The Culture War #54 Former DC Congressional Staff Expose THE SWAMP, Secrets Inside DC
Host:
Tim Pool
Guests:
Ben Stout
Luke Ball
Producers:
Lisa Elizabeth @LisaElizabeth (X)
Kellen Leeson @KellenPDL (X)
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Everyone right now is saying that Katie Britt bombed and it was kind of a really bad GOP rebuttal.
I think the most important takeaway from the night is that there was a Gold Star father who was arrested for yelling United States Marine Corps and Abby Gate at Joe Biden.
And the crazy thing about that is they pulled him out of the room, charged him with a misdemeanor, and that was the least disruptive yelling of the night.
There were Republicans that were yelling at Joe Biden Call him a liar and insulting him and this guy just yells United States Marine Corps.
So I'm I'm I can't say I'm surprised or shocked.
I'm just disgusted.
But of course following the State of the Union, you know, one thing everyone's always thinking about is what's really going on behind the scenes because you see a couple things.
We watched Bernie Sanders have no mask on as C-SPAN was running their, you know, C-SPAN's live before the president arrives.
Bernie's not wearing a mask.
Then the president arrives, he sits down, puts a mask on.
Then when the president's done speaking, Bernie gets up, takes his mask off, and starts to leave.
And the question is, why did he put a mask on?
What is really going on behind the scenes when you see these politicians laughing and smiling with each other and it looks so performative.
So we're going to hang out with a handful of former staffers who are going to explain to us the secrets of the backroom deals.
I'm Ben Stout, and I did just a little under a decade on congressional staff.
unidentified
Started out in Georgia and worked for Congressman Jody Heiss.
waking up let them get there okay it's still still wearing off from the night before so we gotta give him a little bit of time um i'm ben stout um and i did just a little under a decade on uh congressional staff um started out in georgia and worked for congressman jody heiss uh he was like one of the founders of the freedom caucus um he was great he married me and my wife was like a real cool like mentorship uh mentor for for me um uh and actually it was interesting because i started
i did district staff for him which is just this total other world from dc staff it's like it's It's not even like the same ballpark.
So I did that.
And then I went up to DC and did two and a half years as Lauren Boebert's deputy chief of staff, comms director.
That makes for a long decade.
Two and a half years became a decade real quick doing that.
Learned a lot, but it was a lot of challenges there.
Definitely learned crisis comms.
And then got burned out.
The burnout on the Hill is like a very real thing.
Yes, and then got back in January and then me and Luke partnered up and we're kind of doing a comm shop.
So that's my background.
We're taking a mutual fund portfolio approach to candidates right now instead of having our single stock on one person because we've both been in a situation where you ride or die with one person and that's your entire, your title's gone, your financial security, everything is just completely out the window and we didn't want that.
Maybe we should, uh, I don't know if you want to text Madison at maybe like 11?
We'll give him time to... Alright, I'll give him a heads up.
Yeah, and also doesn't just... Yeah, otherwise we like start the show with like, end the sex orgies and it's kind of just, you know... I don't know, man.
unidentified
That's how I normally start on my podcast.
I'm insulted that I was never invited to any of them.
Like, honestly, if they're that ubiquitous, like... We saw the video!
Well, you didn't have to staff anybody for the sex parties.
Okay, you're right, I didn't.
I'm a little offended.
Like, I worked for wholesome members of Congress.
Not that Madison isn't, he was just young, but like, you know, I'm a little offended.
- Yeah, so well, so Schiff, I think, here's the problem with that is because, because she's not as intelligent as Schiff, you can only do so much damage, right? - So true.
- It's so true, like there's some really evil people that are just dumb and so-- Ineffective.
On a personal level, on a professional level, she is... A nightmare.
Yeah.
Not even that, though.
She used to, like, threaten, like, she would scream at her employees when they were driving her in the car to where they had to pull over and, like, jump out of the car.
Can we play that audio clip?
Is there a way that we have that?
But not even that!
She liked to hear herself speak so much that one time she went down to the house floor to speak and they shut the lights out on her because she refused to leave until she got like air time.
She had airplanes turned around on the tarmac because she left her bag.
Yes, no, you got to play it because it is probably so it would be objectively hilarious Had we not worked on the hill before and been like this is exactly what goes on behind the scenes occasionally the the audio here is Next level for the way that she just speaks to a staffer that has done like a minor thing It is so minor like they didn't give her her remarks in time or something She used to make her staffer stand at behind her during meetings with a tray and have a glass of water on them like a butler Yeah Yeah, her stories are horrific.
I want you to say, Congresswoman, it was such and such a day.
That's what I want.
That's the kind of staff that I want to have.
So some stupid other motherfucker did it, and I don't have the information.
Nobody sent me the information.
I need to, uh, ensure my, um, I gave it to you.
Your job was to get it on the calendar, imprint it in your brain, send me the information back saying, Congresswoman, I made sure that the old-guy duck-and-tell event that you gave me for so-and-so date at 7 is on the fucking calendar.
Not to old Jerome Hansen.
Okay, so when I called Jerome, he only sat up there like a fat ass idiot talking about what the fuck he doesn't know.
Okay, both of y'all are fucked up, I'm fucking...
It's the worst shit that I could have ever had put together.
Two goddamn big ass jokes.
Fucking idiot.
Why are we liking her more and more as this video goes on?
Nobody's respecting them, nobody's giving shit about what you're doing.
You need Republicans to have that kind of zeal and anger.
unidentified
The problem is, some of the members who are worst to their staff are some of the best representatives in Washington sometimes.
Because if you're not really difficult to work for, it means you're not really trying.
The people who have the easiest time on Capitol Hill are the ones that can go up and sit for the backbenchers, because they get an email from leadership office, and the whip basically says, you're going to vote this way, and they show up and they vote that way.
They don't do anything opposition to the party because they're scared that their lobbyist is going to drop them, they're not going to be able to fundraise, and their committee assignments are dependent on how much money they can actually get at the end of the day.
If half of the things that happen in Washington, D.C.
happened in corporate America, it'd be white-collar crime.
But instead, it's how we operate our government.
Sorry, you can go ahead.
I think this is actually an important point that we don't want to take too much time on this, but you could spend a lot of time on this because this is literally one of the, like, when you talk about what's wrong with Washington, okay, what's not?
We get that.
But one of the core things that happens on Capitol Hill And you hear this every single day from fellow staff is, uh, we're convincing our boss to do X or our box is going to try to go rogue and vote this way.
And members are almost universally more conservative than their staff members.
True.
And for a staff member to go make money, what is their career trajectory?
To be on the Hill and then to go over to K Street to go become a lobbyist.
Well, you're not going to go become a lobbyist if your member's not playing ball with the lobbying groups.
And so it is an incentive structure for the staff to moderate their members and to vote as the lobbyists want so that they can then go make money off Hill.
And so when you're talking about this whole topic, one of the core things when we're talking about DC is staff members being more moderate, all for the incentive structure to go make money as a lobbying, and it happens every day.
Especially chiefs of staff, because they have been there for so long in the swamp, in this bipartisan, like, well, that's what they try to, like, claim it is, but it's really lobbying world.
And it's the chief of staff that, like, you'll get a very, you know, real conservative member of Congress, and it's the chief that's pulling them away and trying to make them vote a different way.
It makes me wonder, because we know when the big deal with Kevin McCarthy was that he controlled the funds.
They would decide if you got re-elected or not, so everyone's trying to play ball with this guy who's barely getting anything done.
Granted, I'll give him some respect.
You know, Thomas Massey said that he was able to get some things through, like a reduction in the budget, a 1% reduction if they did a continuing resolution.
So it's like, okay, you know, I like Thomas Massey.
Disagree with him on some things.
But when you look at that, I have to wonder, then you see Matt Gaetz, and there's a reason why Matt Gaetz is not beholden to the GOP establishment, because he has a base.
He has supporters, he gets small donations, he doesn't need the lobbyists.
So if you can command your own income, you are free from that.
Granted, they will all hate you because you're outside of that, but I'm hoping...
That with the way the internet business model and subscription models have been going, maybe we will get to a point where you'll have more, look for better or for worse, AOCs and Matt Gaetzes.
AOC also, small donors online.
She doesn't have to, but she loves to play ball, so she's not the same story, but you know, get more independent funding for these.
unidentified
I was on his staff when he made that decision to switch from accepting any sort of donations from PACs and lobbyists to basically being completely free.
He gave a whole CPAC speech on it, and I did not understand at the time why it was such a big deal for him because I didn't understand how it operated in Washington.
But he was totally free and independent from anybody influencing his vote and pulling the strings at that point from the corporate world.
To be fair, he already had committee assignments at that point, though, right?
So I had a member of Congress that I worked for who was a newer member.
He decided not to vote for McCarthy the first time McCarthy ran, the one where he dropped out.
And he got penalized for years and stuck on terrible committee assignments as punishment.
And until he started walking the line and becoming less Freedom Caucus, right, then Like, he got nothing.
And no money, not being paid attention to, nothing.
Dude, I would get expelled in two seconds if I was ever in Congress.
There's no reason for someone like me to ever be involved in government.
