Valuetainment - Exposing Corruption in Washington Politics at the Highest Level

00:00:00.880 There are people in Washington, D.C. that are in elective office and have been there

00:00:05.220 for decades who have mastered the art of enriching themselves because corruption goes to the

00:00:11.280 heart of our representative government.

00:00:14.400 Politics is the way to go because if you get into politics through corruption, you can

00:00:18.560 create some wealth for yourself.

00:00:20.260 They will hold fundraisers for me.

00:00:22.100 They will write campaign checks to me.

00:00:24.200 They might even hire my son or my nephew as a lobbyist for them.

00:00:28.560 So it's not uncommon to make $5 to $10 million here as a lobbyist.

00:00:32.560 Absolutely right.

00:00:33.720 Look at the people who have been in Congress for 20 or 30 years.

00:00:37.480 And the founders didn't really intend this.

00:00:40.260 How is corruption getting worse today?

00:00:42.160 Nancy Pelosi has done this where she and her husband got access to IPO shares of stock. 0.99

00:00:48.000 And these were companies that had legislation sitting before her in Congress.

00:00:53.080 I saw her net worth the other day, $140 million.

00:00:55.760 I don't know how she's worth $140 million. 0.82

00:00:57.220 They get to write their own rules.

00:00:59.680 And this happens all the time.

00:01:01.260 Trump is probably not an ally to the country club congressmen and Senate.

00:01:05.780 Would you agree with that?

00:01:06.760 Donald Trump came in and he disrupted that model.

00:01:09.920 That's breaking all the rules.

00:01:11.500 If you were to break down the most corrupt families that we've seen in politics,

00:01:16.600 who would you put on that list?

00:01:18.000 Probably at the top of the list would be the Biden family.

00:01:20.620 My guest today is the author of Profiles in Corruption, which has 4,236 reviews on Amazon.

00:01:32.380 He's also the author of Secret Empires, Clinton Cash, that nearly cost, I mean, it pretty much cost Hillary Clinton the election in 2016 when it came out with that in 2015.

00:01:41.320 He's also got a couple of documentaries that came out, a recent one, Riding the Dragon, which is a story of Biden's and Hunter Biden.

00:01:48.780 He's a former William J. Casey Research Fellow at Stanford University, Hoover Institution, similar to Milton Friedman, as well as Thomas Sowell and many other greats.

00:01:57.360 So with that being said, Peter, thank you so much for being a guest on Valuetainment.

00:02:01.060 Great to be here. I'm really looking forward to it. Thanks.

00:02:04.100 So, Peter, last time you wrote Clinton Cash, some people said that kind of influenced and hurt the election.

00:02:11.900 This time around, you wrote, I believe it's Profiles in Corruption, which was the one that came out this year, January of 2020.

00:02:19.600 And when we look at the numbers, Biden won 76.3 versus Trump 71.6.

00:02:28.420 How come your book and videos couldn't have more influence to turn this thing around?

00:02:32.860 And how come it wasn't as effective as Clinton Cash?

00:02:35.540 I'm just curious, and obviously your thoughts on the numbers of 76.3 versus Trump 71.6.

00:02:41.740 Yeah, boy, talk about a little bit of pressure there, huh?

00:02:44.660 No, I think, look, I think that the people are concerned about corruption.

00:02:52.120 It's not their only concern, but it's a major concern.

00:02:55.320 What I'm always hearted by is the fact that people are concerned about these issues,

00:03:00.080 because corruption goes to the heart of our representative government.

00:03:04.960 A corrupt official is not somebody who's representing their constituents.

00:03:08.480 It's somebody that's representing their corrupt interests or representing themselves.

00:03:13.460 So I'm just very glad that the books do get the attention.

00:03:17.460 I'm glad that at least some people in the American public learn about Hunter Biden

00:03:23.020 and the connections that the Biden family has to the Chinese government.

00:03:26.620 I certainly wish it had been more, because I feel like a lot of people in the mainstream media

00:03:30.820 didn't want to go there.

00:03:31.860 But what's exciting these days, of course, is that there's all new sources of information

00:03:36.420 like this program, things online.

00:03:39.260 So it's very hard for them to squelch a story like they might have been able to do

00:03:42.920 five or ten years ago.

00:03:45.100 So I have a lot of different topics I want to cover with you.

00:03:48.120 You know, you're somebody that's every time you write a book, people line up to buy your books.

00:03:52.120 People want to know what you have to say.

00:03:53.540 New York Times bestseller over and over again.

00:03:56.060 They're curious to know how you process issues, your research, all of that combined together.

00:04:00.280 So, Peter, you know, I was born and raised in Iran.

00:04:02.980 So to a family who's mother's side, communist, dad's side, imperialist.

00:04:06.300 And there was this joke.

00:04:07.840 My mom's family was from Russia, Armenians, Assyrians.

00:04:11.400 There's this joke about if you want to be rich in countries like that, politics is the way to go.

00:04:18.260 Because if you get into politics through corruption, you can create some wealth for yourself.

00:04:23.740 How much of that applies to America?

00:04:27.080 I think it increasingly applies to the United States.

00:04:29.860 There's no question about it.

00:04:31.280 I mean, there have been similar jokes in the United States through our history.

00:04:35.880 In New Jersey, there's an old saying, you know, pass a bill, create a living.

00:04:41.320 You know, in other words, you pass some law, you can create it and juice it in such a way that you can self-enrich.

00:04:47.100 That's an inherent problem with government.

00:04:48.840 But I think what's happened in the United States is you have a couple of phenomenon that are happening at the same time.

00:04:54.360 On the one hand, you have a series of places around the country where you basically have one party rule.

00:05:00.040 California would be an obvious example.

00:05:02.480 Whenever you have, in a sense, one party rule where there's not really a lot of competition between the parties, that invites inbred corruption.

00:05:09.740 But the second problem is more foundational and fundamental, and that is that government is increasingly involved in so many parts of our lives, it creates more income opportunities.

00:05:21.780 And that's, I think, a mistake that people make is they got to understand that part of the challenge we face in Washington, D.C.

00:05:29.740 with the size and scope of government is ideological.

00:05:32.680 There are people who actually defy the rules of history, defy the examples of history, and believe that socialism and governments actually work.

00:05:43.200 So they're actually true believers in socialism.

00:05:45.880 But along with that, you have a lot of people in Washington, D.C., who are not necessarily committed ideologically,

00:05:52.140 but they know that as government grows and expands, it creates business opportunities for them.

00:05:58.280 So if you look over the span of American history of the last 70 to 80 years, the fact that the government's become increasingly involved in health care,

00:06:07.940 in energy, in transportation, in technology, in all of those areas, that creates a business model opportunity for people in Washington, D.C., and politicians to self-enrich.

00:06:20.440 It allows them to extort money, it allows them to create gateways or barriers to companies that essentially they have to pay politicians to get removed.

00:06:32.140 So it is a problem that has existed in our history, but it's getting worse.

00:06:38.080 It's getting worse because of the lack of this competition in certain areas like California and New York.

00:06:43.800 But at the same time, because the government has expanded its areas of responsibility, it creates a, let's say, target-rich environment for corruption.

00:06:52.440 So you're saying it's getting worse.

00:06:54.800 Wouldn't it be worse 100 years ago with no phone, social media?

00:06:59.000 It's tougher to break the law and kind of make money on the side.

00:07:02.000 You're saying it's getting worse today with more tools of being able to hold people accountable, where people are texting.

00:07:08.160 You're documenting more.

00:07:09.620 Maybe 100 years ago, you couldn't document.

00:07:11.860 How is corruption getting worse today?

00:07:14.480 I think it's getting worse because of the level of opportunity.

00:07:17.000 I mean, if you were a congressman in 1900, let's say, the scope of what the federal government did was actually fairly limited.

00:07:26.440 You know, this is before you had a Department of Transportation, a Department of Energy, a Department of Education.

00:07:32.880 This was before you had a regulatory regime that applied to so many industries.

00:07:40.280 And the thing people have to understand is that government power creates an opportunity for the benefit of the political class.

00:07:50.460 There's actually a school of economics called Public Choice Theory.

00:07:53.820 Public Choice Theory really says you have to look at government officials and bureaucrats the same way you look at a businessman.

00:08:00.860 A businessman is trying to build his business for his benefit, for the benefit of profit.

00:08:06.020 That's actually good.

00:08:07.540 That's what fuels our economy.

00:08:09.020 Just because somebody puts on a government hat does not mean that they're not self-interested.

00:08:15.320 They're not interested in their own self-good and their self-profit.

00:08:19.960 So we have to understand that's the model.

00:08:22.080 So, yes, you are correct.

00:08:23.680 There's more transparency today in the sense that we have the Internet.

00:08:28.080 We have the Freedom of Information Act.

00:08:30.100 We have these tools.

00:08:31.260 But the problem is the field of battle for self-enrichment is so much larger.

00:08:36.760 A congressman today has so many more industries that he can effectively shake down than a congressman in 1900 ever even could have dreamed of.

00:08:47.520 Can you unpack what shakedown means to you?

00:08:50.560 Yeah.

00:08:50.900 Shakedown basically means extortion.

00:08:52.940 People are used to thinking of extortion in the context of, you know, what the mafia does.

00:08:58.860 They, you know, they visit a local butcher shop in Buffalo, New York, and they basically say, look, if you want to pay protection money, it'd be terrible if something happened to this shop.

00:09:10.740 Pay protection money and we'll make sure that nothing happens.

00:09:13.380 Well, that's extortion.

00:09:15.220 We all recognize that's illegal.

00:09:16.960 We've seen that in movies.

00:09:18.280 Some people have experienced that.

00:09:20.580 Government oftentimes can function the same way.

