The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government 54:37

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Welcome to the Jason and the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz and I appreciate you giving us part of your day and sharing this. Whether you're out getting some exercise or on a bike or in a car or just at home and hanging out, I hope you find this interesting. I'm really, really interested in

in reading this new book that's come out. It's called The Wolves of K Street. Wolves of K Street. Now, having been in Congress for years, I got to tell you, you learn real quickly what K Street is. So if you don't know what K Street is, oh, this is going to be a book for you, and I think it's going to be a podcast for you, because K Street's where they get it all done in terms of raising money and lobbyists and everything else. And

So you have these Wall Street Journal reporter and some brothers who are very talented in their writing. And they've done this deep dive into this book. So...

Brody Mullins, Luke Mullins, brothers got together, wrote this book. It's new. It's out. And I think it's going to be a really fascinating conversation. So let's go through a couple items in the news. Highlight the stupid because there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And then we'll get on the horn with one of the Mullins. So anyway, news first.

Pritzker. Pritzker is an interesting name, right? Kind of different. Don't always hear it. The allegation is that the Pritzkers are very active because they're very wealthy. Not because they're very wealthy, but because they're very wealthy, they're able to be very active in funding the chaos that we're finding throughout our country on college campuses.

This is not an issue that's going to go away. I think what you're going to find is if you look at Antifa and the riots, the BLM protests and the riots that were happening with that and all the incidents, and certainly now with the chaos that we see on some of the college campuses,

It's more than just being anti-Semitic. It's more than just being anti-Semitism. It's more than that. It's more than just targeting Jews. I mean, it's really disgusting behavior because they want the death and destruction of anybody who's Jewish.

and certainly the Jewish state of Israel, but I'm also increasingly convinced that they hate America and that it's its own form of terrorism right here on our homeland. That's the concern. By the definition of terrorism, you're trying to create terror on fear and a change in behavior, which I think they've been fairly sophisticated and fairly successful at.

Well, the Pritzker family has evidently been funding part of this. We've heard allegations of George Soros. We've heard allegations, Peter Schweitzer's book talks about how the Chinese pump money into these types of efforts. Not saying they did it specifically for the college campus issue, but what they do is they either set up or

go into an existing not-for-profit, pour money into that effort, and then that not-for-profit is able to fund things, hire people. A lot of these people are paid agitators. I had my own incident in February of 2017.

in Utah and law enforcement when they found I was having a town hall where normally I'd get maybe 50 people hundreds of people showed up yelling screaming people with you know black hoods going through the parking lots trying to incite all kinds of things and later law enforcement said yeah most of these people are from outside of Utah and it was because I was the chairman of the oversight committee that's that's why they wanted to come after me

But the Pritzker family evidently is very involved in this. JB Pritzker is actually the Democratic governor of Illinois. So I don't know what his ties to that or how far in the relationship with his family, but he's also a Pritzker. Something else to be watching out for because it really is kind of scary. It really is being funded badly.

And, but, you know, they got to take responsibility and there's got to be consequence. Instead of coddling, there's got to be consequence. That's the fundamental problem what we're doing here. I also want to highlight, this may have flown under the radar with all the other news coming out. A Minnesota state senator pled the fifth when she was called before an ethics panel. The allegation is that she

is being charged with first-degree burglary of her stepmother's home.

And it's interesting to see how this case plays out because, again, you've got somebody in power. You want to make sure they're treated just like everyone else. But what's playing out in Minnesota, the state senator pleading the fifth before the ethics panel, that's a case to be watching. That's for sure. All right, let's bring on the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. ♪

All right, this headline comes out of NBC in Los Angeles, Channel 4. This is the headline. Runner disqualified as OC marathon winner for receiving water from dad during race. I think OC means Orange County. That's my guess. Okay, so let's digest this for a second. Runner disqualified for receiving water from his dad during the race.

Um, whoa. He was actually winning this race. Esteban Prado, who spent months training for the marathon, received water from a spectator, his dad, in violation of a rule that participants can only get water at official hydration stations.

Okay, I guess those are the rules, but this poor guy wins the race, but is disqualified. The real winner, Jason Yang of San Pedro, was declared the men's winner...

Two hours, 25 minutes, 11 seconds. He's running 26.2 miles. Amazing. All right. Don't be taking water from dad. Heaven forbid. That is evidently not allowed. Certainly not allowed in California. At least at this race. Got to play by the rules. But yikes. That was a painful penalty to have to go through that.

All right, let's move on. Let's introduce our guests here because this is really going to be fun. Again, the book is The Wolves of K Street. Let's dial them up. Hello? Hey, Brody. This is Jason Chaffetz. Hey, how's it going? Hey, thanks so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. I've been talking about it as the intro to this podcast about your book that's coming up here.

