
Speaker 4: point three billion dollars.

492
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:58,919
Speaker 2: Pretty good video, and you prevent bankruptcy. Yeah, well they

493
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:00,639
Speaker 2: were literally it was worse.

494
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 4: It's hard you get to keep your you get to

495
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 4: keep your you know, your executive salaries. There was another

496
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 4: scheme too, where they thought they could spin off part

497
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 4: of the company that would earn them another one hundred

498
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:19,119
Speaker 4: million dollars. So so it was just literally robbing the state.

499
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:22,679
Speaker 4: Robbing it was. It was sheriff of Nottingham stuff. It

500
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 4: was like taking from the poor.

501
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 3: To give to the rich.

502
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:28,680
Speaker 4: And at the heart of it was this this quid

503
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 4: pro quo deal and this dark money organization called Generation Now,

504
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 4: which initially nobody knew, really knew what it was because

505
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 4: if you were a five oh one c four, you

506
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 4: can't penetrate it using all sorts of you know, public inquiries.

507
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:47,920
Speaker 1: All right, there are a couple of reasons why this

508
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:49,480
Speaker 1: documentary worked so well.

509
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 2: They did.

510
00:27:50,040 --> 00:27:52,720
Speaker 1: It felt as much like a movie as a doc, right,

511
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 1: And that's that's that's your gift. I mean, look, I'm

512
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:58,239
Speaker 1: not going to continue to blow smoke, but you do

513
00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 1: this better than everybody is always trying to be Alex

514
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:04,239
Speaker 1: Gibney with their docs. And I say this, you know,

515
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:07,439
Speaker 1: the people would be would be in better shape if

516
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: they did try to model themselves after But you had

517
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:14,200
Speaker 1: a few pieces of material that I found to be amazing,

518
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:17,119
Speaker 1: and I got to ask, it's the FBI wiretaps?

519
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:20,200
Speaker 2: Was that foyer? Was that government? I mean?

520
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 1: Or was that just stuff they made public during the

521
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 1: court cases?

522
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:26,120
Speaker 2: How did you get all of that material?

523
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:30,000
Speaker 4: Most of it was stuff that they made public during

524
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 4: the court cases. I mean in a funny way, you know,

525
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 4: the moral of the you know, this was a funny

526
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:42,720
Speaker 4: story to look at in terms of dark money, because

527
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 4: here's one case where they caught you know, the Purpose,

528
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 4: and they sent them up.

529
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 3: The prison't happen very often, but this doesn't happen very often.

530
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 3: But the intriguing thing is, and the reason.

531
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 4: We thought this was a good story to tell as

532
00:28:57,040 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 4: opposed to the cases where everybody gets way with it

533
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:06,200
Speaker 4: is you can hear how the Purpose talked about their

534
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 4: broad because they and and because what happened was the

535
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 4: FBI was actually looking in to another political corruption case

536
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:23,040
Speaker 4: involving gambling. And the key character at the heart of

537
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 4: this tale, a lobbyist named Neil Clark, was on those

538
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 4: wires and some were body wires, some were phone taps, and.

539
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:35,480
Speaker 3: Then he started talking about Larry Householder and House Bill six,

540
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 3: and they were.

541
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 2: Like, what's this?

542
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 3: So they literally stumbled into this case.

543
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: They had no I was going to ask that, because

544
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: you don't you don't make that clear, know how of

545
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: what the other case was.

546
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 2: So it was a gambling corruption case.

547
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, and and and and so. But you know that's

548
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 4: the thing. When you pull a subpoena and and and

549
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:58,240
Speaker 4: you have an order for a wire tap and you

550
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 4: stumble on another crime, you're with any rights to then

551
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 4: pursue it. And then if you want to pursue it further,

552
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:07,480
Speaker 4: of course, you have to you know, file other requests

553
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 4: for wire tabs and body wires they had. They had

554
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 4: a group of you know, guys posing as businessmen body

555
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:16,719
Speaker 4: wires and going out.

556
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 1: It was a little ab scamish to me. I was,

557
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 1: I was how active the FBI was in this?

558
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they were going out to dinner with Neil

559
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:27,800
Speaker 4: Clark and Larry Householder and and it was amazing how

560
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:31,400
Speaker 4: candid they were about the scam that they were pulling off.

561
00:30:31,520 --> 00:30:33,520
Speaker 4: And what first energy was, well, Alex.

562
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 1: Can me make a I don't know if I want

563
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:37,520
Speaker 1: to call this a confession, but do you know how

564
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 1: often I've heard that conversation when I've gotten just a

565
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 1: basic briefing from a super pack that is in charge

566
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 1: of of Republican house races or super pac in charge

567
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 1: of Democratic house races, where they'll just casually say, well,

568
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 1: you know, we're able to use this money in our

569
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 1: five oh one C four that does this, and you know,

570
00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 1: so way of this what's interesting.

571
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 2: And it was just such.

572
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 1: A reminder how you can be captured by your beat sometimes, okay,

573
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 1: and and and look, this is why I love Jane Mayer,

574
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 1: who's who's also I noticed an executive producer on this

575
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 1: terrific report at The New Yorker who's really sort of

576
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 1: been a been been on this beat better than be

577
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 1: better than any of my colleagues on this. But I

578
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 1: realized how warped my own brain had become about money

579
00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 1: and politics as I was hearing those wiretap conversations about

580
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: oh you put them in a C four and it's

581
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 1: not disclosed and all of this stuff, and I'm like, yeah,

582
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:37,600
Speaker 1: this is this is just how business is done in

583
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 1: Washington this century. And then I realized that, yeah, this

584
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 1: is our problem, right, We're we're this.

585
00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 4: Way we accepted, but the you know, the in some

586
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:52,440
Speaker 4: of the rulings, and then the biggest ruling of all

587
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:55,160
Speaker 4: by the Supreme Court was of course the Citizens United decision.

588
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 4: But in some of these rulings the intent was, Okay,

589
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 4: we're going to allow unlimited amounts of money to enter

590
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 4: the political process by corporations and to some extent, unions.

591
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 4: But the deal is, we are concerned about We're concerned

592
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 4: that sounds like Susan Collins. We're concerned about corruption. So

593
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 4: so we're going to insist that you can't give money

594
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 4: directly to a candidate. You have to give it to

595
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 4: an independent organization, a super pack or sometimes a five

596
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 4: oh one c four even better, because you a super pack,

597
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 4: you have to disclose where the money comes, and they

598
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 4: are not supposed to have any contact with each other. Well,

599
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:44,040
Speaker 4: you know, ridiculous. Of course they have contact.

600
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 3: With each other.

601
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 4: It reminds me it's sort of like recently, you know

602
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 4: this one hundred this sorry million dollar a person candlelight

603
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:55,719
Speaker 4: dinner at mar A Lago, you know, for a super

604
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:59,959
Speaker 4: pack called maga Inc. Right, And by law, maga Ink

605
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 4: can't coordinate with Trump's campaign organization. So invitations say that

606
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 4: Trump is a guest speaker. Well, is there any illusion

607
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 4: amongst us here or in the country that there's.

608
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:14,960
Speaker 1: Alex do you know Rond de Santis ran an entire

609
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:20,840
Speaker 1: campaign where every campaign stop in Iowa that he held,

610
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:27,320
Speaker 1: he was a guest his super packed. It was hey, come,

611
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 1: you know, come, come to whatever they called their super

612
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 1: pac guy. You know, I concerned Iowan's for the future

613
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 1: with special guest speaker Ronda Santis.

614
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 3: You know that's right.

615
00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:41,280
Speaker 2: So that's how he funded his campaign.

616
00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 4: This goes on in every state of the Union. And

617
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,440
Speaker 4: the beauty of Ohio Confidential is you actually get to

618
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 4: hear and see how it works. Because these guys were

619
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 4: chuckling to each other over you know, four or five

620
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 4: martinis that.

621
00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 3: The Citizens United is so great because now Brad legal wow.

622
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 4: And and so that was the aspect of it I

623
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 4: found intriguing because while they did get caught and most

624
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 4: people don't, we can assume, you know, if you find uh,

625
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 4: if you find a rat in your house, you got

626
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 4: to assume it's not the only one.

627
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:20,040
Speaker 3: We can assume.

628
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 4: These conversations, as you just said about Ron DeSantis, are

629
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:26,399
Speaker 4: going on in every state in the Union, and it's

630
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:29,280
Speaker 4: just bribery. It's quid pro quo, it's pay to play,

631
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:32,479
Speaker 4: and that's what we have to call out because I think,

632
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,439
Speaker 4: you know, people I think are starting to get worked

633
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 4: up about it, you know, in you know, in Wisconsin,

634
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:45,160
Speaker 4: the idea that the Supreme Court judge got through despite

635
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 4: the amount of money that Musk spent, because people are

636
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:51,360
Speaker 4: offended at the idea that you can just buy elections.

637
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 4: But this idea of money in politics, we've become too

638
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:58,920
Speaker 4: cynical about it without really thinking that this is a system.

639
00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:01,440
Speaker 3: A bride that we have the stuff.

640
00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:04,239
Speaker 1: Look, you do a good job in the piece of noting. Look,

641
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 1: you may be featuring a republic a set of Republican

642
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 1: corrupt officials here, but this is not as if. And

643
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:13,840
Speaker 1: this is the problem, right, is that I'll hear from

644
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 1: I'll hear from those that feel guilty about taking dark money.

645
00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 1: But they'll say, well, we have to be competitive.

646
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:22,800
Speaker 2: We can't.

