We're back with another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Jashinsky,
culture editor here at The Federalist. As always, you can email the show
at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on accet, FDR,
LST, make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and of course
to the premium version of our website as well. Today, I'm very excited
to be joined by Brody Mullins. Brody is the author of the new book
The Wolves of K Street, The Secret History of How Big Money took Over
Big Government. The book is as tantalizing as it sounds. It's a behemoth.
Brody. First of all, I just want to congratulate you on this
book, which you co wrote with your brother, and I just also wanted
to thank you for coming on the show. Definitely, thanks for having me.
It's a super fascinating topic. It's really important right now. Yeah,
absolutely. And you at the Wall Street Journal, I wanted to see if
you could tell us a little bit about how you got into reporting on K
Street just in the first place, you know, what led you down this
path? Yeah, great question. So I'm one of those strange people who
are from Washington, DC. So I sort of grew up with politics in
my blood, and for some reason, I guess from having like the nightly
news on all the time and reading the Washington Post growing up, I kind
of fell into journalism. And when I grew up in high school and early
college, I wanted to be a political reporter, and I liked reading biographies
of presidential campaigns and White House actions and stuff. And by the time I
got around to being a graduate college and going into journalism, I was reading
the Wall Street Journal regularly. And the Journal, as you know, is
a sort more of a business newspaper, and I get a little more down
in the middle, and it wrote more about industry and companies and what companies
want in Washington than other papers, and I really like that. I those
were fascinating to see how companies try to interact, how to try to get
what they want in Washington using lobbyists and campaign donations. I always all the
stories was sort of smarter, and to me, they were more interesting and
they were just different. So I sort of gravitated toward trying to write stories
about companies and what they wanted in Washington. So I was sort of doing
that around the two thousands and ultimately got two the Walls of Journal, which
was a dream that the paper I always wanted to work at, and I've
been covering business and lobbying and campaign money and scandal ever since. So this
is actually fascinated and realized that you were one of the rare DC natives.
But I'm curious also how you would describe the cultural changes in DC. I
mean, this book is so rich with it, but just having grown up
in d C the changes as lobbying, you kind of trace the arc of
lobbying and subhead of the book is literally the secret history of how big money
took over big government. But DC itself seems to have been changed dramatically by
lobbying. I moved here in twenty eleven. I feel like I saw a
lot of that, just with tech and the Obama administration, and you write
about that. But having grown up and seen d C over the course of
decades, how is lobbying maybe changed the culture of DC from your vantage point?
Yeah, that's a great question. I feel like, as you know,
Washington right now is an incredibly wealthy area, but it was always wealthier
than other parts of the country. I just feel like it's sort of like
on the steroids now. So when I grew up, it was more of
a blue collar town. I mean, my parents work for the government and
we get to you know, go to school and a board a car at
a house. Whereas now, if you live in Washington, d C.
You know, you need to be a lobbyist to work for a company or
make millions of dollars because real estate is so expensive and the cost of living
is so expensive that no one can actually live, you know, anywhere close
to the city. But you know, I do remember reading in the Washington
Post back then when I was like six, eight or eighth grade or sophomore
in high school or something. You know, these stories once a year about
how they're all the richest counties in the country were all around Washington, d
C. They was sort of a ranking of the top ten wealthiest counties,
and it would always been you know, six or seven or five around Washington,
d C. And that struck me as odd because we don't make anything
in Washington. I mean, these are wealthyes counties in San Francisco and in
Chicago and in New York, and those places make things and do things,
and here in Washington at the end of each year, it took everything we
made or produced and you threw it into a bucket, there'd be nothing in
the bucket. So all of this money comes from just lobbing and pushing legislation
and words, you know, not actually producing widgets or cars or computers.
So that always sort of blew me away, sort of showed me, you
know, that the influence industry in Washington is enormous. This is going to
make me sound maybe a little silly, but you're probably familiar with what tried
to do with the Real Housewives of DC early in the Obama era because of
the Salahis and I want to say, like Julianna Glover was in it,
something like that one episode maybe, But it was interesting because it kind of
caught DC in this moment between sort of Georgetown cocktail party d C and you
know, U Street luxury apartment buildings with you know, fancy restaurants that weren't
just expensive but were also really hip. And I wonder, I mean,
this is again someone who moved here in twenty eleven, so I haven't seen
what you've seen, but it does seem like the tech money really also came
in and changed the culture of d C from this the sort of sleepy Georgetown
cocktail party circuit into something that was almost more fashionable during the Obama administration.