The Wolves of K Street, the secret history of how big money took over big government. And congratulations to you. Well, thank you so much. It's funny that we're talking because there's actually one of the lines that we cut from the book involved you way back in the day in the SOPA-PIPA fight, if you remember that one. Oh, I do remember the SOPA and PIPA fight. Now, SOPA, Stop Online Privacy, Stop, not Online Privacy, but...

What did SOPA stand for? PIPA was... Isn't it Stop Online Privacy? Yeah, SOPA and PIPA was... Oh my goodness. They wanted to create...

And this was a bill and a lot of Republicans were behind it, but they really wanted to create an opportunity. Well, Homeland Security essentially would have unilateral authority to take down any website without due process. And I can only imagine if they had gotten that passed, what things will look like. And so I fought against it. I said, hey, you're going to provide you're going to do surgery on the Internet.

And there's not a nerd in the room. Maybe it's good to have a doctor if you're going to have surgery. So since none of you know what DNS is, DNS redirect, domain name server redirect, if you don't even know what that language is,

How can you write this legislation and give so much unilateral authority to take down somebody's business without any due process? And we won that fight. That was a big one. Yeah. Well, let me see your your quote there. You know, can't have surgery on the Internet without a without a doctor. I think you said bringing the nerds was a super cool moment in turning the tide in that fight. And that was a sort of one of the key moments in our lobbying book.

We write about the evolution of lobbying from the smoke-filled rooms where everyone thinks lobbying takes place to more lobbying out in the states and with constituents. And the reason that we got into this bill and this fight in our book, The Wolves of K Street, is that at the time, as you say –

Almost every member of Congress wanted to pass this bill. It was supported by the movie industry. It was supported by the music industry. It was supported by pharma. It was supported by the Chamber of Commerce. The AFL-CIO was behind this thing. And a small number of members of Congress, including yourself, stood up to it in a key markup that fall. And that started to turn the tide against it. And then what we read about it that Google and some of the Internet companies

who were losing the lobbying fight in Washington with traditional lobbyists. The internet industry was very small back then, and they didn't have many lobbyists, and their lobbyists were losing to powerhouses like the MPAA and the Chamber of Commerce, like I said. So they decided to go out to their users and try to rally their users, if you remember that. Google and Amazon and Facebook and all the big websites back then

It got millions of users to call and email members of Congress saying that this bill would shut down the Internet. You know, that was a pretty big exaggeration, but it worked. And members of Congress thought, wait a second, this bill could shut down the Internet. That's not what I thought that it did. And in something like two days, the bill went from having hundreds and hundreds of co-sponsors to being dead.

uh and yeah i would in lobbying history yeah i i would go i went on the floor and then all of a sudden members like what is sopa what is pippa like what are you guys talking about and and i because i was kind of helping to lead the charge against this thing and and so i explained to it that you know homeland would be able to just take down a website without due process

Man, they started fleeing because they're there. I remember Senator Jeff Flake at the time. He was Congressman Jeff Flake and he was more beloved by the right than he than he probably is now. And he's and he's like, my kids never, ever interact with me on policy or comment. But.

It wasn't just Jeff Flake. It was others as well started telling their parents, what are you doing? How are you going to do this? It's lighting up on Twitter. And yeah, it was really a seminal moment. But let's go back to the heart of the book. I'm honored that you would include me and I can't wait to read it. We're actually recording this podcast prior to its release. But tell us the whole premise here because you...

and your brother Luke, who's also a very prominent writer and investigative journalist. The two of you decided to do this. Why did you decide to do it? What were you seeing and what would readers get out of this by looking at this or reading it?

Yeah, so I've been a reporter, an investigative reporter with The Wall Street Journal for 20 years in Washington covering lobbying and business and case tree, sort of how companies and industries try to get what they want in Washington, you know, out of Congress and out of the White House, which is a fascinating area. And I sort of realized at some point that corporations had amassed a ton of power and almost had an unfair advantage in Washington.

because they had so much money and influence over policy that the other side of labor unions, environmental groups, and public interest groups just don't have that kind of power anymore. So I'd written a couple stories about that topic for the journal and about really interesting lobbyists. And a book publisher approached me and said, hey, you should write a book. So the

So the book is about the rise of corporate power in Washington from the 1970s to now. We started writing the book in 2017, which turned out to be the height of corporate power. So as we were writing about corporate power, corporations started to sort of lose some influence in Washington with the rise of populists and Donald Trump and progressives on the left.