I think it's true for a lot of people, actually.
I think if you take the average plumber and say, you're going to be in Congress, he would be expelled in ten minutes.
Because he's going to walk in and he's going to start yelling at people and be like, what is wrong with all of you?
What is this?
He'd be like, get out.
unidentified
Yeah, and the reason that Gates was able to keep his committee assignments, and he tells this story, I don't want to steal it from him, but he walked into leadership's office on like one of the first days of being a member or being up in the story.
I'm sorry.
Well, this is the guy.
And he basically said, I want to be on House Armed Services Committee.
And I believe that I should be well not yet He said I want to be on House Armed Services Committee predominantly because my district has the most active-duty men military veterans in the United States And so I think that I'm qualified to be that and leadership looked at him and said well You're not doing enough work across the street It looks like and basically if you were to come in and give two hundred and fifty thousand dollars over the next few weeks We might be able to consider what committee assignments to put you on.
Yep And Gates said something to the effect of, what if I wrote a check right now for $500,000?
And they went, what other committee would you like to be on, Congressman?
I have to imagine that his constituents who are Armed Forces members were like, well, that's great.
unidentified
I probably didn't know at the time.
And then, you know, it took years for him to be able to even go back and tell that story, because when you first get up to Washington, you are shepherded in by leadership who introduce you to lobbyists, who tell you how the game is played, and say you are expected to do all of these things and make the rounds.
And it's not even for the individual members, it's for the NRCC, so that they themselves can raise the money through the Republican Party and then pour that back into their priorities.
Let's back this up, though, for the viewers.
Let's rewind and kind of Explain what we're talking about here.
Yeah.
When we're talking about across the street when we're talking about for the committee we're talking about what we're talking about is committees have grades and I'm sure that this has been talked about before possibly on this podcast.
Committees have grades A, B, and C. Some like A minus B plus like things like that but A, B, and C.
These grades have nothing to do with power, with influence, with the time you spend.
It is all about how much money you raise on these committees.
In Congress, the grade of a committee is 100% based on its ability to raise money.
So, for example, the Veterans Affairs Committee, which does so much work for all of veterans, is like a C-minus committee.
You're saying that I sit down with a lobbyist and say, I will get your bill that poisons baby kittens through if you put a million dollars, something like that?
unidentified
You don't even have to say that.
You just say, hey, I'm on Energy and Commerce.
I know y'all have a lot that comes before the committee.
We really appreciate your support.
So if you say that, if you say that, it's about veterans.
But here's the thing, though.
If you say that, it's corruption.
But if they come and meet with you and say, we would like these priorities to be accomplished, congressmen, the congressman will say, okay, I'll take it in consideration.
And then they'll go meet with their legislative director and their chief of staff.
And the chief of staff is normally on the campaign side.
And the chief will say, well, if we vote for this bill, we will get a check from their political action committee within a matter of weeks.
And so if you explicitly say, I will do this if you do this, it's corruption.
Sure.
But if you just show up and say what your priorities are, a little nudge, nudge, wink, wink, then it's totally fine.
So, and next time you talk to him, confirm that story.
That is exactly the story.
I understand too.
So get on the paying double for the committees.
Gates is a little pissed at me right now.
But he's told that story publicly?
Yeah.
Yeah, no, he's still he's still publicly and there's also a movie we filmed a movie from HBO The Swamp in our office and they followed us around and these are all things that he told so I'm giving credit to him That's so wild dude.
Yeah, so here's it So rewind we talked about just how the corruption and how the money gets paid for the committees Rewind to how it used to be.
So it's still in practice the same thing but how it used to be Literally, who was the congressman from Alaska that was there for forever that had the cool office?
Don King, I believe.
Don King.
It's alright.
He was the dean of the house.
Yeah, he was the dean of the house.
He'd been there for literally, like, 60 years, like, before Nixon.
Like, crazy.
So, um, but he, uh, he was telling the story of the way it used to work on ethics, is, um, is literally they had, members had safes in their office, and the lobbies would just bring cash.
The safes are still there.
The safes are still there.
But literally, the lobbyists just used to bring cash, and they'd take the cash, put it in the safe, and that was, now you're not allowed to do that, you have to go have dinner at the Capitol Hill Club.
Or, there's a loophole, you can do it on the House floor from member to member.
Hey, look, I'm with Cenk Uygur, who's been fighting the money and politics things for a long time.
I think he needs to, and I mean this with respect, articulate his position on what they were talking about.
Because the big thing they keep talking about is the ability to finance campaigns, and it doesn't get to the core of what's being discussed right now with how Congress operates.
So, you know, Cenk, the Young Turks, I think Kalinske was involved.
They were very much like, we've got to get money out of politics.
To the average person, like, what does that mean?
If you go out and say, well, it's because these PACs are spending unlimited money to get people elected, we're like, yeah, yeah, we get that.
People buy billboards.
But if he was to come out and say, no, actually, the members of Congress are cutting backroom deals to get millions of dollars, and that's the only reason bills ever get done, focus on that, and you're going to have everyone being like, sign me up.
unidentified
Yeah.
I mean, I remember hearing a conversation in another office, uh, they were debating, uh, this is whenever I was like a lower level staffer in district and I was up on a trip and I was seeing a friend and the office was discussing a vote.
And I remember the chief talking to the LD and was like, Hey, do you know how the members going to vote on this?
Well, we talked about this.
So they're discussing a vote and he was like, okay, well what's the bid on it if he doesn't vote?
And he said, I think that the pack was at like 10 to 12 on these votes.
So they were like, they knew the dollar amount that was being handed around based on the vote, and it was kind of like, we'll see what he does, but we know that it's going to impact about a 10 to 12k donation.
But also remember, that's not like your everyday, they're not the ones on like the lower committees.
It's not really happening like that on science, space, and technology, right?
Like it's not, it's not happening on Veterans Affairs.
So when you're thinking about these things, think about the higher level congressmen rather than the lower, because there's plenty of these like lower level members that are not doing any of this.
There are good people that are still in Congress.
Not that they don't want to.
I'm just saying that there's people that are not doing it.
If you are from Buckhead, Georgia, wealthy suburb of Atlanta, 250, 300, 400.
Your bid is what you owe.
What you owe the NRCC to be in, quote, good standing.
The way this works is, and we can get into this later, but I think that the establishment has lost a lot of power on Capitol Hill.
The way that money flows has totally been democratized, and I think that's a huge part of it.
But what they still have is committee assignments, which is very important.
And the way committee assignments work is you say to leadership what committees you want to get on, and you go before the steering committee.
And the steering committee will decide.
Guess who gets to come in for the steering committee?
So it's the committee, it's all these leadership swarming people, speaker gets like five votes, the leader of your party gets like four votes, everybody else gets one vote.
But the head of the NRCC comes in, and every single person who's requested to be on a committee, like an important committee, they don't care about the unimportant ones, But an A-list committee, a high-fundraising committee, before they take a vote, they ask the NRCC where they're at on their standing, and they will tell them how much their bid was, and if they went over, under, and where they're at, and then all of them factor that in when they go to vote for that person onto that committee.
So whenever we're talking about, meet his bid, pay the due, pay double, this is what we're all talking about.
And it's also your fundraising ability.
That's what they're looking at.
Are we going to put you on a bigger... Are you fundraising what you think you could get in your district effectively?
Because if we're going to give you this spot where we know this money can come back to the NRCC, we want to know that you're capable of actually going out, dialing for dollars, raising the money, and meeting with lobbyists.
I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene was saying that she, Massey, and others were forcing floor votes, and that it was pissing everybody off because it was pulling them away from fundraising.
unidentified
Well, it was also, they wanted to go home.
On Wheels Up Day, she's got them out there doing roll calls.
Well, they themselves were fundraising by doing what they were doing.
No, I'm not saying it's a bad thing.
I just I think it's ironic because that's true.
Like, you know, you're actually on the House floor forcing people to do their job and therefore people see that.
So if Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and these other, you know, members of Congress, they get their donations, their fundraising from regular working people, I would gladly side with a million people are contributing To whatever, be it the NRCC or their campaigns, as opposed to fat cat lobbyists smoking cigars being like, here's what we want done in D.C.
unidentified
So we realized after a few months of being on television and things like that, and in any congressional office that we did, we raised more money by having the principal on television than we would have raised by having television commercials or placing ad spins on digital and things like that.
So why would we spend time trying to work with the consultants and things like that to get us a good commercial when we could just get free media on television and then get all of the small dollar donations and then you retain their email so that you reach back out to them, their phone numbers, their contact information.
You then build up your own list that you can sell to other campaigns and things like that.
That's a huge market.
If you don't build up your own independent operation you are entirely beholden to the other like NRCC or the GOP themselves because you have to have an entity outside of you.
So the members that are actually doing well on their own are doing it so they can build up their own operation and have independence from these organizations and that's how they can circumnavigate the normal flow of the swamp.
But then when they're like, hey, have you raised this much money for the NRCC?
They go like, I can have the CEO write you a check tomorrow.
How does that sound?
Do they do things like that?
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, but I feel like most of the rich ones still fundraise.