00:09:24.620 There are many members of Congress that use tools and techniques that aren't widely discussed.

00:09:30.740 I've written about them.

00:09:31.840 Members of Congress have talked to me about them.

00:09:34.120 They have something called a milker bill.

00:09:36.440 A milker bill.

00:09:37.600 It doesn't have anything to do with the dairy industry.

00:09:40.440 It's designed to milk money from certain industries.

00:09:44.320 So how does a milker bill work?

00:09:46.500 Well, if I'm the chairman of a powerful committee in Congress and I need to raise money or let's say I need to find a lobbying opportunity for my son, I'm going to introduce a bill in Congress to, let's say, put a 20% surtax on the high-tech industry in Silicon Valley.

00:10:05.280 Now, I don't actually believe in this bill.

00:10:07.920 I don't even necessarily want this bill to pass.

00:10:10.380 But what's going to happen is that when I introduce that bill, I'm going to have a flood of lobbyists from Silicon Valley come and say, Congressman Schweitzer, why are you introducing this bill?

00:10:21.340 And what will happen over the next 60 days is a dance whereby they will come and meet.

00:10:27.260 They will hold fundraisers for me.

00:10:29.400 They will write campaign checks to me.

00:10:31.340 They might even hire my son or my nephew as a lobbyist for them.

00:10:35.900 This happens all the time.

00:10:37.740 My question fundamentally is, how is that any different than the shakedown of the shop owner in Buffalo, New York?

00:10:45.440 It's the same form of extortion.

00:10:47.700 It's the same element that says, look, something bad is going to happen to you.

00:10:52.200 I'm going to take more money away unless you pay me protection money now.

00:10:57.420 And that happens in Washington, D.C. all the time.

00:11:00.380 And it's the kind of extortive behavior that's become all too familiar in Washington.

00:11:05.680 I think that there's sort of a myth.

00:11:08.200 A lot of people feel that the problem in Washington is that there's all this money flowing into Washington, that corporations and businesses around the world are just happy to send their money to Washington, D.C.

00:11:20.060 They don't really want to, but they feel like they have to, because if they don't, bad things are going to happen to them.

00:11:26.960 And that's exactly what the political class in Washington wants them to believe, because it's so lucrative for the political class.

00:11:34.280 So business model, number one, introduce a bill that you have no interest in to scare off whoever it is in any kind of an industry, meat, technology, health care, whatever it may be.

00:11:45.520 And then wait for the lobbyist of those companies to reach out to you to say, hey, you know, we don't think this is a good bill.

00:11:52.300 Can we change your mind, et cetera, et cetera?

00:11:54.440 Then what happens?

00:11:55.580 Because is it a way of me paying your campaign or is it side money?

00:12:01.000 What happens next?

00:12:02.320 Because that's the question.

00:12:03.660 It's a great question.

00:12:04.480 Oftentimes it's campaign money.

00:12:06.180 Actually, in my book, Extortion, there's an example from Congressman, sorry, from a gentleman named Mr. Hoffmeister, who's the CEO of Shell Oil.

00:12:18.140 And he described a meeting that he had in 2009.

00:12:21.040 You remember in 2009, oil prices were pretty high.

00:12:24.240 He sat before a congressional committee.

00:12:26.640 Members of Congress, including Maxine Waters, essentially said, we want to nationalize your company.

00:12:32.740 We think it's outrageous, the profits you're making.

00:12:34.960 And then Hoffmeister reported to me, and I put in my book, that after that meeting, Congressman Waters talked to him and said, I might understand your issue better if we spend some time together.

00:12:47.940 And this was basically saying, you need to raise money for me, and I will take the threat for nationalizing your business away.

00:12:55.660 So what you're doing is you're having a series of coded conversations, but you know exactly what's going on.

00:13:02.520 A shakedown is taking place, and the beauty or the genius of a Milker bill is you don't actually want it to pass.

00:13:10.580 If I introduce a bill for a 20% tax on Silicon Valley, and that bill passes, guess what?

00:13:17.420 I can't introduce that bill again and shakedown Silicon Valley.

00:13:21.320 I actually want the bill to fail.

00:13:23.560 One of the reasons that you see a lot of tax credits that are passed, for example, in 1981, Congress passed a bill for an R&D tax credit for companies to invest in research and development.

00:13:37.060 People wonder in the business committee, why is that tax credit never been made permanent?

00:13:41.880 Well, the reason they ask that question is they're not thinking about this as a shakedown.

00:13:48.940 If they make the tax credit permanent, a congressman can't go back to them and ask them for money when they have to extend it.

00:13:56.640 So they have these things called tax extenders.

00:13:58.920 We're going to extend a tax credit for two to three years, and then what's going to happen is they're going to have to come.

00:14:05.420 They're going to meet with me.

00:14:06.380 They're going to raise more money with me.

00:14:07.880 And then I'm going to vote to extend it for another couple of years, but I'm never going to make it permanent.

00:14:12.900 Because if I make it permanent, I lose my leverage and my ability to extract money from it.

00:14:19.280 That's powerful, by the way, what you just said right there.

00:14:21.360 So it's an increment.

00:14:22.540 So let me leave it to renew it.

00:14:24.640 You need to spend money or else I'm not going to renew it.

00:14:26.960 So you've got to help me out.

00:14:28.520 And it's constant.

00:14:29.480 It's never ending.

00:14:30.760 So here's the difference.

00:14:32.280 You know I've interviewed a lot of the mobsters out there, whether it's Samuel Vogel, Gravano, Collada, Franzese.

00:14:37.200 A lot of them have sat down with them.

00:14:38.560 And the attorneys, Oscar Goodman, who's the legendary attorney for Spolatra and a lot of the mobsters.

00:14:43.600 The difference between what happens to politicians and mobsters is every one of them did time, okay, for their time.

00:14:52.480 So the part where voters, both on the left, right, and the middle, are losing trust in the system is because when's the last time a big politician did time?

00:15:04.640 And so the audience kind of sits around and says, I guess they didn't do anything corrupt because I don't see them doing any kind of time.

00:15:11.140 So when is the last time we had the highest level of politician that did time for doing extortion or corruption or anything that you're talking about?

00:15:19.080 It's been a very long time.

00:15:21.120 And, you know, part of the problem is that they get to write their own rules.

00:15:26.680 Now, you know, corporate executives don't get to write their own laws.

00:15:30.240 School teachers don't get to write their own laws. 0.99

00:15:32.760 I don't get to write my own laws.

00:15:34.120 You don't, but members of Congress do.

00:15:37.220 And so they know where those lines are, and they are able to engage in behaviors that if the rest of us were to do, they would be considered extortive practices.

00:15:47.840 So, for example, if a corporate executive tried to leverage their position for their own personal benefit, in other words, they were the head of, let's say, General Electric,

00:15:57.560 and as part of their official duty as CEO, they tried to leverage taking an action or not taking an action so they could derive a personal benefit,

00:16:07.820 they would at a minimum be in trouble with the SEC and probably be in trouble with federal prosecutors as well, because that's against the law.

00:16:16.220 That happens in Congress all the time.

00:16:18.040 Why?

00:16:18.740 Because Congress has written the rules in such a way to where they do not apply to their behavior.

00:16:24.120 One of my earliest books that I wrote about corruption involved insider trading on the stock market by members of Congress.

00:16:32.220 And a lot of people were outraged to learn this, that if a corporate executive trades their own company's stock with what's called material non-public information,

00:16:42.500 in other words, they know something that nobody else knows as a function of working for that company,

00:16:48.040 so they trade on it and profit, they're going to go to jail.

00:16:51.120 And lots of people have done that, from secretaries to corporate CEOs.

00:16:55.780 That law does not apply to members of Congress.

00:16:58.640 So if you're the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, for example,

00:17:02.960 and you know for a fact that a certain defense bill that's highly contested is going to pass,

00:17:10.880 and it's going to mean huge sums of money for Boeing or huge sums of money for another defense contractor,

00:17:16.960 you are, as a senator, allowed to buy and sell stock in that company.

00:17:22.400 I would argue that's non-public material information that's going to affect the stock price.

00:17:27.920 And yet, for years, members of Congress were exempt from that law.

00:17:32.220 It was only when we called it out, I did a book that became a bestseller,

00:17:36.620 we did a segment on 60 Minutes that caused a big uproar.

00:17:41.900 Did they pass a bill called the Stock Act to technically declare that it's illegal for members of Congress

00:17:48.200 to engage in cyber trading on the stock market?

00:17:51.120 The problem is, they later went back and watered down that bill,

00:17:55.040 so that bill really does not have much meaning anymore.

00:17:57.840 But my point is, to answer your question, is the reason very few powerful political figures go to prison

00:18:06.460 is because they get to write their own rules, and they know where the lines are,

00:18:11.320 and the lines are very different for them.

00:18:13.280 They're much more narrow for us than they are for them.

00:18:16.340 That's why you don't see a lot of people going to jail in positions of power.

00:18:20.820 How does that make sense, though?

00:18:22.260 So if that's the case, and if I'm a voter, whatever side I'm at,

00:18:27.520 you know, each side thinks the other side is corrupt.

00:18:29.540 Liberals think Republicans are corrupt. 0.98

00:18:31.500 Conservatives think the Democrats are corrupt. 0.98

00:18:33.480 Both sides are talking about the other side is corrupt.

00:18:36.320 But no one's seeing anyone getting trouble.

00:18:38.960 Why should I trust anything anyone's talking about?

00:18:42.020 And, you know, why should I sit there and say,

00:18:43.720 well, I trust in the law to know that that person is doing wrong.

00:18:47.120 And then what is the price and potential future consequences if the voters don't believe in you getting in trouble for doing corrupt behavior?