So it's mainly about a rise of core power and a little bit of the decline. And one of the really interesting things we found is that we're sort of living in an era now where companies have a lot of influence. And that era might be coming to an end. It seems like some Republicans and some Democrats are now all of a sudden turning on companies in corporate America and blaming those companies for some of the problems we have or for a lot of the problems.

We have in our country, you know, income inequality and stagnant wage growth and even inflation. So the book is basically about how companies came to power and how they're potentially losing power and how that's helped or hurt regular Americans along the way.

So but there's always been big money, you know, in government. I mean, when you have a government that spends between 20 and 25 percent of our GDP, that is one out of every four to five dollars that is spent in this country is spent by the federal government. Right.

um, he clearly there's a vested interest here. There is a whole slew and people, people aren't necessarily familiar with the term K street. You know, if it's kind of an inside the beltway, uh, term. So kind of explain that and give your perspective on K street, what that is and what that means. I mean, uh, you're absolutely right. I mean, that is the center of

The earth for so many people, center of gravity. But, you know, money's always been there and it's been flowing. But how has it changed through the years?

Yeah. It's a really good point. So luckily you and I are a little too young to, uh, to know this, but you're a little before our time, um, in the seventies and sixties and fifties, your companies actually didn't have that much influence in Washington and companies, uh, didn't really have lobbying. They weren't giving campaign donations from the period of 1930s, um, uh, to, uh, you know, after the great depression to the great society of Lyndon Johnson. And even through the presidency of Richard Nixon, uh,

Companies had very little influence in Washington. This is a period of time when the government was growing spectacularly, when the EPA was being created, the National Transportation Safety Administration. Basically, every three-letter agency that you know of was created from the 1930s and 1970s. What was amazing to me is that a lot of those agencies were created with the support of corporations, companies.

Companies thought, yeah, you know, we should have more clean air regulations and we should have better regulations on on on workers and give them some more rights. And everyone was sort of on the same team. You think about the Environmental Protection Agency that was created by Richard Nixon. I mean, you would never think in this day and age that a Republican would support would create, you know, a big regulatory agency like that.

Anyway, the point is that in the late 1970s, when the economy started tanking and inflation was high and wages were stagnant, there were

or growth was stagnant, companies started saying, "Wait a second. The government has too much control in our lives. We're not making money. Profits are down. Pay is down. And we have to deal with all these regulations." So they thought, "Let's start investing money in Washington, really for the first time, to try to roll back some of those rules and regulations." There were certainly blocked new ones coming. That sort of led to the Reagan Revolution in the 1980s, when Republicans took over the House and the Senate.

And from then on, Republicans, or I'm sorry, companies have spent a ton of money in blockchain. So, you know, you're exactly right, but your history, like my history, sort of starts in the 80s. But before then, companies were not around. So your question then was, what is K Street? So when a lot of companies, for

first came to Washington, they set up their operations in their offices on K Street, which is one of Washington's widest boulevard. It used to be a center of commerce back in the day when Washington, D.C. actually had commerce. Now our industry is lobbying. And a lot of the law firms started there. So just like Madison Avenue in New York or Wall Street in New York, the lobbying industry is called K Street just because it's sort of the foundation of

of that industry. Um, it's just north of, just north of the white house. And if you kind of go from, uh, that towards the Capitol, if you go East, yeah, you just, I mean, it's just chock full of the nicest, biggest offices and such a slew of lobbyists. It's unbelievable. You just, that, that, that's what people need to understand is it's just,

But did you find through kind of your research and your talking, you know, one of the things I tell people is that the lobbyists aren't all focused on Congress. Because over the course of decades, Congress has really ceded so much of its power. They've kind of...

They've just turned it over to the executive branch. And, you know, the executive branch has so much latitude in these departments and agencies that get to make these decisions and grant decisions and everything else. They have unilateral authority that Congress just doesn't stand up for itself and just cedes and gives over to the administration. Do you see that, that the lobbyists are working harder on the administration than they are even on Congress?