647
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 1: We can't have one arm tied behind our back against

648
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:29,680
Speaker 1: our opponent. We you know, and look, the fact is,

649
00:35:29,719 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 1: we can rationalize our way to a kleptocracy if we

650
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:36,359
Speaker 1: keep doing it this way, which, frankly, I think we're

651
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 1: in the early stages of kleptocracy if you if.

652
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:41,279
Speaker 4: You study this as a I'm not sure how early

653
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 4: we are. I mean, yeah, wel fair, Well, we're full

654
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:46,359
Speaker 4: on crony capitalism. Now, when when you have a mean

655
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:50,240
Speaker 4: coin that's introduced, you know, right after the presidential election,

656
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 4: you know, and cryptocurrency is flowing to the president of

657
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 4: the United States.

658
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:56,800
Speaker 3: I mean, I think we're there.

659
00:35:57,040 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 4: And I do point out in the film, you know,

660
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:02,400
Speaker 4: most the centers on this Ohio corruption case.

661
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 3: But I do point out in the film that, for example,

662
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:06,600
Speaker 3: in the you know, in the.

663
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 4: I call out the example of Riet Hoffman, who started LinkedIn,

664
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 4: who gave or or was inclined to give Kamala Harris

665
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 4: seven million dollars, but he wanted something in return.

666
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:23,280
Speaker 3: He wanted her to fire Lena Khan at the FTC.

667
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:26,719
Speaker 4: So that's where you get to that weird place where, oh,

668
00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 4: is that a quid pro quo or is he just

669
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 4: suggesting that it might be a good idea, you know,

670
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:35,279
Speaker 4: for her to fire Lena Khan and in exchange, well

671
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:38,040
Speaker 4: let's not call it an exchange, and then surprise, surprise,

672
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 4: I give you seven million dollars.

673
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:43,960
Speaker 1: But let me let me introduce an uncomfortable fact about

674
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 1: this scandal. Nobody lost their reelection over it.

675
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 3: Larry Householder was re elected. I mean, but I think

676
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:53,359
Speaker 3: that goes to.

677
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:58,680
Speaker 1: Is a jury convicted him, right, and he gets re

678
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: elected anyway, well million dollar.

679
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 4: As president of the United States, Okay, and he was convicted.

680
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 3: He's a felon. So so yeah, there's that.

681
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:14,960
Speaker 4: And obviously we've entered a world where we have such

682
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:19,880
Speaker 4: a tribal political system that it is very difficult to

683
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:25,920
Speaker 4: persuade people that, you know, they should do other than

684
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 4: vote for their tribe, however they define the tribe to be.

685
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 4: But I also think in Ohio the problem was compounded

686
00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:39,880
Speaker 4: by this system of gerrymandering, which resulted in super majority

687
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 4: rules rule, so that you know, Larry Householder came from

688
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 4: the district that was so so read that there was

689
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 4: never going to be somebody who was going to you know,

690
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 4: particularly on short notice. You know, they just they'd elect

691
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:58,400
Speaker 4: a you know, a dead cat before they'd elected a Democrat.

692
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:02,319
Speaker 1: But he could even be hit in a primary. And

693
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 1: you know what this also, I'm sitting here as sort

694
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:08,279
Speaker 1: of like peeing and a hurricane as a journalist, right

695
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:11,439
Speaker 1: which is if we wonder why journalists have so little

696
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:16,800
Speaker 1: impact on the converce on accountability right now, well, literally

697
00:38:17,239 --> 00:38:22,279
Speaker 1: they're just buying their own coverage. Right, it's so ubiquitous,

698
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 1: the amount of money that that's being put in. And frankly,

699
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:29,200
Speaker 1: let's be honest, it's these are state house races, which

700
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:35,120
Speaker 1: if we don't have good community local information ecosystems, which

701
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 1: we don't right now, there is no Literally, trees are

702
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:42,080
Speaker 1: falling in little state house district forests and nobody's there

703
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:45,439
Speaker 1: to tell you they fell except for the super pac

704
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: who is able to put all this money in, and

705
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 1: they're the ones informing that public about this or that

706
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:55,600
Speaker 1: there's there. They're you know, I'm going to guess that

707
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 1: some Ohioans are going to see this and go I

708
00:38:57,719 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 1: had no idea.

709
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 4: I think they are. I think they are. I hope

710
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:06,800
Speaker 4: they do, because they should be. They should be ripper

711
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:10,400
Speaker 4: at what's going on in their state and not just

712
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 4: at the passage of this bill. The justice astounding to

713
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 4: me was how the Householder team Team Householder or generation now,

714
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 4: how they muscled the repeal effort because in Ohio you

715
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:35,360
Speaker 4: can mount you know, you can repeal laws by popular

716
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 4: vote effectively.

717
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:39,680
Speaker 1: Right, this is why they have abortion rights in Ohio. Correct,

718
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 1: I mean because the voter said, voters took over.

719
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 4: Because the voters finally took over. Well, in this case,

720
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:51,759
Speaker 4: they were mounting a campaign to repeal House Bill six secretly,

721
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:56,520
Speaker 4: and we had a whistleblower who's amazing. I mean, to

722
00:39:56,560 --> 00:40:00,160
Speaker 4: the caper, you get the crime play because you the

723
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 4: whistleblower who's talking about here's his best friend. He realizes

724
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 4: his best friend is trying to get him to do

725
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 4: something super unethical. He first turns him down, then he

726
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:11,440
Speaker 4: gets uncomfortable. He goes to the FBI.

727
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:12,080
Speaker 3: They say, go.

728
00:40:12,120 --> 00:40:16,360
Speaker 4: Back and nowtray his own friend for the good of

729
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:19,000
Speaker 4: the state, which he does.

730
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 3: He wears a.

731
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:24,919
Speaker 4: Wire and ultimately reveals that and this guy, the whistleblower,

732
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:29,520
Speaker 4: his name's Tyler Furman, who's working for an organization that's

733
00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 4: trying to drum up signatures against House Bills six. But

734
00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 4: he learns from his old pal, who was ultimately convicted,

735
00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:45,600
Speaker 4: Matt Borgeous, that they're literally paying canvassers to leave the

736
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:49,480
Speaker 4: state so that or they buy up all the canvassing

737
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 4: companies so that there's no ability to canvas. You know,

738
00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 4: there's one tape recording where the guy says, well, you've

739
00:40:56,680 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 4: just given me I can't remember. It's like, you know,

740
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 4: thirty five hundred dollars was on a ticket home.

741
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 3: What do you want me to do? He said, that's

742
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:05,799
Speaker 3: the service you're providing. You're going home.

743
00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:11,239
Speaker 1: This signature business I saw, I got a story and

744
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 1: I and it was a tip, but I only had it.

745
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 1: It's like one part of it. But there was an

746
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:21,320
Speaker 1: initiative fight in Florida. Basically it was between the casino

747
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:24,560
Speaker 1: the sports books who want to run mobile gambling in

748
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:28,320
Speaker 1: Florida versus the tribes who want to run mobile gambling

749
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:31,520
Speaker 1: in Florida. So they had these they were doing competing

750
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:36,920
Speaker 1: initiatives and they were and literally there was a signature broker, okay,

751
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 1: who said, I got half a million signatures. They cost

752
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:43,920
Speaker 1: a certain amount of money if you want the signatures,

753
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 1: and then they cost a certain amount of money if

754
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 1: you want the signatures to be disappeared. And this is

755
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:55,080
Speaker 1: what I was told by this one political consultant, is

756
00:41:55,120 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 1: that this is a more regular practice that in the

757
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 1: petition gathering world.

758
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:04,320
Speaker 2: This is more of.

759
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:08,680
Speaker 1: A more of a common practice than you might believe.

760
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:13,360
Speaker 1: That these essentially petitioned signature brokers, you know, the people

761
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 1: that you pay to go collect these things. And it's

762
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 1: you know, there's a handful of states that do this

763
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 1: more often than others. California Florida are two big ones. Colorado,

764
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 1: Washington State and Ohio. You know Ohio in various ways

765
00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 1: it is. It was one of those You're like, I

766
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 1: rarely shocked anymore, but even that one shocked me.

767
00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:33,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I agree with you.

768
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:36,920
Speaker 4: And that's why people's hair better be on fire, because

769
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:39,800
Speaker 4: this is what happens. This is what money in politics means.

770
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 4: It's like, it's like crime families paying off the cops.

771
00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:45,520
Speaker 3: That's what it's like.

772
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:51,239
Speaker 4: It's not just you know, money in politics, it's it's

773
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 4: graph it's corruption.

774
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:56,239
Speaker 1: It's no, you're describing this is how. This is how

775
00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 1: the the Tammany Hall worked. Yeah, okay, these but the

776
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:03,200
Speaker 1: political machine.

777
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:02,960
Speaker 2: That's how they worked.

778
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:07,480
Speaker 1: We got rid of them, and in fact, we got

779
00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 1: rid of the last two in the last few years.

780
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:14,040
Speaker 1: There was one remaining machine in Illinois, and that state

781
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 1: speaker finally has been put on a corruption trial. The

782
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:19,080
Speaker 1: guy's been sort of the head of that machine forever.

783
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 1: And they finally got rid of New Jersey's machines where

784
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:26,879
Speaker 1: where you got to control ballot access. And literally here

785
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:30,480
Speaker 1: we were the twenty first century and literally some county

786
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:33,279
Speaker 1: hack if they were connected to the right machine, could

787
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:35,960
Speaker 1: decide who got on the ballot and who was on

788
00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:40,520
Speaker 1: the ballot, but about seventeen spaces down the slate so

789
00:43:40,560 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 1: they could make sure.

