Amanpour & Co. - July 19, 2024
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Brody Mullins joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss his new book, “The Wolves of K Street,” which chronicles how lobbyists have inaugurated a new era in public policy for the benefit of corporate America.
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00:00Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amman Porn Company. Here's what's coming up.
00:15The RNC ends with wrestlers and razzmatazz, but did Trump strike the unifying tone he
00:21promised? I asked Republican pollster Sarah Longwell. Then, as President Biden recovers
00:27from COVID, will he bow out of the race or double down? I speak to former Democratic
00:33Congressman Tim Ryan. And a Russian court finds American journalist Evan Gershkovich
00:39guilty on trumped-up charges of espionage. We have the latest.
00:44Also ahead, the wolves of K Street. Hari Sreenivasan talks to reporter Brody Mullins about his
00:50new book, which details how big money took over big government. Plus, Donald Trump has
00:56hijacked a political party. I've never seen that happen.
01:00Looking back to where it all began, Christian's conversation with comedian Trevor Noah on
01:05the sidelines of the 2016 RNC.
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02:02Hope Zuckerberg, Jeffrey Katz and Beth Rogers, and by contributions to your PBS station from
02:09viewers like you. Thank you.
02:13Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York, sitting in for Christian
02:16Amman Porn. Well, that's all, folks. The Republican National Convention reached its conclusion
02:21late Thursday night, very late Thursday night, capping off proceedings with a shirt-ripping
02:26wrestler and a whopping 90-minute speech from the Republican nominee, Donald Trump. Though
02:31the former president promised to speak on the theme of unity after his assassination
02:36attempt, the tone quickly shifted back to his familiar tropes, falsehoods and head-scratching
02:42references.
02:44The Democrat Party should immediately stop weaponizing the justice system. The fake documents
02:50case dropped these partisan witch hunts, crazy Nancy Pelosi. They're destroying our country,
02:56cheating on elections. We're never going to let that happen again. They use COVID to cheat.
03:00The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He'd love to have you for dinner.
03:07OK, that's in reference to the film The Silence of the Lambs from the 1990s. Perhaps one of
03:14the things that stuck out the most, however, was what is missing. Very few direct attacks
03:19on President Joe Biden himself. Maybe it's part of Trump's promise of unity, or perhaps
03:23it's because the current president could drop out of the race as pressure mounts within
03:28his own party.
03:29To break it all down, let's bring in Sarah Longwell. She's a longtime Republican strategist
03:33turned Trump critic who still regularly speaks to average GOP voters to understand their
03:38state of mind. Sarah, always good to see you, especially on a day like this. So walk us
03:44through. I'm going to ask you a two-pronged question. One is your reaction to what we
03:49saw from Trump's speech yesterday following what appeared to be a very cohesive, united
03:55and disciplined convention. And then what an average GOP voter saw in that speech.
04:03Sure. I mean, I'll give you my take first, which is that it was utterly bizarre in a
04:11totally predictable way. I mean, we have now been hearing from Republicans for almost a
04:18decade that at different intervals, Trump is going to strike a new tone. And now, of
04:24course, in the wake of an assassination attempt, there's a real opportunity to strike a new
04:28tone of unity, especially because it is Trump's rhetoric, his violent rhetoric, his telling
04:35people if they don't fight hard, they're not going to have a country anymore just before
04:39they attack the Capitol and overturn election results, the way that he mocked Nancy Pelosi's
04:44husband when he was attacked in his own home by a violent person with a hammer.
04:51That Trump was still in that speech, despite the fact that there was a sort of a chunk
04:57at the beginning that was pre-written that was meant to be unifying in the wake of that
05:01assassination attempt. He couldn't help but revert to his old way of being divisive. But
05:07what was also interesting to me was how low energy he wasn't delivering it. Somehow he
05:12managed to go 90 minutes, and yet it was meandering. It was strange. And it sounded like he lost
05:18the room. I think he had the room in the beginning when he was talking about the assassination
05:22attempt. But by the end, from people who were there, reports are people were kind of looking
05:26at their phones. They were kind of bored. And look, the average GOP voter, look, there's
05:32different types of average GOP voters now. There's a big chunk of the party that's all
05:36in on Trump. And so when he gives one of those sort of tight rally campaign type speeches,
05:44they're there for it. They're especially there for more of the social issues. When
05:48he says things like, we're not going to let men play in women's sports, that kind of thing
05:53always plays well with the base. But then there's another category of Republican voters
05:58that is not that happy about the Republican Party being hijacked by MAGA. And this was
06:04a MAGA RNC convention from start to finish. This was about Trump. It wasn't about policies
06:09of the Republican Party. And so I think that there is a chunk of voters who, look, they're
06:14not Democrats and they really don't want to vote for Joe Biden. But they're also not wild
06:18about voting for Donald Trump again and the chaos that he brings. And so that's why we
06:23have the double haters in this election. And I think that if Joe Biden could find it in
06:27himself to step down, that that person who gave the speech last night is easily beatable
06:34by someone who is not Joe Biden.
06:36So that could be viewed two ways, because Sarah, we're just getting notice from Joe
06:40Biden's campaign saying that the president is looking forward to getting back on the
06:46campaign trail next week to, quote, continue exposing the threat of Donald Trump's Project
06:512025 agenda while making the case for my own record and the vision that I have for America,
06:56one where we save our democracy, protect our rights and freedoms, and create opportunity
07:01for everyone.
07:02So it appears that the president, despite the fact that now I think we're up to 30 elected
07:06Democratic officials that are publicly speaking out, saying that Joe Biden should step down.
07:10It appears that he has dug in his heels. Perhaps he saw something, again, a reminder of Donald
07:16Trump not being necessarily a strong candidate and saying, I can beat that guy.
07:21But given what's playing out within the Democratic Party right now and the longer this goes on,
07:25Sarah, I think you'd agree with me that this only weakens Joe Biden's candidacy if he does
07:30ultimately remain the candidate. How do you see this playing out? I would imagine this
07:35is music to Republicans' ears.