00:18:58.420 So then I don't trust in the politicians.

00:19:01.180 And how do we address that?

00:19:02.480 I mean, that's a big concern because you're hearing it on both sides.

00:19:06.460 Everybody's talking about how the other side is corrupt.

00:19:08.840 Who do you believe and what methods should be taken for these guys to be held accountable?

00:19:14.020 Well, I think it's a great question.

00:19:15.300 I think what we're seeing in the country today,

00:19:17.520 the political tumult on the left, right, and center is precisely to your point.

00:19:22.200 The fact that there is distrust.

00:19:24.580 I don't think there's distrust in the system as much as there's a distrust in the leadership

00:19:30.380 and how they have manipulated the system.

00:19:32.980 I think a lot of people recognize that, you know,

00:19:35.740 the founding fathers gave us this powerful system that diffused power,

00:19:41.000 that made sure that power would not be concentrated.

00:19:43.520 They like that system.

00:19:44.900 The problem is that there is, in a sense, a consensus in Washington, D.C.

00:19:50.740 A lot of people don't realize that.

00:19:52.480 There's a consensus in Washington, D.C. on these corruption issues.

00:19:56.960 What do I mean?

00:19:58.080 What I'm saying is that bipartisanship is not dead in Washington.

00:20:02.200 Most people on the right and on the left that are in positions of authority in Washington, D.C.

00:20:09.100 generally agree to the ground rules of how what I call legal graft occurs in Washington.

00:20:16.160 They accept the fact that members of Congress have family members that are lobbyists,

00:20:21.420 even if they're not qualified, and that those family members get paid

00:20:25.100 because of the position of authority that their mother or father might have as a member of Congress.

00:20:31.080 They all know it's corrupt, but the ground rules are such that they all are benefiting.

00:20:36.280 So there's a consensus that's emerged.

00:20:38.220 They don't talk about it.

00:20:39.660 So what you have is you have, of course, red states and blue states in America.

00:20:43.620 What you also have is really the rest of America against the Washington Beltway.

00:20:49.220 And that, I think, is underappreciated.

00:20:52.600 And I think one of the reasons that you see a right-left divide is because there are leaders in Washington

00:20:58.480 who don't want there to be a consensus on this issue.

00:21:01.620 I find lots of times, whether I go on Fox News or whether I go on Wisconsin Public Radio,

00:21:07.180 which is left of center, by and large, they grouse and they're concerned about the same thing,

00:21:12.680 about corrupt leadership.

00:21:13.760 They might be pointing the finger in a different direction, but they're talking about corrupt leadership.

00:21:19.780 And what we need to have is a consensus.

00:21:22.400 Number one, term limits.

00:21:24.460 I know it's been discussed many times, but if you look at the corrupt behavior that involves elected officials

00:21:30.400 in Washington, D.C., it's almost to a person.

00:21:34.440 The longer they stay in power, the more they become seduced by power,

00:21:38.660 the more prone they are to engage in corrupt behavior.

00:21:41.300 So if you've been in Congress for 30 years, the odds are infinitesimally higher

00:21:46.200 that you're going to engage in corrupt or extorted behavior than if you've been there for three years.

00:21:51.600 Term limits would be a great way to start. 1.00

00:21:54.840 Second of all, a ban on lobbying by members of Congress and their immediate family members.

00:22:00.560 This is a position that has been supported by everyone from AOC on the left to Ted Cruz on the right.

00:22:08.300 There's another consensus point that I think would be enormously helpful because you would get away from this self-enrichment model

00:22:16.120 where elected politicians feel that they are entitled, they're doing great service to the country,

00:22:22.040 they're irreplaceable, but they're not paid enough, they're not appreciated enough.

00:22:25.920 So it's okay to engage in this sort of legal graft where their son or daughter suddenly becomes a highly paid lobbyist,

00:22:33.200 even though they have absolutely no expertise.

00:22:35.340 There are areas of consensus. The problem is the left-right divide prevents us, I think, from going forward

00:22:42.580 and addressing some of these issues.

00:22:45.100 That's powerful. The term limits and the ban on lobbying, members of Congress, as well as family,

00:22:49.140 both AOC and Ted Cruz agree on that.

00:22:51.100 So who doesn't want those two to pass, both term limits and ban on lobbying?

00:22:57.780 Who are the people both on the left and the right saying, no, no, no, no, no, we're not good, we're not,

00:23:00.700 we don't want to pass that.

00:23:02.380 Well, I think a lot of them. I think if you had an open discussion where they were candid,

00:23:12.120 most elected officials would be opposed to those pieces of legislation.

00:23:16.280 The problem that they have is that both of those are supported by 89% of their constituents.

00:23:23.280 So the point is, they don't want to have a debate and a discussion about it.

00:23:28.420 When the issue of insider trading by members of Congress came up,

00:23:32.820 a bill on that matter had been introduced years before, and they had had maybe 15 sponsors.

00:23:38.940 Once it became public, once it reached critical mass, once the American public left, right, and center

00:23:44.120 became outraged and it became an issue, you suddenly went from having 15 sponsors

00:23:49.180 to more than 300 in the House of Representatives.

00:23:52.720 Why did they do that?

00:23:53.920 They did it because they felt they needed to do it,

00:23:56.540 or they were going to offend enough constituents whereby they wouldn't be reelected.

00:24:01.160 So the issue here on term limits and the ban on lobbying,

00:24:06.960 the real critical issue is therefore for there to be a consensus enough to where elected officials

00:24:12.020 fear that issue and feel like they have to vote for it or they're going to lose their jobs.

00:24:17.360 Otherwise, it's very difficult to get most members of Congress to do something

00:24:23.040 that's going to end up affecting their ability to enrich themselves and their family.

00:24:28.500 Peter, can you give some names of who's against it and who's for it?

00:24:31.940 You just gave two names, AOC and Ted Cruz.

00:24:34.300 That would be for banning lobbying.

00:24:36.540 But who's against, you know, let's keep term limits the way it is.

00:24:40.020 Let's keep lobbying the way it is. 0.85

00:24:41.140 Can you give us an idea of which camp is which camp?

00:24:43.480 Well, I would look at the leadership of the House of Representatives,

00:24:46.760 whether it's Nancy Pelosi or Steny Hoyer.

00:24:49.920 Both of them have been in Congress for decades, have never been in favor of term limits.

00:24:55.800 Their view, which I think is wrong, is that somebody who's been in Congress has a certain

00:25:01.080 amount of expertise that's needed.

00:25:04.720 I don't think that's true at all.

00:25:06.940 I think there are many qualified people that can come in and take their positions.

00:25:11.080 I think if you look at the U.S. Senate, you have the same thing.

00:25:13.540 I mean, there's a reason Senator Mitch McConnell has not brought a term limits to the floor

00:25:19.460 and has not wanted to have it discussed.

00:25:21.920 So, again, look at the people who have been in Congress for 20 or 30 years.

00:25:27.420 They become accustomed to it.

00:25:28.960 And the founders didn't really intend this.

00:25:31.660 Initially, to be in the Senate and to be in the House of Representatives, the first 100

00:25:36.720 years of American history was kind of seen as a burden.

00:25:40.200 It was kind of seen as something you did as an obligation to your community, your state,

00:25:46.000 and to your country.

00:25:47.480 You're somebody who had success in farming or as a printer or as a, you know, raising horses,

00:25:52.940 whatever it was.

00:25:53.780 You ran for office, you served for one or two terms, and you went back to what you did

00:25:58.800 before.

00:25:59.900 Really, beginning in the 20th century, this idea of a career politician where you could

00:26:05.680 do good and do well, where you could enrich yourself by Congress, that is a relatively new

00:26:12.020 phenomenon in the United States and a very, very dangerous one.

00:26:15.880 So, I would look at, you know, probably 75% of both political parties in Washington, D.C.

00:26:24.100 and elected office would not want those bills to pass. 0.69

00:26:27.280 But I would also say that the vast majority of them would vote for it if they believed

00:26:32.240 that their constituents were fed up and wanted those pieces of legislation to pass.

00:26:37.620 So, if that's the case, if what you're saying is 75% of them would hate to have term limits

00:26:43.900 and ban on lobbying, if that's the case, wouldn't it make sense that many current Republicans,

00:26:51.700 whether they're in the Senate or the House, probably are not fans of a guy like Trump because

00:26:56.680 Trump could cost them their job and their ability to lobby because that's how they've

00:27:01.900 been able to get constantly reelected over the years.

00:27:04.860 So, a Trump is probably not an ally to the country club type of people of, you know, congressmen

00:27:11.980 and Senate.

00:27:12.540 Would you agree with that?

00:27:13.900 Oh, absolutely.

00:27:15.000 I mean, look, you know, Donald Trump is, to use the term that they use in Silicon Valley

00:27:21.120 and in the tech space, Donald Trump is a disruptor.

00:27:24.420 He has fundamentally changed in a lot of respects, not in all, but in a lot of respects, the business

00:27:31.780 model of Washington, D.C., of how things are done.

00:27:35.140 How are things done in Washington, D.C.?

00:27:37.040 You serve in the cabinet.

00:27:38.500 You serve in Congress.

00:27:39.500 You leave, you become a lobbyist, or you go into government relations, which is really

00:27:44.880 just another form of lobbying.

00:27:46.720 Or you end up going to work for a government contractor that you, as a member of Congress,

00:27:51.560 earmarked legislation to get them extra money.

00:27:54.360 That's the way business has been done in Washington, D.C. for a long time.

00:27:58.740 And like Trump or not, like the tweets or not, Donald Trump came in and he disrupted that

00:28:04.480 model.

00:28:05.040 He started talking about it.

00:28:06.800 He started airing it.