There's not that like if if you have eight million dollars of personal wealth But you have to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars every year Then you're not going to want to write that out of your own paycheck now if people have hundreds of millions of dollars But you know I mean You get on the right committee, you can see the writing on the wall, make a hefty investment, say NVIDIA, and then be up 30% in seven months.
It's true, but then people are selfish innately, so they're going to want to try to find other ways around that.
Rich people have rich friends, so they just get them to pay it.
Yeah, so people don't want to give their own money often.
Some people can, but maybe, I'd say, a dozen.
It's very rare, and even in that case, they're like, this is my money, and I don't want to give it all up.
Well, I imagine the attitude is going to be like, I'm not going to pay for it.
You guys want something for me that I've got for sale.
So and that's that the rich friends are like treated better, too.
unidentified
If you're in that world, the money will just come naturally because I mean, I would imagine that business partners who want to do business with somebody in the future would just contribute to a congressional campaign.
And if individuals are capped at a certain amount of dollars, then they're not going to have to give that much to remain in good graces with the business people.
$2,700, right?
$2,700 is what it was.
Per person, primary and general.
For rich people like this, like, ain't nobody caring about the $2,700.
No, they put it in a pack.
Yeah, it's all pack money.
$2,700 is... These members look at $2,700 and they just go like, okay.
It's like it's a $10 bill for us.
They see like $15 to $20 and up and they go, oh, I should give them a phone call.
So are you guys saying that if I want to get a law passed, I just gotta write a big check and then wiggle it in someone's face on a committee and then they'll do it?
So you can, if you want to, if you've got a million dollars behind some issue, And you want to spend it to get something to happen, you can get movement.
You can get a committee hearing, you can get some press conferences, you can get some action on the Hill.
But to get a law through the House, through the committee, on the floor, through the House, to the Senate?
You gotta get all of them to wake up on the same day at the same time and go vote?
It's a million dollars, you know.
And your bill will never see the light of day.
But that being said, so remember how he was saying that the staff members push the member of Congress to vote certain ways because they want to go work for these other lobbying groups.
So what happens is they make friendships.
They go out to receptions and dinners and They make friends with these lobbyists and they start thinking, like, I want to go work for X company.
And so then they tell, X company tells them their priorities.
The committee, so there's committee staff separate from your office staff.
More powerful.
More powerful, right.
And so the committee staff is all being, having these same type of relationships.
And so then they're the ones that are kind of help driving to push that forward too.
So that's the other way lobbyists influence staffers, which But if you haven't played ball with House leadership and the campaign fundraising, then you're also not going to see your bill on the House floor.
But let's just say, because I'm focused on like fixing Congress.
I understand there's risks with the Convention of States.
But let's, so for those who are not familiar, there are a couple ways to amend the Constitution.
Congress can do it, it goes to the Senate, you need like a two-thirds majority.
Or it can go, what is it, two-thirds of states, call a convention of states, and then they vote, each state, on amendments to the Constitution.
So let's say they did, and the only thing that happened was they said, no more tying committee seats, no more bids, no more fundraising tied to committee positions, that is unconstitutional from this point forward.
You don't need to do that.
unidentified
You don't need to do that.
I mean, you would have to do it every year, but you could just literally change it.
So remember back whenever McCarthy went to 16 votes or whatever it was?
A lot of that was about House rules.
And a part of that was negotiations on committee assignments and other things.
Do you really think that most state reps want to be federal reps?
unidentified
They want to advance in their political careers, and you wouldn't be able to find enough of them to group together to create substantial change in most of these states.
And now there's really good efforts.
There's like the State Freedom Caucus Network that's doing really good work to try to actually accomplish change and be good conservatives on the state level themselves.
But by and large, it's just extraordinarily difficult.
If you don't band together, then you're just like the House of Cards, you're cleaved from the herd.
I'm just, we're speculating, of course, but my guess is if you went to state reps and state senators throughout America and said, hey, your congressman is going to retire, like in Colorado, I think that they for, they don't do a special election, they appoint someone and then they can run for re-election.
Yeah.
And they said, hey, your congressman is going to retire.
So when you'll have a group of like political establishment people, suit wearing guys, but they're not in politics.
They work for the fundraising organizations.
And whenever someone peeks their head up saying like, I want to be in this role, What you do then is you say, you say, yes, right this way.
And when they walk into the room, the room is actually, you ever see those, those bits where like, they'll have a room and they'll push it up to a porta potty.
And then when the guy walks out, he's in an office.
You ever see that?
That's actually like a viral video.
It's like, right this way to my office.
And we'll discuss getting you set up for Congress.
They walk in, the door closes in the back of a U-Haul, which drives them to like Southern Florida.
And then there's like a big wall.
We put them on the other side and say, you live here now.
unidentified
With the alligators.
We don't want people who want to be in this position like you.
We make it so that you can only, term limit, and after your term is over, I think Congress, four years, one time, and as soon as you're done, you get shipped off to an island and you are excised from public life.
You have to sacrifice your life and society in order to run for office.
When you are done with your run in office, you are sent off to a colony somewhere where you will live comfortably for the rest of your days with no TV and no one will ever hear from you again.
unidentified
See, the problem is that there's a learning curve to going to the Hill, right?
So when you get down there, it's every two years.
So the first year as a freshman, you're learning the ropes and whatever.
Where the bathrooms are.
Exactly.
You're learning everything.
I don't think anybody really knows what it's like there until you go and you're an intern and then an L.C.
He just stands in the door of the office without saying anything, his eyes are looking the wrong direction, but you feel the energy being drained as all the staffers writhe on the ground.
unidentified
You didn't like my Mitch McConnell impression?
- All right, let's follow the series though.
- Lisa's got a point to make.
- I'm serious.
- You didn't like my Mitch McConnell impression?
- I did, I did.
But so no, listen.
- I got so many more, it's so good.
- Because I feel this.
I feel this as a staffer, and I feel this for the members too.
So the first year, you're learning even where the bathrooms are, what's going on, where you park your car.
But then the second year, then it's fundraising because you have to run again, right?
So then the first year is learning, the second year is fundraising, and so if you're saying that there's term limits, that's every two, like they can only have one term or two terms, they're not going to get enough accomplished.
It's just not going to happen.
Realistically, a two-Senate 12-year house could allow the house to function and do term limits.
My problem with term- I get both sides of it.
My problem with term limits is if you do term limits on members, staff, especially committee staff that are already so powerful become more powerful, and then if you get rid of term limits on- if you do term limits on both, then you have no institutional, long-term institutional knowledge, and that's not healthy.
And so, I hate to be like a Debbie Downer of all problems, no solutions, but that's the truth.
So I think that a good place to start would be raising salaries for staffers, number one, so you're not getting... Salaries on the Hill got raised after you left.
Aww, soon as I leave!
Are you ready for this now?
It was the dumbest thing, too.
Here's some inside baseball.
Before you say that, what was your first time on the Hill?
So there's a whole system surrounding this that, frankly, not many members take advantage of because they're not aware of it because they're like, this is campaigning.
But you can run Facebook advertisements to your district with TV advertising.
TV advertisements, radio advertisements.
You can basically campaign, but it's on the stuff that the official congressional office can do.
So it's like, are you having trouble with your social security benefits?
You can call my office and I will help you.
I'm Congressman Mootball and I'm, you know.
But forget just social security benefits.
You could say, all right, so here's a campaign ad.
Uh, you know.
I'm Luke Ball, and if you vote for me, I'll secure the border.
That's a campaign ad, you can't say that.
So you say, I'm Luke Ball, and I'm voting to secure the border.
Everything has to go through like franking approval.
But what happens is, is that there's a blackout period.
So that's why it's harder for people to run against incumbents because they have access to all these people that's paid for not out of campaign funds, but out of the MRA, which is taxpayer dollars.
So we'll talk about the hierarchy of the congressional office.
You've got the member, the chief of staff is the person that basically is directly accountable to the member and then handles everyone else in the office.
Generally, there's a Deputy Chief of Staff, sometimes there's not.
Under that is a Communications Director and a Legislative Director, and that's kind of the two splits in an office.
There's also Operations and Scheduling, but that kind of will fall under its own unique category.
The Legislative side, with Legislative Assistants, the Legislative Director, and the Legislative Correspondent, will deal with, just as it sounds, writing the bills, getting the bills introduced into Congress.
So basically how it operates is, imagine you had this like, I don't know, small to medium sized company where there was one person who was on camera complaining all the time but that made all the money and then everyone else did the work.
Because we're talking about how to raise money and I'm like, Matt Gaetz can raise money from his constituents and from his fans, but Laura Loomer took some illegal immigrants and jumped over Nancy Pelosi's wall at her house.
unidentified
But she's not the type that would give it back to the NRCC.
MTG, yeah it's funny, we'll see them go at it, but no, like the reality is when Adam Schiff does anything, I mean now he might be in the Senate, so, but when Pelosi is getting all this money, I mean...
Yeah, Laura Loomer in Congress would have been very good, and that's probably why the Republicans and Democrats went nuts in insulting her and calling her a bunch of names.
She raised two million dollars in 36 hours for a relief in Texas.
Nothing to do with her.