07:38Yeah, look, the Republicans really want to run against Joe Biden. Tim Alberta has a great
07:44piece of reporting on this in The Atlantic. But it's just, it's very obvious that this
07:50is a campaign that was built around Donald Trump being able to beat Joe Biden, because
07:54if you listen to voters and the Trump team is listening to the same swing voters that
07:58I'm listening to, Joe Biden's age has been an enormous liability for a couple of years
08:03now. And that debate, which confirmed people's fears, it would be one thing if Joe Biden
08:08had had a great debate and he had allayed people's fears about his age, sort of like
08:13he did with the State of the Union.
08:15But instead, it confirmed what people think. And what I hear from voters in the focus groups
08:21is that they don't hate Joe Biden. They think he's been, you know, some of them are concerned
08:26about the economy, don't love immigration. They really dislike Donald Trump. And they're
08:30looking for somebody to affirmatively vote for. But they don't think Joe Biden can serve
08:34another four years. They just, I mean, it just doesn't make any sense to them that he
08:38is running again. They don't think he'll survive the next four years. They certainly don't
08:42think he can implement a forward-looking agenda. And so at this point, the voters sort of say,
08:49look, if we're already voting for Kamala Harris, ultimately, then why isn't the nominee just
08:55Kamala Harris? Why isn't it somebody else? I mean, they're desperate. The voters are
08:58desperate for a different candidate than Joe Biden.
09:02And look, the Donald Trump we saw yesterday, that man is also very old and very diminished
09:08and giving an utterly bizarre speech that any sort of 56-year-old Democrat who can go
09:15and prosecute a case against Trump, go on offense against Trump, I think they could
09:19do very well. I think they could win. I think Joe Biden can't win.
09:23Yeah, Democratic strategist Paul Begala gave you a shout-out in the last hour when I was
09:28talking to him by referencing a point that you've made, that there is, quote, not a pro-Biden
09:32majority, but there is an anti-Trump majority. And that brings us to the question of Kamala
09:37Harris and the role and the predicament, really, that she's in now, if it appears that the
09:42president is saying that he doesn't have faith in his vice president in defeating Donald
09:46Trump. I mean, what that means for perhaps something changing down the road where she
09:51does ultimately become the candidate there.
09:55And she's really made a name for herself, I would say, even within the last week or
09:59two, the weeks following that debacle of a debate, and on the issue particularly important
10:06for Democratic voters and even for many Republican women, moderate women, and that is reproductive
10:11rights. And that is something that we didn't hear much about, I think, deliberately this
10:15week at the RNC. Here's what she said earlier this week after the nomination of J.D. Vance.
10:22Recently, the former president selected his running mate, the Senator Vance, J.D. Vance,
10:32understand. This is a fellow who in the United States Senate participated in blocking protections
10:38for IVF. This is an individual who has said he is for a national and has made every indication
10:45that he is for a national abortion ban.
10:49So, Sarah, what do you make and what do some of those never Trump Republicans or undecided
10:55voters think about Kamala Harris? Do they view her in a new light now? Is there opportunity
11:00for her to be viewed that way?
11:03So here's what's interesting. Look, I have asked voters about Kamala Harris for years
11:08now, and they're not wild about her. I don't want to. I'll be completely honest. But they
11:12tend to have an impression of her, sort of a slightly negative impression. The main thing
11:17that voters say is, I don't really see her. What is she doing? I don't really know anything
11:22about her. And so when you hear that, what you what you know is that she can turn this
11:26thing around, right? Like their impression of Joe Biden now is locked in. They think
11:32he's too old. They do not think he can do the job with Kamala Harris. There is upside
11:36if she can go prosecute the case. This Donald Trump and J.D. Vance and J.D. Vance is a strange
11:42pick for Trump in the sense that he brings with him a lot of liabilities on some of the
11:47issues that Trump wasn't as vulnerable on, like abortion. Voters see Trump as kind of
11:51a cultural moderate in some ways. And J.D. Vance is much more like the 2022 candidates
11:57who lost up and down the ballot because they were too extreme on abortion. So put somebody
12:01like Kamala Harris in there, put some other Democrat in there who can prosecute a case
12:06and make this election about Trump and how dangerous he is, who can remind people about
12:10January 6th. Voters aren't just thinking about January 6th randomly. They're mostly thinking
12:14about prices at the grocery store. If they're thinking about those things, Democrats are in
12:20a tougher position. But if you are reminding them all the time about abortion, about January 6th,
12:25about Trump's chaos, about his legal issues, about the fact that he's adjudicated rapist,
12:30this guy's got so much baggage if somebody can just make prosecute the case against him.
12:36And I think the prosecutor versus the felon is a good frame. I think there are even better people
12:41on the Democratic bench who would fare very well against Donald Trump. But, you know, that's going
12:47to be for Democrats to figure out. I do know that Joe Biden is not in a position to prosecute that
12:54case. We've seen it over and over again with our own eyes. And that's just what has to be done to
13:00beat Trump. So back to Republicans and the Trump-Vance ticket. We know that they're headed
13:05to Michigan today, and that is an important swing state for them, a battleground state.
13:10There have been questions about what, if anything, J.D. Vance brings to the table regarding some of
13:15those battleground states and what he wins for Donald Trump. It appears that that may be nothing
13:21other than them having chemistry and Trump viewing Vance as the future of the party. But
13:27what do you think that their ultimate objectives need to be going forward to win over
13:33more of those important states? Well, so here's what's interesting about,
13:39and this was true in the convention, and it's been true, I think, of how Trump's campaign has
13:44been conducting itself. And you can see it in the choice of J.D. Vance. They're doubling down on
13:49MAGA, right? If he picked Marco Rubio or a Nikki Haley or somebody that would appeal to these
13:54college-educated suburban voters, that would be one kind of way to expand Trump's coalition.