00:28:08.240 He pushed for reforms.

00:28:10.240 Here was a guy who himself did not come up through the political system.

00:28:14.340 In fact, he complained, and rightfully so, about having to write checks for politicians because

00:28:21.100 he was a real estate developer and he needed to make sure he had access to people who might

00:28:26.280 be disruptive to what he was trying to do.

00:28:29.560 That's breaking all the rules.

00:28:31.580 You're not supposed to talk about these things publicly.

00:28:34.720 You're not supposed to call people out on them.

00:28:37.300 You're supposed to allow the system to function the way that it has for decades on a bipartisan

00:28:42.860 basis, whether Clinton or Bush or Obama has been in office, that's basically the way that

00:28:48.520 business has been done.

00:28:50.040 Trump came in and aggressively worked to change that.

00:28:54.020 He had success in some areas, in other areas less so, because again, he needed the cooperation

00:29:00.080 of Congress and that never happened.

00:29:02.040 So Trump has been a disruptive force.

00:29:05.080 Those that like his policies or not, those that like his personality or not, cannot ignore

00:29:10.960 or I think diminish the fact that he has undermined this business model in Washington, D.C.

00:29:16.780 And that, in my mind, is unequivocally a good thing.

00:29:20.880 I've spoken to many of my friends who were former lobbyists and they shared with me the

00:29:25.020 kind of money that's potentially there to make.

00:29:26.920 But maybe for the viewer that hasn't had the ability to talk to somebody to know what kind

00:29:30.640 of money lobbyists make, what is the business model for the lobbyists?

00:29:35.160 Not the, you know, politician, but the actual lobbyists representing the company.

00:29:39.760 What is their business model?

00:29:41.720 Well, their business model is to take their position.

00:29:45.540 Their position may have been as a congressional staffer.

00:29:48.040 It may have been for a member of Congress.

00:29:49.800 And then when they leave office, whether they retire from Congress or they leave as a congressional

00:29:54.980 staffer, they're voted out of office as a member of Congress.

00:29:57.940 It's to become a lobbyist and to go to the very people that you perform services for while

00:30:04.720 you were in office and to now get paid.

00:30:08.180 So, you know, think about it, think about it this way.

00:30:11.880 Sometimes there are transactions where if I'm purchasing something from you, you give me

00:30:16.740 a good and I pay you back directly.

00:30:19.300 Sometimes if we're exchanging a service, you perform a service and we sign a retainer agreement.

00:30:25.560 I don't pay you the full amount, but I pay you a certain amount every month just to make

00:30:30.460 sure that we have that retainer agreement.

00:30:32.580 Lobbying is very similar.

00:30:34.740 Oftentimes they use the retainer model.

00:30:37.300 So if I'm the powerful, you know, powerful chairman of a congressional committee, I decide

00:30:42.080 to retire and I become a lobbyist.

00:30:44.140 Let's say I was chairman of the House Budget Committee.

00:30:47.000 Enormous power influence on federal government spending.

00:30:50.220 I'm going to set up a lobbyist shop.

00:30:52.000 And what's going to happen is all the government contractors, all the individuals who are getting

00:30:57.140 government money are now going to hire me as a lobbyist.

00:31:01.480 And I can make $50,000 a month just from one client.

00:31:05.600 And I might have 15 or 20 clients at the same time.

00:31:09.540 Basically, what I'm going to use is my position as the former chairman of the committee to do

00:31:14.520 what?

00:31:14.860 I'm going to go to the current occupant and I'm going to say, look, I need you to do me

00:31:19.920 a favor.

00:31:20.540 I have this client that needs this written into legislation or they need this favor done.

00:31:26.660 And the current occupant, based on the way it works in Washington, D.C., is going to play

00:31:31.380 ball.

00:31:32.260 Why are they going to play ball?

00:31:33.680 Because when they leave as chairman of the House Budget Committee, they're probably going

00:31:38.980 to do the same thing.

00:31:40.400 So it's a business model in a system that is on rotation.

00:31:44.860 And it's very, you know, infrequently talked about.

00:31:48.660 It's very infrequently discussed.

00:31:50.540 Why?

00:31:51.060 Because both sides do it.

00:31:53.760 It's one of the few things in Washington that's still bipartisan.

00:31:57.720 But this ability to make money as a member of Congress, when you really don't necessarily

00:32:03.220 even have any other skill set other than the fact that, you know, other people in positions

00:32:07.760 of power is an enormously alluring way to make money.

00:32:12.320 And nobody wants to disrupt that.

00:32:14.920 So it's not uncommon to make five to ten million here as a lobbyist, if you're a good

00:32:18.980 lobbyist.

00:32:19.180 Oh, yeah, that's absolutely right.

00:32:21.160 And also, you know, to be clear, there's a lot that you can do in the area of, let's

00:32:26.440 say, government relations.

00:32:27.960 It's not technically lobbying, but it's essentially the same thing with a few slight

00:32:33.620 modifications.

00:32:34.640 So you take a guy like Senator Tom Daschle, former leader for Democrats in the U.S.

00:32:41.460 Senate.

00:32:41.880 He's been out for a while.

00:32:44.760 But Tom Daschle will say, I'm not a lobbyist.

00:32:47.120 I'm in government relations.

00:32:49.020 But what does he do?

00:32:49.860 He represents pharmaceutical companies and others that have a beef or that have a problem

00:32:54.460 or want a favor from the federal government.

00:32:57.260 And as long as he doesn't cross that threshold into being a lobbyist, whereby he devotes a

00:33:03.120 certain amount of his time to asking for specific legislation to pass, he can avoid being labeled

00:33:09.440 a lobbyist.

00:33:10.460 But he's still pulling in $50,000 a month from a client, doing favors and getting benefits

00:33:15.580 from Washington, D.C.

00:33:16.860 I mean, that's real money, making five to ten million a year.

00:33:19.040 You got you got pretty good lifestyle.

00:33:20.960 Now, why do some of these guys like if Nancy wanted to leave and say, I don't want to do

00:33:25.840 what I'm doing anymore, I'm going to go out there and be a lobbyist and open up my own

00:33:28.520 place and make a bunch of money?

00:33:30.260 Why?

00:33:30.700 Why is she staying in? 0.51

00:33:32.260 Why is Schumer staying in?

00:33:34.000 Because the money isn't that good.

00:33:35.700 I mean, I saw her net worth the other day, $140 million.

00:33:38.500 I don't know how she's worth $140 million. 0.82

00:33:40.380 And I saw that 60 minute, by the way.

00:33:42.560 But why aren't some of them leaving to make more money as a lobbyist?

00:33:46.980 That's a good question.

00:33:47.860 I mean, some people, I guess, have different motivations.

00:33:51.980 But I think to be more to the point, there are people in Washington, D.C. that are in

00:33:55.960 elective office and have been there for decades who have mastered the art of enriching themselves,

00:34:02.780 what I would call, again, legal graft.

00:34:05.180 But they use their position as a member of Congress to self-enrich themselves.

00:34:09.220 And let me just give you a couple of examples.

00:34:11.200 One would be issues relating to stock market manipulation and favor.

00:34:17.100 And this would be an example with Nancy Pelosi.

00:34:19.680 So let's say you are a senator from the great state of Texas.

00:34:23.680 And I want a favor.

00:34:25.500 If I walk in and I give you a shoebox with $100,000 in cash, we're going to be in trouble

00:34:32.660 because that's illegal.

00:34:33.700 I can't pay you a bribe.

00:34:34.980 You can't accept a bribe in exchange for a favor.

00:34:38.220 But consider this, and this is something Nancy Pelosi has done for decades, but consider

00:34:43.420 this.

00:34:44.720 I need a favor from you, Senator.

00:34:47.780 And oh, by the way, I'm connected with this company that's going to be going public.

00:34:53.360 And I can get you access to the friends and family round of IPO stock, whereby you can buy

00:35:01.740 stock for pennies on the dollar.

00:35:03.560 And when this stock goes public, you're going to make $100,000 in a single day.

00:35:09.540 Now, if that's our conversation, that's actually not illegal.

00:35:14.840 And Nancy Pelosi has done this.

00:35:16.780 I mean, we found in our investigation with 60 Minutes at least eight instances where she

00:35:23.740 and her husband got access to IPO shares of stock before companies went public.

00:35:29.140 And these were companies that had legislation sitting before her in Congress.

00:35:35.420 The most extreme example was Visa, the credit card company that went public in 2008.

00:35:41.960 She and her husband got 5,000 pre-IPO shares of stock in that company.

00:35:49.660 Visa had legislation they wanted killed.

00:35:52.380 She killed that legislation. 1.00

00:35:53.780 When Visa went public, Pelosi and her husband made $100,000 in a single day.

00:36:00.420 So that's one example of how this works.

00:36:02.780 So you don't have to leave office necessarily to cash in.

00:36:06.760 If you're smart and clever and willing to, frankly, be corrupt, there are things that you

00:36:11.360 can do in office.

00:36:12.340 Let me give you another example of how it works.

00:36:14.860 And that would be what I would call the land deal.

00:36:17.640 And here I can cite examples of Harry Reid, the former senator from Nevada.

00:36:21.580 I can also talk about Dennis Hastert, the former Republican Speaker of the House.

00:36:26.540 In Dennis Hastert's case, his net worth when he became Speaker of the House was minimal.

00:36:33.980 It was a couple hundred thousand dollars.

00:36:35.800 By the time he left, only eight years later, he was worth millions of dollars.

00:36:41.000 Now, how does that happen?

00:36:42.200 He's a former wrestling coach, went into Congress.

00:36:45.940 How did that happen?

00:36:46.960 Well, he used what I call the land deal.