Yeah, you know, absolutely. I mean, I think that, uh, you put your finger on it there. I mean, I think there's a lot of misperceptions about how lobbying in Washington works. Um, let me just step back for one second. I think that, you know, I was a political science major in college and I think a lot of people take political science classes or government classes or civics classes are taught about the three branches of government and how the inner, you know, the interplay between those branches of government and the tension between them, which creates sort of our, our, our perfect, but imperfect system of government. Um,

that really does work. What people don't learn about is the influence of corporations or really in terms of lobbying and interest groups on that process. And sometimes today, even in the case of SOPA PIPA that we were talking about, it could be that companies have even more influence on legislation than the lawmakers themselves. I mean, with SOPA PIPA, 99 senators supported that bill the day before it died. And then, basically,

Big tech put its thumb on the scale and that change in two days. So I think that people don't understand, one, the influence that companies have in our process. And two, relatedly, I think people look at Congress and say, the way Washington works is Congress passes a law and the president signs it or doesn't sign it and then it goes to the courts. But you're exactly right. So much happens now in agencies, particularly when it comes to industry, because there are more than 100 three-letter agencies

pumping out rules and regulations every single day that affect all levels of industry and commerce. So companies hire lobbyists to go try to manipulate, change, morph those rules and regulations way behind the scenes. I mean, no one is watching these rules unfold. But they can mean billions of dollars for companies and huge effects on companies.

you know, human health or health care or the lifestyle of everyday Americans. I think part of the issue is that Congress, unfortunately, is kind of dysfunctional these days. It's so hard to pass a law on either side that it's really left to the agencies, as you were saying, to get things done.

Yeah, this is where Chevron, as they call it, people from afar look at Chevron and they think, oh, you've got this Supreme Court decision that's pending on the Chevron. And it really is.

gets to the heart of how the decision making processes is is made. And I think the frustration for those that really kind of study it, I had to learn it by getting elected to Congress and go in there, is that so many of these bills just give authority to a department or agency to.

To do what they want. I mean, my example to that being a Republican is Nancy Pelosi on the health care bill. You know, we're going to have to pass it in order to find out what's in it, because it just allows the secretary to come up with the rules. And that's why the lobbyists are thriving, I think, in part.

Because they're not focused on Congress so much, and they are. Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of money flowing to members of Congress. But they've got to really work those departments and agencies because it's that rulemaking authority that you talk about that scares them to death. Because...

an airline industry or healthcare or the Securities and Exchange Commission or the banking or credit unions, they're scared to death of some regulator who comes in and says, well, we'll just slap down this rule and it will just totally change the way you have to do business.

Yeah, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, there's so much influence and power that, you know, unnamed, unknown regulators have over industry and society. And the companies know if they get to those guys and women, you know, they can really make a difference for their own companies. You know, incidentally, for the Wall Street Journal last year, we wrote a whole series of stories about those unnamed and unknown regulators, who

precisely for the reason you say, that they have so much influence over our economy and over our society, and we don't know who they are. And so we started looking at their financial disclosures. You know, as a member of Congress, you fill out your financial disclosure every year, and your reporters in the public look at it, and they can say, well, you know, you own Apple stock. You shouldn't vote on, you know, legislation affecting Apple and whatnot. But these...

These bureaucrats at these agencies have just as much influence, maybe more, and no scrutiny. And it turned out, when we looked at their financial disclosure forms, that they all own stock or lots of them own stock in the companies that they're regulating and writing rules for, which is crazy.

I want to tell this story because if you've listened to every podcast I've ever done, not even my wife has done that. You're going to find that, you know, you've heard this story before. And it's this kind of legendary story of a member of Congress who goes to meet

with a cabinet secretary. And when they get there, there's no, the cabinet secretary is not there, but the senior staff's there. And when the congressman sits down, evidently the secretary is not going to show up. And he's very ticked off about this, right? He's just like,

Just offended. And he gets up to leave and he said, you know, if the secretary's not going to show up, I'm leaving. And the senior staff said, no, no, please sit here. We'd love to answer your questions. We'd love to interact with you. And he said, and the member of Congress evidently said, no, I'm not here to meet with the B team. And the senior staff said, sir, with all due respect,

We are the B team. We be here before you. We be here now. We be here after you. And we actually be the ones to make the decisions. So you're meeting with the right people. And I think there's a lot of truth to that because so many of these cabinet secretaries, I really do believe they're professionals at testifying.

But the senior staff that sits there in perpetuity, you know, my own personal political stance has been, yeah, term limits are good, but you also need term limits on everything.

on senior staff. And I don't know what your take is on that. It is kind of a cute illustrative story, but it is for me instructive on how much, how Washington DC actually works. Because if you look at the sheer number of pieces of legislation that Congress actually passes to your point, Brody, it's, it's just somewhat dysfunctional at this point.

Yeah, you know, it's hard to fix, too, because, you know, you mentioned term limits. I'm not sure if that's such a good idea. I mean, our regulators, that is our regulation.

government and these agencies and the policies that they put out are so complicated that you want to have experts who have been around forever. At the same time, those experts, as you just said, can have too much power. I grew up in Washington, D.C., which makes me a strange person. My dad worked his entire life at the Federal Communications Commission where they worked on regulations for phone companies and cable TV and broadcast television and

And he was a big Democrat, as many people who work in government are, and he wanted to make rules and regulations for companies. And I asked him one time, well, what happened when Ronald Reagan came in, who didn't want to make rules and regulations? And my dad said, he just waited for eight years until Reagan left, and then they went back to making rules and regulations. So it's exactly right. He was there before, he was there after, and he was making the rules.