She was like, hey y'all, whenever Texas had like the freeze or whatever, you can check the numbers, that could be wrong, but it was something like multi-million dollars for another state far away, a red state, whenever like a storm came through.
Has she quieted down or has the media stopped covering her?
She quieted down.
They all do eventually.
I realized the other day that she must be playing ball a little bit or something for her to calm down because now she's not in the news cycle anymore.
Because the thing is, what it takes to run nationally or statewide and what it takes to be Speaker are two... There is a reason that the Speaker and Majority Leader of the Senate are usually some of the two least liked people throughout the United States.
On the Speaker, you're trying to get as many, like Mike Johnson, right?
He's not, he's not Medicaid.
But I bet they went to AOC and they said, you could be the leader of the Democratic Party when you're 60, 70 years old.
But you've got to play ball.
And AOC, because right away when she gets elected, She's this radical progressive, Israel-Palestine was a big issue, and then I remember as soon as she wins the primary, before she's even in Congress, she's giving this interview where now she's playing middle-of-the-road on Israel-Palestine, and she got attacked by the left for it, because they're like, we knew it.
We knew it.
Because AOC knows she has constituents who are pro-Israel, and she probably talked with Democrat leadership and they said, this will end your career before it starts.
I'm also willing to bet that as soon as she gets in, She's quieting down now.
They probably said, how would you like to be Democrat party leadership in 15, 20 years?
Be the most well-known politician in this country, make a real difference.
Remember that video she put out where she's like, 30 years from now, here's what it's going to look like.
And they said, because you have two options.
It's this cartoon where you have gray hair and you're on the train and everyone knows your name and you've changed this country or you're a bartender struggling to get your retirement.
unidentified
So, and that's not her they're saying that to, that's every member when they're like, somebody says they're going to be in the Freedom Caucus come up and not play ball.
Every single person they say, do you want to make noise or do you want to make a difference?
Now, it would be a real shame for none of your legislation to hit the floor.
And we want to see that.
You got that piece of bill.
Yeah, that's a good bill.
We want to see that at the floor, but we've got to fix some things.
And this is the kind of conversations that- I'm going to go out on a limb real quick.
The way you're describing this, It makes me really want to be in Congress.
unidentified
No, exactly.
So we were talking about her changing.
I don't know, but her chief of staff that she had when she first came on to Capitol Hill left in a pretty public way.
Who's her chief of staff now?
And what did he work for before?
Isn't it functionally her husband?
He runs all the unofficial stuff?
I don't know, but I wonder if the staff that surrounded her were aligned with leadership to quiet her down and put her in line.
Because I think they have so much enormous power by coming around somebody who's brand new to Congress and very young to actually influence the direction that they go.
Leadership will do staffer coups.
So they did that with the Republican Study Committee.
So we know the Freedom Caucus now, right?
The Republican Study Committee, RSC, used to be the Freedom Caucus.
It was the organization that pulled Republicans to the right.
And what they did was, it was actually, Boehner did a coup.
He replaced the staffer, the staffer that was there.
He was, like, became, like, very powerful as a staffer and was, like, moving legislation, changing bills single-handedly, like, very powerful.
They got him out.
They, uh, did a change in leadership.
This is whenever Tom Graves was running against Scalise and they got a leadership-friendly person in and ran and took it over.
All that to say, they got a staffer change first.
And they will do these moves where they will get staffers in positions to fix problems.
What I meant to say, when it makes me want to be in Congress, is that I'm a shithead, and I would just make everyone's day so miserable in every possible way.
You know?
It's like, the more I hear about how awful these people are, I'm like, man, I really wish I could just make their days worse.
But I could probably do that more effectively with having a big show, so I'll just, I'll endeavor.
unidentified
I will endeavor to make the lives of these— You could ruin their day by, like, picking one member of Congress right now that you're pissed off at, and then read off the office's phone number, and say everyone call this— And nothing is worse.
Now, we've said this, and now I'm gonna be the one responsible for... Oh yeah, here we go.
How every representative voted when it comes to expelling George Santos.
It's really, really easy, my friends, for me to go to the list and be like, let's pick someone who voted not to expel Santos and then encourage people to support that person.
So Marjorie Taylor Greene or like Thomas Massey, Jim Jordan.
It's easy.
And the funny thing is, Am I gonna single out a Democrat?
Well, no, they're Democrats.
The problem is the Republicans that voted to expel George Santos.
So let me just make sure we have all of our details correct.
Mr. Santos, 105 Republicans voted yes, and so we will... I will expel them.
Do either one of you want to pick a name at random?
Okay, so I want to make sure this is very, very clear.
When they're saying be polite, 100%.
You know, I didn't do congressional stuff.
I did non-profit fundraising.
I will tell you this.
If you are angry, click.
Don't care what you have to say at all.
If you are stupid and confused, they get worried.
I can't speak for Congress, but if someone called up and said, Uh, I heard that you guys are supporting bad thing?
I'm like, no, no, no, no, we're not supporting bad thing.
But it says here, uh, you did bad thing.
I'm like, no, no, no, no, they get really, really worried about if someone is really dumb sounding, that means regular people are hearing something that is bad for us.
And those people, like passionate, angry people, they, they, okay, we get it.
But Regular people, that's what's scary.
So these non-profits would do postcard mailers where they would send out a 20-year-old with 10 postcards each to get them signed.
What happens?
A member of Congress gets a pile of 3,000 postcards on one day, and they're very, very generic.
And they're like, okay, okay, we've got a campaign running against us.
Whenever we would get someone screaming at us, it's like, you don't matter.
You're not convincible.
There's no reason to argue with you.
But if you sound stupid and confused, I might be able to win you over.
I don't know if that's the same for you guys.
unidentified
No, exactly.
And, you know, we encourage participation in the entire process and calling in and having a conversation.
First of all, you're going to speak to a first line staffer who doesn't know what on earth is going on half the time anyway, and they're not going to be able to basically pass along the message or even be incentivized to do it if you're calling and screaming at them and cussing at them, because then there's generally sometimes a policy in the office, at least it was in my office, was like, if they're just cursing at you, that's not productive.
You hang up you call and articulate your position and you say it and you give the information that's passed along to the member That is a civil participation in the entire process But an overwhelming amount of those people calling in can help sway in a particular direction on any given issue I will say that that's if you're in the district, right?
Because one of the first questions you'll get asked on the phone is, what's your address or what's your zip code?
Because they do not have to, because of like the MRA, they do not have to waste their dollars on staffers, paying a staffer to talk to people outside of their district.
So if you call up, because I used to answer phones, if you call up and you're not in the district, they can just hang up on you.
This website is not easy to- Alright, well, anyways, 40 Republicans pushed it over with all Democrats, basically all Democrats, to continue to find places spending it's garbage.
Is it expanding access to the Capital Act?
Is that it?
I'm just gonna text my wife.
HR 2799?
Whatever, I don't- What was the minibus?
Oh yeah, I could have just texted my chief and asked her.
So, whenever his fall from grace happened, the Freedom Caucus's comms chat was all just like, couldn't have happened to a better guy.
Like, it was because we all knew, like, those who were close to it knew that the base kind of conservatives loved him from the whole, like, ads he did and the whole, like, coming onto the scene against the SNL guy and all that.
We need a website where you can load two bills, and then it'll show you who supported both.
You know what I mean?
So I could take the expelling George Santos and the continued resolution, load them both, and then it'll show you here the members that voted yes on both and no on both.
Because then we could really take a look.
I will say this, though.
Didn't they defund a great deal of federal agencies?
Like, didn't Mike Johnson announce they're cutting, like, 3 to 7% between, like, the CIA and ATF and stuff like that?
Carol Miller of West Virginia voted yes, and she voted no to expelling Santos.
unidentified
It's interesting because you can basically have a list of people in leadership's office who know that if they pick up the phone and say, you must vote this way, even if you want to vote in another way, and there's a term for that, it's called getting rolled.
You basically show up and you're going to vote one way and it's your conscience and you're going to vote your district.
And they had a story of basically one member going down there and voting one way and he was trying to sneak out real quick, go to the bathroom and Boehner taps him on the shoulder and is like, what are you doing?
It's like early in the morning, you know what I mean?
unidentified
He's still waking up.
The other thing with that is too, if there's like a tense vote where they're whipping votes and, you know, they know that they have the number they need to pass it and you want to be a team player and like vote with that, but your district would oppose, you can forgo certain votes.
Like you could say, okay, I'm not going to vote for this one.
We got a handful of people who were talking about just how DC works and I'm fascinated to find out how this bidding stuff works and how people spend money and how the story of Matt Gaetz having to spend half a million dollars with the committees he wants and then of course the subject of sex, drugs, and rock and roll came up, you know, and we were like, we got to call Madison.
unidentified
I was right across the hall from you, Madison, and I was never invited.
I'm offended.
I'm just going to say that.
That really is offensive, I can imagine.
Thank you.
I will say, when it comes to the bidding issues and the bidding wars, I mean, it's not necessarily like for every single committee there is a set price.
Normally for your A committees, you know, you have to raise either half a million to a little bit higher than that.
For your B committees, it's like $300,000.