790
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:43,319
Speaker 3: I get the copyright notice. Yeah.

791
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 1: Oh, the current senator there, Andy Kim, who replaced Bob Menendez.

792
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:51,239
Speaker 1: Andy Kim never could have gotten elected Senator from New

793
00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:54,399
Speaker 1: Jersey under any other period until they finally got rid

794
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: of this corrupt practice in the last year in New

795
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:59,480
Speaker 1: Jersey because of the way. He's not an establishment guy.

796
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:03,520
Speaker 1: He wasn't with any of the machines, And it's a

797
00:44:03,719 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: I it is frustrating to me that generally the public

798
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 1: is cynical about politics. They assume they're all corrupt, but

799
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:15,520
Speaker 1: specifically they actually don't realize where the real corruption is

800
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:18,120
Speaker 1: versus the ones that are not that corrupt.

801
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:20,359
Speaker 4: Right, and the fact that they're the ones who are

802
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 4: you know, money's being taken right out of their pocket.

803
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:26,719
Speaker 4: So it's I think there's a tendency real I think

804
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:30,799
Speaker 4: those politicians or I know that the government as if

805
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:34,480
Speaker 4: the government is not us, but these folks are. I mean,

806
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 4: in the case of Ohio, they literally took a billion

807
00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 4: dollars out of the pockets of Ohioans.

808
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 3: To give it to a you know, a handful of executives,

809
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:47,360
Speaker 3: or to give it to a company.

810
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 4: But they wrote that that that message to each other

811
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:54,800
Speaker 4: put their heads on Mount Rushmore.

812
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:56,040
Speaker 2: That was something else there.

813
00:44:56,120 --> 00:44:56,839
Speaker 3: They know what the.

814
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:00,279
Speaker 4: Standards and practices are on this show. But basically screw

815
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:02,320
Speaker 4: anybody that ain't us is what they said.

816
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 3: They didn't use.

817
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 2: That's all right.

818
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: If I if I can put the E for explicit

819
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:07,840
Speaker 1: on the on the podcast, I think it helps the

820
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:08,840
Speaker 1: helps the Doblenes.

821
00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 2: Right.

822
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, But let's go back to the fact that what

823
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:17,719
Speaker 1: did I didn't see any candidates in twenty twenty two

824
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 1: run on this, and they should have run on this.

825
00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:22,319
Speaker 1: I didn't see candidates in twenty twenty four o high

826
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 1: run on this, and we've had some really high profile

827
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:32,319
Speaker 1: Senate races, really high profile fights. It's it, and this

828
00:45:32,360 --> 00:45:35,960
Speaker 1: is why I think so many politicians are afraid of

829
00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:38,320
Speaker 1: running on the campaign finance issue.

830
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:41,160
Speaker 4: They're afraid of it because they need to raise money

831
00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:45,840
Speaker 4: and and so what do you do, Like, if you

832
00:45:45,920 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 4: need to beat your opponent in the primary, you're going

833
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 4: to need money, and you don't get money by telling

834
00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:57,359
Speaker 4: your big donors that you're trying to sideline them, right, I.

835
00:45:57,280 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 2: Mean, what donor is there?

836
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 1: I think Warren Buffet's about the only billionaire that I

837
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:04,359
Speaker 1: feel like has some ethical code. I don't know, maybe

838
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:08,040
Speaker 1: I'm being a little a little little facetious.

839
00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:10,359
Speaker 3: Here, but let's just say at times he does.

840
00:46:10,520 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 1: Yes, No, that's exactly. That's the point, right. A billionaire

841
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:19,480
Speaker 1: doesn't become a billionaire because they're because they're they look

842
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:21,319
Speaker 1: the other They don't look the other way every once in.

843
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:23,600
Speaker 3: All figuring out how to cure polio, right.

844
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:27,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean I don't believe there's such thing

845
00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 1: as a good billionaire supporter in politics and a bad

846
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:33,400
Speaker 1: billionaire support in politics. And I know that some wealthy

847
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:35,520
Speaker 1: people might not like hearing me say that. I might

848
00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:39,920
Speaker 1: hurt my ability to you know, find investment down the road, right,

849
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:42,600
Speaker 1: and you need investors to help you, right, like you know,

850
00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 1: it's this is the the trap we're all end.

851
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 2: Sometimes all of us have got to get.

852
00:46:47,040 --> 00:46:49,520
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, if you're a billionaire, you made

853
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 4: a lot of money through your business, you know, God bless,

854
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:57,000
Speaker 4: but that doesn't mean that you get to define the

855
00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:58,439
Speaker 4: world for the rest of us.

856
00:46:59,120 --> 00:47:03,560
Speaker 3: You know who was it told me, I believe this

857
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:04,759
Speaker 3: is the correct statistic.

858
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:09,440
Speaker 4: The three riches richest Americans, which would be I believe Bezos,

859
00:47:09,560 --> 00:47:11,160
Speaker 4: Musk and I think Zuckerberg.

860
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:12,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, they have.

861
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:14,880
Speaker 4: A higher net worth in the bottom fifty percent of

862
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 4: all Americans.

863
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:21,759
Speaker 1: Right, No, we are we are the guilded age. I mean,

864
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:23,920
Speaker 1: do you feel like we're just rerunning the guilded age?

865
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 3: Yeah?

866
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 4: And and but you can see the rumble. People are

867
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:32,360
Speaker 4: getting angry. It my you know, I'm talking to you

868
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:37,520
Speaker 4: from Maine, and Maine's got a pretty robust set of

869
00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:40,040
Speaker 4: rules about you know, against money.

870
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:42,880
Speaker 1: In always has on state political level. Main has always

871
00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:46,440
Speaker 1: been a little bit. Yeah, they've been they have public financing,

872
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:47,479
Speaker 1: I believe, right.

873
00:47:48,680 --> 00:47:49,759
Speaker 3: And and I think that.

874
00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 4: Uh, you know, you're beginning that what happened was Wisconsin

875
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:59,759
Speaker 4: was a kind of emotional pushback. But I also think

876
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 4: that it's interesting this campaign that AOC and Bernie Sanders

877
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:10,319
Speaker 4: are running, sometimes in liberal districts, sometimes in red districts.

878
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 4: They are turning about some pretty big crowds.

879
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:13,720
Speaker 3: And I think.

880
00:48:14,040 --> 00:48:24,360
Speaker 4: The the anger that that they're invoking, the channeling, is

881
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:29,319
Speaker 4: the anger toward a ri e sistem where whether you're

882
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:34,080
Speaker 4: Democrat or Republican, it's the rich people who are calling

883
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:36,880
Speaker 4: the shots, and we're getting policies that benefit them, not

884
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:37,920
Speaker 4: the rest of us.

885
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:40,880
Speaker 1: Now, And it's funny. I think that's the way in

886
00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:43,720
Speaker 1: to make this bipartisan. I think there are some true

887
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:47,520
Speaker 1: believers on the right about feeling that it that that

888
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 1: it was big corporations that got rid of their you know,

889
00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 1: that that gutted their towns.

890
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 2: Was one, right, and at some point, I mean I

891
00:48:58,120 --> 00:48:59,040
Speaker 2: saw it in Montana.

892
00:48:59,080 --> 00:49:01,279
Speaker 1: There was a by artists and effort in Montana to

893
00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:03,400
Speaker 1: try to at least push back on dark money.

894
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:04,200
Speaker 2: You saw that.

895
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:06,600
Speaker 1: But they also have a it's a little bit ingrained

896
00:49:06,640 --> 00:49:09,360
Speaker 1: in their history, right, they push back at the Copper

897
00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 1: Kings back in the day, like it is, and in

898
00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:17,000
Speaker 1: some I think Wisconsin has the Leaflette history, right, the

899
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:19,680
Speaker 1: progressive movement in many ways, so there's a little bit

900
00:49:19,719 --> 00:49:22,600
Speaker 1: of that. But you go my home state of Florida,

901
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:28,359
Speaker 1: Ohio's always had a frankly, you know, they've had political machines. Illinois, Right,

902
00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 1: there's certain states where it feels like it's always been

903
00:49:31,080 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 1: even freer and easier.

904
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 3: Right, I think that's right.

905
00:49:35,239 --> 00:49:38,360
Speaker 4: I mean, but you know, one of the things that

906
00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:41,640
Speaker 4: tried to point out in Ohio Confidential, though, is that

907
00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:46,160
Speaker 4: as you talk about money and politics, it's also true

908
00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:50,040
Speaker 4: that for most people, nobody likes to bribe right right.

909
00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:52,320
Speaker 3: They feel it's unfair, it's wrong.

910
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:55,759
Speaker 4: You know, you see it in crime films, and you

911
00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:58,520
Speaker 4: know you wish them ill.

912
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:02,839
Speaker 1: We've done a lot on Ohio Confidential. The second By

913
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:05,320
Speaker 1: the way, how do you describe this series?

914
00:50:05,440 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 2: Is this?

915
00:50:07,760 --> 00:50:09,760
Speaker 3: Because it's not. It's two films.

916
00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:11,799
Speaker 4: It started out as one film and then we just

917
00:50:11,840 --> 00:50:13,640
Speaker 4: got too much material. I mean, we got into the

918
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 4: Ohio story was so good. Yeah. Also we discovered this guy,

919
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:21,360
Speaker 4: the Reverend Bob Shank, who had kind of infiltrated the

920
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:24,480
Speaker 4: Supreme Court. So suddenly the film that was going to

921
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:27,920
Speaker 4: be one just split into two. And but they're not

922
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:31,080
Speaker 4: you know, they're not episodic in the way that one

923
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 4: leads to another. So there are two films that are related.