Interesting. Interesting. You know, you go, you and your brother Luke joined together to write this book. Again, The Wolves of K Street, The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government. What surprised you in this? I mean, you obviously...

So you got your interest sparked, but then you started to dive deep. And when you get a contract and, hey, we're going to write this book, inevitably you find things that you didn't expect to find. What were those types of things that you found along the way?

Yeah, we found a whole bunch of interesting things. The biggest one, the broadest one, is what I mentioned at the beginning, is that the period we're living in now, where companies have this power, where there's sort of a pro-business center, is just a period, and it's going to come to an end at some point. And there will be another period in our time where regular people, or maybe...

Maybe public interest groups or maybe unions have a lot more power than they have now. Maybe we're seeing that now with the populists on the right and the progressives on the left teaming up to create a government run by people who want to go after big businesses. We could be coming to something like that, which could be fascinating. On a smaller level, the amount of money that's flowing around in Washington is really just staggering.

Back when you were on the Hill, a lot of that lobbying took place on Capitol Hill or in these agencies by lobbyists who had to disclose what their activities were and file registrations and say, hey, my name is so-and-so, these are my clients, this is how much money I make, and here's who I'm lobbying. And people can criticize lobbying, but at least there was some disclosure on that. Now, lots of lobbying is moving out to the states, and people are trying to go to your constituents and

and rally your constituents to support a trade bill or oppose a trade bill or support you know r d tax incentives or or whatever corporate policy and those people are not regulated and we don't know who they are and we don't know what they're doing and one of the interesting stories in our book is that we found a couple of lobbyists who got into that game who were paying tens of millions of dollars to do quote-unquote lobbying outside of washington

And these two guys realized that there was no disclosure, not just by the public or the media or the government, but by even their own companies. So they started just kicking this money back and forth to each other and making themselves rich. So they basically took money from a company and just lined their own pockets with it without doing anything. And that's something that can happen these days because there's one, a ton of money, and two, there's no disclosure. No one knows what lobbies are up to right now.

Was that because of the court decision or was that because they just figured out, hey, there's maybe a different formula? What really is the root cause? It's not the court decision if you're referring to Citizens United. It's more that lobbying back in the day or lobbying still is defined as –

An individual who makes contact with a member of Congress or an agency official in an attempt to influence that person on policy on behalf of an interest. So the quote unquote lobbying, lobbying is disclosed, is when a lobbyist talks to, say, you when you're back on Capitol Hill. That would make me a lobbyist. But if I go back to Utah and try to influence your constituents or influence the people who you talk to back in Iowa, who you talk to,

Talk to your your donors or your business leaders or your people you go to church with. If I go lobby those folks and lobby people around and make you think that 50 percent of your constituents support a new trade bill with Japan, then I think you're going to vote for it. But that type of lobbying is not their lobbying. Therefore, it's not disclosed because I've never actually spoken to you.

And that's where lots of lobbying is going these days. And as a result of that, none of that activity is disclosed at all, which creates a situation where unscrupulous people can just start siphoning off money for their own pockets.

And is that I mean, I guess the argument on the other side is, hey, we have a First Amendment right to do that and we can do that in mass. And I guess the advent is I'm kind of thinking that through that with social media and the ability to to get on the social media platforms and do that like a tick tock or a or a Facebook or whatever it might be. X is there and available, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, first of all, of course, as a person, I'm going to write what we're saying in our book is that the way things are now, because unions have so little power, because environmental groups have less power than they used to, because public advocacy groups have less power. The corporations are the ones with the power. So although although they're certainly allowed to lobby and petition their their government, they're.

the government oftentimes only gets one side of the argument because the other side doesn't have the money and is not as organized. Interesting. All right, let's go back for a second. You know, with my podcast, I like to kind of understand, you know, who people are, where they came from, what they say. Tell us about your Brody and your brother, Luke, who's older, by the way. I'm older. You're older. How many kids in your family when you were growing up?

So three total. Myself, my brother Luke is a co-author who's three years younger than me. And then we have a brother, John, who is an accountant. He's the only one who actually has a real job working for a real company.

A real job. You joke that you grew up, you know, in the Washington, D.C. area. Your dad's involved in the FCC. But what was life like growing up in that atmosphere? I mean, we just were you nerds? Were you playing sports? Were you I mean, you got an accountant and two writers. So, you know, that's not a typical threesome there.