14:01They're not doing that, in large part because a lot of those college-educated suburban voters are
14:05pretty firmly part of that coalition I talked about. The biggest coalition in American politics
14:10is an anti-Trump coalition. But I think what they're trying to do with J.D. Vance and just
14:17with Hulk Hogan and their TikTok celebrities or influencers, this is about expanding the electorate,
14:23low-propensity voters who might not otherwise be engaged in politics but are interested in
14:28Donald Trump. And so they are trying to expand their tent, just not in the way you'd normally
14:34think about it. And so I think that's what J.D. Vance is about. It's about can you find
14:39low-propensity men who don't otherwise vote and get them to come out for Donald Trump?
14:43Well, they put on quite a show this week in Milwaukee. Sarah Longwell,
14:47thank you, as always, for your expertise.
14:50And let's get more now on the growing pressure on President Biden to drop out of the race
14:53and who will replace him. Joining me now is Tim Ryan, a former Democratic congressman.
14:58He also ran a tight Senate race against Republican VP pick J.D. Vance in Ohio,
15:03came within just a few percentage points in that race. The perfect person to have on today,
15:09Tim, welcome to the program. So quite the position that your party is in right now,
15:15where you have a president who, despite repeated calls and growing calls, there's just been a very
15:20direct letter that Zoe Lofgren put out, also adding to the list of the elected Democratic
15:25officials who are calling for him to step aside as the nominee. I believe just in the last few
15:30hours, we're hitting 30. President Biden says he's looking forward to getting back on the
15:35campaign trail next week. I mean, watching all of this, what is going through your mind?
15:41Well, I'm trying to remain semi-optimistic here.
15:46Is that through meditation?
15:49That has been very helpful in the last three weeks. My hot yoga and meditation practice has
15:54been essential to survival here. I don't know how you survive without it. But yeah, I just think
16:02that, you know, everyone's trying to give him his space. We heard about Nancy Pelosi, who is the
16:08godmother of Democratic politics, a chief strategist, nobody more sophisticated than her.
16:15I think going directly to the president, and sounds like you've been talking to the president's
16:20aide, who's giving the president the polling numbers that no one else believes. And so that
16:26was some tough talk and some tough love. And I just think that this weekend, we're going to have
16:31to see where things go. I know there's a bunch of senators waiting to come out, dozens and dozens of
16:37House members waiting to come out, but everybody's trying to be respectful. So I'm trying to remain
16:42semi-optimistic here and hope that things fall the right way.
16:46But how much time really is there for a big change to occur? Because, you know, you've got
16:51that deadline for the roll call coming up, I think, August 1st. Punchbowl News is reporting
16:56that the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill says that if Biden doesn't exit the race by early
17:01next week, that you're going to have Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries forced to come public with
17:06their misgivings about his candidacy. Regardless, I mean, the longer he stays in the race, doesn't
17:12that just weaken him as a candidate and whoever the candidate would be eventually if he does
17:18ultimately decide to step aside? Well, I think it definitely weakens him. But I do think if
17:24Kamala Harris, which is my pick, if she emerges or there's a pass off to the vice president,
17:32I think there's an immediate reset. So I'm not worried if that's Sunday, Monday,
17:37Tuesday, Wednesday. That is going to be an immediate interjection of a ton of energy into
17:46our campaign. I mean, I'm just getting texts from people as I've been on TV over the last few days
17:52that are just excited after watching the Republican convention. Democrats are like,
17:58OK, this is not a foregone conclusion. Let's get somebody who can actually take this guy on.
18:03People don't want to live in the dark ages again and live in this very dark, narrow, negative
18:11world that Trump painted last night. Americans want to be energized. They want aspiration.
18:16And that's the kind of campaign that we need to bring. And if we do that,
18:20we're going to pull all those voters Sarah was just talking about in your last segment,
18:23those independent voters, suburban. You live in suburban Columbus, Ohio. It's a multicultural,
18:31suburban, leaning Republican area. But there are a lot of people who aren't white, Irish,
18:38Catholic like me. And so when you talk about mass deportations, moms, regardless of their political
18:47views, are thinking, wait a minute, how far can this go? And let's be honest about what could
18:53happen here. Those people are going to come vote for Kamala Harris and the Democrats if we get our
18:59message right. We spent a lot of time already talking about Trump's at times, you know,
19:04nonsensical comments. I think 20 plus lies there. He sort of veered into traditional old Trump,
19:10despite sticking to the script and message they said of unity in the first 30 minutes of the
19:14speech. That aside, I do want to play. You know, there were some really impactful, powerful moments
19:20from some of the other speakers that we saw there at the convention. Everyday American voters,
19:25voters who, incidentally, quite a few of them were former Democrats that said they came over
19:32to the Republican Party for a myriad of reasons. I want to play sound from one mother,
19:36just an ordinary citizen whose son had unfortunately died at the hands of drug addiction.
19:42That's something that so many Americans have faced and are familiar with. Let's play sound from that.
19:48And on February 27th. 2022, our lives were shattered and our baby was gone.
20:00This was not an overdose. It was a poisoning. His whole future, everything
20:07we ever wanted for him was ripped away in an instant. And Joe Biden does nothing.
20:14What is your advice for Democrats? How to counter powerful moments like that of everyday Americans
20:20suffering through whether it's the death of a loved one due to drug addiction, whether it's
20:25economic challenges? What is your what is your view on what Democrats can do to reinforce their
20:31engagement on these issues? Well, your heart just goes out to parents like that. That's the
20:38worst nightmare for any parent. So I'm getting choked up just listening. You have to have
20:47an acknowledgment for a large swath of people in the country that things aren't as good as they
20:53want it to be. You know, you could talk about and this is has been my kind of beef with Democrats a
20:59lot. You can't just talk about the GDP. You can't just talk about macroeconomic numbers because
21:05there are still a lot of people that are being hurt by the high price of groceries or gas or
21:14whatever. You have to acknowledge that. But then you have to say, look, here's what we've done
21:20to try to fix this. And I think the administration has a lot to talk about. And here's what we're
21:27going to do. And we can't achieve any of this if we're so divided. So we have to come together
21:34in order to achieve any of this. We're reshoring jobs for the first time in 40 or 50 years. Chip
21:40manufacturers, electric vehicles, manufacturing jobs are going through the roof. Our whole energy
21:46demand is going, the projections for energy are doubling because of data centers and AI and
21:52innovation that's happening here. These are kind of real first world problems. But we want to bring
21:58everybody along. And that's not going to happen if we're divided. And that's not going to happen
22:03if we're negative. And that's not going to happen if we're calling the other political party the
22:09enemy. These are common enemies, poverty, disease, economic insecurity. Those are our collective
22:18common enemy that we have to work together. And I tell people a lot, not to go on too much, but
22:25the only reason we're here as a species right now and survived everything, we're not the fastest,
22:31we're not the strongest. We cooperated with each other. We learned how to talk to each other.