And then your C committees, that's just where they put people who don't want to raise the money.
So now to just kind of ruin the serious nature of your expertise, how do you get invited to the cocaine sex orders?
unidentified
I guess you'd just be the youngest person on the hill.
Hey, Madison.
The youngest person.
It's like a Herbert the Perfect.
You want to swing by my cocaine and sex orgy party?
Madison, Ben Stout here.
Question for you.
We were just talking about members getting rolled and kind of swung on votes.
What was the hardest leadership ever pushed on you for a vote and who kind of executed and what was that kind of process like for the hardest you ever got pushed on on a vote?
You know what, the hardest I ever got aggressively pushed was not necessarily about a vote, it was actually about who my chief of staff was.
I remember I was- Wow.
We were literally just talking about that.
Yeah, it was during freshman orientation, and it was like probably 10-30 at night.
I was in my office, and then I got a call from a pretty high-ranking member.
I won't say their name because they're not necessarily a bad person.
And then went over down to their office, someone from my state, and then they just kind of started telling me, well, this is a list of people that we think would make good chiefs of staff for you.
And then we know you're a team player.
Wow.
And then they kind of walked out what being a team player meant, and that, you know, you'd have the support of the conference and everything.
I mean, you know, it's just, and especially when you have the support of the people, that's the thing that they pretty much resent the most, just because then they know that then whenever you go out and try and start messaging and, you know, Luke was one of my communications and he was the best in the business, so it could really start pushing a lot of public opinion that would just kind of change a significant amount of things, I think, especially on Capitol Hill.
It feels like, you know, with all due respect to Thomas Massey, he still ends up defending McCarthy for a variety of reasons.
And he's talking about the concessions that he gets.
You know, he mentioned that he got put in the funding bill that if it does go to a continuing resolution, everything drops by 1% and he'll take it.
And I'm like, that's cool.
But it doesn't really feel like we're getting anything done.
It feels like we're chipping away at a monolith.
You know, you took out a little pebble with a little hammer and it's not really changing much.
unidentified
And you know what?
The thing that's most frustrating about that is for the last, you know, 30 or 40 years, we kind of have inherited a movement that has just kneeled the knee every single time to say, oh, we'll give up six inches here and we'll give up six inches there.
And to where now, when we are the ones who are having to actually deal with this, we're several miles behind where we started back in the 1960s.
And so at that point, it's like, you know what?
Unfortunately, we don't have time to make these little genteel politics, small, minor changes to the things.
We need radical change and we need to rock the boat.
Madison, I got a question for you real quick, and I know you probably got to go soon, but here's a question for you.
We know the rock stars, we're talking about the people that are loud, we know Matt Gaetz and others who are loud and out there, out front, but who are some people that you're like, that's a person I would follow, that's a person who's here for the right reasons, or who thinks intellectually, or things like that, that may or may not have the same platform?
Who is somebody who left Actually being like, you know, again, another one, Byron Donalds.
We know he's great, but he's also out front.
Who's the person who you left being like, they're super solid, but a lot of people don't know it?
You know what, Phil, I mean, you said Byron Donalds.
He's my favorite.
That's literally why I moved out of Florida after I got done.
But I would say people who are less known would be a guy named Tim Burchett.
He's pretty phenomenal.
Lisa McLean.
She is just kind of a dynamo of a powerhouse.
Yeah.
And then I'm trying to think of, um, you know, those are kind of the best ones I know that most usually people are super solid and rock stars.
Normally they're pretty well known for it because it's just rare to have that.
But I'm curious, you know, without getting too, I guess, just silly with it, like, what's the degree of, like, corruption when it comes to people are doing illicit drugs?
They're having parties where they're, like, the debauchery.
What's that?
And anybody, feel free to jump in.
unidentified
I never saw any of that.
There's a lot of alcohol abuse.
There's a lot of alcohol abuse.
But I've never seen drugs.
There's an undertone on Capitol Hill where, first of all, it's very stressful.
And so people look for outlets to release.
And, you know, there's just a mentality there.
And I say this, and I think Madison would agree, that's probably the greatest square footage of spiritual warfare in the entire nation.
When that story broke of those two guys, I'm just gonna say, it's disgusting, but they were filming gay porn sex in the Senate in one of the rooms.
Everyone said Madison was right.
unidentified
No, yeah.
Madison tweeted, I told you.
I'll tell you, again, I think it all just comes back down to spiritual warfare, just what Luke was saying.
That's something I believe in more than the physical world.
It's just that there is a conflict going on up there, and I think that attacking people's sinful nature is exactly the best way to be able to sideline some of our best warriors.
I mean, here's a guy who's probably very much Ned Flanders-y, and he's like, don't let anybody know, and he pulls a chocolate-covered cherry out and he eats it before lunch.
unidentified
I mean, all my bosses like to drink, all of them.
They definitely liked to drink.
But even with staff, maybe I just wasn't cool enough.
But did you even hear about Well, there were just situations where you would know that people would go into these parties or whatever situation and it wasn't even on Capitol Hill so you couldn't say that it was like concentrated, but sometimes the hookup culture there just becomes too crazy.
And that's a mentality on the Hill.
And so I can't point to specific instances because I was not ever privy to any of that stuff.
But when Madison said that, it was like, yeah, the Hill sucks.
Washington DC is the loneliest city in the United States, consistently ranked.
And when you have that, people try to meet, but the only way they know to meet is to use alcohol and hook up.
And when you have these gatherings or whatever, then you could just very easily... They also have huge egos too.
So like you have competing egos, right?
Loneliness, your burnout, you're working all the time, you're trying to get like a quick dopamine hit.
But there's a lot of fun stuff, like wholesome stuff that happened.
We would have hall parties, and my boss would come in and take the grill, and he would cook Texas barbecue out of the bathroom on an electric grill, and the Capitol Police would come because the hallways were smoked.
People used to walk, like in capitals, they'd go out and smoke.
People used to crawl out and smoke cigarettes.
Who was it, the balding freedom... Louie Gohmert would have barbecue and take a grill out there.
Yeah and barbecue ribs and like literally it was one of those things he got a reputation whenever they people found out Louie was doing ribs literally members would be like
These are anomalies that we're talking about predominantly but there is a culture on Capitol Hill of stress and frankly depression and loneliness and it can suck you in and if it's there for too long if you don't have a foundation then you are going to fold.
I would love to vote for a candidate whose whole campaign was, if you vote for me, I will likely be expelled in the first week because I'm going to insult each and every one of these people to their faces.
And, and, and I think she's the above board version of what I'm saying where it's like, she'll be disruptive, but she's going to, she's going to get, she's going to do the work.
I can respect that.
unidentified
From my experience, though, as a staffer, the members that I, like, was not, like, kissing their butt, like, hello, sir, how are you today, right?
Like, damn you, sir.
I walked up to him at Trump Hotel.
I'm like, I hear you're terrible to your staff, right?
They wound up having more respect for me.
Like, that's how I was, like, friendlier with more members than staff.
Like, they kind of appreciate it.
After getting, like, their butts Butts kissed all the time.
I feel like you can go up and do that.
I mean, my first interaction with Gates was the same thing, like, what's up with your lead shot, you know?
But like, years ago.
But still, I don't know, I feel like... So I think, here's an interesting thing.
You can be like that and be fine.
To that point of like, they're getting their butts kissed all the time.
So my first member was Jody Heiss, super awesome guy, never drained, just amazing.
Good man.
Amazing individual.
Um, but one of the things that, um, he, one of his crowning achievements in Congress was that he never changed.
And that's very hard to do.
Yeah.
And I have two stories of that, but the one I want to tell right now is he, um, I asked him one time, we're like four years into him being up there.
I was his campaign manager when he ran, so very close to him all the way.
And I was like, so how are you like not changed?
Like, how have you managed this?
And he goes, Ben, it's really hard because every meeting of every day, people tell you it is an honor to meet you.
It is an honor to shake your hand.
May I please have a picture with you?
A month of that goes by.
Oh, this is what's coming.
Two months goes by.
A year goes by.
Two years go by.
They all say you're a big deal.
You start to say, they're right.
I am a big deal.
And that's why it's because everyone is telling you that every minute of every day.
You know, the, the, the, the scary reality is often they're saying it to the media.
They're saying you're a big deal based on what other people have said and reported on who you are and what you do.
That's true.
unidentified
Or they're just saying it because they want something.
Exactly.
And pride goes before a fall.
You were told that often enough then you start to think it's been said that you are somebody and in reality you are not.
And then the pressures that come with that, you're pulled in all sorts of different directions.
You're in an environment that you're unfamiliar with.
You're seeking guidance.
The right people aren't there to shepherd you along.
It's a pay to play scheme with such a fine line like we were just talking about.
And it's stressful.
It's anxious.
It's just a very oppressive environment sometimes.
And people fold and they change.
I mean, how many members have you heard talk about term limits in a campaign when they were running their freshman and even sophomore year that just don't talk about it now?
And even members that have basically just burned their bridge to go lobby, what do they do after they leave Congress?
They just go back home, and that's really difficult to do.
I think there's only one thing that proves you've made it, and it's that you can survive on your own.
