Speaker 1: Well, Happy Friday, and welcome to a special episode of
Speaker 1: The Chuck Podcast. So today my guest is Frankly, one
Speaker 1: of probably the when you think of great documentarians of
Speaker 1: our times, I think there's really two that stand out.
Speaker 1: There's Ken Burns and his documentaries on American history, and
Speaker 1: there's Alex Gibney, who has done some just groundbreaking work
Speaker 1: on society and culture.
Speaker 2: And he is out with.
Speaker 1: Frankly, two feature length documentaries, almost episodic, but they're both
Speaker 1: two hour documentaries on HBO.
Speaker 2: On dark money.
Speaker 1: One is a very specific it's sort of it's very
Speaker 1: much on sort of how dark money, this ability to
Speaker 1: take big money in politics put launder it through an
Speaker 1: organization you'd never heard of. You know, Oh, Iowans for
Speaker 1: Love or Americans that love America and you know, thanks
Speaker 1: to Citizens United, and you're gonna hear a lot about this.
Speaker 1: The ability to spend big money on politics, move big money,
Speaker 1: and do so more anonymously than ever has never been easier.
Speaker 1: And I'll be honest, I'm somebody who's been a bit
Speaker 1: of a skeptic of attempts to try to reform and
Speaker 1: get money out of the system. You know, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm one of those. I sort of bow at the
Speaker 1: altar of Jeff Goldblum's character in Jurassic Park when the
Speaker 1: old man is trying to tell you that he can
Speaker 1: keep keep those dinosaurs from breeding because he made them
Speaker 1: all female, and Goldbloom is playing the mathematician, the chaos
Speaker 1: theory guy says.
Speaker 2: Life finds a way.
Speaker 1: Well, I've always felt that about money in politics, right,
Speaker 1: money finds a way, And in fact, some of the
Speaker 1: great reform efforts of our time have actually created the
Speaker 1: disastrous situation that we're in today. McCain fine Gold, McCain
Speaker 1: find gold has thought of as this great reform that
Speaker 1: attempted to take big money out of political parties and
Speaker 1: out of the system. But what all McCain Feinegeld ended
Speaker 1: up doing is moving the money out of the political parties.
Speaker 1: At the time one of the few places where there
Speaker 1: was accountability, where they had to file it, had to
Speaker 1: disclose that their donors were maybe not in this timely
Speaker 1: of a fashion as people wanted to see, but they
Speaker 1: could do it. And yes there was something called soft money,
Speaker 1: but these people you still had to report where this
Speaker 1: money came from. And so here was this incredible you know,
Speaker 1: this legislation that was monumental at the time, and all
Speaker 1: it did was was sort of shift the money out
Speaker 1: of political committees and out of the politicians' hands and
Speaker 1: into these third party groups.
Speaker 2: Now we call them super packs.
Speaker 1: But there was different sort of tax code versions of
Speaker 1: this five oh one seed threes, five four c's, things
Speaker 1: like that, and it is it is taken. It is
Speaker 1: essentially hidden the money in playite right. You know, we
Speaker 1: generally know where this money comes from, but we now
Speaker 1: don't find out when they do it through third party
Speaker 1: networks and channels. You don't find out about it until
Speaker 1: after an election. And so we've gone from an election
Speaker 1: that if you're ready for this in two thousand, where collectively,
Speaker 1: collectively Gore and Bush.
Speaker 2: Spent this is just twenty five years ago.
Speaker 1: Collectively they spent about two hundred million dollars in their campaign.
Speaker 1: You know, two hundred million dollars is what Donald Trump
Speaker 1: just raised for his inaugural fund. Okay, it is two
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars is a good first quarter for a
Speaker 1: general election presidential candidacy. We've now got you know, you know,
Speaker 1: you now can legally give I think a million dollars
Speaker 1: to a party individually these days, and you couldn't do
Speaker 1: that before, let alone money. You can give to a
Speaker 1: third party group your money and you never have to
Speaker 1: disclose it, or you can do it through a foundation
Speaker 1: and et cetera. So the point is that we really
Speaker 1: do have.
Speaker 2: A mess in our hands.
Speaker 1: Alex Gibney will tell you it's Citizens United, and I
Speaker 1: think there's no doubt that the unintended consequences of Citizens
Speaker 1: United has certainly created this. The question is what do
Speaker 1: we do about it? Because I do think we're in
Speaker 1: a situation where money is consuming Look, my friend Tony Coenheiser,
Speaker 1: let's ease read all your listeners of of mister t
Speaker 1: K out there, as he will tell you they answered,
Speaker 1: all your problems is money, and in many ways that
Speaker 1: has become I think the north star of almost every
Speaker 1: industry these days, whether it's sports, whether it's politics, whether
Speaker 1: it's you know, anything in business, you know, employee issues,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, right, the way out of a mess
Speaker 1: is usually by by some financial contribution or distribution, but
Speaker 1: there is you know, and in fact I think the
Speaker 1: problem is there's a lot of well, my donors are
Speaker 1: good donors. Your donors are bad donors. So this so
Speaker 1: called good billionaires versus the bad billionaires. Well, one person's
Speaker 1: bad billionaire is another person's political ally, and one person's
Speaker 1: good billionaire is another person's political opponent. And so the
Speaker 1: question is whether who should be manipulating the democracy right,
Speaker 1: the voters, the majority or a handful of people with
Speaker 1: their own motivations. And I'll tell you this man, I
Speaker 1: will say, you know, Alex Gibney has two different feature
Speaker 1: link films, but the one about Ohio it's like a caper,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to spoil it. It's a scandal
Speaker 1: that if you're in Ohio you probably are familiar with it.
Speaker 1: But essentially a candidate was able to take over an
Speaker 1: entire state legislature. He was not even in office, and
Speaker 1: he became speaker by recruit by essentially being able to
Speaker 1: finance primary challengers in enough state legislative seats to make
Speaker 1: sure he had the votes to become Beaker himself if
Speaker 1: he too got elected. The point was, that's how easy
Speaker 1: it was for essentially one company to write one check
Speaker 1: and be able to get an entire legislature to flip
Speaker 1: in their direction. This didn't flip parties, by the way,
Speaker 1: just flipped having, you know, supporters of what they wanted
Speaker 1: to get done, and when you realize how easy that
Speaker 1: is now and you realize that the voter has been
Speaker 1: cut out of this. You know, take the issue of
Speaker 1: lobbying and one of the books that I've recommended and
Speaker 1: people have asked me, you know, what's what's a good
Speaker 1: book to understand how Washington works? And there's no one
Speaker 1: book I have a I gave you five books in
Speaker 1: a previous episode, but one of them is The Wolves
Speaker 1: of k Street, written by Brody and Luke Mullins, two
Speaker 1: reporter brothers. Brody Mullins a longtime investigative reporter for The
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, colleague of mine back in my National
Speaker 1: Journal days. And look, it's a great read. This is
Speaker 1: not like a boring book about lobbying. It lobbyists are
Speaker 1: characters and you know, a good Let me just put
Speaker 1: it this way.
Speaker 2: The brothers are good storytellers.
Speaker 1: But there's an essential thing, that conclusion that comes out
Speaker 1: of it that to me is really striking, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, when the lobbying industry first became a big deal,
Speaker 1: it was in the seventies and it was really thanks
Speaker 1: to Ralph Nator. Ralph Nator was sort of the you know,
Speaker 1: had a very successful time becoming a citizen lobbyist of sorts.
Speaker 1: Started Public Citizen and the pergs, both US PERG and
Speaker 1: state level pergs, Mass PERG, Florida PERG, Colorado PERG, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera, and they were, you know, and they were
Speaker 1: having some success at sort of getting government to either
Speaker 1: regulate big business or push big business to be more
Speaker 1: consumer friendly, you know. You know, it was thanks to
Speaker 1: the pergs that got people to not have to wait
Speaker 1: a week before their paychecks would actually get cashed by
Speaker 1: the banks. Banks used to be able to hold your
Speaker 1: money for a week before you had access to it
Speaker 1: in your checking account, and they helped speed that up
Speaker 1: to one to three.
Speaker 2: Days, you know.
Speaker 1: And now, of course it's it's it's instantaneous on those things,
Speaker 1: but there was a time where banks got to hold
Speaker 1: your money and it took citizens complaining together. So obviously
Speaker 1: Nator is most famous for unsafe at any speed, the
Speaker 1: infamous coveyor with the seatbelts. And without him we wouldn't
Speaker 1: have airbags and seatbelts and all those things. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: corporations thought, well, hey, if he could do that, we'll
Speaker 1: start We'll hire our own lobbyists. And for the seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties and nineties there were sort of citizen lobbying
Speaker 1: groups and corporate lobbying groups, and they were often on
Speaker 1: opposing sides. Well, in the last twenty five years things
Speaker 1: have gotten so perverted and gamified that there's very few
Speaker 1: citizen lobbyists anymore or citizen advocacy groups that have do
Speaker 1: successful lobbying. There's some, don't get me wrong, they still exist.
Speaker 1: But now what you really have is big businesses, sometimes
Speaker 1: on opposite size, trying to manipulate government so that a
Speaker 1: regulation doesn't hurt their business but hurts somebody one of
Speaker 1: their competitors. So now you have armies of lobbyists essentially
Speaker 1: out opposing sides, nobody worrying about the average voter. The
Speaker 1: point is it is, look, money has obviously corrupted the system,
Speaker 1: I mean massively. And when you look at what Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is doing with this meme coin, which is just
Speaker 1: a blatant bribery scam in plain sight. Okay, let's not.