22:36We learned how to listen to each other. That's why we're still here. So if we can get back to
22:41these basic kind of fundamental things and grab the American spirit, there was no American spirit
22:47this week. In that room, maybe, they felt something. But clearly, it was exclusionary.
22:54It was full of blame. It was full of negativity. And it was full of how bad things are.
22:58You think of Ronald Reagan. You think of Jack Kennedy. You think of FDR. You think of Bill
23:04Clinton. You think of Barack Obama. Even George W. Bush was saying, no, we could do better. We
23:10may not agree on how we get there. But the view was optimistic. George W. Bush tried to pass
23:16immigration reform. People forget that. And Rush Limbaugh deep-sixed them with right-wing talk
23:22radio. I was around for that. So these presidents are meant to bring us together and have aspiration.
23:30Donald Trump's the exact opposite. And so if we can get a candidate that can articulate that
23:35aspiration, that can inspire us to come together, we will blow him out. Are you throwing your hat
23:43in the ring for that candidacy? No, no, I'm not. I will be in the fight at some level.
23:51I'm not throwing my hat in a ring. I'm enjoying my time. I'm enjoying my time doing hot yoga
23:57and time for meditation. We'll have to have you on for a segment just on that alone,
24:02because I think a lot of Americans really need to focus on that practice right now, especially.
24:08The last minute we have together, you of all people know JD Vance quite well. You ran against
24:13him. As you said, up until Labor Day, you were three points neck and neck. It was really anybody's
24:20battle to win at that point. And you ultimately lost. But it was exposed that he was a weaker
24:26candidate than many had expected. And you blame that on a lot of funding from Republicans that
24:31you say you didn't get from Democrats as well. What is your advice now for Democrats as we know
24:37who this ticket is? We know Trump. We've covered him a lot. But JD Vance in particular, most
24:43Americans didn't know who he was prior to this week. What is your sense on how Democrats can
24:49approach him? Well, he's not for freedom, a fundamental value here in the country. He wants
24:55to tell women what to do with their bodies. And you heard Kamala articulate that earlier around
25:00a national abortion ban, IVF, the whole nine yards. He told women that they should stay in
25:08violent marriages for the sake of their kids. So totally not for freedom. He thinks there should
25:14be a Caesar in America to take over and fix everything. He's not for freedom in Ukraine.
25:19So we exposed him as a real extremist. And that stuck. Like you said, we were up three points
25:26going into Labor Day. And they came in, Mitch McConnell came in with $40 million for him.
25:31We didn't get $1 from the Senate majority pack on the Democratic side. And they were able to
25:35bury us in money. But that plan, that strategy works. It will work against Trump and JD Vance.
25:42And we just got to get the message out and get the campaign going. But you got to have somebody
25:46that can articulate that message. And that's going to be key for us. That is the key, is to figure
25:51out who that candidate will be. In the meantime, go get your yoga mat. Enjoy your hot yoga and
25:56meditation. Tim Ryan, it's good to see you. You look well rested. It's doing something for you.
26:01Thank you. Appreciate it.
26:03Well, now we turn our focus to a small court about a thousand miles east of Moscow,
26:09where American journalist Evan Gershkovich has been found guilty of espionage by a Russian court
26:13and sentenced to 16 years in a penal colony. Now his friends, family, his employer, the Wall Street
26:19Journal and the White House have all slammed the trial as a sham. And many believe Gershkovich is
26:24being used as a bargaining chip by the Kremlin. Correspondent Matthew Chance, who's previously
26:30been in the courtroom during this case, has the latest with this report.
26:37Ahead of the verdict in the Russian courthouse, cameras jostled for a glimpse of the US journalist
26:44in his glass cage. After finding him guilty of espionage, the judge asked Evan Gershkovich
26:50if he had any questions about the 16-year prison sentence he'd been handed.
26:56Looking thin and tired, the Wall Street Journal reporter answered no.
27:02But critics say his guilty verdict was inevitable and underlines how politicized
27:08Russia's judicial system has become. A strongly worded statement from Gershkovich's employers
27:14called it a disgraceful and sham conviction that comes after his 478 days in prison,
27:22wrongfully detained and away from his family. You can see Evan Gershkovich is in there. Hi,
27:26Matthew from CNN. Are you holding up all right? It's been a saga which has seen Evan Gershkovich,
27:32now 32, make several tightly controlled court appearances since being detained and accused of
27:39gathering secret information on a Russian tank factory for the CIA, allegations denied by
27:45Gershkovich and the US government. There are other US citizens held in Russia.
27:52I'm innocent of any charges. Like Paul Whelan, a former Marine, sentenced in 2020 to 16 years for
27:59spying and also designated by Washington as wrongly detained. Dual citizens Senya Karelina,
28:08an amateur ballerina from LA, and journalist Alsu Kermesheva are also in custody. I'm PFC Gordon
28:14Black. As are Gordon Black, a staff sergeant in the US Army, and US school teacher Mark Fogle.
28:21Critics suspect the Kremlin has been collecting US citizens as bargaining chips for a future deal.
28:29But even now, that deal could still be months or perhaps years away.
28:35We'll continue to cover this story. Matthew Chance reporting there.
28:38Well, we return here to the US, where there's going to be one big winner this November. And
28:43our next guest argues that it's not going to be Republicans or Democrats, but lobby groups.