So, you know, we all, you know, D.C. has always been a privileged and wealthy area. I mean, one of the crazy things about D.C., even going back to when I grew up, was that they used to say that the Washington Post every year would have a story on the richest counties in the country. And it was always six of the ten wealthiest counties surrounded Washington. But then we looked around and realized, well, there's no business here. There's no industry here. We don't make anything. At the end of the day, if everyone in Washington had to put into a, you know,

into a stadium, everything we produced, there'd be nothing there. All we do is fight about government rules and regulations. So we're definitely an odd people here. However, back then,

When I grew up in the 80s, DC was a lot less wealthy. I think there were more sort of middle class folks around here. My brothers and I played sports. I think we sort of grew up with like a fairly regular life.

I'll be a comfortable one. The difference is that when you're in Washington, people are sort of, instead of talking about sports, you're kind of talking about politics, not as sixth graders, but the parents are. So you sort of had some of that political and media talk was sort of ingrained

in your system. So when I was in high school, I just knew I wanted to be a reporter and I knew I wanted to be a political reporter. And instead of, you know, I definitely would watch all the baseball games, you know, back then it was the Baltimore Orioles before we had the Washington Nationals, but also read books about, about presidents and president presidential campaigns, which were kind of like a sport to me. And I thought they were super fun. So I just sort of always wanted to get into journalism to get into print journalism and

Um, you know, because Washington is a weird place where there's lots of powerful people, you're sort of neighbors with important people also. And so my mom started a business and she worked with the sister of a top reporter at the wall street journal named John Harwood. Uh, John hard, uh, was a, uh,

Wall Street Journal political reporter. He covered Bush. He covered Reagan. He covered Clinton. He was a star. And so through my mom, I contacted him. And in high school, I got what I called an internship,

in the wall street journal but was really just sort of a volunteer job i mean literally just delivered the mail and filled up people's coffee um but for me it was just an amazing experience to be around the giants of journalism um who were producing one of the best uh newspapers at the time and this is the summer of 1992 when as you recall uh bill clinton was running for president which is whether you're like bill clinton or not that's sort of a fascinating campaign where there's this young uh uh

governor of Arkansas running against George W. Bush, or George H.W. Bush, who was the titan of American politics. It was a super fun campaign. I actually really got into it and kind of caught the bug for political journalism.

So that is fascinating. And right. The early days of Clinton, that would have been what a great time to be a writer and engaged. But go back to when you're in your childhood there. I mean, there's got to be some spark or some experience that says, you know, a I can write and be I like this. Like I have an inquisitive mind. Like not everybody has that intellectual curiosity ingrained in them. How where did that come from for you?

You know, I can't say for sure because I sort of feel like I always had it. I always wanted to be a writer. In high school, I worked for my school newspaper, and I thought it was just super cool that reporters could hold powerful people accountable. I remember one day the principal of the school called me into his office. I think we were writing a story about the new football coach or something like that, and I could tell that the principal of the school was nervous,

about what I was going to write and wanted to know what I was going to write. And, you know, I was just some, you know, nerdy 15 year old. I certainly wasn't going to write anything bad, but it sort of struck me that this principle of,

saw that I had this power that even I didn't know that I had. And I think that might have been a moment when I realized, you know, being a journalist is cool. You get to, by the word that you write, you know, you have power and influence over your friends and your society and your community. And that, you know, that influence should be used for good. Sometimes it's used for evil. But there's something powerful about being able to and rewarding about sort of

being the person who gets to shape people's views and thoughts on whatever's going on, whether it's a sports game, you know, an election, a new football coach, or, you know, a bill or a law being put together. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more right after this.

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Yeah, it's funny. Again, I've told this story before, but when I was a kid, happened to be in Scottsdale, Arizona, I think I was, you know, probably about the same age you were talking about. And there was a radio station in Phoenix, KZZP, and they had a

commercial free weekend brought to you by and then they named whoever it was that was sponsoring the commercial free weekend and I and I that really struck me like that's not commercial free they're giving them here in the name of this company all the time so I wrote a letter to the editor to the Arizona Republic

And they published it. And I couldn't believe it. And I thought, oh, they probably hated seeing that. KZZP thought they were doing this great promotion and now they're getting ripped in the newspaper by some 14-year-old kid. And I said, they still owe us one. And if they're going to do it, they're going to promise it. They got to deliver on it.