Speaker 1: It is absolutely that right. He puts out an announcement
Speaker 1: that says, hey, I'm going to have dinner with the
Speaker 1: top whatever it is.
Speaker 2: Of his meme hold holders. So what does it do?
Speaker 1: More people buy the coins so they can get access
Speaker 1: to the president. You know, his club at mar A
Speaker 1: Lago is a legalized bribe, right. He raised the price
Speaker 1: after he became president. He doubled the cost of membership
Speaker 1: of mar A Lago. And what does he do? Basically,
Speaker 1: people now know they just buy a membership of mar
Speaker 1: A Lago and they get access to the president and
Speaker 1: likely the president's aids and likely all the cabinets. This
Speaker 1: is this is this is basically legalized bribery and plain sight, right,
Speaker 1: and there really is no other than thickle standards. There's
Speaker 1: no legal way to stop this. And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: old enough to remember when a lot of Republicans were
Speaker 1: outraged when Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton hosted fundraiser, you know,
Speaker 1: coffees in the White House where they didn't they were
Speaker 1: essentially giving people access to the White House so they
Speaker 1: could ask for money later.
Speaker 2: And there was a lot of people uncomfortable with that.
Speaker 1: And you know, boy, I think we all long for
Speaker 1: the days when that was the scandal when it came
Speaker 1: to money in politics, and now it's it's on a
Speaker 1: whole other level. And I do think we've become numb unfortunately.
Speaker 1: And this is where I'm I am, I am not.
Speaker 1: I don't have a great answer in what works. I
Speaker 1: think I fall into disclosure, disclosure, disclosure and limiting and
Speaker 1: instant you know, and the transparency. I'm for the nascarization
Speaker 1: of money in politics, meaning I think we should allow
Speaker 1: unlimited donations to candidates, but we shouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: have super PACs and third party groups. Fine, you want
Speaker 1: to be a candidate for office, you want to take
Speaker 1: a billion dollar check for Elon Musk. The only requirement
Speaker 1: is that every TV ad you run you have to
Speaker 1: say that I'm Joshmengi and this ad was paid for
Speaker 1: by Elon Musk and this person and this person, right,
Speaker 1: anybody that gave you, say over two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. You've got to actually name check them all
Speaker 1: the time. You've got to say who you're paid for.
Speaker 1: You've got to wear their logo, if you will, just
Speaker 1: like NASCAR drivers where the logos of their sponsors, you've
Speaker 1: got to wear the logos of your donors. You've got
Speaker 1: to say their name all the time. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: If you did that, I promise you most donors would
Speaker 1: come up. You know, I've got a friend of mine
Speaker 1: who regularly gives donations, but he always gives it in
Speaker 1: to federal candidates, but only he only gives one hundred
Speaker 1: ninety nine dollars at a time. And you know why
Speaker 1: only give one hundred ninety nine dollars at a time,
Speaker 1: because he doesn't have to You can, you can take
Speaker 1: anonymous donations under two hundred dollars, but any donation you'd
Speaker 1: take in a federal campaign of two hundred dollars or more,
Speaker 1: you've got to identify who in the FEC database, in
Speaker 1: the federal election database, who gave you, everybody who wrote
Speaker 1: you a check or sent you money of two hundred
Speaker 1: dollars or more. So I do believe those thresholds you
Speaker 1: could you sort of can create market incentives to prevent
Speaker 1: sort of you know, certain things, so unlimited contributions, but
Speaker 1: if they give you more than a ninety ninety nine dollars,
Speaker 1: you've got to name check them all of your paid advertising,
Speaker 1: all the time, not just once, not just sort of
Speaker 1: in a small print at the bottom, you know where
Speaker 1: you see that. Sometimes democratic mailers will have to let
Speaker 1: you know, the union paid for to when you look carefully,
Speaker 1: these super PACs paid for by Americans who love Americans.
Speaker 2: Who the hell is that group? Right?
Speaker 1: That's the that's the sort of the misinformation money We've
Speaker 1: got to get out of politics. I think what Americans
Speaker 1: accept is competition, transparent competition. And so ultimately I'm a
Speaker 1: Sunshine guy. I believe transparent s with speech. I don't
Speaker 1: know if we can limit speech. I believe good speech
Speaker 1: will drown out bad speech. In this case, I'm hopeful
Speaker 1: that Sunshine can do this. But I understand the frustration,
Speaker 1: and I know some well meaning people who think we
Speaker 1: should have you know, maybe they publicly funded campaigns. The
Speaker 1: problem with that is that either you're everything's publicly funded
Speaker 1: or none of it is. You can't sort of go
Speaker 1: half in and half out. And whenever we've played with
Speaker 1: public funding, there's always a mechanism to go around it, right,
Speaker 1: And of course wealthier candidates or popular candidates who can
Speaker 1: raise a ton of money have been.
Speaker 2: Able to do that.
Speaker 1: So there, you know, whatever it is, I think we've
Speaker 1: got to come up with a system that does a
Speaker 1: couple of things.
Speaker 2: Number one is prevents dark money. That you just can't
Speaker 2: do this.
Speaker 1: I don't believe if you want to get involved in
Speaker 1: anything funded by American taxpayers, you don't get to be anonymous.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, and I know the argument for anonymous money is, well,
Speaker 1: it might be on you know that the person giving
Speaker 1: the money, you know, doesn't want the blowback. Well, then
Speaker 1: don't get involved in politics, right if you're trying to
Speaker 1: manipulate the system in your favor. You know, the price
Speaker 1: of it mission is public disclosure. And if it's not
Speaker 1: important enough to you for you to publicly disclose yourself,
Speaker 1: then okay, then you do. You're not participating. You get
Speaker 1: an option to do it. But disclosure is the price
Speaker 1: to essentially buy a member of Congress by a US
Speaker 1: senator or by a president. But the way we're doing
Speaker 1: it now, which is a sort of open, you know,
Speaker 1: and it is sort of in some ways, we've made
Speaker 1: it where, you know, there's an old joke. I think
Speaker 1: it's Ever Dirkson that said this, you know, a millionaire
Speaker 1: and a millionaire, and eventually you have real money, and
Speaker 1: it's like it's a billionaire and a billionaire, and eventually,
Speaker 1: you know, we're starting to talk about real money. But
Speaker 1: I think there's certainly the cynicism that's out there, the
Speaker 1: distrust of politicians and politics all centers around how important
Speaker 1: money has become in manipulating the system.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: I do think the only way you can get because
Speaker 1: right now, anytime you try to limit money, limit donations
Speaker 1: in different ways, one party belo it's going to hurt
Speaker 1: them more than the other, and so then you get
Speaker 1: sort of a part of everybody gets into their partisan
Speaker 1: corners about the issue. Ultimately, I think transparency is one
Speaker 1: of those things that everybody should be for. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm old enough to remember when Mitch McConnell, who was
Speaker 1: a big opponent of McCain fine gold, his alternative solution
Speaker 1: was instant disclosure.
Speaker 2: I think people should run with instant disclosure.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised campaign reform advocates today aren't saying, yes, what
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell introduced twenty five years ago. It's that and
Speaker 1: then some. But the bottom line is, we know we
Speaker 1: have to do something about this. There aren't a lot
Speaker 1: of easy answers citizens United. You know, if you want
Speaker 1: to make the argument that corporations also can go into
Speaker 1: free speech, fine, but we've got to know you're the
Speaker 1: ones buying this speech. If you want free speech, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't be able to hide while exercising your free speech.
Speaker 1: If you want access to the public debate, you're more
Speaker 1: than welcome to do it, but you've got to show
Speaker 1: your face. You've got to disclose that it's your money
Speaker 1: doing it. Corporation A or Corporation Y. So, And in fact,
Speaker 1: I do think that's the that's the least partisan solution
Speaker 1: that might actually have some some effort at at least
Speaker 1: slowing down the growth of influence of money and politics.
Speaker 1: So that's the Chuck Todd solution there, which is the
Speaker 1: nascarization of politics. Where are your donors? If you will
Speaker 1: show us your donors, put them on your jacket, have to,
Speaker 1: you know, stand by your donors. You're welcome to as
Speaker 1: big of a donation as you want, but you've got
Speaker 1: to let the public know I'm bought and paid for
Speaker 1: by these people.
Speaker 2: I promise you.
Speaker 1: If that's the law, people will want to limit how
Speaker 1: much they want to be associated with an individual political candidate,
Speaker 1: or whether that candidate wants to be associated by in
Speaker 1: that kind of for that kind of price, with any indie, visual,
Speaker 1: corporate or billionaire interests. So with that, I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy this conversation. Again, Alex Gibney, He's been on this
Speaker 1: beat a long time, and like I said, I've I've
Speaker 1: been I've been a cynic myself on what is realistic
Speaker 1: when it comes to regulating money in politics. But when
Speaker 1: you see this story about this Ohio scandal and how
Speaker 1: easy it was to manipulate essentially an entire state legislature
Speaker 1: in one election cycle, our system is broken and we're
Speaker 1: going to have to figure out how to fix it.
Speaker 1: So with that, enjoy this conversation.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Enjoining me now is Alex Gibney. Right now, He's got
Speaker 1: two whether we call it an episodic series or two
Speaker 1: feature length documentaries, but The Dark Money Game has debuted
Speaker 1: this month on HBO with back to back feature length
Speaker 1: documentaries essentially on the corruption on how the corruption of
Speaker 1: money in politics. And you may say, don't roll your
Speaker 1: eyes at me on this one, money in politics, and
Speaker 1: trust me, I can get cynical too, and I get it.