28:48Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter Brody Mullins joining Hari Sreenivasan to discuss
28:53his new book, which chronicles how lobbyists have brought in a new era of public policy
28:58to the benefit of corporate America. Brody Mullins, thanks so much for joining us.
29:02You are a co-author with your brother on a new book called The Wolves of K Street,
29:08The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government. Thanks for being with us. And I wonder
29:15why this book? Why now? Yeah, that's a great question. When we travel outside in Washington,
29:21our reporting, if you talk to Republicans and say what's wrong with Washington, they blame Democrats.
29:25And if you talk to Democrats, they blame Republicans. And what we're really identifying
29:29is that corporate America is a lot of the problem in Washington. Corporate America
29:32is bipartisan. They win whether Republicans are in charge or Democrats are in charge.
29:36And we wanted to expose how they use their power, influence, and money to change public policy,
29:43to help big companies and executives and not the rest of us. So give me an idea. What kinds of
29:48laws or legislation have lobbyists been very successful in either creating or tweaking or
29:56stopping? Well, one, how much time do we have here? We go on forever. But to take a recent example,
30:03I mean, think about the last presidential election where Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren,
30:08every single Democrat running for Congress or for the presidency was saying they're going to
30:14roll back the Trump corporate tax cuts. That was a $1.3 trillion tax cut that Trump enacted in 2017.
30:20So Democrats were elected to get rid of that tax cut. And corporate America and their lobbies had
30:24so much influence, there was never even a vote on that. It's not like they brought that up and
30:29Democrats were not able to get the votes. They couldn't even bring a vote to it. I mean, that's
30:32how much power the corporate lobby has. So what you point out, I mean, and you go really kind of
30:38fascinatingly into the history of this, is that lobbying in one way or another has been around.
30:45In fact, the framers of the Constitution even knew that that was going to happen
30:51hundreds of years before the state we're in today. Yeah, that's one of the fascinating things we
30:56learned in our reporting that we did not know about is exactly what you just said, that in the
31:00Federalist Papers, the framers of the government said, you know, they foresaw there would be
31:05lobbying, there would be corporate lobbying, they didn't call it lobbying, they call them factions,
31:09but they foresaw there'd be an industry faction, you know, business owners would have a group,
31:16an interest group, essentially, and then that workers would have an interest group or what they
31:20call a faction, which basically became labor unions. But what they thought is that those two
31:24factions would be sort of equal size and strength, and they would battle each other to make sort of
31:31compromise legislation. And that basically worked for most of the next 200 years. The problem now
31:36is that corporations have so much money and so much influence that they basically destroy the
31:41other factions or interest groups. As we know, labor unions don't have the influence they used
31:45to have, the Ralph Naders and consumer groups don't have the influence they used to have,
31:49and it's really just big companies who are putting their thumb on the scale, really their
31:52whole hand on the scale for policy to help companies and not everyone else. So what happened
31:58if this idea that the founding fathers had, okay, there's going to be this marketplace of ideas,
32:04there's going to be these competing factions, this tension will balance itself out, if that lasted
32:10well-ish for 200 years, what happened when we get to the 1970s? Yeah, a whole bunch of things
32:16happened in the 1970s. That's sort of the key moment. So before the 70s, companies had relatively
32:23little influence in Washington. In fact, Ralph Nader was the most influential person on public
32:28policy matters. From the New Deal to the Great Society, the government really grew very quickly,
32:35lots of new rules and new regulations and administration agencies, and companies,
32:39for the most part, did not oppose the growth of the government because they were making money
32:45and things were fine. They were sponsoring the Little League team and supported their employees.
32:48What changed in the 1970s, the economy tanked, company profits evaporated, and companies looked
32:55around for who to blame, for how to get back making money, and they realized that all these
32:59new rules and regulations were really hindering their ability to compete in the marketplace and
33:03to make money and cost them so much money to comply with. So like any good business people,
33:08they invested in their problem, and their problem was the government. So as a result of that,
33:14they started pouring money into lobbying, into campaign donations, and to really, for the first
33:19time, taking action in Washington and gaining the power that they have now. You've got a statistic
33:25in there that I just want to cite here. It says, by 2012, for every dollar spent by consumer groups
33:32who were environmental activists to influence federal policy, corporations and their allies
33:38were spending $86. Explain that to us. Yeah, and that was more than a decade ago,
33:44and also that's only the money that we know that's being spent. I mean, so much of lobbying
33:49is now being spent outside of Washington to get constituents and business groups and other
33:55organizations to support pro-business policies, and that money is not included in that total.
34:01The idea here is that there are hundreds and thousands of big US companies,
34:07and they're all spending millions of dollars to impact legislation, and they're just overwhelming
34:11the opposition, the opposition here being labor unions or consumer groups. Can you give me an idea
34:16of the scale of what kind of money we're talking about? Who are the biggest players? How much are
34:21they spending? Right now, the big tech companies dominate the lobbying game, but so does the US
34:28Chamber of Commerce, which spends $100 million lobbying, and pharmaceutical companies. But more
34:34to the point here, we read about one company, Genentech, and one of their lobbyists, their
34:41internal lobbying figures that I got show that about five years ago, they were spending about
34:46$50 million lobbying Washington, but only $5 million of that was in the disclosed category.
34:51So if you take that across everyone else, one out of every $10 is being disclosed,
34:56and nine out of 10 is not disclosed, and that's really the issue. So some of lobbying,
35:02as you point out, you and I can go to OpenSecrets.gov, and you can start to see who got a
35:07campaign contribution from a company for how much money. We can even go into different databases and
35:14search for which lobbyists might have registered a visit to a member of Congress or the White House.