Nothing else matters.
The idea that you're a big shot who owns a company, I gotta tell you, man, if it hits the fan, your piece of paper declaring ownership is meaningless.
Absolutely meaningless.
So you can be in Congress, you can be on TV, and you can talk about like, wow, look how wealthy and successful I am.
And it's like, sure, you know, what you're doing works well with other people contributing to what you do, basically, right?
For a show like this, the only reason that I'm successful and able to complain on camera for lots of money is because there are people who contribute to it, but this will do nothing in the real world.
It exists today in our golden age bubble of the United States.
But how valuable is complaining about things going to be if we enter World War III?
They're gonna be like, what skills do you have?
It's like, well, I'm really good at complaining about stuff.
They'll be like, uh-uh.
Start hammering.
You're making metal now for us.
There's nothing there.
If you can...
Sustain yourself, and you can survive on your own, and that's the only thing you have, and no one knows who you are.
That's what I feel is, that's success.
That's when you're a big shot.
Because you could say to anybody at any time, screw you, you are meaningless to me.
You're, like, if a person comes up to you and says, let's say you're in Congress, and they keep saying you're the best, you're the best in the world.
What do you think happens if you disagree with those people?
Well, you're in trouble now.
The people who are paying your bills all of a sudden are upset with you, and then what do you have?
But if you know that you can sustain yourself, you can survive on your own, in whatever way that means, then you truly have the F you money reality of someone comes up to you and says, oh, you're so good, now pass this bill for me, you can laugh and say no.
Because it doesn't matter.
My principles matter, and I know no matter what happens, I'm gonna be able to survive on my own.
unidentified
That's why we're doing what we're doing now.
That's why we're doing what we're doing.
And in D.C., that's called courage.
And... I'll go on a whole rant that I don't need to do right now, but let me tell you... The reason D.C.
is broken, the reason the house is broken, is not because there aren't enough smart people.
What there aren't is a lot of people with courage who will say what you just said.
No, I'm not going to listen to you.
I'm going to go my own way.
Those people are rare.
And so to people out there who are thinking about Uh, you know, who are they going to vote for in an upcoming primary?
Something like that.
One of the things you need to try to decipher is which of these two people has the ability or the wherewithal to say, I'm going to do this.
Like, I don't.
But that courage has to last.
So there are people that go in and for the first five, six, seven, eight years, they have that courage.
They have it.
And then they get beat down and beat down and shunned and people don't want to co-sponsor their bills and they're not raising money and they're getting basically laughed at.
Like, it's funny when people like Cassandra McDonald, for instance, is one of my best friends and she does booking for IRL and Lisa does booking for this show.
And it's funny when people tweet at me and they're like, You're gonna really let your employees say these things or whatever?
But it's just like, if you think I, as the owner of this company, am going to scold My staff who have hundreds of thousands of followers and have had those followers well before they worked here at TimCast, like, you don't watch this show at all.
But my point in the big picture is, yeah, people will say, like, you will not be able to book this person because you just call them a scumbag.
And I'm like, they're a scumbag, though!
You know, look, there are members of Congress that I will call a scumbag and I will call evil.
And we'll still invite them on the show, but I know they're not going to come.
And what does this mean?
I think, and I probably, you know, I'm going to say this anyway, because I'm of course a big fan of Joe Rogan.
I consider him a friend.
But I think he's not going to endorse Donald Trump, despite the fact everyone kind of thinks he's going to vote for Donald Trump.
Like, how do you say the things that Joe Rogan says without already having planned you're going to vote for Donald Trump?
And he's gone as far as saying, well if it's Trump versus Biden, you know, I guess I would.
He said something like that, but he's not come out and said voting for Trump is the right move.
And I think the obvious reason is, and I don't mean to be disrespectful, I think this is a business reality.
When you're looking at your business, who you employ, the people who you are responsible to, you're thinking, If I insult these people and actually say and go hard, that's going to reduce my audience size.
That's going to reduce the company income.
I'll put it this way, because I can't speak to Joe.
I think Joe does what Joe does.
But I know for a fact that if we tried, like play media ball, like in much the same way Congress does it.
If I said, no, no, I better not insult Adam Schiff because we're going to try and get him on the show.
One thing we don't do is we don't pay guests ever.
And there are a lot of really big podcasts that do.
And I'm like, we bring people on who have something to say that are relevant and they want to come on the show, but we won't offer them money.
We've had people demand money from us.
Like we saw recently, remember Tucker Carlson, this is just recently, Tucker Carlson wanted to- Yeah, yeah.
You wanna be the big shot on TV with the biggest guests?
You can't insult people who are bad, because then you won't get them.
So when people like Adam Schiff lie to the American public, You've got people behind you saying, well, I know he's bad, but just go easy on the criticism so we can try and book more Democrats.
Because if you insult him, then you might not be able to get these people and these people.
Well, I gotta tell you, look... I'm sure he would come on, like, I could DM him and be like, come on the show, and he would, like, he would put that aside for me, but like... My attitude is people who don't want to come on the show don't have to, they don't owe me favors, but I also think there's something very obvious with...
Uh, we were talking to, um, I think it was Jamison Ellis who ran against Crenshaw.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
This was not correct.
It was, uh, Dave Smith.
Dave Smith was telling a story on, on air or something.
Uh, I can't remember what it was, but I was like, Dan Crenshaw will never sit down with Dave Smith.
Why?
Because Dan Crenshaw knows he's full of shit.
People who truly believe their shit Want to say these things.
And they come on the shows and they'll say something like, you know, when we had Hunter Avalon on the show a couple years ago, and I said, Joe Biden said to the prosecutor, if you don't, if you don't fire the prosecutor, I'm sorry, I said to the president of Ukraine, I think it was Poroshenko at the time, if you don't fire the prosecutor, you're not getting a billion dollars.
And Hunter Avalon said, no, he didn't.
And he smiled.
Here's a guy who truly believes his shit.
And so when we invite him on, he's like, absolutely.
And then when he goes, whoops, for someone like Dan Crenshaw, he knows he's full of shit and that he can't defend it in a raw two-hour conversation.
So what happened?
We invited him on the show.
His staff were like, oh, absolutely, yes.
At the last minute, sorry, we can't come, a vote came up.
And we said, no problem.
Let us know if you ever have time.
And then they said, yeah, yeah, we'll reschedule and we'll let you know maybe in a week.
A couple of days later, we email back, dead silence.
Because Crenshaw is a smart guy, he knows he's full of shit, he knows that we would... I've defended him in many instances when the left was unfair to him, and if he came on the show and talked about anything we want to talk about, we would not shit talk him or insult him, we would just pull up the news stories.
And then when he says something and we pull up a news story like that's actually not true, it's uh-oh.
There's nothing he can say then.
He would be forced to admit when he's campaigning or when he's on the floor, he's lying to people.
And there have been many instances where he's supported a bill and then lied about it or been accused of lying about it later on.
I think you mentioned gun control and then everyone's like, hey, wait a minute, he's listed as voting for us and he makes a video where he's like, I'm against it.
Things like that.
unidentified
Well, that was what happened with George Santos.
He was talking about how he wasn't pressured to vote for, I think it was a continuing resolution, right?
It was something he was like, he wasn't pressured and nobody talked to him and he's his own man.
And like, and he said something, I don't support it, but I voted for it.
So like be a good team player.
And I was like, you're, you're parroting like leadership talking points right now.
And this is how it works.
And he goes, that's not how it works.
He goes, well, Lisa's been there for 12 years.
I've only been here for one, but then he wouldn't, he refused to come in.
This was like, uh, two months before he got kicked out.
Two, three months before he got kicked out.
So he's got nothing to lose now either.
So like the people like Madison, you know, the people who have been forced out of Congress and basically like there's, there's no political capital left in Washington DC necessarily.
They can say whatever they want to.
And the whole thing with Madison and some of these other members too, I thought, do they really want to push him out and squeeze him for everything that he's going to say?
Because after a certain point, you are not defensive anymore.
You were just like, fine, I'm going to go on the offensive.
I'm going to say whatever the heck I want.
I'm going to be able to go out there and be my own free man and be my own free agent.
And you know, to a certain extent, I saw how the system could rage against Madison.
And frankly, the system could range against Matt Gates and other people.
And so I thought, you know, I want to create this business where we have autonomy that if every client fires me tomorrow, I'm still the CEO of that company.
And I have the infrastructure necessary to, to move forward without anybody else necessarily that I don't want to work with.
And once you get to that point, you have that sense of freedom and you can move and operate in that town far more easy.
Yeah.
It's important.
I'll give you another story.
You were just talking about that sense of playing ball with the media and what you have to sell to do that.
And we've talked about what that was in DC.
So here's a story that I don't think has ever been told.
I don't have the name of the individual, but this is a cool, this is a, this is a very, I think a revealing story about DC.
So Jody Heiss, founder of the Freedom Caucus, my first boss.
So he works real hard to get on House Armed Services, a committee, and pays all these dues and does a whole campaign and meets with all the right people.
And after, I think, two terms, finally gets on.
It's a real big deal.
He gets on House Armed Services and then votes against some real swampy funding for the military-industrial complex.