Speaker 1: But what Alex Gibney does, and money's always been a
Speaker 1: through line for him, But in general, what he does
Speaker 1: is he tackles in many ways tackles some of the
Speaker 1: more complicated subjects that we have to deal with in society,
Speaker 1: and he makes it watchable, he makes it digestible, he
Speaker 1: makes it accessible. And let me tell you, I think
Speaker 1: dark money, which is a story we can't we journalists
Speaker 1: haven't done a good job telling. We've tried, we haven't
Speaker 1: made it as compelling to the voter as it should be.
Speaker 1: I will say this, I think this is the best
Speaker 1: attempt I've seen yet trying to get people to understand
Speaker 1: how corrosive this is become to our political system. Alex
Speaker 1: Gibney joins me. Now, Alex, good.
Speaker 2: To see you.
Speaker 3: Good to see you, Chuck.
Speaker 1: I want to start with this larger issue of trying
Speaker 1: to take the scandalous nature of money in politics right now,
Speaker 1: which is I would argue it's been somewhat of a
Speaker 1: I don't want to call it a through line in
Speaker 1: your work, because you've you do a you can get
Speaker 1: into a variety of things. But this is not the
Speaker 1: first time you've tackled money in politics in your various documentaries.
Speaker 1: You've tackled it before. This felt like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like it's like we always say no, no, no, no. This
Speaker 1: is really bad. And yet no, no, no, no, now
Speaker 1: it's worse. And the dark money, the five oh one C.
Speaker 1: Four is the fact that we can hide money now
Speaker 1: in ways in this post citizens United World is really complicated,
Speaker 1: and you decided you found, I think, a more compelling
Speaker 1: way to tell the story. But just in general, how
Speaker 1: much of a challenge is it to make this campaign
Speaker 1: finance issue accessible to the general public.
Speaker 4: It's hugely challenging, and I think in part because of
Speaker 4: what you outlined earlier. In other words, we're all cynical about, oh,
Speaker 4: sure there's money in politics, we get it, but.
Speaker 3: We don't really.
Speaker 1: There's that great set line from an old senator ever Dirkson,
Speaker 1: a billionare and a billion there, and eventually you get
Speaker 1: get to real money, right, you know, it was, And
Speaker 1: it feels that way sometimes in campaign finance. Oh he's
Speaker 1: got a billionaire super pack, he's got a billionaire super pac,
Speaker 1: and we all just sort of, you know, roll our eyes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I don't think we really get it in
Speaker 4: terms of where it's got to at this point and
Speaker 4: exactly how it works. And so that's why and I
Speaker 4: had done this, you know, I'd been on this beat
Speaker 4: for a while some years ago. I did a film
Speaker 4: called Casino Jack in the United States of Money, and
Speaker 4: it was about disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who I give
Speaker 4: a sort of tip of the hat.
Speaker 3: To in Ohio potential, but.
Speaker 4: That one was not that did not break through because
Speaker 4: it people are like lobbyists money.
Speaker 3: I'm saying.
Speaker 4: What people need to understand is that we've created a
Speaker 4: system of legalized bribery. And I think most people don't
Speaker 4: really understand. Most people get emotionally the idea of a
Speaker 4: bribe and they're deeply offended by it. So if we
Speaker 4: replace campaign finance with legalized bribery, now we're talking. Now
Speaker 4: we're talking about true crime, and we're talking about the
Speaker 4: real problem, which is a few people getting advantage over
Speaker 4: the rest of us, and they're the ones who are
Speaker 4: insisting that the policies work for them, not us.
Speaker 2: So I want to dig into Ohio confidential. Yeah, I'll
Speaker 2: be honest.
Speaker 1: I look as a political reporter, I was certainly aware
Speaker 1: of what was happening in the Ohio legislature. I was
Speaker 1: looking at it in terms of, oh, this is interesting.
Speaker 1: Is this going to put Ohio a little more competitive?
Speaker 1: Are our voter is going to punish the Ohio you
Speaker 1: know that, I'll be frank. That was the prism with
Speaker 1: which I was looking at at that story at the time,
Speaker 1: and in many ways I didn't I didn't fully appreciate
Speaker 1: the totality of what happened. But the way you presented
Speaker 1: the story of essentially it felt it's it's a You
Speaker 1: almost do it as a as a caper, right, you
Speaker 1: got a lobbyist.
Speaker 3: Paper, it's a it's a it's a true crime thriller.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a true crime story.
Speaker 1: You have a lobbyist, a disgraced politician, and an energy
Speaker 1: company and they get together and they literally take over
Speaker 1: the Ohio state legislature.
Speaker 4: That's right. And and it starts with a death, violent
Speaker 4: death by gunshot, originally possibly murdered, de deemed by the
Speaker 4: police to be suicide. And indeed I kind of envisioned
Speaker 4: that as sort of my there was a nod to
Speaker 4: that movie Sunset Boulevard, where William Holden tells the story
Speaker 4: from the from as he's floating in the pool after
Speaker 4: he's dead, and so Neil Clark, who's the crooked law
Speaker 4: is to kill himself, kind of tells us the story.
Speaker 2: Are you convinced he killed himself.
Speaker 4: He pretty convinced that he killed himself. The telltale sign
Speaker 4: if he you know, maybe the clue is he's wearing
Speaker 4: a Mike Diwine T shirt.
Speaker 1: He wanted to send a message, right, Yes, that was
Speaker 1: that was his suicide.
Speaker 3: Note. That was a clear that was his suicide. Note.
Speaker 4: It's like, don't forget look at Mike Dwines and Malmon
Speaker 4: in this case. Uh and people have nobody's come to
Speaker 4: any illegal conclusion about it.
Speaker 3: But but I think that was the message he was sending.
Speaker 4: But it's you know, suicide is tricky. I say tricky.
Speaker 4: Suicide is tragic and it's mysterious. But at the same time,
Speaker 4: I think he was also clearly trying to send a message.
Speaker 1: I will tell you what, and you tackle this a
Speaker 1: little bit. As much as I wanted to see the
Speaker 1: politician get brought up on charges, as much as I
Speaker 1: wanted to see the lobbyists get brought up on charges,
Speaker 1: it bothered me that only a couple of executives got
Speaker 1: brought up on charges. I just googled this morning. First Energy.
Speaker 1: There's still a there's still a company. I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: sorry when you get caught doing what you're steal. You
Speaker 1: want to steal a billion dollars from Ohio taxpayers, how
Speaker 1: are you still in business?
Speaker 4: Well, the question is why are parts of HB six,
Speaker 4: which was the bill that they essentially bribed to get,
Speaker 4: still in operation.
Speaker 3: Some of it has been dialed.
Speaker 2: They haven't repealed it, right, it's not repeal now.
Speaker 4: And this is I mean, just for for the viewers
Speaker 4: who haven't seen it. I mean, this is the most
Speaker 4: bald faced kind of bribe where executives from First Energy
Speaker 4: dumped sixty six zho million dollars into a slush fund
Speaker 4: for the use by Ohio politician named Larry Householder. He
Speaker 4: uses it first to get to be Speaker of the
Speaker 4: House in the Ohio legry.
Speaker 1: He basically hacked What I would say is he used maga. Okay,
Speaker 1: he used the divide inside the Republican Party in Ohio
Speaker 1: in that period. I'll just paint a political picture, right.
Speaker 1: We've seen this sort of in a lot of Republican parties,
Speaker 1: from the sort of the pre Trump establishment to the
Speaker 1: Trump Maga establishment and Householder, you know, very cleverly. This
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been able to work in many years, but
Speaker 1: it could work here because there's there is this movement
Speaker 1: of new MAGA adherents who want to push out the
Speaker 1: sort of the non MAGA Republicans. So he seemed to
Speaker 1: use MAGA in primaries to primary his way into getting
Speaker 1: the votes he needed to become Speaker. Again, did I
Speaker 1: paint that picture correctly?
Speaker 3: You did?
Speaker 4: But even more than that in the few swing districts
Speaker 4: that there were, and Ohio is an extremely jerry mannered state,
Speaker 4: but in the few swing districts that there were, he
Speaker 4: used massive amounts of money to make sure that his
Speaker 4: GOP candidates got elected. And then they owed him, and
Speaker 4: they owed him big time. And he had a way
Speaker 4: that they could pay him back, and that way was
Speaker 4: to pass this signature bill that was written by First Energy. Okay,
Speaker 4: that was the quid pro quo, and the bill was
Speaker 4: give us a one plus billion dollar subsidy for our
Speaker 4: failing energy company. So from the First Energy executive standpoint,
Speaker 4: it's a good return on investment. You dropped sixty million
Speaker 4: dollars in Larry Householder's lap and you get back one
Speaker 4: point three billion dollars.
Speaker 2: Pretty good video, and you prevent bankruptcy. Yeah, well they
Speaker 2: were literally it was worse.
Speaker 4: It's hard you get to keep your you get to
Speaker 4: keep your you know, your executive salaries. There was another
Speaker 4: scheme too, where they thought they could spin off part
Speaker 4: of the company that would earn them another one hundred
Speaker 4: million dollars. So so it was just literally robbing the state.
Speaker 4: Robbing it was. It was sheriff of Nottingham stuff. It
Speaker 4: was like taking from the poor.
Speaker 3: To give to the rich.
Speaker 4: And at the heart of it was this this quid
Speaker 4: pro quo deal and this dark money organization called Generation Now,
Speaker 4: which initially nobody knew, really knew what it was because
Speaker 4: if you were a five oh one c four, you
Speaker 4: can't penetrate it using all sorts of you know, public inquiries.