35:22But you're saying that even though those are staggering sums of money, that's actually not
35:27the whole picture. Exactly. One of the things we read about in our book is how lobbying has moved
35:32from a smoke-filled room where lobbyists get special favors and get access to members of
35:38Congress using old-school tactics like steak dinners and rounds of golf and cozy relationships
35:43and campaign checks. So much of lobbying now takes place outside of Washington. And lobbying
35:48outside of Washington is not disclosed. When I say lobbying, what we've realized is that
35:53members of Congress will do whatever it takes to get reelected. And to get reelected,
35:56obviously, you need 51% of your constituents to support you. And lobbyists know that. So lobbyists
36:02now go to constituents and to companies and to employees and to industry groups and to
36:07other civic organizations and try to get their support for a trade policy or an R&D tax credit
36:13or for some immigration regulation. And if you can get the support of someone's constituent,
36:19the member of Congress will follow because the member of Congress wants to get reelected.
36:22All of that lobbying that's taking place now is not disclosed at all. So to give you a statistic,
36:28in 2007, the last time there was a major lobbying reform bill in D.C., there were roughly 12,000
36:34registered lobbyists in D.C. Today, 15 years later, with corporations having so much influence in
36:40Washington and spending billions of dollars to influence Washington, there are still only
36:4412,000 registered lobbyists in Washington. And that means that statistic is not accurate. There's
36:52way more lobbyists than the 12,000 people who are required to disclose under the law.
36:57Microsoft is one of the biggest tech companies and one of the biggest tech lobbyists now. But that
37:01wasn't always the case. You point out that Bill Gates didn't really care much for lobbying in the
37:05beginning. Yeah, when Microsoft got started, Bill Gates smartly focused just on his company
37:12and being the best software company in the world, which he succeeded at. But the problem he made is
37:18that he ignored Washington. He didn't hire lobbyists. He didn't have lawyers in D.C. He
37:24wasn't making big PAC contributions. And his idea was that he was the smartest person in the room.
37:30He knew the best way to run his company. He didn't want Washington meddling in his business.
37:34The mistake came when the Justice Department, over time, decided to sue Microsoft for being
37:39an antitrust monopoly. Because Bill Gates didn't have lobbyists, he didn't have eyes and ears,
37:44he didn't have friendships and relationships in D.C. They were caught by surprise and weren't
37:49able to do anything to head that off or nip it in the bud early on. As a result, Microsoft and
37:55Bill Gates spent 10 years fighting the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit. That's 10 years
38:01where they weren't focused on innovation, weren't focusing on development, weren't focusing on their
38:05company, or were distracted by Washington. And that was a big mistake, didn't you think?
38:08So when Google came to D.C. 10 years later, in the early 2000s, they realized, in order to be
38:14the biggest, most dominant company in the country, you really need to invest in Washington. And they
38:19have. And by contrast, in the 15 years that Google has been an enormous U.S. company and enormous
38:26force in Washington, nothing bad has ever happened to them. They've defeated every single attempt at
38:33antitrust investigation or any legislation on Capitol Hill that could harm them.
38:37So if you are a Forbes 500 company, corporate lobbying is just part of the cost of doing
38:44business, like human resources is or marketing is. Absolutely. One of the things that surprised me
38:50about writing this book is that I thought that so much of lobbying was the government is making
38:56some new rule or regulation that affects an industry. So an industry hires lobbyists to try to
39:01bend that regulation or block that regulation or change it in some subtle way. In fact,
39:06lobbying is much more on the offensive, where companies hire lobbyists to come to D.C.
39:10to create rules and regulations, to block competitors or to create barriers to entry so
39:16that they are the only companies that can expand in that industry. Give us an example of that.
39:23We'll look at Dodd-Frank after the housing crisis. We created the big banks came to D.C.,
39:31the big mortgage banks, and created these new capital requirements where you have to have
39:35billions and billions and billions of dollars in reserve in order to enter these marketplaces.
39:38Well, guess what? Only five companies can afford to do that. And guess what? Those are the companies
39:43that lobbied to create the law. Is there a difference, a partisan difference? I'm assuming
39:49that lobbyists work for whoever pays the check. But when you look back across your research,
39:57across different administrations of who's in power or which Congress is in control,
40:03is there a difference between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to lobbying?
40:07It's fascinating. The answer is no. And that's one of the fascinating things. As we said in the
40:12beginning, companies and corporate lobbyists win whether Democrats are in control or whether
40:16Republicans are in control. And one of the statistics we found is that you would think
40:21that corporate America would want Republicans to win and would support Republicans with their
40:26campaign donations. In fact, corporations just want to be with the winner. So we looked at campaign
40:31finance data, and the campaign finance data shows that when Republicans are in charge,
40:35when they control the White House and control Congress, that corporations and their PACs do
40:40give about 60% of their money to Republicans. But they still give 40% of their money to Democrats,
40:46even when Republicans are in charge. More fascinating is that when Democrats are in
40:50charge, when the Democratic president and when Democrats control the House and the Senate,
40:55corporations give 60% of their money to Democrats and 40% to Republicans.
41:00So they really just want to be with the winner. They don't care who the winner is.
41:04When you look at the politics of the previous couple of administrations,
41:10one of the things that animated the Trump campaign early on, the first time around,
41:15was to drain the swamp, to get the influence of money out of Washington. And what you describe
41:23in the book is that it wasn't as successful, and it maybe would have changed. It changed the scope
41:30and where the power rested in Washington from Congress back into the White House. Explain that.
41:36Yeah. So the way our government has changed over the last century is that, or really,
41:41since Watergate actually takes effect in the 1970s, is that power has become more diffuse
41:45in Washington. Before Watergate, before Nixon, or through the Nixon administration, I should say,
41:52most government power was held by the president in the White House. And Congress had
41:56a role in creating rules and regulations and laws. But really, the White House dominated.
42:01After Watergate, Washington was reformed, and power was taken from the White House,
42:06given to Congress, and taken from congressional leaders, and given to committees and subcommittee
42:10chairs and regular members. So Congress, in a way, or Washington power, sort of democratized.
42:15Trump is a reversal from that. Trump took power back to the White House. I mean, he realized
42:19correctly that Congress is dysfunctional and would not pass the things that he was proposing,
42:25in part because the House and Senate are so narrowly divided between Republicans and Democrats.