Yeah, I think that's right there. There's alway if you read your sort
of history and your society history of Washington has always been an element of high
society and wealth in Washington. You know, ambassadors and corporate leaders who live
in Georgetown and had that Georgetown cocktail network. But now it's much more racy,
like everyone has that kind of money and it's not just the Georgetown set
Bristy MacLean said, and the Cherry Jay said, and the U Street set,
you know, and Capitol Hiller was on and on and on. So
I think you're exactly right. I had to say, I wish I'd caught
up on my Real Wives. Real Housewives are Walking DC, But right around
then I had my first child. In my reality television consumption, as drops
them sand Unfortunately you were in luck because they just added the whole season to
Peacock. That's a perfect time in well, actually you start this book around
nineteen seventy two, but before you get to the early seventies, you're talking
about in some cases Federalists ten, you talk about the robber Baron era a
little bit and how it gave way to the progressive era. So if Brodie
you could start a little bit, maybe earlier than nineteen seventy two and tell
us just maybe how Madison looked at this question of factions and then how technology
in some ways you write about this just the country train changed so dramatic from
what it was when Federals ten was written and the Founders were envisioning this country
and riding the constitution. Can you tell to us a little bit about what
things looked like before we get to the modern era. Yeah, exactly.
So starting with the Federals papers is actually the right place right now? Or
the lobbies are dominant in Washington, and you go back to the founding of
the country. The founders knew that they were going to be lobbies or what
they call factions. They knew that there would be tension between various factions try
to produce legislation in Washington. They knew that Congress didn't act in a vacuum
and the President didn't act in a vacuum, and so they foresaw that there
would be lobbies and forces trying to impact legislation. What they didn't see was
that, excuse me, what they didn't see that there could be an era
where there's just one faction that had dominant power, which is where we are
now. But what they saw and what did happen for most of our countries
history, is that there were various sort of push and pull tensions that companies
would push for certain legislation and they would be opposed by unions or public interest
groups or environmental groups or environmental groups to try to push for clean air legislation,
and companies and utilities would push back, and out of that tension,
you sort of come up with a compromise. And that had existed all the
way until a few decades ago, which we can get to later. But
throughout history, there have been periods of time in which one faction, one
interest group has had more power than the other. After during the Industrial Age,
we all know about the sort of the monopolists and the JP Morgans and
the railroad titans, and you know, Standard Oil and the Robert barons who
had tons and tons of power and influence over society and industry. But then
that was counteracted a few years later during the New Deal by the government exerting
power and creating antitrust law and pro competition law and banning monopolies for the first
time, giving the government the tools to to reign in big monopolis, and
creating for the first time the Federal Trade Commission to do so. From about
the nineteen thirties through lbg's Great Society was a period which consumer groups had tons
of power. Ralph Nader at one point was maybe the most influential person in
Washington. He took on then one of the biggest companies in the country,
General Motors, and defeated them. That's how much power consumer groups had.
And so during that period from the nineteen thirties to the nineteen seventies, the
government grew very very quickly. Tons of new departments and agencies, created tons
of new regulations. And interesting thing about that period is that this wasn't democrats
or liberals pushing or labor groups pushing this sort of liberal policies. Everyone sort
of generally agreed. Companies agreed with the creation of some of these new departments.
Companies thought, you know, there should be more regulation year there,
and they were making a lot of money so that they didn't really care and
By the way, Republicans, who didn't have much power during this period,
also agreed with the creation of much of the government, not all of it,
but lots of it. For example, the EPA, the environment Environmental
Protection Agency, was created by Richard Nixon with the board of companies and Republicans.
What change was in the nineteen seventies. The economy collapsed and inflation went
up. We had stagnation, company profits plummeted, and all of a sudden,
corporate CEOs looked around and said, wait a second, we're not making
any money anymore. What's going on? And they saw all these rules and
regulations coming out of Washington that had cost them lots of money, that had
constrained their growth, and companies said, we need to fight back. So,
like any smart business people, they started investing in Washington through lobbyists and
campaign donations to one push against the creation of new regulations, but also to
push back on the regulation that had been created. So at that point started
getting more power and influence, and over the next few decades they pushed labor
unions almost to oblivion. Ralph Nader is no longer a force. Consumer groups
don't have much influence and ENVIRONMLS groups don't have much influence. So now you
have companies that are incredibly powerful and there's really no one pushing back against them.