00:36:48.940 So he's the Speaker of the House.

00:36:51.380 He buys himself individually, as a private citizen as he can, a parcel of land in the

00:36:58.220 middle of nowhere in Illinois, where he's from.

00:37:01.380 I mean, this is rural Illinois in the middle of nowhere.

00:37:04.180 Gets the land very cheap.

00:37:06.140 Within 18 months, he is the Speaker of the House, introduces the Highway Transportation

00:37:13.020 Bill for federal subsidies to transportation.

00:37:15.820 In that bill includes legislation for something called the Prairie Parkway, which is going

00:37:22.140 to run where?

00:37:22.980 Through Illinois, which is going to run where?

00:37:25.560 Right by the property that he had purchased a year and a half earlier.

00:37:29.840 The valuation of that land went up dramatically.

00:37:33.940 He made literally half a million dollars just in that one deal.

00:37:38.320 And here's the scary part.

00:37:39.820 What he did was exposed.

00:37:42.420 It's not illegal.

00:37:43.260 It's not illegal to do what he did.

00:37:45.540 So there are many things that elected officials in office can do right now to self-enrich themselves.

00:37:52.140 That's why Nancy Pelosi is now worth more than $100 million, having been in Congress for 0.95

00:37:57.780 the last 30 years.

00:37:59.140 Her husband's a businessman, but a lot of his business deals dovetail very nicely with the

00:38:05.080 legislation that she's working on in Washington.

00:38:07.180 How much of politics is it about, you know, the industry of politics attracts corrupt people

00:38:14.940 or the industry of politics corrupts people?

00:38:18.800 I think it's both.

00:38:20.760 And I don't say that to cop out, but I think it's both.

00:38:23.580 I mean, I think there are people that come in there idealistically and get seduced.

00:38:29.800 One of the people that I've gotten to know over the years is the former governor of Louisiana,

00:38:34.900 former congressman, Bobby Jindal.

00:38:37.260 And Bobby Jindal told me one time when he had served in Congress, I believe he served three

00:38:42.020 terms.

00:38:43.280 He said, when I first got there, you know, they talked about fundraising and all these things

00:38:48.760 we were going to do.

00:38:49.440 And he just said, he said, it just seems so dirty.

00:38:52.540 It just seems so dirty.

00:38:53.700 You know, you're supposed to pick a committee that's going to allow you to raise a lot of

00:38:58.780 money.

00:38:59.060 You're not going to raise a lot of money sitting on the veterans committee.

00:39:02.020 You want to be the financial services committee because you can really shake down those Wall

00:39:06.320 Street guys.

00:39:07.280 He said, when you first get there, you hear that it just feels so dirty and awful.

00:39:12.300 He said, but after you're there a couple of years, you're like, yeah, that's how things

00:39:17.040 are done.

00:39:17.920 He said, it's like when you first get there, it's successful.

00:39:21.620 But after a couple of years, that cesspool becomes a hot tub.

00:39:25.680 So there's no question.

00:39:27.320 There are people that go there with good intentions.

00:39:29.360 They get caught up with the power.

00:39:31.080 They get seduced by the power and they are corrupted.

00:39:34.160 But let's also be clear.

00:39:35.880 There are people that go in there and their intention, I think pretty early on, they see

00:39:40.620 the extractive power of being a member of Congress.

00:39:43.840 Let's be honest.

00:39:44.840 They don't really have life skills.

00:39:46.600 They're going to lend themselves to rising in the corporate world or in the medical field

00:39:51.120 or in the law profession.

00:39:52.440 They're not capable of running their own businesses, but they are capable of shaking

00:39:57.280 down people and abusing their power.

00:40:00.440 So politics attracts those people as well.

00:40:03.540 Regardless, whether they come in with good intentions or they come in with corruption,

00:40:08.860 my point would be term limits stops both of them, stops people in both of those categories

00:40:15.420 from staying for a long period of time and exploding their position.

00:40:19.800 Interesting.

00:40:20.440 That's a good perspective on both ends, how it takes place.

00:40:23.580 So you've written books, Clinton Cash, Secret Empires, Profiles in Corruption, and you've

00:40:28.760 been studying this topic for quite some time.

00:40:30.700 You started writing about it.

00:40:31.620 I think you wrote a book about Reagan back in 2003.

00:40:34.100 I think it was 2003.

00:40:36.080 And you've written prior to that as well.

00:40:38.260 If you were to break down the most corrupt families that we've seen in politics, both

00:40:46.060 sides, over the last, I don't know, 40, 50, 60 years, who would you put on that list?

00:40:52.420 Great question.

00:40:53.800 I would say that probably at the top of the list, in terms of breadth and scope, would

00:41:01.540 be the Biden family.

00:41:03.300 And I don't say that.

00:41:04.040 I don't say that.

00:41:05.180 Yes.

00:41:05.500 I would say the Biden family.

00:41:07.840 And the reason I would say that is the size and the scope.

00:41:11.800 In the case of Bill and Hillary Clinton, they ran a very successful corruption racket.

00:41:19.800 Whether it's legal or not is obviously open to debate.

00:41:22.880 But it essentially involved the two of them.

00:41:24.980 And they were tag teams.

00:41:26.220 So Bill Clinton is President of the United States.

00:41:29.080 His wife is First Lady.

00:41:30.640 He leaves.

00:41:31.500 She becomes a senator.

00:41:32.480 He's a private citizen.

00:41:34.120 But it essentially becomes, if you want a benefit, if you want some benefit from Senator Hillary

00:41:39.600 Clinton, pay Bill Clinton and benefits will flow your way. 0.99

00:41:43.360 When she becomes Secretary of State, you pay Bill Clinton inflated speaking fees.

00:41:48.640 You give him other benefits.

00:41:50.780 And at the end of the day, you know, the Clintons enrich themselves.

00:41:55.100 The Clinton Foundation was corrupt.

00:41:57.100 The speaking fees were corrupt.

00:41:58.520 No question about it.

00:42:00.100 But what you have with the Bidens is really unique in terms of the scope and the breadth.

00:42:05.580 What do I mean?

00:42:07.120 In terms of breadth, people know about Hunter Biden.

00:42:11.440 A lot of people do.

00:42:12.240 They've heard about Hunter Biden.

00:42:13.900 They may have even heard of James Biden.

00:42:16.000 But as I point out in my book, there are actually five members of the Biden family.

00:42:21.200 I call them the Biden five, who I argue engaged in corrupt behavior.

00:42:26.680 Some of it legal.

00:42:28.060 Some of it probably questionable.

00:42:29.860 But the point is, five members of the family have enriched themselves.

00:42:33.380 And they've been very blatant about it.

00:42:35.160 If you look at Hunter Biden's career, even when his father was a senator, he was a lobbyist working for Delaware entities looking for federal grants.

00:42:46.600 Well, where would Delaware entities go to look for federal grants?

00:42:51.260 They would go to Hunter Biden's father.

00:42:52.980 They hire Hunter Biden to do that job.

00:42:55.720 He's a lobbyist in other respects.

00:42:57.700 When it becomes clear that you have to disclose the fact that you're introducing earmarked legislation for the benefit of a family member who's a lobbyist, Hunter Biden is forced to switch positions and do something else.

00:43:13.640 When his father becomes vice president of the United States, he becomes involved in corruption on a global scale.

00:43:20.940 And this is where I talk about the breadth and the depth.

00:43:24.280 And what I mean here is the depth of corruption.

00:43:26.240 The corruption involved in the Biden family, it's not akin to a nephew of a congressman who's trying to get a road paving contract so he can make an extra buck.

00:43:39.480 The corruption we're talking about with the Bidens involves foreign governments.

00:43:44.560 It involves foreign governments, specifically the Chinese government, which is our chief rival on the global stage. 0.92

00:43:50.820 It involves corrupt olivarks in Ukraine. 0.86

00:43:53.140 So that is hard to beat as far as I'm concerned.

00:43:57.820 So I would put the Bidens at the top of the list.

00:44:00.520 I would probably put the Clintons second.

00:44:04.160 There was a Republican senator who has had three members of his family who has been lobbyists.

00:44:13.280 I would put them near the top of the list.

00:44:15.160 The name is escaping me right now.

00:44:16.900 He's still in office, a senator from Missouri.

00:44:20.300 I don't know why the name is escaping me.

00:44:23.720 I would put him on the list.

00:44:25.160 I read about him in my book on extortion.

00:44:28.480 He would be number three on the list.

00:44:31.080 And then I would probably put Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao on that list as well for their ties to the government of China.

00:44:40.120 In their case, it's not quite as bad, I think, as the Bidens, because in her case, her family actually did have a shipping company before she married Mitch McConnell, before he arose in power as a U.S. senator.

00:44:55.060 But there's no question that they have benefited from the largesse of the Chinese government, and that is as a result of the fact that he has softened his position on China over the years, as Elaine Chao has as well.

00:45:09.200 You see, you know, when you're saying that, to me, we saw a lot of stuff about Bill Clinton and the Clintons being corrupt, and all the articles came afterwards.

00:45:18.140 Well, look at what happened with them in Africa, and they went in, but they were corrupt with the leaders of Africa. 0.59

00:45:24.620 And then Haiti, when the big earthquake happened, they went out there saying, we're going to build 5,000 homes at, I don't know, $59 million, ended up building 2,600 homes at $90 million.

00:45:33.580 And where did that money go to?

00:45:34.800 And they paid Bill Clinton $350,000 two times to give a speech, where typically he was making $150,000 to $200,000 at the time.

00:45:42.000 Okay, I saw all of that.

00:45:43.520 That's fine.

00:45:44.040 But to me, that's after he left being a president, after he left being a president.