42:29But either way, Trump realized in order to get things done, and as we know, he's an impatient
42:33guy, in order to get things done quickly, he had to do things himself. So he started basically
42:38governing through executive order. And executive order is just something he could sign that would
42:42last through his administration. So he passed more executive orders than anyone else or any
42:47modern president. And as a result of that, if companies wanted something,
42:51it didn't matter what Congress did or didn't do. What they needed to do was get to Trump.
42:56And the thing about Trump is that because he was an outsider when he was elected,
43:00most of the Republican Party supported other candidates and did not want Trump to win the
43:04election. So not many people knew him when he came to DC. But the few people who did know him
43:11became lobbyists and became fabulously wealthy because of their access to him.
43:15One of the things that you point out is that if former President Trump becomes president again,
43:21Paul Manafort stands to become one of the most influential humans on the planet. Why is that?
43:26Yeah, it's exactly what we just said. There's only a few people who are close to Trump.
43:32Trump values loyalty above anything else. And there's one person in America who has gone to
43:39jail for Donald Trump, and that is Paul Manafort. And Paul Manafort worked for Donald Trump's first
43:43campaign. His plan back then was to start a lobbying firm had Trump won. Instead, he got
43:49wrapped up in the Mueller investigation, was sent to jail, and was later pardoned by Trump.
43:54Most people, I think, consider Paul Manafort a big loser right now. He's been chewed up and spit
44:00out by Washington politics. But if Trump wins, Paul Manafort will be back. And I think he will
44:06be paid for his loyalty with tons of lobbying contracts from US companies and foreign countries.
44:11I think he'll be the most successful lobbyist we've ever seen.
44:15These relationships now seem to matter more than ever. And it seems like a sad reflection that
44:25at the same time, so many people feel disconnected from the political process.
44:29They don't feel like their voice counts. They don't feel like their vote counts. They don't
44:33feel like their impact would ever be anything meaningful about legislation or policy. And yet,
44:40you were pointing out that there are these individuals who still have figured out how to
44:48peddle power. Yeah. That's one of the main points of our book is that there's an establishment in
44:54Washington that's a corporate elite establishment that benefits whether Republicans or Democrats
44:59win. And no matter who wins the next election, corporations will be the winner because they've
45:04got their hooks into both political parties, to both presidential candidates. And these
45:09lobbies and companies, they employ Republican lobbies and Democratic lobbies. So if Trump wins,
45:15he'll just promote their Republican lobbies and those relationships. And if Biden wins,
45:20or whoever else becomes the nominee, they'll promote their Democratic lobbies. But either way,
45:24the companies that they employ or that employ them will be the big winners. I feel like that
45:29is disconnecting many people from Washington. And I do think we see an increasing number of
45:36populist Republicans these days, sort of anti-establishment Republicans, like Josh Hawley
45:41in Missouri and J.D. Vance from Ohio, who are saying, hey, this system is rigged. And they're
45:47fighting out against some of these big companies and the Chamber of Commerce, actually, because
45:51they're saying the system is rigged. These big companies can afford to hire these lobbies to
45:56make these campaign donations and to come to Washington and change the rules and regulations
46:00to help big companies at the expense of everyone else. The book is called The Wolves of K Street,
46:04The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government. Brody Mullins, thanks so much.
46:09Thanks, Travis. Great.
46:11And now Donald Trump closed the Republican National Convention in full control of his party.
46:16Voices of dissent, harder to find than ever. But it wasn't always that way. Eight years ago,
46:22can't believe it's been eight years already, a newly nominated Trump found himself on a divided
46:26convention floor, facing doubt, infighting and anger while the nation confronted spiraling
46:32civil unrest. Christiane was there in Cleveland back in 2016, where she spoke to the then host
46:37of The Daily Show, Trevor Noah, as they look towards a possible Trump presidency.
46:43Trevor Noah, welcome to the program.
46:45Thank you so much for having me.
46:46Have you ever seen anything like it? I mean, you come from South Africa. You've been doing this
46:50gig, American politics, for the last year and a half or so. How does this stack up for you?
46:55Well, I mean, the convention is not the craziest thing. You know, you see political conventions
46:59in different countries. South Africa has something similar where the party gets together and,
47:04you know, people discuss and vote for the leader. But I guess the rhetoric and the emotion that is
47:10around this election, I genuinely have never seen before.
47:13What is it particularly that you haven't seen before? I mean, what is the most surprising?
47:17I think one of the biggest things is the fact that Donald Trump has hijacked a political party.
47:22I've never seen that happen. I've never seen somebody take a party from other people and
47:27then force them to come to their own event and, I guess, ratify that decision, come out and say,
47:33yes, we're making this official. We choose you. They can't even say it.
47:38I mean, look, this one is notable. You're absolutely right. For the number of grandees
47:42who are not coming, no former presidents, no former Republican nominees, very few,
47:48if any, of his of his challenges during the campaign. He did get 13 million votes in the
47:55primary season, apparently a record. What should we take from that?
48:00I think the fact that populist politics is really growing in the world, the fact that people are
48:05afraid for different reasons. And that's that's the time when I think demagogues like Donald
48:12Trump can take the most advantage, because what you do is when people are afraid, you jump out
48:16and you go, I can I can assuage your fears. I have the solutions. Nobody has a solution to what is
48:21happening in the world right now, whether it be terrorism, the shrinking middle class. Nobody has
48:26a solution on hand. Refugees as well. Everyone has to think of a variety of factors. Donald
48:31Trump says there's one solution and I'll give it to you. And that seems more confident. There
48:35are people out there who go, you know what, I'm going to vote for that because it seems sure.
48:40There's been a lot of controversy about this candidacy. The press has been accused of not
48:44holding him to account sufficiently. I mean, the thing is, nothing seems to have dented him.
48:49Well, how do you dent something that is in of itself a giant dent?
48:57That's the problem. Everyone's trying to shame Donald Trump and he's shameless.
49:01I realized the one day what Donald Trump does that nobody before him has done is he goes in
49:07head first. You say, here's a statement. Here's a controversy. And he says, I'll give you another
49:13one and I'll give you another one and I'll give you another one. I'll give you he gives you so
49:17he doubles down. Yeah. That you can't, you think about it. His tax returns were the biggest news.