And I don't know whatever came of that, but it did have an instill in sense of me. You know, I kind of like this oversight thing. I kind of like calling people's bluff. I kind of like holding people accountable to do the right thing, especially if they promise to do something and,

And it was one of those young experiences were just like what you were saying, Brody, that, you know, hey, wow, that's interesting. And I kind of gravitated to that. And, you know, I think that's why it's so important for kids to have those kinds of experiences. You know, that's interesting. I had not thought about that till now. But but, you know, your old job on the oversight committee and the job of an investigative reporter are actually very similar.

Yeah. They try to hold powerful people accountable. And, you know, you sleep good at night knowing that your job is to help the American people. Yeah. I mean, they send...

literally trillions of dollars to Washington, D.C., and you're supposed to be one of the watchdogs over that. And you're going up against two and a half million federal employees and a bureaucracy and the government. And and it was just fascinating time to do that. I mean, you know, I remember the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and we went into a classified closed door meeting to talk about Benghazi and

I really kind of lit him up. That's probably one of the most mad I've ever gotten. And I thought, only in America can some representative out of Utah

uh... in a different political party called the task the chairman of the joint chiefs and be able to shake hands at the end of it and uh... you know it's just it's amazing that america you know that that's a that's uh... that that works in america uh... okay so you got this great book the walls of k street the secret history of our big money took over big government where do you see this going you talk about this is a a period of time

But how is it changing and where do you see it going in the future, at least the near future? Yeah, you know, believe it or not, I'm thinking about writing a second book with my brother about this, about that question you just raised. Because I think that we're, you know, if you look around Washington, D.C. right now, if you talk to lobbyists, which I do, they're scared. They used to be friends with most, if not all, Republicans.

friends with a good portion, maybe most of Democrats, and there was this pro-business governing center in Washington that existed, I think, most of the time that you were on the Hill that's now framed. I mean, think back at a 2016 election.

Donald Trump comes out and says that he's against free trade bills. He's against the TPA, I think it was. And that was sort of stunning for a Republican, someone who came from the party of Ronald Reagan to be against free trade. And then you know what happened? Hillary Clinton came out against free trade also. And those bills were Bill Clinton's bill. Those were his trade deals.

And all of a sudden it was like, wait a second, both the Republican and Democratic parties are against free trade? What is going on? And that was just like an early precursor to where we are now. When Trump came in, the most pro-business thing he did was to sign what's known as the Trump tax cut back in 2017. But that was really Paul Ryan's tax cut that he'd put together. I think Trump just wanted to win. I would be fascinated to see

if Trump wins, what he does with that bill, which expires next year. What I mean is that this is the bill that, for the most part, lowered the corporate tax rate, I think about 20% or 21%. And companies are obviously very happy about that. But some of those tax cuts are going to snap back to where they were a year from now, basically creating a tax increase on companies.

If Donald Trump wins, do you think Donald Trump and the Republican Party are going to go out there and fight for big businesses to keep their taxes low? I don't see that happening. I mean, tell me what you think. I actually think they will. I think Donald Trump at his core and a lot of Republicans are still –

they still want to lower your taxes and their burden. I think what's interesting to me is Democrats say, oh, it added to the deficit and they throw out some number. And I'm like, no, actually what happened is revenue to the treasury went up because the economy was thriving. But if you don't also...

cut spending, then you don't solve the problem. So if you increase spending at the same time you're cutting taxes and lowering the burden, even though the revenue is going up, you don't solve the problem. And that's why we're $34 trillion in debt. I think the money bomb that is, you know, now that we're spending more money on interest on our national debt than we do national defense,

The fact that we have over a trillion dollars, Americans have more than a trillion dollars in their own personal debt and they're paying these, you know, 22, 24% rates. Those types of things, they all come to a crashing halt. And at some point,

You know, Donald Trump started to talk about restructuring the debt and you know that gets to be scary territory. But anybody else have a plan? I mean you had Secretary Yellen literally say in the last couple weeks

that regarding Social Security, she had no idea, no idea how to how to create solvency there. And they have no plan. And that, to me, scares me because Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, those are the big drivers. Those are the big dollar items. And you're not going to take those away from the American people, but they're also the biggest drivers of expense. Yeah, I mean, I think that's fascinating. I'm focusing more on the

So the regulatory side or the tax side, less spending as you are. But, you know, if you look at the Democratic Party also, if you follow a little bit of this tax bill that Jason Smith was trying to put together in the Ways and Means Committee this year, that it was Democrats that slowed that bill down because of the state and local tax exemption. Right. Democrats from New York. Salt, they call some of that. Salt tax.