Speaker 1: All right, there are a couple of reasons why this
Speaker 1: documentary worked so well.
Speaker 2: They did.
Speaker 1: It felt as much like a movie as a doc, right,
Speaker 1: And that's that's that's your gift. I mean, look, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to continue to blow smoke, but you do
Speaker 1: this better than everybody is always trying to be Alex
Speaker 1: Gibney with their docs. And I say this, you know,
Speaker 1: the people would be would be in better shape if
Speaker 1: they did try to model themselves after But you had
Speaker 1: a few pieces of material that I found to be amazing,
Speaker 1: and I got to ask, it's the FBI wiretaps?
Speaker 2: Was that foyer? Was that government? I mean?
Speaker 1: Or was that just stuff they made public during the
Speaker 1: court cases?
Speaker 2: How did you get all of that material?
Speaker 4: Most of it was stuff that they made public during
Speaker 4: the court cases. I mean in a funny way, you know,
Speaker 4: the moral of the you know, this was a funny
Speaker 4: story to look at in terms of dark money, because
Speaker 4: here's one case where they caught you know, the Purpose,
Speaker 4: and they sent them up.
Speaker 3: The prison't happen very often, but this doesn't happen very often.
Speaker 3: But the intriguing thing is, and the reason.
Speaker 4: We thought this was a good story to tell as
Speaker 4: opposed to the cases where everybody gets way with it
Speaker 4: is you can hear how the Purpose talked about their
Speaker 4: broad because they and and because what happened was the
Speaker 4: FBI was actually looking in to another political corruption case
Speaker 4: involving gambling. And the key character at the heart of
Speaker 4: this tale, a lobbyist named Neil Clark, was on those
Speaker 4: wires and some were body wires, some were phone taps, and.
Speaker 3: Then he started talking about Larry Householder and House Bill six,
Speaker 3: and they were.
Speaker 2: Like, what's this?
Speaker 3: So they literally stumbled into this case.
Speaker 1: They had no I was going to ask that, because
Speaker 1: you don't you don't make that clear, know how of
Speaker 1: what the other case was.
Speaker 2: So it was a gambling corruption case.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and and and and so. But you know that's
Speaker 4: the thing. When you pull a subpoena and and and
Speaker 4: you have an order for a wire tap and you
Speaker 4: stumble on another crime, you're with any rights to then
Speaker 4: pursue it. And then if you want to pursue it further,
Speaker 4: of course, you have to you know, file other requests
Speaker 4: for wire tabs and body wires they had. They had
Speaker 4: a group of you know, guys posing as businessmen body
Speaker 4: wires and going out.
Speaker 1: It was a little ab scamish to me. I was,
Speaker 1: I was how active the FBI was in this?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they were going out to dinner with Neil
Speaker 4: Clark and Larry Householder and and it was amazing how
Speaker 4: candid they were about the scam that they were pulling off.
Speaker 4: And what first energy was, well, Alex.
Speaker 1: Can me make a I don't know if I want
Speaker 1: to call this a confession, but do you know how
Speaker 1: often I've heard that conversation when I've gotten just a
Speaker 1: basic briefing from a super pack that is in charge
Speaker 1: of of Republican house races or super pac in charge
Speaker 1: of Democratic house races, where they'll just casually say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we're able to use this money in our
Speaker 1: five oh one C four that does this, and you know,
Speaker 1: so way of this what's interesting.
Speaker 2: And it was just such.
Speaker 1: A reminder how you can be captured by your beat sometimes, okay,
Speaker 1: and and and look, this is why I love Jane Mayer,
Speaker 1: who's who's also I noticed an executive producer on this
Speaker 1: terrific report at The New Yorker who's really sort of
Speaker 1: been a been been on this beat better than be
Speaker 1: better than any of my colleagues on this. But I
Speaker 1: realized how warped my own brain had become about money
Speaker 1: and politics as I was hearing those wiretap conversations about
Speaker 1: oh you put them in a C four and it's
Speaker 1: not disclosed and all of this stuff, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is just how business is done in
Speaker 1: Washington this century. And then I realized that, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is our problem, right, We're we're this.
Speaker 4: Way we accepted, but the you know, the in some
Speaker 4: of the rulings, and then the biggest ruling of all
Speaker 4: by the Supreme Court was of course the Citizens United decision.
Speaker 4: But in some of these rulings the intent was, Okay,
Speaker 4: we're going to allow unlimited amounts of money to enter
Speaker 4: the political process by corporations and to some extent, unions.
Speaker 4: But the deal is, we are concerned about We're concerned
Speaker 4: that sounds like Susan Collins. We're concerned about corruption. So
Speaker 4: so we're going to insist that you can't give money
Speaker 4: directly to a candidate. You have to give it to
Speaker 4: an independent organization, a super pack or sometimes a five
Speaker 4: oh one c four even better, because you a super pack,
Speaker 4: you have to disclose where the money comes, and they
Speaker 4: are not supposed to have any contact with each other. Well,
Speaker 4: you know, ridiculous. Of course they have contact.
Speaker 3: With each other.
Speaker 4: It reminds me it's sort of like recently, you know
Speaker 4: this one hundred this sorry million dollar a person candlelight
Speaker 4: dinner at mar A Lago, you know, for a super
Speaker 4: pack called maga Inc. Right, And by law, maga Ink
Speaker 4: can't coordinate with Trump's campaign organization. So invitations say that
Speaker 4: Trump is a guest speaker. Well, is there any illusion
Speaker 4: amongst us here or in the country that there's.
Speaker 1: Alex do you know Rond de Santis ran an entire
Speaker 1: campaign where every campaign stop in Iowa that he held,
Speaker 1: he was a guest his super packed. It was hey, come,
Speaker 1: you know, come, come to whatever they called their super
Speaker 1: pac guy. You know, I concerned Iowan's for the future
Speaker 1: with special guest speaker Ronda Santis.
Speaker 3: You know that's right.
Speaker 2: So that's how he funded his campaign.
Speaker 4: This goes on in every state of the Union. And
Speaker 4: the beauty of Ohio Confidential is you actually get to
Speaker 4: hear and see how it works. Because these guys were
Speaker 4: chuckling to each other over you know, four or five
Speaker 4: martinis that.
Speaker 3: The Citizens United is so great because now Brad legal wow.
Speaker 4: And and so that was the aspect of it I
Speaker 4: found intriguing because while they did get caught and most
Speaker 4: people don't, we can assume, you know, if you find uh,
Speaker 4: if you find a rat in your house, you got
Speaker 4: to assume it's not the only one.
Speaker 3: We can assume.
Speaker 4: These conversations, as you just said about Ron DeSantis, are
Speaker 4: going on in every state in the Union, and it's
Speaker 4: just bribery. It's quid pro quo, it's pay to play,
Speaker 4: and that's what we have to call out because I think,
Speaker 4: you know, people I think are starting to get worked
Speaker 4: up about it, you know, in you know, in Wisconsin,
Speaker 4: the idea that the Supreme Court judge got through despite
Speaker 4: the amount of money that Musk spent, because people are
Speaker 4: offended at the idea that you can just buy elections.
Speaker 4: But this idea of money in politics, we've become too
Speaker 4: cynical about it without really thinking that this is a system.
Speaker 3: A bride that we have the stuff.
Speaker 1: Look, you do a good job in the piece of noting. Look,
Speaker 1: you may be featuring a republic a set of Republican
Speaker 1: corrupt officials here, but this is not as if. And
Speaker 1: this is the problem, right, is that I'll hear from
Speaker 1: I'll hear from those that feel guilty about taking dark money.
Speaker 1: But they'll say, well, we have to be competitive.
Speaker 2: We can't.
Speaker 1: We can't have one arm tied behind our back against
Speaker 1: our opponent. We you know, and look, the fact is,
Speaker 1: we can rationalize our way to a kleptocracy if we
Speaker 1: keep doing it this way, which, frankly, I think we're
Speaker 1: in the early stages of kleptocracy if you if.
Speaker 4: You study this as a I'm not sure how early
Speaker 4: we are. I mean, yeah, wel fair, Well, we're full
Speaker 4: on crony capitalism. Now, when when you have a mean
Speaker 4: coin that's introduced, you know, right after the presidential election,
Speaker 4: you know, and cryptocurrency is flowing to the president of
Speaker 4: the United States.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think we're there.
Speaker 4: And I do point out in the film, you know,
Speaker 4: most the centers on this Ohio corruption case.
Speaker 3: But I do point out in the film that, for example,
Speaker 3: in the you know, in the.
Speaker 4: I call out the example of Riet Hoffman, who started LinkedIn,
Speaker 4: who gave or or was inclined to give Kamala Harris
Speaker 4: seven million dollars, but he wanted something in return.
Speaker 3: He wanted her to fire Lena Khan at the FTC.
Speaker 4: So that's where you get to that weird place where, oh,
Speaker 4: is that a quid pro quo or is he just
Speaker 4: suggesting that it might be a good idea, you know,
Speaker 4: for her to fire Lena Khan and in exchange, well
Speaker 4: let's not call it an exchange, and then surprise, surprise,
Speaker 4: I give you seven million dollars.
Speaker 1: But let me let me introduce an uncomfortable fact about
Speaker 1: this scandal. Nobody lost their reelection over it.
Speaker 3: Larry Householder was re elected. I mean, but I think
Speaker 3: that goes to.
Speaker 1: Is a jury convicted him, right, and he gets re
Speaker 1: elected anyway, well million dollar.
Speaker 4: As president of the United States, Okay, and he was convicted.