924
00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:38,040
Speaker 4: There are two independents that are related by a common theme.

925
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:42,600
Speaker 1: So the second film, you you explore the sort of

926
00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 1: this to you borrow a phrase, an unholy alliance, if

927
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:51,759
Speaker 1: you will, right of sorts. But you know, you know,

928
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:54,319
Speaker 1: it's always funny to me. I've always thought that, you know,

929
00:50:55,200 --> 00:50:58,720
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and Jimmy Swaggert have a lot in common,

930
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:02,960
Speaker 1: right that the sort of the the call it the

931
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:05,960
Speaker 1: prosper now now it's called prosperity gospel.

932
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:06,640
Speaker 2: If you will.

933
00:51:06,680 --> 00:51:09,960
Speaker 1: But you explore this world of sort of how even

934
00:51:10,239 --> 00:51:13,279
Speaker 1: some of these evangelical grifters, because I think they're the

935
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:16,880
Speaker 1: true believers and then they're they're grifters. And you attacked

936
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:19,000
Speaker 1: this a little bit, but how sort of the grifter

937
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 1: wing of the evangelical movement became fused with the money people,

938
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:29,040
Speaker 1: essentially for the corrupt bargain on the judiciary.

939
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:36,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that I mean, you know, you had evangelical

940
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:42,279
Speaker 3: Christians who were fiercely anti abortion, but they weren't getting over.

941
00:51:43,120 --> 00:51:48,160
Speaker 3: They needed money. You had people with money.

942
00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:56,000
Speaker 4: Who wanted to deregulate the American political system because they

943
00:51:56,400 --> 00:52:00,640
Speaker 4: didn't want things like laws that regulated the amount of

944
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 4: pollution that they could dump into rivers and lakes and

945
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:09,919
Speaker 4: and and any regulations on cigarettes or or anything like that.

946
00:52:10,280 --> 00:52:11,040
Speaker 3: But those.

947
00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:16,560
Speaker 4: Causes weren't very popular, you know. So so the deal

948
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:21,360
Speaker 4: was basically, we'll put up the money. We the billionaires

949
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:24,440
Speaker 4: will put up the money, and you'll give us the

950
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:29,120
Speaker 4: emotional fervor that we need for a political campaign, will

951
00:52:29,160 --> 00:52:32,160
Speaker 4: help to fund the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and

952
00:52:32,239 --> 00:52:37,440
Speaker 4: you'll help to turn the evangelical movement into a deregulatory

953
00:52:37,520 --> 00:52:42,000
Speaker 4: movement so that we can you know, destroy all the

954
00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:46,680
Speaker 4: laws that protect the citizens, you know, and and enrich us.

955
00:52:47,160 --> 00:52:50,360
Speaker 1: Look, it was a clever it's clever messaging. Right, government's

956
00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:53,640
Speaker 1: trying to get involved in your religious practice, and government

957
00:52:53,680 --> 00:52:56,680
Speaker 1: gets involved in business, so we should be allies.

958
00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:59,279
Speaker 3: We should be free, right, Yeah, that's right.

959
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:04,600
Speaker 1: And liberty religious liberty a phrase that it was sort

960
00:53:04,640 --> 00:53:07,640
Speaker 1: of frankly a political phrase that you've been used and

961
00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:08,640
Speaker 1: weaponized politically.

962
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:11,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, well you can you can see how religions being

963
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:15,000
Speaker 4: weaponized now as we see what's happening with anti Semitism,

964
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:18,759
Speaker 4: you know, and and how it's basically trying to be

965
00:53:18,840 --> 00:53:21,319
Speaker 4: used to destroy something called habeas corpus, which is the

966
00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:25,360
Speaker 4: very foundation of the rule of law. But I also

967
00:53:25,440 --> 00:53:32,320
Speaker 4: think that the other you know, there's an interesting character

968
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:35,799
Speaker 4: in the film, this guy, Reverend Bob Shank, who's an

969
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:40,520
Speaker 4: evangelical minister, and he was a very radical anti abortion

970
00:53:40,600 --> 00:53:44,640
Speaker 4: activist who was literally you know, carrying fetuses.

971
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:47,480
Speaker 1: To Yeah, it looked like he was part of the

972
00:53:47,719 --> 00:53:49,320
Speaker 1: Randall Terry world that operation.

973
00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:53,359
Speaker 4: Yea, he definitely was close to that. But anyway, they

974
00:53:53,400 --> 00:53:57,000
Speaker 4: want to infiltrate the Supreme Court ultimately.

975
00:53:57,680 --> 00:54:04,600
Speaker 3: And so he has that phrase the wealth of the

976
00:54:04,600 --> 00:54:05,200
Speaker 3: wicked is.

977
00:54:05,200 --> 00:54:09,000
Speaker 4: Laid up for the righteous, and he says, we'll baptize

978
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:10,160
Speaker 4: the billionaire's money.

979
00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:10,839
Speaker 3: We can do that.

980
00:54:11,600 --> 00:54:14,840
Speaker 4: You know, it sort of reminds you of the indulgences

981
00:54:14,920 --> 00:54:17,040
Speaker 4: of the Catholic Church from way back in the day.

982
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:22,000
Speaker 4: So this weird corruption of religion because you know, Evangelical

983
00:54:22,760 --> 00:54:26,840
Speaker 4: Christians end up supporting somebody like Donald Trump, who you

984
00:54:26,880 --> 00:54:30,920
Speaker 4: know is would otherwise be anathema to everything that evangelical

985
00:54:31,000 --> 00:54:33,640
Speaker 4: Christians engaged. But he is the sinner that's going to

986
00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:36,400
Speaker 4: take them to the Promised Land. But they become corrupt

987
00:54:36,440 --> 00:54:41,879
Speaker 4: and in the meantime, the billionaires become sanctified. So it

988
00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:44,840
Speaker 4: was a good deal and it ended up in you

989
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:47,480
Speaker 4: know what, our contention of the argument in the film

990
00:54:47,560 --> 00:54:50,840
Speaker 4: is that it ends up effectively corrupting the Supreme Court.

991
00:54:52,400 --> 00:54:54,520
Speaker 1: Have you thought about the fact that right now it

992
00:54:54,560 --> 00:54:58,840
Speaker 1: feels like the that we have such a devotion in

993
00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:02,080
Speaker 1: our society to mind right now, Right, you look at

994
00:55:02,120 --> 00:55:06,200
Speaker 1: college sports and high school sports. You look at frankly,

995
00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:11,040
Speaker 1: the world that I'm venturing into. I think it's independent media,

996
00:55:11,080 --> 00:55:13,640
Speaker 1: but some people call it an influencer game, right, which

997
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:16,800
Speaker 1: is also about, Hey, I'm going to go get mine.

998
00:55:17,239 --> 00:55:20,600
Speaker 2: Everybody wants to get theirs. And I had a student.

999
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:23,560
Speaker 1: I was giving a lecture this past week at the

1000
00:55:23,640 --> 00:55:26,760
Speaker 1: University of Arkansas Journalism School and one of the students

1001
00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:29,200
Speaker 1: came up to me and he said, Hey, I'm majoring

1002
00:55:29,280 --> 00:55:31,640
Speaker 1: in accounting but minoring and political science, but I really

1003
00:55:31,680 --> 00:55:34,120
Speaker 1: want to get involved in politics. But I thought, well,

1004
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 1: money drives everything, so I better understand how money works

1005
00:55:38,239 --> 00:55:40,239
Speaker 1: in order to be in politics. And I was I

1006
00:55:40,280 --> 00:55:42,040
Speaker 1: put my head in my hands and went like, oh

1007
00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:45,400
Speaker 1: my god, this kid is right, but I wish he wasn't.

1008
00:55:47,400 --> 00:55:51,279
Speaker 1: We do seem to be consumed with money these days

1009
00:55:51,320 --> 00:55:55,000
Speaker 1: as a society, like it's driving everything because I think

1010
00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:58,440
Speaker 1: we ultimately believe, well, the only way, the only way

1011
00:55:58,480 --> 00:56:01,040
Speaker 1: we can have a we can control our lives, as

1012
00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:03,560
Speaker 1: if we have enough money to control it, like that's

1013
00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:08,239
Speaker 1: become the only the And you know, I don't know

1014
00:56:08,239 --> 00:56:10,279
Speaker 1: if this takes leadership what it takes. I don't know

1015
00:56:10,280 --> 00:56:12,520
Speaker 1: why we're here, but we're at a moment. And I

1016
00:56:12,560 --> 00:56:15,640
Speaker 1: think it's why we're numb to politics and money in politics,

1017
00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:17,600
Speaker 1: because we think money is driving everything else.

1018
00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:20,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's I mean, in a way, it's

1019
00:56:20,000 --> 00:56:22,520
Speaker 4: worse than that, though. I think we're we're seeing a

1020
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:26,080
Speaker 4: reckoning now. You know, money is the one way you

1021
00:56:26,120 --> 00:56:30,719
Speaker 4: can avoid reckoning with ethical issues, you know your way

1022
00:56:30,719 --> 00:56:33,640
Speaker 4: out of it. We love to clean up the river

1023
00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:36,120
Speaker 4: that we've been polluting for the last twenty years, but

1024
00:56:36,920 --> 00:56:40,960
Speaker 4: you know, I have a fiduciary responsibility to my shareholders. Right.