That's a tax for wealthier Americans. Nothing wrong with that. But it wasn't Republicans pushing for that. It was Democrats. And it struck me, is the Democratic Party now the party of the rich? Because if so, that's a complete reversal of where we've been. I think that's a little too far. I did a study last year looking at the wealthiest and poorest districts in the country, and

10, 20 years ago, Democrats represented most of the district, 50% of the districts that were the poorest, the least wealthy. And 10 years ago, Democrats represented a majority of them. And now Republicans represent a majority of them. And that's a fascinating change. What does that mean for our parties? Are the parties going to invert? I don't think so. But, you know, something's happening out there. And I think that's an amazing change.

Well, there's another book. I mean, you got this Wolves of K Street coming out. You're obviously a super talented writer. And congratulations to you and Luke for putting out this book. I do have to ask you some rapid fire questions just about you personally.

So, we do this with everybody. So, no matter how many words you've written for the Wall Street Journal, which, by the way, is, I think, one of the best, if not the best publication go-to out there to read on a daily basis. They're so, so good. And I think really call balls and strikes and

And and write what's really happening in America. I think it's so good. But all right. So I got to ask you some rapid questions. You ready? Yeah. Yes. All right. First concert you ever attended. Guns and Roses. Do I need the year? No, no, no. Don't need the year. Guns and Roses. All right. Good job. Did you have a pet growing up with a dog named Nicky?

Nikki. All right. That's not like Nikki Sixx, the dog or something like that. No. Totally. Okay. All right. If you met Bigfoot, what would you ask him? Are you real? Yeah. You want to poke him? I want to ask him. Yeah, I want to ask him. I want to show him a set of videos and say, is that really you? Is that you?

Is this one real or is that one fake? You know, that's what I want to do. Um, uh, what was your high school mascot? We're the Eagles, the Gonzaga high school Eagles, uh, in Washington DC. Well, Eagles is legit. Sometimes you ask these and you're like, really? Like, um, with all due respect to my hometown, uh, you know, we have the Knights like, yeah, I don't think in, uh,

There were a lot of knights running around, but it's a great name. It's a great mascot for a school. I can tell you that. What's a unique talent that nobody knows about? What can you do as like, can you like juggle with your feet like soccer or something? I like what can you do that's like a unique talent for you that people don't know about? I think I'm a extremely good coach.

caster, fly fishing caster. Wow, that's a talent. Very proud of my skills. For someone who grew up in a city. Yes. That's exactly what I was going to say. For growing up in Washington, D.C. to be great at fly fishing, good for you. But you know, you can actually get out of the city pretty quick and they do have some decent fishing. That's

I haven't done it much lately, but when I was younger and growing up, I loved it. Not that I did it a lot, but I'm just saying it really is relaxing and it is a skill set and very fun. So good on you. Pineapple on pizza, yes or no? Absolutely not. No. A way to ruin pizza. I'll tell you, ruin pizza. There you go. Good answer. Brody, you and I are getting along just fine. That's awesome. Yeah.

Uh, UFOs. What's your thought on UFOs? No, I'm not. Don't agree. People agree. Okay. All right. Uh, best advice you ever got? Uh, I'm trying to think of the exact words. Uh, Oh, you have to do it yourself. If you want something done, you just have to do it. A lot of people in life sit around waiting for someone to tell them what to do. You just got to go do it.

that's good advice it's good advice it sounds like you had a a good family life good parents um you're out there fly fishing have an intellectual curiosity and been thriving at a at one of the best publications out there the Wall Street uh Journal so Brody Mullins Luke Mullins got together their brothers they wrote this book the wolves of K Street the secret history of how

big money took over big government. So congratulations on this book. It's coming out just now. You should be able to get it anywhere you get a book. Awesome. Thanks so much for having me. It's a lot of fun. All right. I can't believe that the types of things that go on in Washington, D.C. continue to go on. But you know what? The best thing to do is expose them. And so I'm really looking forward to reading The Wolves of K Street, my guess is.

I've kind of seen a lot of this up close and personal, but I really think the Mullins brothers for taking time to put this all together. I really think this is going to be worthy. If you could rate the podcast, I'd certainly appreciate it. If you want to subscribe to it, love that too. Want to remind people that you can listen ad free with a Fox News podcast.

podcast plus subscription on apple podcasts and amazon prime members can listen to this show ad free on the amazon music app we'll be back again next week with another fun fun guest uh thanks for joining us i appreciate you taking the time and allowing us to to be part of your world and i hope you join us again next week i'm jason chaffetz this has been jason in the house

From the Fox News Podcast Network. I'm Janice Dean, Fox News Senior Meteorologist. Be sure to subscribe to the Janice Dean Podcast at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And don't forget to spread the sunshine.