Speaker 3: He's a felon. So so yeah, there's that.
Speaker 4: And obviously we've entered a world where we have such
Speaker 4: a tribal political system that it is very difficult to
Speaker 4: persuade people that, you know, they should do other than
Speaker 4: vote for their tribe, however they define the tribe to be.
Speaker 4: But I also think in Ohio the problem was compounded
Speaker 4: by this system of gerrymandering, which resulted in super majority
Speaker 4: rules rule, so that you know, Larry Householder came from
Speaker 4: the district that was so so read that there was
Speaker 4: never going to be somebody who was going to you know,
Speaker 4: particularly on short notice. You know, they just they'd elect
Speaker 4: a you know, a dead cat before they'd elected a Democrat.
Speaker 1: But he could even be hit in a primary. And
Speaker 1: you know what this also, I'm sitting here as sort
Speaker 1: of like peeing and a hurricane as a journalist, right
Speaker 1: which is if we wonder why journalists have so little
Speaker 1: impact on the converce on accountability right now, well, literally
Speaker 1: they're just buying their own coverage. Right, it's so ubiquitous,
Speaker 1: the amount of money that that's being put in. And frankly,
Speaker 1: let's be honest, it's these are state house races, which
Speaker 1: if we don't have good community local information ecosystems, which
Speaker 1: we don't right now, there is no Literally, trees are
Speaker 1: falling in little state house district forests and nobody's there
Speaker 1: to tell you they fell except for the super pac
Speaker 1: who is able to put all this money in, and
Speaker 1: they're the ones informing that public about this or that
Speaker 1: there's there. They're you know, I'm going to guess that
Speaker 1: some Ohioans are going to see this and go I
Speaker 1: had no idea.
Speaker 4: I think they are. I think they are. I hope
Speaker 4: they do, because they should be. They should be ripper
Speaker 4: at what's going on in their state and not just
Speaker 4: at the passage of this bill. The justice astounding to
Speaker 4: me was how the Householder team Team Householder or generation now,
Speaker 4: how they muscled the repeal effort because in Ohio you
Speaker 4: can mount you know, you can repeal laws by popular
Speaker 4: vote effectively.
Speaker 1: Right, this is why they have abortion rights in Ohio. Correct,
Speaker 1: I mean because the voter said, voters took over.
Speaker 4: Because the voters finally took over. Well, in this case,
Speaker 4: they were mounting a campaign to repeal House Bill six secretly,
Speaker 4: and we had a whistleblower who's amazing. I mean, to
Speaker 4: the caper, you get the crime play because you the
Speaker 4: whistleblower who's talking about here's his best friend. He realizes
Speaker 4: his best friend is trying to get him to do
Speaker 4: something super unethical. He first turns him down, then he
Speaker 4: gets uncomfortable. He goes to the FBI.
Speaker 3: They say, go.
Speaker 4: Back and nowtray his own friend for the good of
Speaker 4: the state, which he does.
Speaker 3: He wears a.
Speaker 4: Wire and ultimately reveals that and this guy, the whistleblower,
Speaker 4: his name's Tyler Furman, who's working for an organization that's
Speaker 4: trying to drum up signatures against House Bills six. But
Speaker 4: he learns from his old pal, who was ultimately convicted,
Speaker 4: Matt Borgeous, that they're literally paying canvassers to leave the
Speaker 4: state so that or they buy up all the canvassing
Speaker 4: companies so that there's no ability to canvas. You know,
Speaker 4: there's one tape recording where the guy says, well, you've
Speaker 4: just given me I can't remember. It's like, you know,
Speaker 4: thirty five hundred dollars was on a ticket home.
Speaker 3: What do you want me to do? He said, that's
Speaker 3: the service you're providing. You're going home.
Speaker 1: This signature business I saw, I got a story and
Speaker 1: I and it was a tip, but I only had it.
Speaker 1: It's like one part of it. But there was an
Speaker 1: initiative fight in Florida. Basically it was between the casino
Speaker 1: the sports books who want to run mobile gambling in
Speaker 1: Florida versus the tribes who want to run mobile gambling
Speaker 1: in Florida. So they had these they were doing competing
Speaker 1: initiatives and they were and literally there was a signature broker, okay,
Speaker 1: who said, I got half a million signatures. They cost
Speaker 1: a certain amount of money if you want the signatures,
Speaker 1: and then they cost a certain amount of money if
Speaker 1: you want the signatures to be disappeared. And this is
Speaker 1: what I was told by this one political consultant, is
Speaker 1: that this is a more regular practice that in the
Speaker 1: petition gathering world.
Speaker 2: This is more of.
Speaker 1: A more of a common practice than you might believe.
Speaker 1: That these essentially petitioned signature brokers, you know, the people
Speaker 1: that you pay to go collect these things. And it's
Speaker 1: you know, there's a handful of states that do this
Speaker 1: more often than others. California Florida are two big ones. Colorado,
Speaker 1: Washington State and Ohio. You know Ohio in various ways
Speaker 1: it is. It was one of those You're like, I
Speaker 1: rarely shocked anymore, but even that one shocked me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I agree with you.
Speaker 4: And that's why people's hair better be on fire, because
Speaker 4: this is what happens. This is what money in politics means.
Speaker 4: It's like, it's like crime families paying off the cops.
Speaker 3: That's what it's like.
Speaker 4: It's not just you know, money in politics, it's it's
Speaker 4: graph it's corruption.
Speaker 1: It's no, you're describing this is how. This is how
Speaker 1: the the Tammany Hall worked. Yeah, okay, these but the
Speaker 1: political machine.
Speaker 2: That's how they worked.
Speaker 1: We got rid of them, and in fact, we got
Speaker 1: rid of the last two in the last few years.
Speaker 1: There was one remaining machine in Illinois, and that state
Speaker 1: speaker finally has been put on a corruption trial. The
Speaker 1: guy's been sort of the head of that machine forever.
Speaker 1: And they finally got rid of New Jersey's machines where
Speaker 1: where you got to control ballot access. And literally here
Speaker 1: we were the twenty first century and literally some county
Speaker 1: hack if they were connected to the right machine, could
Speaker 1: decide who got on the ballot and who was on
Speaker 1: the ballot, but about seventeen spaces down the slate so
Speaker 1: they could make sure.
Speaker 3: I get the copyright notice. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, the current senator there, Andy Kim, who replaced Bob Menendez.
Speaker 1: Andy Kim never could have gotten elected Senator from New
Speaker 1: Jersey under any other period until they finally got rid
Speaker 1: of this corrupt practice in the last year in New
Speaker 1: Jersey because of the way. He's not an establishment guy.
Speaker 1: He wasn't with any of the machines, And it's a
Speaker 1: I it is frustrating to me that generally the public
Speaker 1: is cynical about politics. They assume they're all corrupt, but
Speaker 1: specifically they actually don't realize where the real corruption is
Speaker 1: versus the ones that are not that corrupt.
Speaker 4: Right, and the fact that they're the ones who are
Speaker 4: you know, money's being taken right out of their pocket.
Speaker 4: So it's I think there's a tendency real I think
Speaker 4: those politicians or I know that the government as if
Speaker 4: the government is not us, but these folks are. I mean,
Speaker 4: in the case of Ohio, they literally took a billion
Speaker 4: dollars out of the pockets of Ohioans.
Speaker 3: To give it to a you know, a handful of executives,
Speaker 3: or to give it to a company.
Speaker 4: But they wrote that that that message to each other
Speaker 4: put their heads on Mount Rushmore.
Speaker 2: That was something else there.
Speaker 3: They know what the.
Speaker 4: Standards and practices are on this show. But basically screw
Speaker 4: anybody that ain't us is what they said.
Speaker 3: They didn't use.
Speaker 2: That's all right.
Speaker 1: If I if I can put the E for explicit
Speaker 1: on the on the podcast, I think it helps the
Speaker 1: helps the Doblenes.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But let's go back to the fact that what
Speaker 1: did I didn't see any candidates in twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: run on this, and they should have run on this.
Speaker 1: I didn't see candidates in twenty twenty four o high
Speaker 1: run on this, and we've had some really high profile
Speaker 1: Senate races, really high profile fights. It's it, and this
Speaker 1: is why I think so many politicians are afraid of
Speaker 1: running on the campaign finance issue.
Speaker 4: They're afraid of it because they need to raise money
Speaker 4: and and so what do you do, Like, if you
Speaker 4: need to beat your opponent in the primary, you're going
Speaker 4: to need money, and you don't get money by telling
Speaker 4: your big donors that you're trying to sideline them, right, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, what donor is there?
Speaker 1: I think Warren Buffet's about the only billionaire that I
Speaker 1: feel like has some ethical code. I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: I'm being a little a little little facetious.
Speaker 3: Here, but let's just say at times he does.
Speaker 1: Yes, No, that's exactly. That's the point, right. A billionaire
Speaker 1: doesn't become a billionaire because they're because they're they look
Speaker 1: the other They don't look the other way every once in.
Speaker 3: All figuring out how to cure polio, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean I don't believe there's such thing
Speaker 1: as a good billionaire supporter in politics and a bad
Speaker 1: billionaire support in politics. And I know that some wealthy
Speaker 1: people might not like hearing me say that. I might
Speaker 1: hurt my ability to you know, find investment down the road, right,
Speaker 1: and you need investors to help you, right, like you know,
Speaker 1: it's this is the the trap we're all end.
Speaker 2: Sometimes all of us have got to get.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, if you're a billionaire, you made
Speaker 4: a lot of money through your business, you know, God bless,
Speaker 4: but that doesn't mean that you get to define the
Speaker 4: world for the rest of us.