And that's where the situation we're in now, where companies have tremendous influence
and no one else does. It's yet right there that is such a like
incredibly interesting I don't know shift, but even the fact that it is a
shift is sort of interesting in and of itself, and I want to ask
a little bit about that. I also, though, was reading a Jacobin
review of the new David Lenhart book as I was reading your book, and
one of the points Lenheart makes, according to this review, at least I
find really compelling, which is that there was also this sense of patriotism,
maybe this sort of subjective sense of patriotism or sense of personal dignity, responsibility,
pride that used to exist sort of among the c suite crowd that at
some point, maybe around mid century, started to shift to the nineteen eighties
kind of Gordon Getck goo I Rand on steroids type of approach to Washington,
type of approach to Wall Street. Do you see any of that, Brody,
Because even just as you were explaining that shift that happened, you know,
turning towards these regulations that were pushed by considered shumer groups, been Ralph
Nader when the economy got bad, almost to escapegoat them, or to say
we can kind of tinker here by infusing cash onto Capitol Hill. Do you
think the culture, even just the corporate culture changed. Is that part of
this year one hundred percent? Right? Do we have a little bit that
in our book. I didn't mention my last answer so always I thought I
was being too long winded as it was. But you're value right. The
companies fell from the nineteen forties to the nineteen seventies. That you know that
we're all sort of together, and we're on the same team. You sponsored
a littleague team, you're a good corporate citizen. You look out for your
employees, you help them with wages. Everyone was sort of on the same
team and in the same community. And that did change in nineteen seventies.
I think two things happened, you know, one that I mentioned, which
is that companies started not making money. And also once they weren't making money,
they weren't really in the same sort of mood or viewpoint to help everyone
out there sort of out for themselves. Around that time, this was really
interesting. The Business Roundtable, which represents one hundred or two hundred of the
biggest CEOs in the country, said that the mission statement of companies should be
to help shareholders, and that was the change from before when part of the
mission the company was to help their employees and be good corporate citizens. If
your number one goal is to help shareholders and increase your stock price, well,
all of a sudden, that shifts your mentality about you know, whether
you do spend money sponsoring the litle league team. Maybe that's not a good
use of resources. Vesting in your community is not a good idea. Maybe
increasing wages for your employees is not smart. So companies really started focusing on
shareholders. That led directly to the nineteen eightiesphory that you're talking about, where
companies were cutthroat and try to increase revenues and really cut costs. You fight
back against government regulations that were a huge source of business costs. What's really
in truting to me is if you jump forward just a couple of years ago,
the Business Roundtable change that motto and said the shareholders are no longer should
be their top concern. Shareholder interest should be age concerned, but not the
total concern of company, and that reflects maybe a little bit of a shifting
back in how companies operate in the country. Now, all right, today's
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there any legal shifts? Yeah, for people who haven't read the book,
were there any legal shifts around the time of the nineteen seventies just in the
law because the cultural stuff is super interesting and I think probably underappreciated. But
what changed when it came to people's ability to actually lobby in the way that
we kind of understand it now in the early seventies, Yeah, a couple
of things happened. The most important was Waterby in nineteen seventy four, after
Nixon had left the White House, or about the time that Nicky left the
White House the country. The voters responded to this scandal by electing one hundred
new reformist members of Congress who came to Washington to change the system. The
people. The American people did not want a president have so much power the
way Nixon did, so Congress passed a series of laws intended to reform Washington.
Among the things they did was take power from the presidency and move it
to Congress, and then even make Congress more democratic, as in before the
nineteen seventies, there was really only two people in Congress who mattered, the
House Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader. And for fifty years, those were
men, and those were Democrats, and they were the only people who mattered.
After nineteen seventy four, Congress created a bunch of committees, and it
created subcommittees, and it created subcommittees, and almost everyone on Capitol Hill was
either the top Republican non committee or the top Democratic out on committee. In
fact, one of the lobbyists who we write about who's named it, Tommy
Boggs, who we consider that it'd be one of the first modern lobbyists.
He joked it, when you went up to Capitol Hill and yelled out,
hey, mister chairman, after people in Congress would turn around because someone because
they all of them were the chairman of some committee or some subcommittee somewhere.