1025
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:49,000
Speaker 4: But okay, let's look what's happening recently as Donald Trump

1026
00:56:49,040 --> 00:56:52,560
Speaker 4: has been going after the big law firms, and some

1027
00:56:52,640 --> 00:57:00,120
Speaker 4: have been resisting for the very best ethical reasons relating

1028
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:03,600
Speaker 4: fundamentally to the rule of law and the independence of

1029
00:57:03,600 --> 00:57:04,399
Speaker 4: the judiciary.

1030
00:57:05,680 --> 00:57:08,200
Speaker 2: But of course Amendment right to counsel, you know, things

1031
00:57:08,239 --> 00:57:08,520
Speaker 2: like that.

1032
00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:13,200
Speaker 4: All that, you know, the fundamental rights of the rule

1033
00:57:13,239 --> 00:57:17,400
Speaker 4: of law. You know that in theory, every everyone's equal

1034
00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:20,120
Speaker 4: under the law. That's what That's what it says on

1035
00:57:20,160 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 4: the front, you know, at the front of the Supreme Court.

1036
00:57:25,480 --> 00:57:35,840
Speaker 4: But but they cave and they diminished themselves massively because

1037
00:57:35,880 --> 00:57:38,760
Speaker 4: of the money. It's like, well, we have a fiduciary

1038
00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:40,120
Speaker 4: responsibility of the firm.

1039
00:57:40,880 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 1: Well, screw well that whole Paul when Paul Weiss is

1040
00:57:44,600 --> 00:57:48,200
Speaker 1: managing partner, put out that statement saying, we were trying

1041
00:57:48,200 --> 00:57:51,280
Speaker 1: to see if we had any allies and instead they

1042
00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:54,520
Speaker 1: were poaching our clients. Right and and by the way,

1043
00:57:54,600 --> 00:57:58,720
Speaker 1: so everybody individually rationalizes why they're cutting a deal, Well,

1044
00:57:58,760 --> 00:58:01,479
Speaker 1: it's it's the best. I'm trying to save the jobs here,

1045
00:58:01,720 --> 00:58:04,880
Speaker 1: or I'm trying to so you know, you you're you're

1046
00:58:05,160 --> 00:58:08,760
Speaker 1: trying to you know, be able to tell yourself a story.

1047
00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:10,960
Speaker 1: I guess to hope that you know, it makes you

1048
00:58:11,040 --> 00:58:14,800
Speaker 1: feel better with what you're doing. And instead, you know,

1049
00:58:14,840 --> 00:58:17,280
Speaker 1: we're all living that. There's a great children's book out

1050
00:58:17,320 --> 00:58:19,560
Speaker 1: there called If You Give a Mouse a cookie, right,

1051
00:58:19,720 --> 00:58:23,160
Speaker 1: and you know, and it keeps going and they're finding

1052
00:58:23,160 --> 00:58:26,560
Speaker 1: out if you capitulate a little, he's going to keep

1053
00:58:26,560 --> 00:58:27,360
Speaker 1: asking for more.

1054
00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:30,520
Speaker 3: That's right. Well that's what Columbia found out.

1055
00:58:30,560 --> 00:58:34,560
Speaker 4: To switch from you know, law firms to universities found

1056
00:58:34,600 --> 00:58:35,680
Speaker 4: that out right quick.

1057
00:58:36,160 --> 00:58:38,760
Speaker 1: You know, look, I don't think traditional media companies have

1058
00:58:38,840 --> 00:58:41,320
Speaker 1: done a pretty good job of standing up for a at.

1059
00:58:41,160 --> 00:58:42,640
Speaker 3: All struggling lawsuits.

1060
00:58:42,720 --> 00:58:46,920
Speaker 4: It's it's terrible, sah, just because they want to pursue

1061
00:58:48,080 --> 00:58:51,200
Speaker 4: a merger or other financial interests.

1062
00:58:51,280 --> 00:58:53,600
Speaker 3: You know. But at some point, you know.

1063
00:58:53,680 --> 00:58:56,920
Speaker 4: We all have to realize that we're citizens of a

1064
00:58:56,960 --> 00:58:59,360
Speaker 4: country that's supposed to stand for something, and unless we

1065
00:58:59,440 --> 00:59:02,040
Speaker 4: stand for it's not gonna be here anymore. Because that

1066
00:59:02,160 --> 00:59:04,240
Speaker 4: is just about the money. It's just about the money.

1067
00:59:04,520 --> 00:59:07,400
Speaker 4: Then we're a mob state, you know, we're all capone

1068
00:59:07,400 --> 00:59:08,000
Speaker 4: in Chicago.

1069
00:59:08,920 --> 00:59:12,200
Speaker 1: Which before I let you go, I just want to

1070
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:17,160
Speaker 1: spend a few minutes with tips for young documentarians because

1071
00:59:17,160 --> 00:59:19,800
Speaker 1: I just think there's nobody like you. You know, there's

1072
00:59:19,840 --> 00:59:23,880
Speaker 1: the fact like you've got they're they're you're you're both prolific.

1073
00:59:24,640 --> 00:59:27,800
Speaker 1: But I do feel like there's always something different about

1074
00:59:27,800 --> 00:59:29,040
Speaker 1: your docs right there.

1075
00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:30,240
Speaker 2: You you you.

1076
00:59:30,640 --> 00:59:35,120
Speaker 1: Try to make them not just talking heads, you know, trading,

1077
00:59:35,600 --> 00:59:38,160
Speaker 1: trading sound bite. It's nothing wrong with that, right that's

1078
00:59:38,200 --> 00:59:39,560
Speaker 1: that was a style for a while.

1079
00:59:39,600 --> 00:59:41,080
Speaker 2: And you don't have a lot of funding.

1080
00:59:42,680 --> 00:59:47,880
Speaker 1: But you seem to always let me ask this, will

1081
00:59:47,920 --> 00:59:49,720
Speaker 1: you only end up doing a doc if you can

1082
00:59:49,800 --> 00:59:53,000
Speaker 1: find a character that will help drive the narrative I mean,

1083
00:59:53,080 --> 00:59:55,240
Speaker 1: is there what what is the secret sauce in your

1084
00:59:55,240 --> 00:59:58,480
Speaker 1: head of how you can take a story and turn

1085
00:59:58,520 --> 01:00:00,560
Speaker 1: it into an Alex Gibney di coumentary.

1086
01:00:01,640 --> 01:00:03,920
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I do think it's about the story.

1087
01:00:04,040 --> 01:00:07,480
Speaker 3: You know. I remember talking with Bethany McLain.

1088
01:00:07,800 --> 01:00:11,440
Speaker 4: Who was the co author of Smartest Guys in the Room,

1089
01:00:11,440 --> 01:00:13,720
Speaker 4: when we were doing the Enron doc and we're going

1090
01:00:13,800 --> 01:00:17,120
Speaker 4: on the PR tour and the joke, which I mean

1091
01:00:17,200 --> 01:00:19,520
Speaker 4: wasn't a joke, but the line that we would use

1092
01:00:19,560 --> 01:00:23,160
Speaker 4: every step of the way was it wasn't about the numbers.

1093
01:00:23,320 --> 01:00:26,240
Speaker 4: It was about the people. What made that story interesting

1094
01:00:26,280 --> 01:00:29,240
Speaker 4: were the characters. And you know, there were a lot

1095
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:33,560
Speaker 4: of issues that may be good and very important as issues,

1096
01:00:33,600 --> 01:00:36,480
Speaker 4: but may not lend themselves to a story. So first

1097
01:00:36,480 --> 01:00:39,360
Speaker 4: thing is is there a good story? And then how

1098
01:00:39,360 --> 01:00:43,520
Speaker 4: do you tell that story in a way that is

1099
01:00:43,560 --> 01:00:46,160
Speaker 4: compelling to somebody who doesn't care.

1100
01:00:46,040 --> 01:00:49,480
Speaker 3: At all about the issue? Right? That's really the trick.

1101
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:52,200
Speaker 2: That's your north star. You're thinking, how do I make this?

1102
01:00:52,640 --> 01:00:54,880
Speaker 1: Can I make it interesting for somebody that doesn't think

1103
01:00:54,920 --> 01:00:56,000
Speaker 1: that they would want to watch this?

1104
01:00:56,320 --> 01:00:58,960
Speaker 4: And I have no apologies about the idea that I

1105
01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:02,040
Speaker 4: think Ohio Confidentelism movie, you know that too. I think

1106
01:01:02,160 --> 01:01:06,240
Speaker 4: his patterned after Sunset Boulevard. You know, it's it's it's

1107
01:01:06,760 --> 01:01:11,640
Speaker 4: you know, Michael Imperioli plays the character of Neil Clark.

1108
01:01:12,080 --> 01:01:13,840
Speaker 3: So you know, I think it's.

1109
01:01:16,080 --> 01:01:19,120
Speaker 4: Because because you've got a lot of you know, for

1110
01:01:19,200 --> 01:01:21,640
Speaker 4: people at home, they've got a lot of choices, like

1111
01:01:21,680 --> 01:01:24,640
Speaker 4: they can fire up, you know, whatever movie it is

1112
01:01:24,680 --> 01:01:26,520
Speaker 4: that they want to see, or they can look at

1113
01:01:26,520 --> 01:01:29,320
Speaker 4: a doc and and in a way, that's your competition.

1114
01:01:29,480 --> 01:01:32,640
Speaker 3: But it's also a compelling reason to tell a story.

1115
01:01:32,680 --> 01:01:35,240
Speaker 3: I mean, the best non fiction books.

1116
01:01:35,360 --> 01:01:40,440
Speaker 4: Read as compellingly as a novel because they pay attention to.