Speaker 3: You know who was it told me, I believe this
Speaker 3: is the correct statistic.
Speaker 4: The three riches richest Americans, which would be I believe Bezos,
Speaker 4: Musk and I think Zuckerberg.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they have.
Speaker 4: A higher net worth in the bottom fifty percent of
Speaker 4: all Americans.
Speaker 1: Right, No, we are we are the guilded age. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you feel like we're just rerunning the guilded age?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: And and but you can see the rumble. People are
Speaker 4: getting angry. It my you know, I'm talking to you
Speaker 4: from Maine, and Maine's got a pretty robust set of
Speaker 4: rules about you know, against money.
Speaker 1: In always has on state political level. Main has always
Speaker 1: been a little bit. Yeah, they've been they have public financing,
Speaker 1: I believe, right.
Speaker 3: And and I think that.
Speaker 4: Uh, you know, you're beginning that what happened was Wisconsin
Speaker 4: was a kind of emotional pushback. But I also think
Speaker 4: that it's interesting this campaign that AOC and Bernie Sanders
Speaker 4: are running, sometimes in liberal districts, sometimes in red districts.
Speaker 4: They are turning about some pretty big crowds.
Speaker 3: And I think.
Speaker 4: The the anger that that they're invoking, the channeling, is
Speaker 4: the anger toward a ri e sistem where whether you're
Speaker 4: Democrat or Republican, it's the rich people who are calling
Speaker 4: the shots, and we're getting policies that benefit them, not
Speaker 4: the rest of us.
Speaker 1: Now, And it's funny. I think that's the way in
Speaker 1: to make this bipartisan. I think there are some true
Speaker 1: believers on the right about feeling that it that that
Speaker 1: it was big corporations that got rid of their you know,
Speaker 1: that that gutted their towns.
Speaker 2: Was one, right, and at some point, I mean I
Speaker 2: saw it in Montana.
Speaker 1: There was a by artists and effort in Montana to
Speaker 1: try to at least push back on dark money.
Speaker 2: You saw that.
Speaker 1: But they also have a it's a little bit ingrained
Speaker 1: in their history, right, they push back at the Copper
Speaker 1: Kings back in the day, like it is, and in
Speaker 1: some I think Wisconsin has the Leaflette history, right, the
Speaker 1: progressive movement in many ways, so there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of that. But you go my home state of Florida,
Speaker 1: Ohio's always had a frankly, you know, they've had political machines. Illinois, Right,
Speaker 1: there's certain states where it feels like it's always been
Speaker 1: even freer and easier.
Speaker 3: Right, I think that's right.
Speaker 4: I mean, but you know, one of the things that
Speaker 4: tried to point out in Ohio Confidential, though, is that
Speaker 4: as you talk about money and politics, it's also true
Speaker 4: that for most people, nobody likes to bribe right right.
Speaker 3: They feel it's unfair, it's wrong.
Speaker 4: You know, you see it in crime films, and you
Speaker 4: know you wish them ill.
Speaker 1: We've done a lot on Ohio Confidential. The second By
Speaker 1: the way, how do you describe this series?
Speaker 2: Is this?
Speaker 3: Because it's not. It's two films.
Speaker 4: It started out as one film and then we just
Speaker 4: got too much material. I mean, we got into the
Speaker 4: Ohio story was so good. Yeah. Also we discovered this guy,
Speaker 4: the Reverend Bob Shank, who had kind of infiltrated the
Speaker 4: Supreme Court. So suddenly the film that was going to
Speaker 4: be one just split into two. And but they're not
Speaker 4: you know, they're not episodic in the way that one
Speaker 4: leads to another. So there are two films that are related.
Speaker 4: There are two independents that are related by a common theme.
Speaker 1: So the second film, you you explore the sort of
Speaker 1: this to you borrow a phrase, an unholy alliance, if
Speaker 1: you will, right of sorts. But you know, you know,
Speaker 1: it's always funny to me. I've always thought that, you know,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and Jimmy Swaggert have a lot in common,
Speaker 1: right that the sort of the the call it the
Speaker 1: prosper now now it's called prosperity gospel.
Speaker 2: If you will.
Speaker 1: But you explore this world of sort of how even
Speaker 1: some of these evangelical grifters, because I think they're the
Speaker 1: true believers and then they're they're grifters. And you attacked
Speaker 1: this a little bit, but how sort of the grifter
Speaker 1: wing of the evangelical movement became fused with the money people,
Speaker 1: essentially for the corrupt bargain on the judiciary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that I mean, you know, you had evangelical
Speaker 3: Christians who were fiercely anti abortion, but they weren't getting over.
Speaker 3: They needed money. You had people with money.
Speaker 4: Who wanted to deregulate the American political system because they
Speaker 4: didn't want things like laws that regulated the amount of
Speaker 4: pollution that they could dump into rivers and lakes and
Speaker 4: and and any regulations on cigarettes or or anything like that.
Speaker 3: But those.
Speaker 4: Causes weren't very popular, you know. So so the deal
Speaker 4: was basically, we'll put up the money. We the billionaires
Speaker 4: will put up the money, and you'll give us the
Speaker 4: emotional fervor that we need for a political campaign, will
Speaker 4: help to fund the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and
Speaker 4: you'll help to turn the evangelical movement into a deregulatory
Speaker 4: movement so that we can you know, destroy all the
Speaker 4: laws that protect the citizens, you know, and and enrich us.
Speaker 1: Look, it was a clever it's clever messaging. Right, government's
Speaker 1: trying to get involved in your religious practice, and government
Speaker 1: gets involved in business, so we should be allies.
Speaker 3: We should be free, right, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: And liberty religious liberty a phrase that it was sort
Speaker 1: of frankly a political phrase that you've been used and
Speaker 1: weaponized politically.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well you can you can see how religions being
Speaker 4: weaponized now as we see what's happening with anti Semitism,
Speaker 4: you know, and and how it's basically trying to be
Speaker 4: used to destroy something called habeas corpus, which is the
Speaker 4: very foundation of the rule of law. But I also
Speaker 4: think that the other you know, there's an interesting character
Speaker 4: in the film, this guy, Reverend Bob Shank, who's an
Speaker 4: evangelical minister, and he was a very radical anti abortion
Speaker 4: activist who was literally you know, carrying fetuses.
Speaker 1: To Yeah, it looked like he was part of the
Speaker 1: Randall Terry world that operation.
Speaker 4: Yea, he definitely was close to that. But anyway, they
Speaker 4: want to infiltrate the Supreme Court ultimately.
Speaker 3: And so he has that phrase the wealth of the
Speaker 3: wicked is.
Speaker 4: Laid up for the righteous, and he says, we'll baptize
Speaker 4: the billionaire's money.
Speaker 3: We can do that.
Speaker 4: You know, it sort of reminds you of the indulgences
Speaker 4: of the Catholic Church from way back in the day.
Speaker 4: So this weird corruption of religion because you know, Evangelical
Speaker 4: Christians end up supporting somebody like Donald Trump, who you
Speaker 4: know is would otherwise be anathema to everything that evangelical
Speaker 4: Christians engaged. But he is the sinner that's going to
Speaker 4: take them to the Promised Land. But they become corrupt
Speaker 4: and in the meantime, the billionaires become sanctified. So it
Speaker 4: was a good deal and it ended up in you
Speaker 4: know what, our contention of the argument in the film
Speaker 4: is that it ends up effectively corrupting the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: Have you thought about the fact that right now it
Speaker 1: feels like the that we have such a devotion in
Speaker 1: our society to mind right now, Right, you look at
Speaker 1: college sports and high school sports. You look at frankly,
Speaker 1: the world that I'm venturing into. I think it's independent media,
Speaker 1: but some people call it an influencer game, right, which
Speaker 1: is also about, Hey, I'm going to go get mine.
Speaker 2: Everybody wants to get theirs. And I had a student.
Speaker 1: I was giving a lecture this past week at the
Speaker 1: University of Arkansas Journalism School and one of the students
Speaker 1: came up to me and he said, Hey, I'm majoring
Speaker 1: in accounting but minoring and political science, but I really
Speaker 1: want to get involved in politics. But I thought, well,
Speaker 1: money drives everything, so I better understand how money works
Speaker 1: in order to be in politics. And I was I
Speaker 1: put my head in my hands and went like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, this kid is right, but I wish he wasn't.
Speaker 1: We do seem to be consumed with money these days
Speaker 1: as a society, like it's driving everything because I think
Speaker 1: we ultimately believe, well, the only way, the only way
Speaker 1: we can have a we can control our lives, as
Speaker 1: if we have enough money to control it, like that's
Speaker 1: become the only the And you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: if this takes leadership what it takes. I don't know
Speaker 1: why we're here, but we're at a moment. And I
Speaker 1: think it's why we're numb to politics and money in politics,
Speaker 1: because we think money is driving everything else.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's I mean, in a way, it's
Speaker 4: worse than that, though. I think we're we're seeing a
Speaker 4: reckoning now. You know, money is the one way you
Speaker 4: can avoid reckoning with ethical issues, you know your way
Speaker 4: out of it. We love to clean up the river
Speaker 4: that we've been polluting for the last twenty years, but
Speaker 4: you know, I have a fiduciary responsibility to my shareholders. Right.
Speaker 4: But okay, let's look what's happening recently as Donald Trump
Speaker 4: has been going after the big law firms, and some
Speaker 4: have been resisting for the very best ethical reasons relating
Speaker 4: fundamentally to the rule of law and the independence of
Speaker 4: the judiciary.