So Congress really made power and diffuse. And what that meant for lobbying is
before that period, lobbyists like Tommy Bobbs I just mentioned could be incredibly successful
if they knew the president, if they knew the Speaker of the House,
and if they knew the Senate majority leader. After nineteen seventy four, you
had know hundreds of people to get anything done. And that sort of created
an error where lobbyists proliferated because before a company could hire one lobbyist who knew
those three important people. Afterwards you needed to hire dozens of lobbies or scores
a lobbyist to have relationships with all the important members of Congress in Washington.
And this is kind of skipping ahead a little bit, but it's so related
to what you just said. One of the points I really loved that you
made in the book is mentioned how at the dawn of Tony Podesta's lobbying career.
One of the benefits he brought to lobbying operations is that he also could
be taken seriously by Republicans or he had access to Republicans. And maybe some
people don't realize that's the case with Abbing And you can speak to this a
little bit, Brodie, that lobbyists are in some sense the last vestige of
old Washington right now, and that they really do have access good ones,
have access to people on both sides of the aisle. How true is that
still today, though, because just since Trump things have gotten much more embittered
in Washington, it seems to me like they're still creatures like that haunting k
Street. Though. Yeah, I mean you sorted to remember, for you
know, our time, from the nineteen thirties to the nineteen eighties, Democrats,
to say ninety to the to the two Democrats were the only party in
town. Democrats had huge majorities in the House and Senate for fifty years.
So if you were a lot or of you're a company and you wanted to
hire someone to represent you, you want to hire someone who's in with Democrats.
Republicans like almost didn't matter. That has now changed in the last twenty
years in our lifetimes, because it seems like every election, you know,
the Republicans take over, the Democrats come back, or the Republicans take over
how many times with Nancy Pelosi's Speaker of the House, the minority leader,
then back and forth and back and forth again this election. So therefore companies
say, hey, we can't just put all our eggs in the Republican basket
or the Democratic basket. You need to hire a lobbing team or a lobbing
firm. There's connections on both sides. Therefore, almost every lobbying firm,
although not all of them, I mean ninety nine percent, have Republicans and
Democrats. They can sort of serve both sides. Another thing to keep in
mind know is that just from the way Congress works, the way Congress is
set up with checks and balances, and how hard it is for a building,
from a law that even if Republicans are in charge, it's important to
have connections to Democrats because it's very to block legislation. So even a Democrat
in the minority or Republican in the minority, who may not have seem to
have much power, can block legislation in the Senate. For example, you
can have ninety nine senators supporting piece of legislation, and if one is upposed,
literally one senator can hold up in delay in an important pizza legislation.
So the point is that companies want to have both Overholing and Democrats to be
connected to as many people as possible. And that's a change from most of
the last century when you really only need to know Democrats. So interesting,
well, actually speaking of that, I want to get to black Man Affort
obviously in just a bit, but I also want to start with you,
Corcoran Bogs. And the way you write about the sort of modern era and
lobbying is that coming out of the era of big government sort of new deal
reforms, you new agencies, or the country is changing in so many ways
and Democrats really start to correct me if I'm wrong, But Democrats really start
to organize this industry, this lobbying industry sort of kind of figure out how
money can be made in the system because they understand and are in some ways,
you know, sympathetic to the big government designs that they've been a part
of in some respects. Can you talk to us a little bit about maybe
Corkoran. You mentioned Bogs a little bit already, but Quirkoran, you know,
in the book, is described as a mega loobbyist. I think that's
actually a quote from someone describing Corkoran. Can you just talk to us a
little bit about how people coming out of that New Deal era, typically Democrats.
I'm sure there were some Republicans too, but typically Democrats started to figure
out what could be done in this space. Yeah, so it's super interesting.
So again, before nineteen seventy four, in the Wartergate reforms, there
was only a handful of members of Commons, handful of people in Washington who
made laws, and it was the president of this view of the House and
the sentimentory leader and back starting in the New Deal was wanted. Also,
the White House was tiny, I mean FBR had a staffed with like five
And when those people left the White House and a few of them decided to
become a lobbyists, they were incredibly powerful because you were the person. You
were the first person who saw FDR in the morning, You made him lunch,
you played cards to them, you had drinks of them, you know,
you put it in bed at night. You were wired to the most
important person in the country. So if you leave and become a lobbyist,
these guys made tons of money, or there weren't that many of them.