And of course, especially on House Armed Services, the lobbying, which is the military generals and contractors, and the committees, it's all one cohort.
There almost is no separation.
It's all intermingled.
And so he does a couple of votes that he was told not to do, and he gets kicked off the committee.
And so it was totally an unfair kickoff, whatever.
He gets kicked off the committee.
Well, he's been on oversight since he gets there, and he becomes the highest ranking member on oversight whenever Meadows leaves.
So he's running for chairman against who is now the chairman, James Comer.
So he's running for chairman.
He puts together this huge packet, sorry, of all the things he's going to do and works really hard, goes to the steering committee that we talked about earlier, and shows it all to the steering committee.
He loses that election, obviously, to James Comer, and an individual, a very high individual, ranking in the steering committee, called him to his office.
And Jody goes into the office, and that individual says, hey man, I just want to let you know, and this is before the vote had come back, he said, I want you to know, there's no chance you get this position.
You're not getting it.
But I want you to know that everything that you talked about that you've done is what I said I was going to do when I ran.
And I decided to play ball and I never got to do those things.
And the guy started choking up and crying in front of him and was like, just so you know, you're not going to get this, but what you did is what I said I would do.
And I always kind of have regret that I never did that.
And for Jody at the time, he was like, he wouldn't tell me who that individual was, but he was like, Ben, that was one of the most impactful conversations I ever had.
Cause I didn't get that position.
But I did what I actually said I was gonna do, and that's the penalty for it, and that's okay, but that is a powerful conversation.
He's a good guy.
But to your example, not playing ball, that's kind of what it can look like on the Hill.
You know what's interesting?
If you go to GovTrack and look up the members' ideology scores, if you look at their ideology scores as compared to how much money they fundraise and see kind of where they are there, it's a very interesting metric to look at.
He announced for Congress during the State of the Union that he's running for New York's first, and I believe it's, uh, is it Lawler that he's running against?
Why did you vote to expel George Santos and you're from Florida?
unidentified
I hate him.
I would have expelled him too, I'm sorry.
Scott Franklin?
Santos.
I would have gotten rid of him in a heartbeat.
I know, and it's personal, I guess, because I just don't like him.
So, Franklin, he primaried... It's a bad look.
I have a Scott Franklin story.
Gates and the sheriff in that county got him elected.
They primaried somebody who did something that pissed him off, and I can't remember what it was, but between Gates and I think it was the sheriff down in one of the Pinellas County or something like that in Florida, and between the two of them they knocked somebody off that I think voted against something that Trump wanted.
Essentially he was he was primary from the right and place there and i haven't heard a word from him since he got in.
I so here's my scott franklin story so do you remember when they tried to do the.
Border checks, was it the $450,000 border checks?
Is that what they did?
Hang on, I have to look.
Oh man, I'm gonna have to pull this up.
You weren't ready for the story.
Yeah, you had all that time, too.
Just a second.
So it's basically, we led a press conference that was like, we led this initiative that was signed by a ton of people.
Then we led a press conference that has the Speaker and the, or had McCarthy and had Scalise.
It was like a real big deal.
And basically, we kind of overtook this issue, right?
So we were like leading on the issue.
Well, Scott Franklin had done like a resolution or something in his office.
Well, he wasn't invited to the press conference.
So his staff called up and berated me.
For yelling at me for not inviting him to the press conference.
And I was like, I'll be honest, I didn't even know y'all were in this.
Like, whatever.
So as my way to have a little fun with it, we made a video.
If you go to Bobert's Twitter, we made a video.
And maybe search CDC.
It's where they're carrying a casket and people have floating heads.
Well, if you go to the actual Twitter and then search- It's recently?
No, but if you search CDC and do, or do media, right?
Can you not do that?
Here, I'll see if I can find it.
Yeah, no.
But anyways- I'm searching Google for- If I find it, we'll pull it up.
But I threw his head in the very, very back of the video.
is like a tiny little spot cameo to be like, you're included, and I sent it to his staff, and the video got a million, two million views, something like that, and I was like, I was wondering how they would take it, and they were like, we loved it, thanks for the shout out!
He falls in line with leadership because I guarantee you I know what happened.
He recognized he was going to lose in his leaning Republican, trending Republican district.
He went to the Republican leadership and he said, I will flip if you give me air cover from the NRCC and CLF and all of these other organizations.
If you pour money into my district, then I will be the greatest asset you have for the rest of the congressional year.
And so when he switched parties, they made a big messaging deal over it, and now that they probably pour a ton of money into his district and his campaign, and the alternative was he remained a Democrat and lost by three points.
I'm done with the pathetic, frailty, fragility, and the desperation of the Republican Party.
These are people who are worried more about looking cool in the newspaper than they are of what actually has happened in this country, and there are very few Republicans who are actually like, this is the right thing to do.
unidentified
But like, okay, but here's the deal.
I am probably the furthest right person on your staff.
I was told by McCarthy that we were all a team, that we all had to play baseball, and then as soon as he loses the speakership battle, he steps down and leaves Congress and gives them an even smaller majority, a razor-thin majority, because that's exactly it.
He didn't care.
If I was leadership speaker, and everyone was going, George Santos must be expelled, you know what I would do?
I would say, I would privately say to everybody, this is a really important issue, you're right, we're gonna move forward on this one, thank you for bringing it to my attention.
Okay, he lied about the stupidest things, and I don't- and it's- he's in for one year, and he's an idiot.
Absolutely.
Let's have concerns about this.
He was convicted of nothing.
He was accused of things.
Adam Schiff lies to the American people to subvert our elections and win political power.
More importantly, the moment Adam Schiff published the private phone records of John Solomon, every single Republican, and at the time they were, oh, I'm so upset.
Once they won the majority, the first motion, the first move should have been Adam Schiff is expelled for this violation of American rights.
Instead, they sit on their hands, and then George Santos says stupid things, And they're like, all in favor of getting rid of our own party member because he's annoying?
unidentified
I agree with that.
I agree with all that.
I think that we should start going after people for, listen to this, just regular sodomy laws.
So when I say, you give Van Drew a call and you ask him why this is happening, you be polite, and you say, I'd like to reconcile this problem I'm having where Jamal Bowman broke the law Admitted to it, is on camera doing it, and y'all haven't expelled him, but George Santos, who was accused, has been expelled.
Bob Menendez in the Senate, still not been expelled after two very serious accusations.
And you know what?
I am fine with not expelling Menendez right now.
Prove it.
Prove it.
Bowman, admitted to doing it, and we watched him do it on camera.
And so, I spare none of these Republicans.
None of them.
I will go through this list.
And you know what we should do?
You know what I'm gonna do from now on?
How about I pull up a name every single day on TimCast IRL, and I say, today's member of Congress is Anne Wagner, Republican from Missouri's 2nd District, and you give her a call if you live in the 2nd District, and ask why.
Jamal Bowman can break the law, and you will not expel him, and George Santos was only accused, and that warranted removal, by the way, his seat's now been replaced by a Democrat.
Make your voices heard and call your member of Congress and say, I would like you to introduce, in any way possible, the expulsion of Bowman for breaking the law and admitting to it.
It disrupted Congress.
We don't need to play stupid games and say, oh, it's an insurrection.
Oh, you know, we can joke about that on Twitter.
But in reality, it's this is a man who admitted to breaking the law, disrupting the official proceedings.
He should be expelled now.
The Republicans have the majority to do so and should do so.
And if they give you him, if they Hammond Hall, you ask them, And I'm talking about those who specifically voted to expel Santos.
You say, but you expelled Santos?
Certainly you could expel someone who literally broke the law and admitted it.
unidentified
Call Speaker Johnson's office.
Either way.
Speaker Johnson did not vote to remove Santos, I don't believe.
It's like high school kid who's like the cool mysterious kid hanging out in the corner of the room and all the girls like him and then there's the nerdy kid and he's like, I wish I was like him.
unidentified
Yeah.
You know who has cars like that?
So Massey's one of them.
I used to have members say, Massey says no to everything, and he's the type of guy, and this is a quote, that I would like, that we would like to shove in a locker, like back in high school.
Like, that's what they said about him.
And the members don't like him.
Like, they don't like him, and that's because he's obstructionary.
He sends it back, and then when it's time to run an election, Then he goes and says, hey, if you'd be willing, you contributed in the past, if you'd be willing to it again, I'd super appreciate it.
But he doesn't keep a war chest.
I remember hearing a conversation with him and another member about it, and he goes, war chests are a sign of weakness.
You're scared you're going to lose.
You mentioned doing his own comms like there are members that also are just terrified to engage with the media whatsoever, and they won't fight They just take the defensive position of the media and like I work for people that did not accept that whatsoever I remember having to call a reporter's mother one time and Just because I couldn't get the reporter themselves on the phone to actually answer a question and that they berated me on social media for it.
But I mean sometimes you just have to fight there's one time like with Madison Cawthorn that there was a an NBC reporter that had or a producer that had emailed The on the hill NBC reporter and basically said, Hey, we're trying to get Madison, uh, Cawthorn's response on this, but we're afraid to email his office directly because he might ask to come on the show.