00:45:49.620 And then for the most part, maybe America doesn't want to humiliate a former president.

00:45:54.380 Maybe it's not good for America.

00:45:55.560 So we pardon and just kind of leave it alone.

00:45:57.740 Even when, you know, Trump said, because you'd be in jail, he didn't come out when he had the House, Senate, and presidency.

00:46:04.660 He didn't go after Hillary.

00:46:05.640 So maybe he was somebody behind closed doors, whispered and said, Trump, you may want to not do Hillary because eight years from now, someone's going to come after you.

00:46:11.860 Maybe just kind of slow your roll.

00:46:13.280 Maybe there is that exchange.

00:46:14.900 Let's not humiliate the bigger leaders.

00:46:17.880 But Biden was not a president.

00:46:20.660 He ran with all of this stuff.

00:46:22.260 And you're seeing the data.

00:46:24.120 So Biden's son was paid $5 million from a Chinese oil company, CEFC.

00:46:28.120 You know, he created a $1 billion fund, BHR, from a state-owned bank of China and owned by State Bank of China.

00:46:33.660 Received $3.5 million wire transfer from Alina Baturina, the wife of former mayor of Moscow.

00:46:38.660 Earned $4.2 million from Ukraine energy company Burisma.

00:46:41.740 OK, if all of that stuff is true, if all of that stuff is true, how the hell did Biden get $76.3 million votes if it's as corrupt as some people say it is?

00:46:54.860 Because I'm not worried about the 42 percent of Democrats that could care less what happens.

00:47:00.540 As long as Trump is out, they're happy.

00:47:02.720 And I don't care about the – not that I don't care.

00:47:04.520 I don't put the weight behind the 44 percent of Republicans that just go right all the way down.

00:47:09.680 As long as it's not the left, they're happy.

00:47:11.220 And put the other 4 percent aside of libertarians, green, whatever you want to call it.

00:47:16.020 I look at the 10 percent. 0.70

00:47:17.600 The 10 percent is who rules the world. 0.99

00:47:19.220 The 10 percent is who rules our elections, right? 0.72

00:47:21.500 The 10 percent is sitting there saying, Peter, you know that documentary you did that was live on the Blaze TV and, you know, saying that Biden did this and Biden did this.

00:47:30.160 We bought the Clinton cash so Hillary didn't get elected. 1.00

00:47:32.980 But I don't know.

00:47:33.840 I'm seeing it on this channel.

00:47:35.060 I'm seeing it on – all these people that are talking about Biden, if it is really so true about Hunter Biden, how did Joe Biden become the president-elect?

00:47:44.000 It's a great question.

00:47:45.280 I mean, it's mystifying to me as well.

00:47:48.060 I mean, I live and breathe the research that we do on corruption and cronyism.

00:47:52.500 So I take these issues very passionately.

00:47:55.200 I think part of the problem is that a large portion of the American people are not that familiar with the story of Biden corruption.

00:48:03.940 And the reason is that it got very little attention from the mainstream media.

00:48:09.380 ABC News did a story on it in late 2019 that I thought was pretty good that was mentioned in the New York Post.

00:48:17.200 There are obviously several stories there.

00:48:19.620 The Wall Street Journal did a story.

00:48:21.440 But the major networks, the New York Times, the Washington Post really did not demonstrate much curiosity at all about this story.

00:48:31.200 And that, to me, is really shocking because one of the oldest stories in journalism is follow the money.

00:48:38.140 I mean, think about all the times that we've turned on to our TV and we've seen a story about, you know, big oil or big tech or big labor unions that, you know, held fundraisers for an elected official.

00:48:52.420 And that elected official then sponsored legislation to benefit those entities.

00:48:56.800 That's a hallmark of journalism.

00:48:58.020 I used to do those stories with CNN.

00:49:01.160 This is that story on steroids because you not only have money in the equation, you have a foreign government in the equation.

00:49:10.920 You have corrupt foreign oligarchs in the equation.

00:49:13.940 You have the fact that Hunter Biden has no skills to sell.

00:49:19.260 I mean, the question I keep asking my friends, they say, oh, you know, well, Hunter Biden, he's a businessman.

00:49:24.780 He has to make a living.

00:49:26.360 You know, my question is, is what was he selling?

00:49:29.560 What was he selling?

00:49:30.680 He doesn't have a skill set.

00:49:32.220 He has nothing to offer the Chinese government other than his connections to his father.

00:49:37.380 That's why he's being given five million dollars.

00:49:39.820 So I think the first part of the problem is that a lot of the media ignored this and suppressed this story.

00:49:47.160 You saw what happened when the New York Post tweeted about it.

00:49:51.340 Twitter shut down their Twitter account.

00:49:53.740 I mean, this was blatant censorship.

00:49:56.200 And these are precisely the kinds of stories that people should know about.

00:50:00.460 Nobody has challenged the facts about this.

00:50:03.040 Nobody has said that it's not true.

00:50:04.800 Nobody said Hunter didn't get involved in this private equity fund or get this money from the Chinese energy company or get the million dollars a year from Burisma.

00:50:13.220 They just simply have said, end of story, nothing to discuss.

00:50:17.380 So the first problem has been the media censorship.

00:50:19.880 I think the second issue is that we are a very divided country.

00:50:23.800 And there are a large portion of the country that believe that they should turn a blind eye to the corruption on their side in order to make sure that their side wins.

00:50:37.380 And my argument, I guess, to them would be whether you're a Republican, whether you're a Democrat, no political figure is irreplaceable.

00:50:45.460 So what Democrats should have done, because this issue with corruption in Biden is not going away.

00:50:51.920 He's a president-elect.

00:50:53.760 He's probably going to be president of the United States.

00:50:56.420 The issue of this corruption is not going away.

00:50:59.380 This issue should have been aired in the primaries.

00:51:02.800 This issue should have come out in the primaries.

00:51:04.980 It should have been had aired.

00:51:06.560 And if people have decided at that point, we're happy with this, then so be it.

00:51:11.180 But now we have a president that's elected, and people have decided to turn a blind eye, and this never ends up well.

00:51:20.100 When you have elected officials that are corrupt, they end up making poor decisions.

00:51:24.980 They end up being distracted.

00:51:26.880 They may end up even having some legal liability.

00:51:29.860 And my point is, nobody's irreplaceable.

00:51:33.800 What politicians will tell you is, look aside.

00:51:37.420 Ignore this corruption.

00:51:38.460 You need me to advance the cause, to fight the cause, to get this work done.

00:51:43.720 Nobody is irreplaceable.

00:51:45.800 For every Joe Biden, for every corrupt member of Congress, you can find people that you agree with on your side that can run for office and that can be effective that are not corrupt at that time.

00:51:57.800 And that's what I tell everybody left, right, and center.

00:52:00.700 Do not turn a blind eye to corruption from somebody on your side.

00:52:05.340 That's what they want us to do, and that's why we have a situation with so many elected corrupt officials.

00:52:13.380 Well, the current business model doesn't incentivize to do that.

00:52:17.640 Simple as that.

00:52:18.420 The current business model in the voting system that we have, it doesn't incentivize me to say, oh, yeah, some guy on my side is being corrupt.

00:52:26.060 It doesn't do that.

00:52:26.980 There's no incentive.

00:52:28.200 We're not teaching that.

00:52:29.440 The comp structure, if you want to say, isn't set up in a way for somebody to say, yeah, you know what, I disagree with what they're doing.

00:52:35.940 Because if I recall, in the Democratic primary, when they were debating, all the candidates, whoever you had on the stage, the Sanders, the Warren, Pete, all of these guys were debating.

00:52:47.860 I don't remember Hunter Biden coming up at all.

00:52:49.820 I don't remember anything about the family coming up.

00:52:52.220 So do you think behind closed doors, the DNC, Tom Perez, is sitting down saying, guys, the one thing you can do, if you even think about bringing anything about the Biden family, that's a no-no.

00:53:03.360 We're going to do this.

00:53:04.020 Does it go that deep, or am I, you know, is that too much of thinking to say the DNC doesn't go that deep?

00:53:10.560 You know, it could be.

00:53:11.880 I mean, look, there's no question.

00:53:13.300 You're exactly right.

00:53:14.560 This issue did not really come up in the primaries.

00:53:17.220 I'm sorry, Joe Biden was asked about it on the campaign trail, but Biden's primary opponents, you know, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, nobody brought it up.

00:53:27.680 Remember in 2016, when Hillary Clinton was running and Bernie Sanders was the last man standing, he pointedly said, you know, I think this story about the emails, you know, is ridiculous. 0.66

00:53:40.140 I think the Clinton Foundation stuff is ridiculous.

00:53:42.860 The argument was for unity. 0.86

00:53:44.420 I think unity, I understand the appeal to it.

00:53:48.140 I think at that stage, it's a mistake because it prevents you from airing issues that need to be aired.

00:53:55.280 And again, this is where I think you have to give Trump credit.

00:53:59.260 Like Trump or not, like his policies or not, in the 2016 primary, he was very open, you know, not only sort of calling out people on their policies,

00:54:08.880 but calling them out on the fact that, that, you know, they had deals or that they were engaged in behavior that was corrupt or they were part of a swamp.

00:54:18.460 To my mind, that's a healthy process.

00:54:21.120 You need that kind of cleansing process and people are counting on a primary to be a horse race, but if you have a situation where, you know, a number of horses in the race are not running as hard, as fast as they could,

00:54:35.360 in the name of unity, it undermines the process and you end up getting a president-elect, as I think we have with Joe Biden, that is going to be weakened.

00:54:45.780 Hunter Biden issue is not going to go away.

00:54:47.880 And you have this very real problem of the fact that the president of the United States' son may be subject to extortion or some kind of, let's say, persuasion by a foreign power

00:55:02.320 because they have knowledge about things that he's engaged in that he does not want to come out.