There's is not that many people who worked from the White House, and not
many people had that relationship, and not that many people then tried to cash
in on it. Tommy Corkan was one of them. Tommy Corkman was probably
the most powerful lobbyist in Washington from the nineteen thirties through the sixties or so.
There's a few other figures like him, including Clark Clifford, who worked
in the as I say, the Truman administration, really worked for Truman in
the Truman White House and he became a huge lobbyist. And then our book
kind of starts with Tommy Boggs, and Tommy Boggs the first modern lobbyist because
while he was around before the Watergate reforms and he sort of represented the old
system where he knew the president, he worked for LBJ. He also knew
the Speaker of the House because the Spait House will come to his house all
the time. Because Tommy Wogg's father was a member of Congress, and when
Tommy Wogg's father disappeared in a presumably plane crash in Alaska. His mom was
elected to be on a member of Homers, So Tommy Wogg's mom and dad
were both members of Congress. He's the ultimate insider, but then he straddled
this era after Watergate, when that system changed and Congress becomes more democratic and
powers more diffuse and bogs. Then though he knows the three most important people,
but he also knows the sub comittee chairman, and he knows the committee
ranking member, and he knew all those folks, so he's still stay powerful.
And what our book talks about is that that system sort of the relationship,
the cozy relationships between members of Congress and lobbyists, they were built on
campaign donations and state dinners. That error is coming to an end. And
what black Man, Ward and Stone represents in our book, we can talk
about them, and some of the other lobbies write out it's how lobbing is
now much more sophisticated, is less about cutting inside our deals and more about
trying to manipulate public opinion. Yes, let's definitely talk about that, and
especially I wanted to get you Brody to talk about the Bethlehem Steel example,
because I actually did not understand the dynamics fully behind the scenes with the Reagan
era policy and Bethlehem and Steel. But with Bethlehem Steel, but even before
New Gingerti's hostile takeover, you have black Man for it, and of course
Stone and Atwater, and you write about this brilliantly in the book coming into
the Picture. So could you tell u us a little bit about what they
figured out? I mean, people should bought the book to get the whole
story, but tell us a little bit about what they figured out. Yeah.
So again, part is what we were talking about the rise of corporate
power, and part was talking about how lobbing has changed. And this example
sort of showed how lobbing has changed. So in the nineteen eightiesviously, Ronald
Reagan is elected and for the first time a Republican is president, in the
first time in a while, I could say, and companies think, oh
crap, you know, we don't know any Republicans. We don't know people
who have ends with the Reagan administration, and said they looked to Paul Manniford,
Charlie Black and Roger Stone, who were three guys who worked on Reagan's
campaign both in nineteen seventy six. I should say and in nineteen eighty so
they went way back with Reagan and they were campaign consultants and they were used
to working president of campaigns or Senate campaigns, where the idea is to get
fifty one percent of the someone's constituents to vote for your guy and you win.
So, after Reagan is elected and companies are looking for people connected to
Reagan to hire his lobbyists, Paul Manafort and Charlie Black say, well,
we should be lobbyists. So they started lobbying firm and they start getting hired
by big companies, and they did have those insidernction that Tommy Bobs had.
But what they also knew is they were campaign people, so they knew how
to go out in state and try to generate support from regular citizens for causes.
In this case, instead of trying to elect a president, they were
trying to pass the law. It was the same idea. They get the
support of fifty one percent of the constituents or voters, they thought they could
win on behalf of their client. In the case of bethlen and Steel during
the nineteen eighties, Reagan as president Bethlen Steel, one of the largest US
steel manufacturers, back in the day when our country was manufacturing and industrial economy,
which it's obviously not anymore. But Bethlyine Steel was sort of a champion
of US industry and they were kind of almost a They were a great resentation
of American manufacturing might. But they were facing a big problem, which is
that foreign countries and foreign companies were dumping steel in the US at below market
prices, and that was causing Bethlem Steel a problem because people were buying cheaper
foreign steel and not Bethlin Steel's products. So they hired black Man, Word
and Stone in front of Block. They basically wanted to create terrorists or impoort
quotas to stop foreign countries from dumping cheap steel in the US. And so
one thing one of the things that black Man, black Maniport and Stone could
have done have just gone to the Reagan administration or gone to the Commerce Secretary
and said, hey, can you impose quotas or terrorists? But instead of
what it is that, they said, hey, let's go around and get
steel workers and union leaders and the steel CEOs and executives to do the lobbying
for US. So they had these folks come to Washington make the pitches themselves
to the Commerce Secretary and to other important people in the Reagan administration. And
the idea was the commerce sector might listen to Charlie Black and POLM Manford,
but they're really going to listen to the union leaders and to the companies themselves.