Speaker 2: But of course Amendment right to counsel, you know, things
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 4: All that, you know, the fundamental rights of the rule
Speaker 4: of law. You know that in theory, every everyone's equal
Speaker 4: under the law. That's what That's what it says on
Speaker 4: the front, you know, at the front of the Supreme Court.
Speaker 4: But but they cave and they diminished themselves massively because
Speaker 4: of the money. It's like, well, we have a fiduciary
Speaker 4: responsibility of the firm.
Speaker 1: Well, screw well that whole Paul when Paul Weiss is
Speaker 1: managing partner, put out that statement saying, we were trying
Speaker 1: to see if we had any allies and instead they
Speaker 1: were poaching our clients. Right and and by the way,
Speaker 1: so everybody individually rationalizes why they're cutting a deal, Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's the best. I'm trying to save the jobs here,
Speaker 1: or I'm trying to so you know, you you're you're
Speaker 1: trying to you know, be able to tell yourself a story.
Speaker 1: I guess to hope that you know, it makes you
Speaker 1: feel better with what you're doing. And instead, you know,
Speaker 1: we're all living that. There's a great children's book out
Speaker 1: there called If You Give a Mouse a cookie, right,
Speaker 1: and you know, and it keeps going and they're finding
Speaker 1: out if you capitulate a little, he's going to keep
Speaker 1: asking for more.
Speaker 3: That's right. Well that's what Columbia found out.
Speaker 4: To switch from you know, law firms to universities found
Speaker 4: that out right quick.
Speaker 1: You know, look, I don't think traditional media companies have
Speaker 1: done a pretty good job of standing up for a at.
Speaker 3: All struggling lawsuits.
Speaker 4: It's it's terrible, sah, just because they want to pursue
Speaker 4: a merger or other financial interests.
Speaker 3: You know. But at some point, you know.
Speaker 4: We all have to realize that we're citizens of a
Speaker 4: country that's supposed to stand for something, and unless we
Speaker 4: stand for it's not gonna be here anymore. Because that
Speaker 4: is just about the money. It's just about the money.
Speaker 4: Then we're a mob state, you know, we're all capone
Speaker 4: in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Which before I let you go, I just want to
Speaker 1: spend a few minutes with tips for young documentarians because
Speaker 1: I just think there's nobody like you. You know, there's
Speaker 1: the fact like you've got they're they're you're you're both prolific.
Speaker 1: But I do feel like there's always something different about
Speaker 1: your docs right there.
Speaker 2: You you you.
Speaker 1: Try to make them not just talking heads, you know, trading,
Speaker 1: trading sound bite. It's nothing wrong with that, right that's
Speaker 1: that was a style for a while.
Speaker 2: And you don't have a lot of funding.
Speaker 1: But you seem to always let me ask this, will
Speaker 1: you only end up doing a doc if you can
Speaker 1: find a character that will help drive the narrative I mean,
Speaker 1: is there what what is the secret sauce in your
Speaker 1: head of how you can take a story and turn
Speaker 1: it into an Alex Gibney di coumentary.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I do think it's about the story.
Speaker 3: You know. I remember talking with Bethany McLain.
Speaker 4: Who was the co author of Smartest Guys in the Room,
Speaker 4: when we were doing the Enron doc and we're going
Speaker 4: on the PR tour and the joke, which I mean
Speaker 4: wasn't a joke, but the line that we would use
Speaker 4: every step of the way was it wasn't about the numbers.
Speaker 4: It was about the people. What made that story interesting
Speaker 4: were the characters. And you know, there were a lot
Speaker 4: of issues that may be good and very important as issues,
Speaker 4: but may not lend themselves to a story. So first
Speaker 4: thing is is there a good story? And then how
Speaker 4: do you tell that story in a way that is
Speaker 4: compelling to somebody who doesn't care.
Speaker 3: At all about the issue? Right? That's really the trick.
Speaker 2: That's your north star. You're thinking, how do I make this?
Speaker 1: Can I make it interesting for somebody that doesn't think
Speaker 1: that they would want to watch this?
Speaker 4: And I have no apologies about the idea that I
Speaker 4: think Ohio Confidentelism movie, you know that too. I think
Speaker 4: his patterned after Sunset Boulevard. You know, it's it's it's
Speaker 4: you know, Michael Imperioli plays the character of Neil Clark.
Speaker 3: So you know, I think it's.
Speaker 4: Because because you've got a lot of you know, for
Speaker 4: people at home, they've got a lot of choices, like
Speaker 4: they can fire up, you know, whatever movie it is
Speaker 4: that they want to see, or they can look at
Speaker 4: a doc and and in a way, that's your competition.
Speaker 3: But it's also a compelling reason to tell a story.
Speaker 3: I mean, the best non fiction books.
Speaker 4: Read as compellingly as a novel because they pay attention to.
Speaker 3: Character and plot and narraive momentum.
Speaker 2: By the way, I hope you read.
Speaker 1: My friend Brody Mullins and his brother Luke Mullins wrote
Speaker 1: something called The Wolves of k Street. It is one
Speaker 1: of the most compelling narratives about the history of lobbying.
Speaker 1: And you know, they have this great story and you
Speaker 1: know there's so many of it. I know you've been
Speaker 1: down the lobbying road before.
Speaker 2: No it is it is one.
Speaker 1: Because you know they've come to the conclusion that you know,
Speaker 1: the lobbying industry now in Washington works this way. Used
Speaker 1: to be it was corporations versus the people. Now it's
Speaker 1: corporations versus other corporations. Essentially, the people are not involved.
Speaker 1: Different corporations right, are irrelevant. They're all fighting over getting
Speaker 1: a law that will help their business and put their
Speaker 1: competitor out of business. Like there's no longer about whether
Speaker 1: the citizens think it's a good idea or not. But
Speaker 1: they wrote it like a you know, same thing. They
Speaker 1: start with a murder, they start with a death right.
Speaker 1: It was just it does strike me that if you
Speaker 1: don't have a character, it is sometimes hard to tell
Speaker 1: these stories.
Speaker 4: I agree, Yeah, it's the story that matters, and that's
Speaker 4: how we learn. We learn with stories, you know, that's
Speaker 4: how we retain information.
Speaker 1: What topic do you want to tackle next or are
Speaker 1: you tackling in the moment?
Speaker 3: Well, believe it or not.
Speaker 4: For the last two years, prior to the election, I
Speaker 4: was working on a documentary on Elon Musk, and so
Speaker 4: now that is my brief has been expanded. It will
Speaker 4: get longer, and I'm continuing to work.
Speaker 1: On Well you want to talk about compelling. I joke
Speaker 1: about Elon Musk if he were a Bond villain. You
Speaker 1: wouldn't even change the name.
Speaker 2: No, think it sounds like what you'd come up with.
Speaker 2: I mean, he is somebody.
Speaker 1: The truth is stranger than anything you could come up
Speaker 1: with with. I mean that Wall Street. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you saw that Turtle store.
Speaker 2: Yeah that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the compound, that is something else. Well I'll just
Speaker 1: give me yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3: The Legion, the Legion of Children, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I mean sorry, we're all having boys
Speaker 1: from Brazil flashbacks, remember anyway, Jesus. All right, Alex, appreciate
Speaker 1: the time the Dark Money game. It's two great feature films,
Speaker 1: and that's what they are, feature films. That kudos to HBO.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people wondered if HBO was
Speaker 1: still going to be in this game. It's good to
Speaker 1: see that they're still in this game.
Speaker 3: Oh God bless HBO.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I I they they I appreciate that they
Speaker 1: still care about this stuff, so it's good for them.
Speaker 2: I'm good for you, Thank you, sir.
Speaker 3: Thanks Chuck.
Speaker 1: Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Alex, and honestly,
Speaker 1: i'd love Look, I've gave you my plan.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: Uh you know let's let's Nascar up the candidates. Were
Speaker 1: your donors on your suits? Wear your donors on your website?
Speaker 1: Where are your donors in your political TV ads? But
Speaker 1: what would you like to say? I'd love dc you
Speaker 1: share your thoughts on this, Give me a few ideas,
Speaker 1: pounce them off the next the next couple of episodes,
Speaker 1: I will gather together the most intriguing ones and share
Speaker 1: them with everybody else. So as you as you ponder this,
Speaker 1: as you watch these Alex Gibney.
Speaker 2: Feature length docs.
Speaker 1: On on Dark Money, I wonder after if you come
Speaker 1: up with a different idea than maybe what you had
Speaker 1: going in. So share me your thoughts there, throw it
Speaker 1: in the YouTube comment section. Send me an email at
Speaker 1: Aschuk at dchucktodcast dot com, which of course brings me to.
Speaker 2: Some ass Chuck. Ask Chuck. All right, I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: do one question.
Speaker 1: I've had a put up a lot a lot for
Speaker 1: you guys this week, so I don't want to overload you,
Speaker 1: but it's a good question.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a long one, and I think it
Speaker 2: kind of fits.
Speaker 1: This one comes from Jim in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and Jim
Speaker 1: Wright's congratulations on the move I look forward to hearing
Speaker 1: your points in interviews from an independent viewpoint. In an
Speaker 1: episode late last summer or early fall, you had mentioned
Speaker 1: that even if voters have to choose between the two
Speaker 1: presidential candidates, they have their opportunity to choose their candidates
Speaker 1: through the primary. Living in Wisconsin, I've never voted in
Speaker 1: a meaningful presidential primary. Wisconsin's presidential primaries well after Super Tuesday,
Speaker 1: and the election slate is set before I have a
Speaker 1: chance to make my decision. Sure, Wisconsin is always a
Speaker 1: swing state that helps determine the general election, but it
Speaker 1: usually feels like the choices shrimp or scallops, and I'm
Speaker 1: allergic to shellfish. I like that neither are a good option.