49:22No one talks about that anymore. The wall has just become accepted as a policy position.
49:28We're no longer having conversations about his charities that he hasn't given money to and where
49:33the money is from the fundraisers because he's just taken us to the next thing. Now we're talking
49:38about pants. We haven't even completed any of the things that Donald Trump has done before this. So
49:43what he does is he's not afraid doubling down is, is, is not, is an understatement,
49:48gross understatement. He is quadrupled down. He is quintupled down. He is everything down.
49:53So what are you doing here? Because you are the only late night show here in America,
49:57who's actually coming to Cleveland and you're going to be live both here and at the democratic
50:02convention the following week. What do you hope to be able to do? And how are they, by the way,
50:07receiving you here? I mean, you've pretty much been spiking them and all politicians for the
50:12last several years. You know, what's funny is when you bump into Republicans, I've never seen
50:16people be more underhanded or like give you more compliments on the slide than I have here where
50:21people go, good job, good job of what you're doing. Good. I mean, I can't say this in public,
50:26but thank you. Good, good job. Because this is the one year where they don't support their
50:30nominees. They want the jabs. They want someone pointing that out. They have to maintain face
50:34though. Um, so what's really fun for us is we're, we're in Cleveland. We're going to be in Cleveland.
50:39We're going to be in Philly as well. And it's, it's just fun because this is my first convention.
50:43This is my first opportunity to see this. You know, normally we're reporting on what people
50:47are reporting on. Now we get to be there. We get to experience it. We get to feel,
50:52I was at the protest yesterday. I was just feeling the tension, you know, walking through the streets,
50:58seeing the secret service. These are things that are tough to, I think, relate to an audience when
51:03you're not actually there. We're in a very, very divisive period of not just American history,
51:08but global history at the moment. I mean, let's just take the police killings in this country.
51:14You have had a huge amount of attention because of a piece you did right after the killings in
51:20Louisiana and Minnesota of the two black guys by, by white police. Let me just play a little bit.
51:26If you're pro-black lives matter, you're assumed to be anti-police. And if you're pro-police,
51:32then you surely hate black people. It seems that it's either pro-cop and anti-black
51:38or pro-black and anti-cop. When in reality, you can be pro-cop and pro-black,
51:45which is what we should all do.
51:47How does a satirist, a comedian like yourself, dealing with the most important and heated
51:54politics of the moment, like people say they've never seen America like this, at least not for
51:58decades, right? How do you navigate that in a responsible way while you're still trying to have
52:03laughs? Well, I think you, it depends on what you're using the laughs for. I've come to realize
52:08more and more that the laughter is not me poking fun or enjoying the moment. You're using the
52:16laughter as catharsis. You're using the laughter as a release valve because that's what laughter is.
52:21That's what comedy is. You know, people always ask me, they go like, how can you laugh at a
52:25time like this? I go, look, I grew up in a place where Nelson Mandela was in prison for 27 years.
52:31And not only was he telling jokes in prison, he was laughing when he came out of prison. It doesn't
52:37mean the 27 years was easy. It doesn't mean that he wasn't angry and he wasn't trying to affect
52:43change, but it also meant you can't remove that from yourself. You cannot forget how to laugh
52:50because once you forget that, you only remember how to cry. And so that's what you do. In terms
52:55of responsibility, it's the honesty of the situation. Sometimes there are situations that
53:00are ludicrous. You know, how does a nation and a world rally around the shooting of a gorilla
53:07and the zoo changes its whole structure and says, we need to look at this. Gorilla was
53:12shot. Harambe the gorilla. And yet with actual people that are being shot in the streets,
53:17people are going, oh, well, what did they do wrong? And maybe it's the way they carry themselves.
53:22That is the world we're living in. And that for me is ludicrous. It's so crazy that you have to
53:28laugh at it. So you came here not necessarily intending to be just about American politics,
53:35but this obviously campaign has captivated everything. What are you going to do after the
53:38election? I think I'm definitely intending to spread the scope of the daily show. We need to
53:43look to the world because a lot of the time the world can give you the answers that you need.
53:46You know, Brexit is one of those, you know, if people were looking at Brexit and even now,
53:51if you look at the ramifications of Brexit, it can tell you a lot about what may happen
53:55in the US. You had people after Brexit going, I don't know why I voted. I thought we were voting
54:00for immigrants to leave and we wanted more jobs. And the NHS was going to spend 350 million pounds.
54:05And now it looks like they're not getting that money. And I really regret my decision.
54:09And it's like, yeah, that's, that's what happens. You were ill-informed, you were misinformed,
54:14and now your decision is going to impact you for the rest of your life. The same thing could happen
54:18in the United States. And so I feel like by looking at the world, you can actually learn
54:21about yourself. Fantastic. Trevor Noah, thank you very much. Good luck to you.
54:26Wow. Finally, for us, from shaping the rules of politics to the man who changed the rules
54:31of comedy. After a prolific career filled with laughter, nine Emmy nominations and multiple TV
54:37appearances, Bob Newhart, who graced so many of our television screens growing up, has passed away
54:43at the age of 94. Beloved for his stammering, deadpan humor, which shot him to stardom in the
54:481960s, his phone call sketches playing a reasonable man dealing with absurd requests
54:55marked his flavor of comedy. You found a shell on the beach.
55:01You think that's unusual, do you, Willard, finding a shell on a beach?
55:08It isn't that kind of shell. What's the matter? Doesn't it sound like the ocean when you hold
55:13it up here, Willard? Oh, that kind of shell. A former accountant turned comedian, he's best
55:20known for TV's The Bob Newhart Show in the 1970s and Newhart in the 80s, while later appearances
55:27in The Big Bang Theory and movies like Elf immortalized his place in pop culture. He will
55:34be sorely missed among many generations. And that's it for our program tonight. If you want
55:38to find out what's coming up on the show each night, sign up for our newsletter at PBS.org
55:43slash Amanpour. Thank you so much for watching Amanpour & Company on PBS. Join us again next week.