And a sort of a genius lobbying strategies to put the companies and the
real American workers at the front center of a lot campaign. And it representative
of a shit from lobbying. We using old school relationship tactics to kind of
using constituents and using American workers and union workers to get a job done.
For corporations, Biden has to spend even more of your kids and grandkids credit
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podcasts, and that you know, there's something I'm really interested to hear a
perspective on how ideologically maybe both the left and the right justify these types of
adventures in lobbying. Do you think I don't mean this as a leading question,
do you think in some respects and you're right about Citizens United? I
think this might be maybe the most obvious example from Mitch McConnell. But also
you know, if you look at like Rusfine Gold and John McCain on the
other side of this, how have maybe some how has support for some of
this activity morphed into or become baked into the ideological sort of cosmology of either
the left or the right, I mean the right. It's most obvious on
the right that they repeatedly justify this, but even on the left, you
know you John Podesta was the Clinton campaign chairman, while Tony Podesta was as
you right about, heavily involved in the Ukraine lobbying back in you know this
like twenty twelve, when that whole thing first started. Has it become baked
into the ideologies of the left and the right in some respect to kind of
justify the shift that starts around the early seventy Yeah, I think one of
these the companies did start in nineteen seventies is to invest in both local parties.
They didn't just say, hey, the Republicans are more naturally our allies
because they are for open competition and for limiting government regulation, for lowering taxes
and free trade. They went after Democrats also, and using campaign contributions and
connections, they created a pro business center that existed for forty years. I
mean, there are some policies where until recently there weren't that many differences between
a Republican and a Democrat. Take trade, I mean, most members of
Congress Republican Democrats supported free trade for thirty years, and that's changing now.
In the last thirty years they have been starting nineteen eighty six, there have
been several major tax cuts for individuals and corporation, no huge tax increases during
that time. And that's the period when Republicans are president, Democrats are president.
Republicans control house, Democrats control house. So companies create a pro business
center on both sides in order to create pro industry positions, to push unions
out, to lower taxes, to open up free trade, and to try
to stop government regulations. What seems to be changing now is that more and
more Republicans and Democrats are on the extreme ends of the party are turning against
corporate America. A fascinating thing to me is this I think started around the
time Trump was elected, but a little bit before in the Republican Party,
where the party become more populist and more anti corporate. And I think the
fascinating example to me is in the twenty sixteen election when Bernie Sanders, is
on the far left of the political ideology, is coming out against free trade
and saying we need to get readied free trade deals because moving American jobs overseas.
And I think a lot of Republicans would see Bernie Sanders as a nut.
But then all of a sudden, Donald Trump said, you know,
he's right, we shouldn't have these free trade bills. Why are we helping
China? Why are we helping these foreign companies and countries, And why we're
allowing US companies to move jobs there wereseas they should stay here. And that
was sort of amazing for a Republican Party, the Party of Reagan, to
turn against free trade, you know, a central tenant of the Republican Party.
What was more amazing is in the response to that, Hillary Clinton then
said I'm against free trade also. So all of a sudden, you had
Trump and Hillary Clinton, the two major political candidates of the Patiant election,
both against free trade for the first time, studying on the Republican side because
it's the Party of Reagan, and free trade studying on the Democrats side because
the free trade agreements that Hillary Clinton was opposed to were her husband's bill.