00:55:07.140 That's a very serious problem.

00:55:09.420 This should have been aged in the, it should have been aired in the primary, but it was not, and I think to the detriment of the country.

00:55:15.180 And I don't think anything's, in my opinion, I don't think anything's going to change there.

00:55:20.820 Do you think it's a good thing?

00:55:21.760 Let's just say, let's give an example.

00:55:23.300 Okay, pick McConnell, pick the senator from Missouri you were talking about, pick Clintons, pick Biden.

00:55:29.640 Let's just pick any of the families, whichever one it is.

00:55:32.520 Do you think it's good for America if the law came down hard, public, humiliating, you know, it's out in the front.

00:55:42.700 Everybody has to report it.

00:55:44.620 You don't even have a choice to avoid it.

00:55:46.820 Whether your name is Hannity, Tucker, or Don Lemon, or Cuomo, you have to report what's being said.

00:55:52.740 Do you think it would be a good thing for America if one of these corrupt families was exposed publicly?

00:55:59.740 Yes, absolutely.

00:56:00.820 No question about it.

00:56:01.960 I think that we are a country that's ruled by laws, not by men.

00:56:07.300 Again, I'm certainly not a lawyer, so I'm not going to be able to talk about this specific code, but there's no question in my mind, if laws have been broken, charges need to be brought, but I would be even more sharp than that.

00:56:20.060 I think it's the obligation of the media to be calling out powerful elected officials.

00:56:26.160 And part of the reason that they don't do it is because they want access.

00:56:31.680 You know, if you run a particularly harsh story on Mitch McConnell or on Joe Biden, you're not going to get access to the sort of information that you might need to run your news organization.

00:56:42.360 You also have the cultural phenomenon.

00:56:44.140 I mean, the reason I think particularly the Washington Post, the New York Times, some of these network television programs don't want to do it is they're part of a social set in Washington, D.C.

00:56:55.740 They're part of the establishment, and they don't want to call out somebody else in the establishment, whether it's a powerful senator or the president of the United States, for fear that they're going to be shunned the way you might have been shunned in middle school if you did something embarrassing.

00:57:10.700 So I think social pressure is brought to bear, but the old, muckraking journalism that we're used to thinking of, where it's deep expose of finances of our elected officials, of the foreign ties of our elected officials, that used to be the kinds of stories that we would expect of, say, 60 Minutes in the 1970s or 1980s.

00:57:33.700 Those days are gone, and we are missing a vigorous media that is holding our leaders into account.

00:57:42.500 They are absent, and that means that we have to have other institutions.

00:57:46.760 We need to have programs like this.

00:57:48.660 We need to have organizations like mine.

00:57:51.040 We need alternative sources of news media to hold them into account, because if they're not held into account, it's just going to become worse and worse and worse.

00:57:59.820 Let me ask you a question. Where would you put Dick Cheney on the families, corrupt families? Would you put him anywhere on the list or no?

00:58:09.080 Only reason I ask is because the movie that came out a couple years ago, Vice, played by Christian Bale, and how they sold him being the real master decision maker behind closed doors with George W.

00:58:21.120 just being a nice guy that was trying to do his best to be a president. What would you put Cheney on that list?

00:58:26.700 Well, there's always been a question about Cheney and his corporate ties and his work in the private sector from when he was SACDEF and the Bush administration and when he became Vice President of the United States.

00:58:41.320 He had certainly a lot of stock options that were coming as a result of that.

00:58:45.040 So there certainly are issues of conflicts of interest that need to be raised there.

00:58:51.600 I don't know if those decisions were influenced by those, but it's certainly something that needs to be investigated and explored.

00:59:00.500 I haven't looked at it. I'm looking at current elected officials as it comes out, but I would welcome it.

00:59:05.980 I think there should be scrutiny of all of that. Transparency is a good thing. The American people, I believe, are forgiving people. And what do I mean by that?

00:59:15.760 They recognize that political leaders need to make a living. They recognize that people go in and out of government and in and out of the private sector.

00:59:24.240 They're sophisticated enough to know that. They also know when people are enriching based on their government office.

00:59:30.760 So I would say that that needs to be investigated thoroughly.

00:59:36.360 Fair enough. I've got a couple more topics before we wrap up here. You know, we've talked about a lot of different people, politicians, billionaires.

00:59:43.340 We've talked about media. We've talked about, you know, lobbyists. We talk a lot of different people.

00:59:49.300 Who would you say in order are the most powerful people in America?

00:59:53.660 The actual politicians, the billionaires, the media folks, the lobbyists or others?

01:00:01.640 I'd say the most powerful right now are the titans of Silicon Valley because of the stranglehold that they have on information.

01:00:10.240 And we've seen, you know, some evidence of that with Twitter banning the New York Post.

01:00:15.420 But it goes far, far, far deeper than that.

01:00:17.980 You know, the vast majority of people, some estimate 80 percent, are getting their news and their information basically from platforms like Facebook and Twitter that they're relying on Google for their search algorithms.

01:00:32.460 And they have an ability to manipulate news and they use it.

01:00:38.020 And that to me is extremely troubling because they essentially walk in lockstep.

01:00:43.760 They all have generally the same worldview and they can use that power in such a way as to influence the politicians and who gets elected.

01:00:52.380 So I would put Silicon Valley titans first, not just because of their wealth, but because of their ability to control information.

01:01:00.600 I would put second among that public government officials, meaning president of the United States and members of Congress.

01:01:08.440 What you often see is, you know, whether it's people in Wall Street, people in oil companies who are rich, who are successful, going to Washington, D.C. with their tail between the legs.

01:01:21.480 And oftentimes they should, but that's a demonstration of the power and the authority that government has.

01:01:28.620 Think about it this way.

01:01:30.580 Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, enormously wealthy, enormously successful.

01:01:36.940 Does he have more power than the number two person at the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA?

01:01:45.160 I would argue he does not.

01:01:47.240 Think about it this way.

01:01:48.280 Bill Gates made his money by selling computers, voluntary exchange.

01:01:53.620 People give money to Microsoft.

01:01:55.760 Microsoft sends you the product that you're buying.

01:01:58.340 That's how he made his money.

01:01:59.720 Now he's got money.

01:02:00.920 He can fund political campaigns.

01:02:03.400 He can fund charitable activities.

01:02:05.840 But Bill Gates cannot really legally compel anybody to do anything.

01:02:11.420 If Bill Gates came to me and said, you know, I think your lawn looks bad.

01:02:15.560 I want you to change your lawn.

01:02:17.060 I can tell Bill Gates to get lost.

01:02:19.940 The number two in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency has a lot of power vested in his authority.

01:02:26.720 He can put in process a procedure to confiscate land from individuals.

01:02:32.700 He can bring criminal charges against individuals that he feels have violated the environment.

01:02:40.420 And he may or may not be right.

01:02:42.040 But the point is, who has actually the power to compel people to do something?

01:02:46.700 I would say the number two person at the EPA has more power than Bill Gates does.

01:02:52.260 So I want government officials second.

01:02:54.120 And then I would probably list third, the media.

01:03:01.180 And what I mean by that is sort of the mainstream media, their ability to influence and determine what stories and what narratives that they feel are important.

01:03:12.120 And where do billionaires rank on here?

01:03:14.840 I would put billionaires below that because I would say that I don't view billionaires as a monolith.

01:03:21.860 There are certainly ones that are very engaged in wanting to sort of transform American society.

01:03:28.600 I mean, George Soros, for example, very, very active in a number of initiatives.

01:03:34.100 He wants to reshape things in the United States and other parts of the world in the way that he wants them to.

01:03:38.900 And he can do that.

01:03:40.680 He's rich and he runs these charities.

01:03:42.740 You can look at somebody on the right side of the spectrum who's more libertarian.

01:03:46.880 You can look at the Koch brothers and say that they're doing the same thing.

01:03:50.900 So there's no question that they have power and that they have influence.

01:03:54.780 But I think they're less monolithic than the media.

01:03:57.400 They're less monolithic than Silicon Valley.

01:04:00.800 And they certainly can make a huge difference.

01:04:04.800 But I think it's much more constrained and limited.

01:04:07.180 And by the way, let me just add, one of the reasons that has changed, again, I would return to the election of Donald Trump.

01:04:15.280 Donald Trump in 2016 shattered what was considered an iron rule of politics for decades,

01:04:22.400 which was the guy who raises the most money, the guy who gets the most big money donors from Wall Street and everywhere else is elected president of the United States.

01:04:34.220 Donald Trump did not do that in 2016.

01:04:36.900 He broke that rule.

01:04:38.100 And I think it's a great thing that he did.

01:04:40.620 And I think it's one of the reasons that billionaires don't have the power that they did maybe eight or ten years ago.

01:04:46.240 Where would you put universities on there? 0.86

01:04:47.720 Would universities be below billionaires and media and government officials?

01:04:50.680 Well, if you think long-term, in terms of long-term power, you probably have to put them up at number one or number two.

01:04:59.920 Because, again, their ability to shape the views and attitudes of people.

01:05:04.840 And it really, to me, is stunning, the fact that the First Amendment, that freedom of thought, is being diminished on our universities, is outrageous.

01:05:17.200 It also speaks to me, though, to this.

01:05:19.840 It speaks to me the complete lack of confidence that the hard left in this country actually has.

01:05:26.980 Because if the hard left believed that their ideas were attractive, that their ideas were seductive, that their ideas were superior to those being presented by conservatives or moderates, they would want an open discussion.

01:05:41.240 They would want to expose the weakness, the fallibility, the ridiculousness of conservative ideas.