1117
01:01:42,320 --> 01:01:45,200
Speaker 3: Character and plot and narraive momentum.

1118
01:01:45,720 --> 01:01:46,760
Speaker 2: By the way, I hope you read.

1119
01:01:46,880 --> 01:01:49,600
Speaker 1: My friend Brody Mullins and his brother Luke Mullins wrote

1120
01:01:49,640 --> 01:01:52,800
Speaker 1: something called The Wolves of k Street. It is one

1121
01:01:52,800 --> 01:01:58,080
Speaker 1: of the most compelling narratives about the history of lobbying.

1122
01:01:58,280 --> 01:02:00,480
Speaker 1: And you know, they have this great story and you

1123
01:02:00,520 --> 01:02:02,360
Speaker 1: know there's so many of it. I know you've been

1124
01:02:02,360 --> 01:02:03,960
Speaker 1: down the lobbying road before.

1125
01:02:04,600 --> 01:02:07,760
Speaker 2: No it is it is one.

1126
01:02:09,080 --> 01:02:11,960
Speaker 1: Because you know they've come to the conclusion that you know,

1127
01:02:12,000 --> 01:02:14,720
Speaker 1: the lobbying industry now in Washington works this way. Used

1128
01:02:14,720 --> 01:02:17,880
Speaker 1: to be it was corporations versus the people. Now it's

1129
01:02:18,120 --> 01:02:22,280
Speaker 1: corporations versus other corporations. Essentially, the people are not involved.

1130
01:02:22,320 --> 01:02:27,120
Speaker 1: Different corporations right, are irrelevant. They're all fighting over getting

1131
01:02:27,120 --> 01:02:29,400
Speaker 1: a law that will help their business and put their

1132
01:02:29,440 --> 01:02:32,480
Speaker 1: competitor out of business. Like there's no longer about whether

1133
01:02:32,480 --> 01:02:35,520
Speaker 1: the citizens think it's a good idea or not. But

1134
01:02:35,600 --> 01:02:37,600
Speaker 1: they wrote it like a you know, same thing. They

1135
01:02:37,680 --> 01:02:39,880
Speaker 1: start with a murder, they start with a death right.

1136
01:02:39,920 --> 01:02:42,640
Speaker 1: It was just it does strike me that if you

1137
01:02:42,680 --> 01:02:45,880
Speaker 1: don't have a character, it is sometimes hard to tell

1138
01:02:45,880 --> 01:02:46,400
Speaker 1: these stories.

1139
01:02:47,080 --> 01:02:50,400
Speaker 4: I agree, Yeah, it's the story that matters, and that's

1140
01:02:50,440 --> 01:02:53,919
Speaker 4: how we learn. We learn with stories, you know, that's

1141
01:02:53,920 --> 01:02:55,120
Speaker 4: how we retain information.

1142
01:02:55,640 --> 01:02:57,560
Speaker 1: What topic do you want to tackle next or are

1143
01:02:57,600 --> 01:02:58,680
Speaker 1: you tackling in the moment?

1144
01:02:59,120 --> 01:03:00,000
Speaker 3: Well, believe it or not.

1145
01:03:00,240 --> 01:03:04,040
Speaker 4: For the last two years, prior to the election, I

1146
01:03:04,120 --> 01:03:08,640
Speaker 4: was working on a documentary on Elon Musk, and so

1147
01:03:08,800 --> 01:03:12,960
Speaker 4: now that is my brief has been expanded. It will

1148
01:03:12,960 --> 01:03:15,520
Speaker 4: get longer, and I'm continuing to work.

1149
01:03:15,320 --> 01:03:20,000
Speaker 1: On Well you want to talk about compelling. I joke

1150
01:03:20,040 --> 01:03:24,000
Speaker 1: about Elon Musk if he were a Bond villain. You

1151
01:03:24,000 --> 01:03:25,240
Speaker 1: wouldn't even change the name.

1152
01:03:25,760 --> 01:03:31,280
Speaker 2: No, think it sounds like what you'd come up with.

1153
01:03:31,360 --> 01:03:33,360
Speaker 2: I mean, he is somebody.

1154
01:03:34,200 --> 01:03:37,160
Speaker 1: The truth is stranger than anything you could come up

1155
01:03:37,200 --> 01:03:39,200
Speaker 1: with with. I mean that Wall Street. I don't know

1156
01:03:39,240 --> 01:03:40,880
Speaker 1: if you saw that Turtle store.

1157
01:03:42,000 --> 01:03:43,200
Speaker 2: Yeah that.

1158
01:03:44,600 --> 01:03:48,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, the compound, that is something else. Well I'll just

1159
01:03:48,680 --> 01:03:49,960
Speaker 1: give me yeah, go ahead.

1160
01:03:50,440 --> 01:03:55,200
Speaker 3: The Legion, the Legion of Children, right, yeah.

1161
01:03:54,840 --> 01:03:58,360
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I mean sorry, we're all having boys

1162
01:03:58,360 --> 01:04:05,880
Speaker 1: from Brazil flashbacks, remember anyway, Jesus. All right, Alex, appreciate

1163
01:04:05,920 --> 01:04:11,040
Speaker 1: the time the Dark Money game. It's two great feature films,

1164
01:04:11,520 --> 01:04:15,240
Speaker 1: and that's what they are, feature films. That kudos to HBO.

1165
01:04:15,640 --> 01:04:17,200
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people wondered if HBO was

1166
01:04:17,240 --> 01:04:18,840
Speaker 1: still going to be in this game. It's good to

1167
01:04:18,840 --> 01:04:20,000
Speaker 1: see that they're still in this game.

1168
01:04:20,120 --> 01:04:21,320
Speaker 3: Oh God bless HBO.

1169
01:04:22,400 --> 01:04:26,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I I they they I appreciate that they

1170
01:04:26,000 --> 01:04:27,840
Speaker 1: still care about this stuff, so it's good for them.

1171
01:04:28,280 --> 01:04:29,560
Speaker 2: I'm good for you, Thank you, sir.

1172
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:30,400
Speaker 3: Thanks Chuck.

1173
01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:41,280
Speaker 1: Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Alex, and honestly,

1174
01:04:42,040 --> 01:04:44,520
Speaker 1: i'd love Look, I've gave you my plan.

1175
01:04:44,640 --> 01:04:45,080
Speaker 3: All right.

1176
01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:49,760
Speaker 1: Uh you know let's let's Nascar up the candidates. Were

1177
01:04:49,760 --> 01:04:53,280
Speaker 1: your donors on your suits? Wear your donors on your website?

1178
01:04:53,320 --> 01:04:57,400
Speaker 1: Where are your donors in your political TV ads? But

1179
01:04:57,440 --> 01:05:00,880
Speaker 1: what would you like to say? I'd love dc you

1180
01:05:00,920 --> 01:05:03,960
Speaker 1: share your thoughts on this, Give me a few ideas,

1181
01:05:04,040 --> 01:05:06,920
Speaker 1: pounce them off the next the next couple of episodes,

1182
01:05:07,520 --> 01:05:12,040
Speaker 1: I will gather together the most intriguing ones and share

1183
01:05:12,040 --> 01:05:17,640
Speaker 1: them with everybody else. So as you as you ponder this,

1184
01:05:17,800 --> 01:05:20,200
Speaker 1: as you watch these Alex Gibney.

1185
01:05:21,400 --> 01:05:23,280
Speaker 2: Feature length docs.

1186
01:05:22,720 --> 01:05:27,560
Speaker 1: On on Dark Money, I wonder after if you come

1187
01:05:27,600 --> 01:05:30,120
Speaker 1: up with a different idea than maybe what you had

1188
01:05:30,160 --> 01:05:33,200
Speaker 1: going in. So share me your thoughts there, throw it

1189
01:05:33,240 --> 01:05:35,600
Speaker 1: in the YouTube comment section. Send me an email at

1190
01:05:35,600 --> 01:05:40,360
Speaker 1: Aschuk at dchucktodcast dot com, which of course brings me to.

1191
01:05:40,360 --> 01:05:47,080
Speaker 2: Some ass Chuck. Ask Chuck. All right, I'm just gonna

1192
01:05:47,120 --> 01:05:47,960
Speaker 2: do one question.

1193
01:05:48,080 --> 01:05:51,040
Speaker 1: I've had a put up a lot a lot for

1194
01:05:51,080 --> 01:05:52,880
Speaker 1: you guys this week, so I don't want to overload you,

1195
01:05:53,120 --> 01:05:54,000
Speaker 1: but it's a good question.

1196
01:05:54,040 --> 01:05:55,120
Speaker 2: It's kind of a long one, and I think it

1197
01:05:55,200 --> 01:05:55,680
Speaker 2: kind of fits.

1198
01:05:56,640 --> 01:06:00,560
Speaker 1: This one comes from Jim in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and Jim

1199
01:06:00,560 --> 01:06:02,800
Speaker 1: Wright's congratulations on the move I look forward to hearing

1200
01:06:02,800 --> 01:06:06,240
Speaker 1: your points in interviews from an independent viewpoint. In an

1201
01:06:06,280 --> 01:06:09,080
Speaker 1: episode late last summer or early fall, you had mentioned

1202
01:06:09,120 --> 01:06:11,720
Speaker 1: that even if voters have to choose between the two

1203
01:06:11,800 --> 01:06:14,520
Speaker 1: presidential candidates, they have their opportunity to choose their candidates

1204
01:06:14,520 --> 01:06:17,160
Speaker 1: through the primary. Living in Wisconsin, I've never voted in

1205
01:06:17,200 --> 01:06:21,960
Speaker 1: a meaningful presidential primary. Wisconsin's presidential primaries well after Super Tuesday,

1206
01:06:22,000 --> 01:06:24,480
Speaker 1: and the election slate is set before I have a

1207
01:06:24,600 --> 01:06:26,920
Speaker 1: chance to make my decision. Sure, Wisconsin is always a

1208
01:06:26,960 --> 01:06:30,080
Speaker 1: swing state that helps determine the general election, but it

1209
01:06:30,160 --> 01:06:33,600
Speaker 1: usually feels like the choices shrimp or scallops, and I'm

1210
01:06:33,640 --> 01:06:36,920
Speaker 1: allergic to shellfish. I like that neither are a good option.