Speaker 1: How could voters in states with later primaries feel involved
Speaker 1: in selecting the presidential candidates when the final candidates are
Speaker 1: picked in late February or early March. Well, Jim, look,
Speaker 1: there are so many ways I'd love to fix the
Speaker 1: presidential primary calendar. And there have been a ton of
Speaker 1: people who have been on this. There's some long time
Speaker 1: former secretaries of states in particularly in Maryland and Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: have been We're on this forever. They were desperate to
Speaker 1: create a regional system where basically every four years, you know,
Speaker 1: we would rotate which region went first, you know sort of,
Speaker 1: and you would have sort of March would be, you know,
Speaker 1: the East, and April would be the Midwest, and May
Speaker 1: would be the South, and June would be the Pacific
Speaker 1: West or something like that, and you'd rotate it around,
Speaker 1: you know, you'd give it every and so that every
Speaker 1: twenty years, one region. And by the way you start,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a very simple I'm a big advocate
Speaker 1: of the small states going first, right, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: but you know there are small states in every region.
Speaker 1: So you know, Iowa is great to have as a starter.
Speaker 1: In the Midwest, they could rotate with Kansas or Nebraska.
Speaker 1: But in the mid Atlantic, maybe you want Delaware to
Speaker 1: be the first one. Why do I think small states
Speaker 1: are good to have this as the starting process because
Speaker 1: it makes it sort of levels the playing field. Right,
Speaker 1: there's a whole there's a whole episode about money in politics. Say,
Speaker 1: if we started with California, only the biggest donor biggest
Speaker 1: money candidates would be able to go. Whether you started
Speaker 1: with New York or Florida or Michigan, right, any of
Speaker 1: the big states suddenly that favors the big money candidates
Speaker 1: a small state. You know, there's the grass there's the grassroots.
Speaker 1: But what we need is a rotation, right. You know,
Speaker 1: I think people were tired of Iowa going first. People
Speaker 1: were tired of New Hampshire. Why did these two states
Speaker 1: get to pick it? You know, why why can't there
Speaker 1: be other states in the early in the process.
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 1: And for me, you know, look, I think there's there
Speaker 1: certainly should be a logic to this. But here's the problem. Right,
Speaker 1: these rules are usually set by by the previous winners,
Speaker 1: and who, however a president wins, is usually how they
Speaker 1: want to design the primary calendar. Look no further than
Speaker 1: what Joe Biden did. So he didn't win Iowa and
Speaker 1: he didn't win New Hampshire. So what did Joe Biden do?
Speaker 1: We wanted to make South Carolina the first in the
Speaker 1: nation primary? Right now, we never really had a competitive
Speaker 1: Democratic primary this last cycle. We now we know, we
Speaker 1: know why we probably should have. But that's that's a
Speaker 1: debate for another era. So you're right about Wisconsin. Now,
Speaker 1: I would argue that Wisconsin has been a it's been
Speaker 1: it was an it. Look, Wisconsin was a really important
Speaker 1: primary to Ted Cruz at Donald Trump in it's sitting
Speaker 1: in its late April. It was also a pretty important
Speaker 1: primary to Barack Obama during the Hillary Clinton Barack Obama
Speaker 1: uh long slog to that two thousand and eight fight
Speaker 1: for the nomination. So and Wisconsin has had a history
Speaker 1: in the past of being important presidential primary, if you will.
Speaker 1: There's some Kennedy's that have had have done well in Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: and it's been important. Reagan Ford that you know there
Speaker 1: there that certainly was a competitive primary. But I take
Speaker 1: your point, and really what we need is again, you know,
Speaker 1: some of this stuff, it's just simple logic, right, and
Speaker 1: you know a region, you know, we could either do
Speaker 1: it one of two ways. All the small states, you know,
Speaker 1: no state with more with with more than four congressional districts,
Speaker 1: they all go first. They all go in the first month.
Speaker 1: Then you go, say five to ten you know, go
Speaker 1: in the next month, and then.
Speaker 2: You you know, save the big states for the end.
Speaker 1: There's all sorts of what I think are logical good
Speaker 1: ways to do. It's like the college football playoff. There's
Speaker 1: plenty of ways to come up with something that's fair.
Speaker 1: But the but the problem is that people in charge
Speaker 1: of the process don't want to make it fair. They
Speaker 1: want to rig the system for their side.
Speaker 2: Right, So in this.
Speaker 1: The college football playoff, the SEC in the Big Ten
Speaker 1: are not interested in creating a fair system for all schools.
Speaker 1: They just want a system that's accessible to the Big
Speaker 1: ten in the SEC and enough of everybody else to
Speaker 1: make people think it's fair. And that's what happens kind
Speaker 1: of in these presidential primary processes. Each party kind of
Speaker 1: decides their calendar. They've mostly tried to do their calendars
Speaker 1: together because they realize one help. You know, in some ways,
Speaker 1: they're both they both benefited, they're both competing in the
Speaker 1: same state at the same time because they actually, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like a small town. You know, if
Speaker 1: you're a lawyer, you don't want to be the only
Speaker 1: lawyer in a town. You want to have at least
Speaker 1: two lawyers so that somebody else can hire a lawyer
Speaker 1: and you can you can get business, right, you each
Speaker 1: can have a lawyer. So there's some there's some synergy
Speaker 1: in that. But look, you're you're it's a fair point.
Speaker 1: But there is a part of me that says, hey,
Speaker 1: quit your quit your complaining in that you get to
Speaker 1: be the decider, and and and which which allergic, which shellfish,
Speaker 1: which food that could potentially kill you? You get to you
Speaker 1: get to pick from. But you know, there's there's definitely
Speaker 1: a better way to do this, but neither political party
Speaker 1: seems to be incentivized to be logical about this. There's
Speaker 1: always a governor, there's always somebody who's got power within
Speaker 1: the RNs here the DNC that wants to just twist him.
Speaker 1: Look what Donald Trump did. He changed all the primary
Speaker 1: rules for the delegate selection process in these various states
Speaker 1: to basically make it nearly impossible for anybody to get
Speaker 1: any traction of enough delegates to make his life miserable
Speaker 1: at the convention. He created a bunch of winter take
Speaker 1: all scenarios or nearly winter take all, which sort of
Speaker 1: starved Nicky Haley of any opportunities to chip away at
Speaker 1: a delegate lead, and things like that. So I certainly,
Speaker 1: like I said, I gave you two solutions that I
Speaker 1: believe in. One is a regional by month four months March, April,
Speaker 1: May and June. And you've split the country up in
Speaker 1: four either do it small states, small, small, medium, medium, large, large,
Speaker 1: or you do it by regions and you rotate it
Speaker 1: and the region part you would rotate in each one.
Speaker 1: Either one would be a fairer system and eventually get
Speaker 1: more people involved. And here's another benefit. And I know
Speaker 1: I'm rambling on this one, but I'm obsessed with the
Speaker 1: presidential primary calendar. I've lived it for thirty years. I
Speaker 1: have war gained this so many different ways. My favorite
Speaker 1: aspect about why it's important to have early presidential primaries,
Speaker 1: why you want to be a state that does that,
Speaker 1: because the voters take it really seriously. Iowa is not
Speaker 1: demographically should have never been a swing state for as
Speaker 1: long as it was, but it was a swing state
Speaker 1: because the voters appreciated the fact that they were the
Speaker 1: initial vetters of presidential candidates. They took the process seriously,
Speaker 1: and they really did take it. You know, it really
Speaker 1: was sort of a candidate you know, they vetted candidates,
Speaker 1: they didn't vet parties. And I think the process created
Speaker 1: made Iowa New Hampshire swing states when demographically neither state
Speaker 1: should have been a comfortable swing state. And we now
Speaker 1: see now that the presidential primary calendar has sort of
Speaker 1: shifted away in some ways in both states and differ
Speaker 1: in different ways that now both states are sort of
Speaker 1: reverting to to to ones. One's a bit, you know,
Speaker 1: light blue and one's a bit dark red these days.
Speaker 1: But you're you know, when when they were the centers
Speaker 1: of the political universe, it kept them, kept them in
Speaker 1: the middle, right, it kept them being a little more
Speaker 1: starting from the center out. So I certainly would love
Speaker 1: to see more states get this opportunity because I think
Speaker 1: that voters when they get more of an opportunity to
Speaker 1: vet these presidential candidates, they start to take their boat
Speaker 1: a bit more seriously, they take character a bit more seriously,
Speaker 1: and I think it creates a better process. All right,
Speaker 1: So with that, appreciate the question, and I love the
Speaker 1: opportunity to talk Wisconsin because hey, it's the Green Bay
Speaker 1: Packers right now, are hosting the NFL Draft all weekend long.
Speaker 1: Very exciting. I'm a Packer fan. It's very exciting time
Speaker 1: to watch. I want to I can't wait to find
Speaker 1: out how. I think Packer fans are nicer than most fans,
Speaker 1: which means Goodell, the booze for Goodell should be should
Speaker 1: be less than usual. But we shall see.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: With that, I hope you enjoy your weekend.
Speaker 1: I will give you a full report of the craziness
Speaker 1: that may or may not take place over the Nerd
Speaker 1: prom weekend of White House Correspondence weekend.
Speaker 2: Uh and I'll see you when we upload on Monday,
Speaker 2: m M M m m