Clinton supported all those pre trade deals also. So there really has been a
change in the last five or six years when it comes to the viewpoints of
the Republican and Democratic parties on corporate America. And I'm really fascinated to see
where this goes in next five or ten years. Yeah, that's one of
the questions I had for you, is just specifically on the right, you
have you quote Senator marciaal blackburns somethings she wrote in The Wall Street Journal about
how Republicans you're no longer going to sit back and sort of on the sidelines
as big business does X Y and z and this something we've covered a lot
here. But how durable do you think that is? Honestly, I love
to see it, but I'm incredibly skeptical that it lasts very long, even
though there are some like pretty substantive, robust efforts to splinter off from the
Chamber of Commerce and create you know, new anti chamber of commerce but pro
business type groups. And there's lots of stuff happening here. You know,
based on what you've seen so far, Brodie, is this real or is
it like a lot of talk that might have some influence, But at the
end of the day, you know, you're still going to have Republicans basically
representing big business interests if those big business interests, you know, happen to
be let's say, automakers or something that's you know, kind of against the
green energy push, anything like that. So I think you're asking the most
important question of our time, in fact, so important that I want to
write another book and it's about what you're talking about, because I don't know
there is definitely a change the fact that Republicans are against free trade, and
the fact that Republicans, not just Donald Trump, you know, mainstream Republicans
are attacking big business. One example that you probably know, the US Chamber
of Commerce represents business in America. They are the nation's biggest business organization and
lobby in Washington, and for my entire time in Washington, they have worked
in lockstep with Republicans in Congress because Republicans and big business are on the same
team. And when I covered John Bayner when he was a House Speaker,
he had a weekly lunch with the top people at the Chamber of Commerce and
some other big industry lobbies. We literally plot strategy together. Okay, we're
going to pass a tax bill. How are we going to do it?
Who should we talk to? Like what levers do we need to do,
What do we need to do to work together to get this tax bill pass
or this regulation or whatever. They were on the same team. And now
the top Republicans in Congress say that people from the US Chamber Commerce are not
allowed in their office. They refuse to talk to them. That's how bad
the split is between the Chamber of Commerce and the Republican Party. And that
is stunning to me. So that's just one example. If you look in
the Senate, there are several bills being proposed right now by Elizabeth Warren.
One of them is to help unions grow. Another is to cap the fees
the credit card companies cap credit card interest rates on consumers, and another is
to claw back bonuses for banking executives if those banks fail. Each of those
piece of legislation is cosmonpted by Republicans, including Josh Holly of Missouri. I
mean, the fact that a Republican would work with was born on anything is
studying, but then to work on legislation that hurts credit card company or hurts
our financial services company and helps a consumer. It's just not something that the
Republican Party used to do, but it's happening more and more and more.
I'll give you one more example. A year and a half ago, there
was a bill in Congress that would increase the fees on big companies that were
merging in order to give the FTC more resources to hire more lawyers and hire
more litigators, and hire more regulators to review big corporate murders. And so
this is basically giving money from companies to the government, making the government figure
in order to crack down on corporate murders. And thirty nine House Republicans supported
that bill which became law. Thirty nine Republicans supported a bill to give the
FTC more power. That's crazy. Again, I'm saying it's crazy because they're
just different from helping used to be. But it seems like that's where we're
moving. And every time you have a traditional Republican Chamber of Commerce, Ronald
Reagan Republican leave Congress, you have a more populist member replace them. And
look at Rob Cortman who left uh the seat in Decentcy to Ohio copy or
replaced by JD. Vans. That seems to happen time and time again.
So I agree with you. I don't know how far this is going to
go, and I'm a little skeptical, but if you just look at the
evidence, we keep moving in that direction. You know, even the Reagan
thing is such an interesting arc for the Republican Party because you write about Goldwater,
and Reagan was obviously electrified by Goldwater and was seen as this kind of
upstart renegade. But then you have you have like black Manafort coming in and
sort of baking into the new ideology of these people who are you even quote
Stone in the book talking about how he was super animated I think he says
I became a Zealot when he heard Barry goldwan And speak. And then what
gets baked into that ideology. And Maniford is such a good example, you
know, the you have an epilogue in the book that's just profoundly depressing because
Manifol, it's really one of the only people that's face consequences for this,
and maybe Brody you can talk a little bit too about what consequences have you
know, come upon, Like Tony Pedessa is a really good example. Obviously,
the Pedesta group is no longer, so that's a pretty stiff consequence.
But it does seem like, you know, just businesses as usual. People
are kind of ducking and maybe starting to be a little bit lower profile.
But it's amazing how even on the right, some of this became just baked
in the ideology. Then it goes to Citizens United and it becomes about free
speech and patriotism and Americanism to just let big business, you know, run
rampant through American culture and life and communities and all of that. And here
we are, and it's like Paul Manifor, it seems to be one of
the only people who's been facing any serious consequences for that shift on the right
at least. Well, you know, there's so much talk about here,
but you know, you mentioned Paul Manaphort. Was interesting that him is that
you know, he looks like the big loser, right, like he went
to jail, but he could be the big winner if Donald Trump is elected.