1211
01:06:37,640 --> 01:06:40,960
Speaker 1: How could voters in states with later primaries feel involved

1212
01:06:40,960 --> 01:06:43,960
Speaker 1: in selecting the presidential candidates when the final candidates are

1213
01:06:44,000 --> 01:06:48,040
Speaker 1: picked in late February or early March. Well, Jim, look,

1214
01:06:48,520 --> 01:06:50,560
Speaker 1: there are so many ways I'd love to fix the

1215
01:06:50,560 --> 01:06:53,680
Speaker 1: presidential primary calendar. And there have been a ton of

1216
01:06:53,680 --> 01:06:57,560
Speaker 1: people who have been on this. There's some long time

1217
01:06:57,680 --> 01:07:01,920
Speaker 1: former secretaries of states in particularly in Maryland and Massachusetts,

1218
01:07:01,920 --> 01:07:05,520
Speaker 1: have been We're on this forever. They were desperate to

1219
01:07:05,640 --> 01:07:12,960
Speaker 1: create a regional system where basically every four years, you know,

1220
01:07:13,040 --> 01:07:17,600
Speaker 1: we would rotate which region went first, you know sort of,

1221
01:07:18,080 --> 01:07:20,880
Speaker 1: and you would have sort of March would be, you know,

1222
01:07:20,960 --> 01:07:24,480
Speaker 1: the East, and April would be the Midwest, and May

1223
01:07:24,520 --> 01:07:27,280
Speaker 1: would be the South, and June would be the Pacific

1224
01:07:27,320 --> 01:07:29,440
Speaker 1: West or something like that, and you'd rotate it around,

1225
01:07:29,520 --> 01:07:31,840
Speaker 1: you know, you'd give it every and so that every

1226
01:07:32,240 --> 01:07:36,000
Speaker 1: twenty years, one region. And by the way you start,

1227
01:07:36,240 --> 01:07:39,640
Speaker 1: you know, there's a very simple I'm a big advocate

1228
01:07:39,640 --> 01:07:42,200
Speaker 1: of the small states going first, right, whatever it is,

1229
01:07:42,520 --> 01:07:44,440
Speaker 1: but you know there are small states in every region.

1230
01:07:44,880 --> 01:07:48,160
Speaker 1: So you know, Iowa is great to have as a starter.

1231
01:07:48,240 --> 01:07:51,680
Speaker 1: In the Midwest, they could rotate with Kansas or Nebraska.

1232
01:07:52,080 --> 01:07:54,760
Speaker 1: But in the mid Atlantic, maybe you want Delaware to

1233
01:07:54,760 --> 01:07:57,440
Speaker 1: be the first one. Why do I think small states

1234
01:07:57,440 --> 01:08:00,280
Speaker 1: are good to have this as the starting process because

1235
01:08:00,280 --> 01:08:02,720
Speaker 1: it makes it sort of levels the playing field. Right,

1236
01:08:02,960 --> 01:08:06,160
Speaker 1: there's a whole there's a whole episode about money in politics. Say,

1237
01:08:06,360 --> 01:08:10,200
Speaker 1: if we started with California, only the biggest donor biggest

1238
01:08:10,200 --> 01:08:12,840
Speaker 1: money candidates would be able to go. Whether you started

1239
01:08:12,880 --> 01:08:14,960
Speaker 1: with New York or Florida or Michigan, right, any of

1240
01:08:14,960 --> 01:08:18,760
Speaker 1: the big states suddenly that favors the big money candidates

1241
01:08:18,840 --> 01:08:22,000
Speaker 1: a small state. You know, there's the grass there's the grassroots.

1242
01:08:22,439 --> 01:08:24,479
Speaker 1: But what we need is a rotation, right. You know,

1243
01:08:24,520 --> 01:08:26,920
Speaker 1: I think people were tired of Iowa going first. People

1244
01:08:26,920 --> 01:08:29,200
Speaker 1: were tired of New Hampshire. Why did these two states

1245
01:08:29,200 --> 01:08:31,040
Speaker 1: get to pick it? You know, why why can't there

1246
01:08:31,040 --> 01:08:32,839
Speaker 1: be other states in the early in the process.

1247
01:08:33,600 --> 01:08:34,040
Speaker 4: Uh?

1248
01:08:34,080 --> 01:08:36,680
Speaker 1: And for me, you know, look, I think there's there

1249
01:08:36,760 --> 01:08:40,240
Speaker 1: certainly should be a logic to this. But here's the problem. Right,

1250
01:08:41,520 --> 01:08:44,559
Speaker 1: these rules are usually set by by the previous winners,

1251
01:08:45,120 --> 01:08:49,080
Speaker 1: and who, however a president wins, is usually how they

1252
01:08:49,080 --> 01:08:52,120
Speaker 1: want to design the primary calendar. Look no further than

1253
01:08:52,120 --> 01:08:54,960
Speaker 1: what Joe Biden did. So he didn't win Iowa and

1254
01:08:55,000 --> 01:08:57,000
Speaker 1: he didn't win New Hampshire. So what did Joe Biden do?

1255
01:08:57,040 --> 01:08:58,920
Speaker 1: We wanted to make South Carolina the first in the

1256
01:08:59,040 --> 01:09:03,759
Speaker 1: nation primary? Right now, we never really had a competitive

1257
01:09:03,760 --> 01:09:07,200
Speaker 1: Democratic primary this last cycle. We now we know, we

1258
01:09:07,280 --> 01:09:09,519
Speaker 1: know why we probably should have. But that's that's a

1259
01:09:09,560 --> 01:09:12,320
Speaker 1: debate for another era. So you're right about Wisconsin. Now,

1260
01:09:12,320 --> 01:09:16,960
Speaker 1: I would argue that Wisconsin has been a it's been

1261
01:09:17,120 --> 01:09:19,799
Speaker 1: it was an it. Look, Wisconsin was a really important

1262
01:09:19,800 --> 01:09:23,400
Speaker 1: primary to Ted Cruz at Donald Trump in it's sitting

1263
01:09:23,400 --> 01:09:26,679
Speaker 1: in its late April. It was also a pretty important

1264
01:09:26,680 --> 01:09:31,000
Speaker 1: primary to Barack Obama during the Hillary Clinton Barack Obama

1265
01:09:31,600 --> 01:09:34,360
Speaker 1: uh long slog to that two thousand and eight fight

1266
01:09:34,479 --> 01:09:37,759
Speaker 1: for the nomination. So and Wisconsin has had a history

1267
01:09:37,760 --> 01:09:42,120
Speaker 1: in the past of being important presidential primary, if you will.

1268
01:09:42,400 --> 01:09:45,320
Speaker 1: There's some Kennedy's that have had have done well in Wisconsin,

1269
01:09:45,640 --> 01:09:48,920
Speaker 1: and it's been important. Reagan Ford that you know there

1270
01:09:49,000 --> 01:09:51,439
Speaker 1: there that certainly was a competitive primary. But I take

1271
01:09:51,479 --> 01:09:55,600
Speaker 1: your point, and really what we need is again, you know,

1272
01:09:55,640 --> 01:09:58,360
Speaker 1: some of this stuff, it's just simple logic, right, and

1273
01:09:59,120 --> 01:10:01,760
Speaker 1: you know a region, you know, we could either do

1274
01:10:01,840 --> 01:10:05,360
Speaker 1: it one of two ways. All the small states, you know,

1275
01:10:05,479 --> 01:10:08,799
Speaker 1: no state with more with with more than four congressional districts,

1276
01:10:09,720 --> 01:10:11,880
Speaker 1: they all go first. They all go in the first month.

1277
01:10:12,320 --> 01:10:15,680
Speaker 1: Then you go, say five to ten you know, go

1278
01:10:15,720 --> 01:10:17,120
Speaker 1: in the next month, and then.

1279
01:10:17,040 --> 01:10:19,200
Speaker 2: You you know, save the big states for the end.

1280
01:10:20,240 --> 01:10:23,519
Speaker 1: There's all sorts of what I think are logical good

1281
01:10:23,520 --> 01:10:25,760
Speaker 1: ways to do. It's like the college football playoff. There's

1282
01:10:25,800 --> 01:10:28,880
Speaker 1: plenty of ways to come up with something that's fair.

1283
01:10:30,040 --> 01:10:32,639
Speaker 1: But the but the problem is that people in charge

1284
01:10:32,640 --> 01:10:35,200
Speaker 1: of the process don't want to make it fair. They

1285
01:10:35,240 --> 01:10:37,160
Speaker 1: want to rig the system for their side.

1286
01:10:37,240 --> 01:10:38,280
Speaker 2: Right, So in this.

1287
01:10:38,320 --> 01:10:40,160
Speaker 1: The college football playoff, the SEC in the Big Ten

1288
01:10:40,200 --> 01:10:43,960
Speaker 1: are not interested in creating a fair system for all schools.

1289
01:10:44,000 --> 01:10:46,679
Speaker 1: They just want a system that's accessible to the Big

1290
01:10:46,720 --> 01:10:49,640
Speaker 1: ten in the SEC and enough of everybody else to

1291
01:10:49,680 --> 01:10:52,479
Speaker 1: make people think it's fair. And that's what happens kind

1292
01:10:52,479 --> 01:10:55,880
Speaker 1: of in these presidential primary processes. Each party kind of

1293
01:10:56,040 --> 01:11:00,559
Speaker 1: decides their calendar. They've mostly tried to do their calendars

1294
01:11:00,600 --> 01:11:03,880
Speaker 1: together because they realize one help. You know, in some ways,

1295
01:11:04,000 --> 01:11:06,519
Speaker 1: they're both they both benefited, they're both competing in the

1296
01:11:06,520 --> 01:11:09,720
Speaker 1: same state at the same time because they actually, you know,

1297
01:11:09,880 --> 01:11:12,559
Speaker 1: it's like it's like a small town. You know, if

1298
01:11:12,600 --> 01:11:13,880
Speaker 1: you're a lawyer, you don't want to be the only

1299
01:11:13,920 --> 01:11:15,280
Speaker 1: lawyer in a town. You want to have at least

1300
01:11:15,280 --> 01:11:17,760
Speaker 1: two lawyers so that somebody else can hire a lawyer

1301
01:11:17,800 --> 01:11:19,720
Speaker 1: and you can you can get business, right, you each

1302
01:11:19,760 --> 01:11:25,680
Speaker 1: can have a lawyer. So there's some there's some synergy

1303
01:11:25,720 --> 01:11:29,360
Speaker 1: in that. But look, you're you're it's a fair point.

1304
01:11:31,240 --> 01:11:32,519
Speaker 1: But there is a part of me that says, hey,

1305
01:11:32,600 --> 01:11:35,280
Speaker 1: quit your quit your complaining in that you get to

1306
01:11:35,280 --> 01:11:41,640
Speaker 1: be the decider, and and and which which allergic, which shellfish,

1307
01:11:41,680 --> 01:11:44,599
Speaker 1: which food that could potentially kill you? You get to you

1308
01:11:44,640 --> 01:11:49,559
Speaker 1: get to pick from. But you know, there's there's definitely

1309
01:11:49,560 --> 01:11:53,760
Speaker 1: a better way to do this, but neither political party

1310
01:11:53,800 --> 01:11:57,320
Speaker 1: seems to be incentivized to be logical about this. There's

1311
01:11:57,400 --> 01:12:00,800
Speaker 1: always a governor, there's always somebody who's got power within

1312
01:12:00,840 --> 01:12:04,240
Speaker 1: the RNs here the DNC that wants to just twist him.

1313
01:12:04,240 --> 01:12:06,360
Speaker 1: Look what Donald Trump did. He changed all the primary

1314
01:12:06,439 --> 01:12:10,879
Speaker 1: rules for the delegate selection process in these various states

1315
01:12:10,960 --> 01:12:14,719
Speaker 1: to basically make it nearly impossible for anybody to get

1316
01:12:14,760 --> 01:12:19,120
Speaker 1: any traction of enough delegates to make his life miserable

1317
01:12:19,160 --> 01:12:21,519
Speaker 1: at the convention. He created a bunch of winter take

1318
01:12:21,520 --> 01:12:25,320
Speaker 1: all scenarios or nearly winter take all, which sort of

1319
01:12:25,600 --> 01:12:31,360
Speaker 1: starved Nicky Haley of any opportunities to chip away at

1320
01:12:31,360 --> 01:12:34,360
Speaker 1: a delegate lead, and things like that. So I certainly,

1321
01:12:34,479 --> 01:12:36,960
Speaker 1: like I said, I gave you two solutions that I

1322
01:12:36,960 --> 01:12:42,160
Speaker 1: believe in. One is a regional by month four months March, April,

1323
01:12:42,160 --> 01:12:45,120
Speaker 1: May and June. And you've split the country up in

1324
01:12:45,240 --> 01:12:50,839
Speaker 1: four either do it small states, small, small, medium, medium, large, large,

1325
01:12:51,080 --> 01:12:53,160
Speaker 1: or you do it by regions and you rotate it

1326
01:12:54,120 --> 01:12:57,360
Speaker 1: and the region part you would rotate in each one.

1327
01:12:58,160 --> 01:13:01,080
Speaker 1: Either one would be a fairer system and eventually get

1328
01:13:01,080 --> 01:13:03,960
Speaker 1: more people involved. And here's another benefit. And I know

1329
01:13:03,960 --> 01:13:05,720
Speaker 1: I'm rambling on this one, but I'm obsessed with the

1330
01:13:05,720 --> 01:13:09,600
Speaker 1: presidential primary calendar. I've lived it for thirty years. I

1331
01:13:11,960 --> 01:13:15,519
Speaker 1: have war gained this so many different ways. My favorite

1332
01:13:15,560 --> 01:13:18,920
Speaker 1: aspect about why it's important to have early presidential primaries,

1333
01:13:18,920 --> 01:13:20,400
Speaker 1: why you want to be a state that does that,

1334
01:13:21,000 --> 01:13:25,080
Speaker 1: because the voters take it really seriously. Iowa is not

1335
01:13:25,520 --> 01:13:28,120
Speaker 1: demographically should have never been a swing state for as

1336
01:13:28,160 --> 01:13:30,200
Speaker 1: long as it was, but it was a swing state

1337
01:13:30,240 --> 01:13:32,920
Speaker 1: because the voters appreciated the fact that they were the

1338
01:13:32,960 --> 01:13:36,639
Speaker 1: initial vetters of presidential candidates. They took the process seriously,

1339
01:13:36,880 --> 01:13:38,960
Speaker 1: and they really did take it. You know, it really

1340
01:13:39,040 --> 01:13:42,479
Speaker 1: was sort of a candidate you know, they vetted candidates,

1341
01:13:42,520 --> 01:13:47,000
Speaker 1: they didn't vet parties. And I think the process created

1342
01:13:47,479 --> 01:13:51,519
Speaker 1: made Iowa New Hampshire swing states when demographically neither state

1343
01:13:51,920 --> 01:13:53,880
Speaker 1: should have been a comfortable swing state. And we now

1344
01:13:53,920 --> 01:13:57,559
Speaker 1: see now that the presidential primary calendar has sort of

1345
01:13:57,840 --> 01:14:00,160
Speaker 1: shifted away in some ways in both states and differ

1346
01:14:00,360 --> 01:14:04,040
Speaker 1: in different ways that now both states are sort of

1347
01:14:04,200 --> 01:14:08,040
Speaker 1: reverting to to to ones. One's a bit, you know,

1348
01:14:08,160 --> 01:14:10,160
Speaker 1: light blue and one's a bit dark red these days.

1349
01:14:10,560 --> 01:14:13,200
Speaker 1: But you're you know, when when they were the centers

1350
01:14:13,200 --> 01:14:15,880
Speaker 1: of the political universe, it kept them, kept them in

1351
01:14:15,920 --> 01:14:18,400
Speaker 1: the middle, right, it kept them being a little more

1352
01:14:20,320 --> 01:14:23,040
Speaker 1: starting from the center out. So I certainly would love

1353
01:14:23,080 --> 01:14:25,479
Speaker 1: to see more states get this opportunity because I think

1354
01:14:26,040 --> 01:14:28,280
Speaker 1: that voters when they get more of an opportunity to

1355
01:14:28,320 --> 01:14:31,040
Speaker 1: vet these presidential candidates, they start to take their boat

1356
01:14:31,200 --> 01:14:34,120
Speaker 1: a bit more seriously, they take character a bit more seriously,

1357
01:14:35,080 --> 01:14:38,040
Speaker 1: and I think it creates a better process. All right,

1358
01:14:38,160 --> 01:14:41,600
Speaker 1: So with that, appreciate the question, and I love the

1359
01:14:41,640 --> 01:14:46,040
Speaker 1: opportunity to talk Wisconsin because hey, it's the Green Bay

1360
01:14:46,040 --> 01:14:48,880
Speaker 1: Packers right now, are hosting the NFL Draft all weekend long.

1361
01:14:49,200 --> 01:14:52,120
Speaker 1: Very exciting. I'm a Packer fan. It's very exciting time

1362
01:14:52,160 --> 01:14:55,719
Speaker 1: to watch. I want to I can't wait to find

1363
01:14:55,720 --> 01:14:59,200
Speaker 1: out how. I think Packer fans are nicer than most fans,

1364
01:14:59,320 --> 01:15:02,760
Speaker 1: which means Goodell, the booze for Goodell should be should

1365
01:15:02,800 --> 01:15:05,800
Speaker 1: be less than usual. But we shall see.

1366
01:15:06,400 --> 01:15:06,559
Speaker 4: Uh.

1367
01:15:06,600 --> 01:15:08,960
Speaker 2: With that, I hope you enjoy your weekend.

1368
01:15:09,040 --> 01:15:10,960
Speaker 1: I will give you a full report of the craziness

1369
01:15:10,960 --> 01:15:14,479
Speaker 1: that may or may not take place over the Nerd

1370
01:15:14,520 --> 01:15:16,479
Speaker 1: prom weekend of White House Correspondence weekend.

1371
01:15:17,000 --> 01:15:19,280
Speaker 2: Uh and I'll see you when we upload on Monday,

1372
01:15:19,920 --> 01:15:21,880
Speaker 2: m M M m m