Cause they were from Rachel Maddow.
And then that, that, that reporter accidentally CC me on that email, trying to get me the contact.
And so if you Google Madison Cawthorn, Rachel Maddow right now, like it was the front page story of Fox news for like 12 hours.
They had a chiron on there that said MSNBCOWARD, MSNBC coward.
And there was the Fox News article, like the main one, and they were highlighting the portions.
Wow.
People are too afraid sometimes to actually engage.
These people would not hesitate to rip your eyeballs out.
We would have Rachel Maddow on any one of our shows here in two seconds.
If she showed up at my door abruptly, I would, I would, and she said, I will do your show tonight, but just you and me, I'd be like, cancel whoever else is coming on.
Rachel Maddow, you're sitting down, we're having the conversation.
I guess like if Vivek is the first thing I'd have to say, but I don't know that that's the appropriate response because a VP is usually for political points, not like Vivek is too top tier to be in this do-nothing backroom position.
unidentified
It doesn't have to be a do-nothing position though.
What do you think of Roger Stone saying Tulsi Gabbard?
Yeah.
I think Tulsi Gabbard is a really, really great- It is an intriguing position, because initially I would say no, and then as I think about it, appealing to the younger generation and to independents and undecideds, potentially moderates, former Democrats- Military service.
And it was really great to have the conversation because I can't speak for Tulsi, but the conversation was generally like what we talk about, what is really happening, what we're concerned about, a fairly moderate conversation.
We want to disagree, but we want to work these things out.
And it was like, I was talking about the weird woke stuff.
And I think Tulsi is a moderating force for Democrats.
And this was back when Tulsi was a Democrat.
Tulsi Gabbard might, yeah, I think I would revise my answer and say Tulsi above Vivek, but it is still coin tossy, and the reason is, a VP bounces out your ticket.
Vivek with Trump is just basically like Trump times two.
unidentified
No, that's exactly right, and that's why I said I didn't think that it would be him, because he needs someone to appeal to the voters.
Like with Pence, he needed to appeal to the evangelical voters in the 2016 campaign.
I think Byron would be strong.
I like Byron Donald in general, but I don't know about that.
Like, oh, we need like a token person or whatever.
She's a woman.
Let's pick a woman.
But not you, Take away the genital politics of it though, it does enable you from a political perspective to speak on certain things from different perspectives.
I care that Tulsi is a former Democrat who saw the Democrats were going insane, moderated her position, has revised some of her positions, and represents former, like, post-liberals.
So I was like, Tulsi Gabbard needs to save the Democratic Party when she was running, because Democrats are going insane.
You've got corporate monsters, and you've got woke psychotic behavior, and I disagree with Tulsi on gun control and nuclear power, but she listens and talks to people.
I worked on that campaign down in Florida and I just, behind the scenes, I saw that and I could tell.
And he talked like this and he was like, can we go to Wawa?
We went to Wawa four times in one day.
He killed it as a governor.
You're not going to convince me he didn't kill it as a governor.
And then he killed his He's another one that won't come on, right?
So we've asked him, and we've asked his staff members to be on.
The staff members said to me, let me run it up the chain.
A guest who had been on before, right?
Let me run up the chain.
And they were like, nope, I was told I'm not allowed to do it.
So you know that all of the people who are on the Trump campaign right now that have gotten him to where he is were fired by Ron DeSantis.
Hold on, do you know this inside baseball?
No, what is this?
Okay, so in 2018, do we have a time limit?
Alright, so in 2018, Ron DeSantis was losing badly and they brought on Susie Wiles to manage the campaign and she won it for him.
And she knocked it out of the park.
She brought on and built the best team that State had ever seen in a long time.
This is a it's like 60 year old white haired older like late.
This is not She is one of the sweetest people I've ever interacted with and she's given her a ton of opportunities He fired her because Casey DeSantis.
We'll say what position he gave her first.
Oh, uh Gave her?
Yeah, so she was his chief of staff in the governor's office for a short period of time I don't think so.
No?
No, it was on the transition side.
Oh, on the transition.
She was on the transition side, and so Casey DeSantis went to the Florida GOP and realized that there were probably more Susie loyalists than there were DeSantis loyalists, and she didn't like that.
So there was an internal fighting and she was pushed out.
They had blamed it on like she was leaking to the media or whatever and then there were a couple of other staffers that went along with her but basically it was like one fell swoop that everyone I'd worked with on the campaign was suddenly out and they had wanted me to come down and work in Florida and so the Not only did he get her fired from the transition team, but he got her fired from her lobbying group, the Ballard Partners in Washington, D.C., got her fired from her position on the Trump re-election campaign in 2020, and single-handedly made sure that she was unemployed.
Trump hired her a few months later, and within the span of two years, she and Trump and that whole team had basically completely obliterated Rhonda Santos's career.
You will never hear from her.
Do you remember when there was like that weird like is there something going on between Trump and DeSantis like early on and there was just like whispers?
He gets paid $180,000 and he has $2 million for staff.
and he has $2 million for staff.
Okay.
You become a governor, you have an army.
- Yeah. - You have your own army.
Okay.
You got your own guard.
He has the state of Florida, okay?
Does he feel like lunch in Miami or Tampa?
And then instead of yelling at the State of the Union, he is then suddenly being able to, you know, going around and can start doing the same, some of the same things that Franklin just did.
They publicly fought over this like three months ago and they had labeled, well because it wasn't the game, the game that we were watching with that battle wasn't the one being played as Matt would say.
And so whenever there was this like outward friction between Donald's proposing some sort of legislation, I don't even remember what it was related to, Gates went on the attack and started literally labeling Byron's legislation like the Byron Donald's amnesty.
It was something, I think, about immigration.
And it was just like, this is not over the bill in Congress right now.
Anyone outside of Florida that thinks that it is, is totally blind.
This is obvious jockeying for being the governor of Florida.
So then Matt, so I mean we're not we're not looking at a potential Matt Gaetz move for higher office.
Like leader of the Republican Party is not going to be for like 11 years.
unidentified
I love it.
I think he wants to be the AG of Florida and then he could potentially be tapped as- No, if Trump wins, he should appoint Matt Gaetz the Attorney General of the- He would have to be acting AG because that's confirmed by the Senate.
Yeah, I don't see him, you know... Yeah, I don't know.
It's certainly possible, but he seemed... Yeah, maybe Kingmaker is a better way to look at what he would do behind the scenes, supporting candidates and things like that.
unidentified
I'll give you somebody who, not now, but in the future... So, I'm a big... I wish you could buy stock in members.
If you remember, like, right before Trump announced and all that, it was like Rand Paul was getting the cover of Time, and people were, like, rallying behind him a little bit.
There was a, like, a quick moment.
And Santorum was legit then.
When were you, like?
This was, like, a while ago.
And then Trump came and, like, sucked all the life out of the room.
Well, what I'm saying is, let's get, like, Hollywood-level, um, like, makeup and fashion.
We'll get- we'll get a Hollywood trainer.
Just three weeks of hardcore, just get him insanely ripped, and then have him run, and just, you know what I mean?
Just like, let's give him the Hollywood treatment to maximize all of the personal, have him do like- The full Rocky routine, you're saying?
The full Rocky routine, but then also like- Nice Schwarzenegger.
audit the fed and yeah just like let's make him this is the guy who should be president but he's not going to want to be and that's kind of why i want him to be you know we just got to put the full hollywood treatment behind him get him super ripped maybe uh maybe he can wear those high heels at ronda santa swore but the thing is you're going to get the makeup on him and you're going to get him all ready and he's going to be ripped and we're going to get him ready for the debate and it's all looking good and then he comes out and he's got this big ugly debt counter clock on his five thousand dollar suit and you're like no sir we had a look going he's like it
counts the debt I got one of those right here.
unidentified
He's gonna have to get some more digits on that thing.
He was wearing it last night.
Did you ask him about, did he tell you about his app-controlled solar-powered chicken feeder?
And he says, and it leaves a trail of chicken poop, which makes the grass super fertile.
Yeah, it's crazy.
unidentified
You need to watch The Swamp on HBO, that documentary, because they go to his house, and they show how his whole house has run off the Tesla battery, and it's off the grid, It's really good.
So what happened was they were redistricting in Kentucky and they almost redistricted him into like a city, basically made his district like a top sub district.
And I think it was Raleigh.
I think he got, or not Raleigh.
What's the capital of Kentucky?
Louisville.
No, no, no.
It's not Louisville.
Louisville's the biggest city, but it's not the capital.
Anyways, they were going to draw the capital into his district, making it extremely blue.
And... Is that right?
Yeah, I was going to say Frankfurt, but that didn't sound right.
So they were going to draw Frankfurt into his district.
So he goes, look, if I'm going to represent the capital, it's going to be as governor.
So basically, if you do this, I'll just run for governor.
I don't know if we're going to be able to make any good predictions, but do you guys want to, final thoughts, wrap up, shout anything out before we go?
unidentified
We need good people working in the swamp, even if it does suck sometimes, but get a good foundation before you get up there, a church, a mentor base, or something like that, because if you're just left by yourself, you are going to falter and fail, and you won't work for the American people like you should.