Paul Maniport went to jail for Donald Trump. And Donald Trump is a
guy who lives and breathes loyalty, you know, especially a frong this this
trial right now, all the comments that are talking about how important loyalty is
a Donald Trump. Paul Manwerck went to jail for Donald Trump. So when
Paul Maniport, if Donald Trump wins, Paul Manfort is going to start,
you know, Paul Manifort lobbying and associates and every company and every country in
the world is going to know that that guy has Donald Trump's ear. So
Paul Manafort could end up being the biggest winner of this story. Oh that's
a great point. Another depressing reality. Yeah, that's and just as you
were talking a little bit about Josh Howley, Elizabeth Warren potential new coalitions down
the road, there was this era where you had there's the kind of gift
band era. This is sort of like early Obama administration. Of my memory
is correct, you had the left sort of rallying against citizen Citizens United.
Basically nobody on the right. I mean maybe a couple of people opposing it
at the time. But if people look at the stock bands, like,
what was it called the Stock Act? I think that was twenty twelve.
So many of these regulations, and you write about this with the gift band
have unintended consequences. Revolving door regulations can have unintended consequences. Is there anything
on the table right now that you know you feel brody won't be co opted
by special interests themselves, won't have carve outs that are influenced by lobbyists who
want to kind of keep the racket going, you know. Sadly, I
think the answer is no. I mean, as a reporter, we're always
required to say more disclosure is better, and that's true. I think that
one of the problems we have now is that if you are a quote unquote
lobbyist, if you talk to members of Congress on behalf of a company or
a country, in order to influence policy, you have to disclose your activities
as a lobbyist, and me or the public or reporters can go see whose
lobbists represent, how much money they're getting paid, and what they're doing,
and the American citizens can decide whether that's good or bad. But a lot
of lobbying is now moved to the states and to trying to get constituents to
lobbies are on behalf of corporations that lobbying is not disclosed, so we don't
know who's out there. We don't know who's running social media ads, we
don't know who's influencing individuals or groups to try to get them just to push
for a trade bill or a tax cutter or whatnot. So I think that
could be one reform, but other reforms. I mean, if you can't
take money out of politics because of the Constitution, and you can't say that
lobbyists or individuals or Americans can't petition their government because that's in the First Amendment,
and obviously we don't want to take that away. But as a result
of that, companies are always have lots of power because they have the money
and they have the power to hire lobbyists. So every time there's been a
well intentioned reform of our system passed by Republicans or Democrat lobbyists find their way
around it. So sorry to be depressing on this one, but you know,
one of the quotes we have in our book is from Tony Podesta,
who's one of the most successful Democratic lobbyists of our time, and when when
Barack Obama was elected, Barack Obama was talking a big game about drinking the
swamp, you know, just like Donald Trump, and getting rid of the
He's lobbyists and getting rid of money in politics, and Tony Podesta said,
you know, if they if they if they say that lobby if they passed
a law they said that lobbyists can't drive cars, well let's go get drivers.
And that's really how it is. Lobbyist will always find a way around
whatever rule. There is. So depressing, but you know, there's something
poetic I think about the man of Fort Podesta, and I admit I had
totally forgotten about Vin Weber's involvement in all of this, and you address that
towards the end of the book too, But in some sense, says you
trace this arc from nineteen seventy two to now, there's just something so poetic
about them both representing the Party of Regions respective Do you see it that way,
Brody? I mean, it just kind of blows my mind. But
at the same time, it's so obvious and so predictable. You know.
Obviously, my brother and I like our book a lot because we spent so
much time anyway, and we did it, but there are some things in
there that, like, we just blew our minds. The fact that all
these characters end up collapsing and having their you know, scandals and falling apart
and going to jail, and one of our main characters sadly commit suicide.
And this Russian Ukraine thing. The fact that Podesta and Man of War,
two people who represent you know, lots of what's wrong with corporate lobbying,
come together in this scandal where they're representing the interests of the Russian Party in
Ukraine, and then the collapse together. It's just it's just stunning. It's
almost like if we sat down tried to make up a good story of maybe
what we would have made out, but it's true, incredible. Well,
I can't recommend this book enough once again. It's called The Wolves of k
Street, The Secret History of How Big Money Took over big government. It
is an achievement. It is a behamoth so brody. It was really a
privilege to talk to you about this book today. Awesome. Thank you having
this up. Of course you have been listening to another edition of The Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm a Lugianski culture editor here at the Federalist. We'll be
back soon with more. Until then, the lovers of freedom and anxious for
the friend you right well, you know