01:05:49.200 But they don't do that because they recognize that their ideas really are not that attractive.

01:05:55.420 The only way that they can get the adoption of their ideas is by creating an environment where other ideas are excluded.

01:06:03.180 So that gives them enormous power, but they're also, in my mind, a paper tiger.

01:06:08.560 And when you get a competition of ideas, they are generally going to lose.

01:06:13.260 Powerful.

01:06:13.900 So number one, it could be a 1A, 1B, tightness of Silicon Valley University.

01:06:18.460 So university is more long-term social media right now.

01:06:20.860 So number two or number three would be government officials, president, congress, senate next.

01:06:26.260 Or would you say president, congress, governor?

01:06:27.980 How would you put that in?

01:06:29.640 I would say president, congress.

01:06:31.120 So much of the power now is in Washington.

01:06:33.620 It shouldn't be, but it is.

01:06:35.800 It is what it is.

01:06:36.540 Then we have media, mainstream media.

01:06:38.000 Then it's billionaires.

01:06:39.280 Billionaires don't have as much influence as they used to have, which is actually very good news to see that taking place.

01:06:43.700 This next topic we'll go into, it's either going to be a 30-second topic or it could be a five-minute topic.

01:06:51.420 Voter fraud.

01:06:52.220 It's a topic that's coming up right now.

01:06:53.740 Obviously, as you and I are talking about this, President Trump is probably tweeting, saying, we're going to win.

01:06:57.980 We got this.

01:06:58.620 They did this.

01:06:59.160 They did voter fraud.

01:07:00.140 And you got the other side of saying, listen, just concede already.

01:07:03.600 Give it up already.

01:07:04.520 You know, let's move on already.

01:07:06.160 And then you're saying constitutional attorneys saying, look, he's not going to concede.

01:07:10.400 He's going to drag this out, and if he gets into the Supreme Court and he won Kavanaugh and he won, you know, Amy Coney Barrett, what most people don't realize is back in 2000 when George Bush and Gore were going through it, both Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett were a part of that when they took place, and it flipped.

01:07:25.240 Obviously, we know who became president for 30 days.

01:07:27.740 Al Gore was a president-elect.

01:07:29.600 How much value are you putting behind what Giuliani, what a lot of these guys are doing right now in Trump's camp with voter fraud?

01:07:37.380 Well, I think voter fraud is a huge problem.

01:07:40.400 We've actually done research on that at the Government Accountability Institute.

01:07:43.800 It's a huge problem.

01:07:45.100 The reason it's a huge problem is not only because it happens, and it's increasingly happening, it's very, very difficult to detect.

01:07:53.740 And this is the problem.

01:07:55.300 So, you know, inevitably, there are going to be lots of examples that are brought forward of dead people voting, of people saying that a ballot was cast in their name when they didn't vote, or somebody that was denied to vote because it was said that they had already voted.

01:08:09.740 You're going to find lots of examples of that.

01:08:12.100 The challenge of the problem is showing critical mass in the size and the scope of how much voter fraud has happened.

01:08:19.980 I don't know the answer to that.

01:08:21.400 I don't think anybody does.

01:08:22.840 I think absolutely it's good and it's healthy for President Trump to go through this process.

01:08:29.840 He has every right to.

01:08:31.140 And look, Washington, D.C., and our system of government is a government of institutions.

01:08:38.780 We have courts.

01:08:40.020 We have laws.

01:08:41.280 We have a process that can be followed.

01:08:43.540 And claims avert of fraud and going through judicial review are part of that, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing that.

01:08:50.580 And I think he should be doing that.

01:08:51.980 The question will come down, I think, ultimately to the Supreme Court.

01:08:56.840 I'm not an expert on the Supreme Court.

01:08:59.340 I fear that Chief Justice Roberts and others are going to be loathed to be sort of thrust into the middle of this for fear of the damage in their mind that it might do to the Supreme Court.

01:09:13.580 My view is this is precisely the sort of the thing that the Supreme Court should evaluate and should look into, assuming that these suits that have been introduced have claims, there's merit to them, which I think there probably is.

01:09:30.080 So I think the process should go for it.

01:09:31.780 But a lot of people that sort of are embracing the notion of the sky is falling, what are we going to do?

01:09:36.980 We went through this in 2000.

01:09:38.620 We're going to go through this now.

01:09:39.980 Now, it's not going to be a process that a large portion of people are going to be happy with at the end of the day.

01:09:45.720 But this is the nature of the American system.

01:09:48.160 And those that are saying he shouldn't do this, this is un-American, this is wrong, I think they're being ridiculous and have a very short memory, particularly when after 2016, so many people like Hillary Clinton and others were saying that he was not a legitimate president.

01:10:04.460 I think if Joe Biden survives these court challenges and the votes stay in place, Joe Biden is the president of the United States, but Donald Trump has certainly a legitimate reason to challenge some of the voting in some of these states through the judicial process.

01:10:20.020 Fair enough.

01:10:20.420 I think it's fair to say that Joe Biden and Trump are very different types of presidents and candidates.

01:10:26.040 So let's assume he goes through inauguration, Trump concedes, it's done, Joe Biden is the president, 46, it's official, everybody knows about it.

01:10:35.060 What does a Biden administration look like the next two to four years?

01:10:39.760 I think it's going to be an administration that on foreign policy will be center left.

01:10:44.900 And then when it comes to secretary of labor, labor policy, treasury departments will be much more progressive and to the left, to the hard left.

01:10:54.660 And they will try to use their executive authority to advance their agenda.

01:11:01.500 I do think that the Republicans will hold the Senate and that they will successfully block a lot of the more radical initiatives that are being pushed.

01:11:09.380 I think also in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi has certainly had her wings clipped, her majority has shrunk, and a lot of people that are in swing districts that are Democrats are not going to want to follow a lot of the more radical agenda.

01:11:25.100 But let me, you know, let's be clear, there's a lot of damage that can be done by Bernie Sanders as a secretary of labor, by Elizabeth Warren as secretary of the treasury.

01:11:35.520 There's a lot that can be done to damage the energy industry through regulation.

01:11:42.260 So the damage will be done, but it will be obviously more limited because of the restrictions imposed by a Republican Senate.

01:11:50.580 So it's going to be bad, but not as bad because they have to win Senate for that to take place, which is leading us to Georgia, knowing the fact that those two seats, this will be the last topic we'll cover and we'll wrap up.

01:12:01.560 Now, they're saying $200 million is going to put into this runoff that's going to take place in Georgia.

01:12:07.600 Where are you at with how this is going to take place and how it's going to end up and how ugly it could potentially get in Georgia?

01:12:13.440 Well, my hope is, and this is where my optimist comes in, my hope is, because so much is riding on this election, it's one state in Georgia, that a lot of the funny business that we've seen in a lot of other states about backdating ballots, about signing as a witness when a witness was required, that a lot of that will be a lot harder to pull off in a systematic way, given the focus in Georgia.

01:12:40.520 Now, that's incumbent upon the Republican Party and journalists to look at this stuff seriously and to follow it.

01:12:48.040 I think it will be a fair process.

01:12:49.780 I think at the end of the day, and I'm not terribly great at predictions, so there's not a lot of value in this, I think at the end of the day, the Republicans will probably carry these seats because I think Georgia remains a center-right state.

01:13:03.600 I think in the presidential race, you have questions about certain ballots.

01:13:07.260 I also think you saw in suburban Atlanta, a lot of people who are, let's say, center-right, who for personal reasons, because of his manners, because of his tweetings, will not vote for Donald Trump, but I do think will turn around and vote for Republican Senate.

01:13:23.820 So you think it's essentially going to end up being 52-48 when the whole thing is over with?

01:13:29.400 Yes, that's my prediction.

01:13:31.240 I'm terrible at predictions.

01:13:32.380 I will go on the record and say in 2012, I thought that Romney was going to win, and in 2016, I thought Hillary Clinton was going to win.

01:13:39.680 So I'm not a great man for predictions, but that's what I think is going to happen in Georgia.

01:13:43.620 Well, first of all, you're a class doc.

01:13:45.740 I've really enjoyed talking to you the last, you know, 80 minutes or so, 90 minutes or so.

01:13:49.460 Thank you for your insight, folks.

01:13:50.780 If you're watching this, we're going to put the link below to all three of his books, with the one at the top being Profiles in Corruption, for you to be able to order for yourself.

01:13:58.880 I suggest you order all three of them.

01:14:00.320 We'll, again, put the link below on the three books that he has.

01:14:03.780 And with that being said, Peter, thank you so much for being a guest on Valuetainment.

01:14:07.060 Thank you.

01:14:07.540 I enjoyed it very much.

01:14:08.500 Thank you.

01:14:09.320 So what do you think about what Peter Schweitzer said?

01:14:11.420 Do you think there's a lot of corruption in politics in America?

01:14:14.280 Yes, no, maybe.

01:14:15.340 And if yes, who, how, and what can be done about it?

01:14:19.360 Comment below.

01:14:20.360 And if you enjoyed this interview, I have another interview to watch that's similar to this, from the author of Economic Hitman.

01:14:26.580 His story, if you've never heard his story, probably one of the most unique stories of what John Perkins did, click over here to watch that interview.

01:14:34.380 And if you've not subscribed to the channel, please do so.

01:14:36.560 Thanks for watching, everybody.

01:14:37.480 Take care.

01:14:41.420 Bye.

01:14:42.200 Bye.

01:14:42.980 Bye.

01:14:47.080 Bye.

01:14:47.340 Bye.

01:14:48.200 Bye.

01:14:48.240 Bye.

01:14:50.240 Bye.

Valuetainment - November 20, 2020

Exposing Corruption in Washington Politics at the Highest Level

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript