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Caleb Newquist: Hello and welcome to Oh My Fraud, a true crime podcast where corruption keeps us safe and warm. I'm Caleb Newquist. Today on the show, David Sirota. Now, if you know who David is, then you [00:00:30] might be expecting this to be a political ish episode. And yeah, it kind of is. It's not it's not political in the tribal sense. Like we're not gabbing about current events or bitching about one party or another. You know, if that's what you know, my guess is most people aren't listening for that kind of stuff. You can go listen to Pod Save America or Ben Shapiro if you want that stuff. Um, personally, I don't find it that interesting, But if you do [00:01:00] more power to you, that's what you should listen to. But I wanted to talk to David because I think he has an incredibly good understanding of politics and especially the influence of money in politics. The news site that he founded, The Lever, focuses on that exact issue, and a lot of the stuff that they cover on the lever is about how money is used legally within our system, but is, you know, questionable at [00:01:30] best and borderline horrifically corrupt, yet still legal at worst. And so this is an episode about corruption. And David is extremely familiar with it, uh, as his work throughout, you know, many years of his work as an investigative journalist.

Caleb Newquist: Uh, but he is also a political guy. He's a, he's a, he's an unabashed lefty. He's worked for Bernie Sanders in the past, including the 2020 campaign, [00:02:00] and he talks about it in our conversation. He talks about working for him and how Bernie Sanders influenced his thinking. But I would I would I would still submit to you that this is not a political episode. Okay. So, um, you know, if that sounds if, if your if your skin is starting to crawl, just hang in there. We have a nice conversation. All right, which I should mention, full disclosure. David and I are friends. You know, we're not [00:02:30] super close friends, but we've we've hung out a bunch. Uh, he has a book club that I've been to many times, usually hosted at his house. His wife, Emily, is a state representative in the Colorado legislature, and I've donated to her campaigns. She's running for state Senate this year, and I donated to that campaign. I, I like David very much. He's fun to talk to. He's fun to hang out with. He's a very smart guy and he works incredibly hard. And he he cares very deeply about [00:03:00] the profound, egregious unfairness in our society. And he calls it out unapologetically. And I personally think that's fantastic. So, you know, buckle up if this is the kind of if, if two lefty guys talking is going to trigger you, then, hey, consider yourself warned.

Caleb Newquist: Okay. But it's still a it's still a fun conversation. Anyway, um, speaking of [00:03:30] unfairness, I mentioned unfairness. The 2026 Winter Olympics just wrapped up and wow, was that ever a, uh, an Olympics of high drama. I think that's pretty accurate. Um, one piece of drama that is relevant to this show, uh, is best encapsulated by this Guardian headline that I found. And it is here's the the the title ran French Biathlete guilty [00:04:00] of fraud, wins Olympic gold while scammed teammate comes in 80th. Yeah, I'm not kidding. Uh, a French biathlete by the name of, uh, you know, in the in in American English, you would say Julia Simon, but I'm sure the French. It's Julia Simon. Uh, she received a three month suspended sentence and a €15,000 fine last October for. Yes, spending [00:04:30] €2,000 using her teammates credit card. And yes, that teammate finished 80th. Um, Simon was also found to have used the team physiotherapist credit card in 2021 and 2022. So I don't know what to make of this, but that's not even the best part. The best part, and I'm going to quote from the Guardian article here. Here it is. Quote, Simon denied the crime for three years, [00:05:00] claiming she had been a victim of identity theft before finally admitting her guilt in a court hearing in Albertville last October after she found to have photos of the credit card on her phone.

Caleb Newquist: Oh, and at the time she was pleading guilty to this, she said, quote, I confess the accusations, but I don't remember committing them. It's like a blackout. So. Sure, [00:05:30] I, I blacked out and next thing I knew, I, I was being charged with credit card fraud. I mean, I don't know, I don't even know, but now she has a gold medal, so that's something. Anyway, David Sirota is here and David has had just a fascinating career, and you'll hear us talk about quite a bit of it, but we don't touch on everything. Uh, so [00:06:00] I will give you a rundown of some of the stuff that's out there. And if you're interested, you should go check it out. But we don't, we don't talk about a lot of this stuff. Um, first he's written four books. The most recent is Master Plan The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America. He wrote it with, uh, Jared Zhiqiang, Ma. The book was adapted from a podcast by the same name. It's won some awards, including, uh, from the National Press Club for audio journalism. Uh, you can [00:06:30] get it wherever you get books and you can get the podcast wherever you get podcasts. Uh, David also did another pretty notable podcast.

Caleb Newquist: He did an eight part series called meltdown on the 2008 financial crisis that was executive produced by the Oscar winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney. His production company, Jigsaw Productions. That's an audible original. So that's the only place where you can get that. So that's a little weird, but I know some people dig audible. Anyway, that's where you can find that. I [00:07:00] mentioned the lever earlier. David founded that website. He's the editor in chief. It is a nonpartisan, reader supported investigative news outlet that holds accountable the people and corporations manipulating the levers of power. So that's lever News.com. And last but not least, you may or may not know. David is also an Oscar nominated co-writer with Adam McKay of the 2021 film Don't Look Up. That movie is the fourth most watched Netflix original movie in the company's history, [00:07:30] so there's that too busy guy. And so we don't talk about most of that at all. We mostly talk about corruption. And so I hope you can check out David's work. There's obviously a lot of stuff out there you can check out, but it was great to talk to him. He's a great guy. I hadn't seen him in a while. I'm really grateful to him for coming on. So here we go. Here's me and David Sirota. Hey [00:08:00] man, thanks for doing this.

David Sirota: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah, yeah. Um, how you been? It's been a little bit.

David Sirota: It's been good. You know, um, I guess, um, there's a lot to report on as the world, uh, seems unstable.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll get into that. Um, so I like starting at the beginning. Um, what, what are, what are the early, early days of David Sirota? Like what, where did you grow up? What [00:08:30] was that like? Who, what did your parents do?

David Sirota: Oh, this is like the Goonies question. Tell me everything.

Caleb Newquist: It is. I'm just kind of like, it's kind of it's like I'm Burger King. Marc Maron when.

David Sirota: I was in fifth grade, I. Yeah. Uh, yes, I grew up, outside of Philadelphia. Um, my dad was a physician. My mom was a teacher and a homemaker. Um, I still have a lot of Philadelphia garb, uh, memorabilia. Yeah, in my, in my office. Um, [00:09:00] I've lived actually in Denver longer than I lived in Philadelphia at this point. Um, I went to college at northwestern, uh, majored in journalism, um, worked on my first campaign while I was a, um, a senior in, in college. It was a, a three way campaign, um, for a congressional seat. Uh, I was working against J.B. Pritzker. J.b. Pritzker had. Yes, had, was, was a young guy who, young rich guy [00:09:30] who decided to run in what became a three way race. He lost. My candidate lost and Jan Schakowsky won. Uh, after college, I went to, um, went back home, worked on a congressional race that we won, uh, flipped a Republican district back in the suburbs of Philadelphia, then moved to DC. Got a job on Capitol Hill. Uh, put my resumes out all over the place. It's funny, at that time, you didn't know who you were applying to, right? There [00:10:00] were these, like, um, they were sort of like New England congressman seeks press secretary, right?

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. Okay.

David Sirota: And I get the call back from, uh, Jeff Weaver, uh, in the office of this obscure, uh, independent weirdo named Bernie Sanders. And I, uh, I ended up, they ended up offering me the job. And the night before, I was like, uh, you know, the guy is a self-described socialist. Like, I don't really know. I've been in Democratic Party, like I don't like, you know, this is [00:10:30] the late 90s. It was like Bernie Sanders is like, kind of weird, uh, you know? Yeah. And I took the job and it was the most eye opening experience in my whole life still to this day to work inside of Congress, looking out at Congress from the perspective of an independent with the analysis and politics that he has. And it really kind of blew my mind and it really changed my life. Yeah.

Caleb Newquist: So let me ask you before we because we are we'll get into that. But like, [00:11:00] at what point did like, was politics always a thing? Like when you were young, growing up at home, did you talk about it at the dinner table or like, what, what made you kind of pursue, I guess, initially, what made you pursue journalism? But then how did the how did the political stuff come along?

David Sirota: So I loved being on the school paper. I was always into writing, uh, in, in high school, etcetera, etcetera. Um, what actually got me into politics, our house was not a particularly political household. [00:11:30] Um, it was standard, uh, democratic household. Um, you know, from my grandparents, you know, they were FDR Democrats. Yep. Um, standard story. Uh, and actually what got me into politics was I took a class in high school. They did a class around the 1992 presidential campaign. And I was in 10th grade. And it was sort of a, it was sort of a joke class to the seniors, like they had a seniors and they were multi grades in that class. [00:12:00] And so when they were like, we need, we're going to the class culminates in each campaign gets represented by a student in the class. And none of the seniors, they were already sort of checking out. They didn't want to do it. So it was only so so I got like shoved into yeah, Sirota will do the Clinton campaign. Right? So I was like, I don't know, I don't know anything about this. Uh, and I got really into it. Like I got really, really into the Bill Clinton 1992 campaign. Um, and Pennsylvania was a [00:12:30] swing state. So it was like he was there a lot. Um, so that really I caught the political bug actually from the 1992 campaign. I mean, I was watching the movie, um, the War Room, the documentary, the War Room, that that is like that really. I mean, I wasn't in the war room, but like, it brings me back to like what I like in 1992. David Sirota was like obsessed with two things, like Charles Barkley and the Sixers and the Bill Clinton for president [00:13:00] campaign.

Caleb Newquist: Like so. Okay. All right. So that all makes sense. So then yeah, we fast forward and you get to Washington. Are you still are you and you've worked on a couple campaigns. So is anything up to this point? Have you seen anything that is kind of. Like chipped away at your idealism?

David Sirota: Well, yes, because the first the second, the first campaign I worked on, I did opposition research and, and communications. Okay. Uh, that's when I was [00:13:30] in college. I'm sort of tracking. Jb Pritzker et cetera, et cetera. So, but when I, when I went, went back home from northwestern back to back to the suburbs of Philadelphia. And the campaign I worked on, I worked for a guy who had run. It was his fourth run for Congress, which is. Which is insane. Yeah. Uh, the third run, the one that he had just lost, he lost by 40 votes. 40 votes. Right. Uh, he's running and I'm like, I just want to work. I'll do anything on the campaign. So they're like, do [00:14:00] you will you run the call room, aka the fundraising room?

Caleb Newquist: Yeah.

David Sirota: Reika sitting with the candidate and working with him as he goes, goes through and begs people for money doing. And I didn't do the follow up calls, making sure that the money commitment actually comes in. So like I had a direct interface, eight hours a day of money in politics. And when [00:14:30] we talk about the idea that running for office is like sitting in a windowless room, calling people and begging them for money. That was one of my first political experiences, and I think in a sense it served me well in that. I've never since then been under any illusion that you can win campaigns and not take fundraising seriously. Like, if you're not willing to take fundraising seriously, uh, to [00:15:00] raise enough resources to communicate with voters, you have, there's no point in really running a campaign, right?

Caleb Newquist: Like the whole notion of Mr. Smith goes to Washington.

David Sirota: That's not real. That's not real. That's not a real thing. Like, it's not real. Uh, and unfortunately, it's not. It should be real, right?

Caleb Newquist: Sure.

David Sirota: And we can talk more about why it's not real. That's what master plan is really about. But like in the here and now, modern day, like if you all of your, uh, glorified, glamorous illusions of what campaigns [00:15:30] are first and foremost, they are a windowless room with a telephone, calling people and begging them for money. Yeah, like that is.

Caleb Newquist: That's the job.

David Sirota: That is like the job. And, and, and my candidate was, was, was great and he was diligent about it, but you can see how what the candidate worries about and what they're thinking about is distorted by the fact that they're spending eight hours a day talking to people [00:16:00] who can write thousand dollar checks, right? They're not necessarily spending eight hours a day knocking on doors and talking to people who can, can't even write a $10 check, right? Right. Like so. So what, what the donors are concerned about is different than what the, the, the voters, the large, larger pool of voters is concerned about and thinking about, but you can't communicate with the larger pool of voters unless you have resources from that tiny pool of [00:16:30] donors. And that's a that's a central problem. So. So I learned that early on.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. Okay. So you learned this early on and so did it. So you're getting you're getting a heavy dose of reality when it comes to like how things work. But at this point, are you discouraged in any way? I mean, you ended up going to DC, so I'm guessing no. But like what ultimately said, okay, the next step is going to DC and and [00:17:00] and and starting to do work there.

David Sirota: Well, to be clear, I, I didn't, I, if I'm being honest, I didn't find the campaigns, uh, that campaign disillusioning we won. And it was like, okay, like I would like to, to, to tell the story of my life that I and, and the story of my life must impart. B there is a deep sense of like unfairness, um, uh, trying to address essentially unfairness in [00:17:30] our economy, in our political system. But early on it was like, this is an interesting game. I can yeah, like I was, I, when I had done journalism in high school and, you know, I won awards for sports writing, I was very into like the competition. Yeah. Right. Like I was fascinated with the NBA. I was, you know, so, so at this point in my life, I was, you know, I was to be honest, I was I was kind of a hack. I was mostly interested in like the game and the competition. When I got [00:18:00] the job with Bernie Sanders, I think what happened was I was still interested in how do we win, how do we get what we want done? But it was like, oh, what we're trying to do is like even harder. Yeah, right. It's like we're trying to shift the whole system and make the system talk about things that it really doesn't want to talk about. And. Right. And one of the first experiences I had on Capitol Hill. I [00:18:30] remember this so distinctly. It's such a funny story now to think about the technology.

David Sirota: So back in the day. Bernie always actually, people don't appreciate this. Always a media innovator. Yeah. Um, back in the day, he figured out this, that you couldn't put video of yourself. On, um, on the internet. The bandwidth wasn't there back in the late 90s. So there were a bunch of television stations back in Vermont that [00:19:00] wanted video of Bernie, but they didn't necessarily have a reporter in DC. Et cetera, et cetera. So Bernie figured out, I can record myself talking about the issue of the day in a five minute chat, and then what TV stations used to do was sign on to the satellite or tune in to a satellite signal. So we would send them a press release saying, um, at 12 p.m. [00:19:30] on, on this frequency, on this satellite. You, you can record Bernie Sanders because we're going to beam it up from Congress and it, you know, it's basically an a video actuality. So I was spending my first, you know, uh, months on Capitol Hill with Bernie Sanders, where I would bring the camera around and take videos of him to beam up onto the satellite so that the local TV stations could take the [00:20:00] videos down and use them for the evening news. And one of the first ones that we did, they were like, Bernie is going to Bernie. Bernie was like, I'm going to get to question Alan Greenspan, chair of the fed, who back in the late 90s was like everyone worshiped, like.

Caleb Newquist: Untouchable.

David Sirota: Untouchable. This guy is like a genius. Yeah. All the superlative. He's he's everything. Right? This is before we know what Alan Greenspan ended up doing and collapsing the entire economy [00:20:30] and ruining millions of lives. Right? Although Bernie was on to him. That's the whole thing, right?

Caleb Newquist: Of course.

David Sirota: Yeah. Even back then. And, and I set the the camera up and like all the congressmen, you know, Bernie's on the dais with all the other congressmen and all the congressmen were like, you know, Mr. Greenspan, like, you're such an amazing person. Like, how, how is it that you're so amazing, right? Like that was their questions. Yeah. And then they're like, they're like, uh, Mr. Sanders, it's your turn. And, and he just like, ripped [00:21:00] his face off. I mean, it was like, and I remember being like, what the hell is going like, what is happening? Like, yeah, like, like the whole room is quiet and Bernie's like, you know, like you have done this to workers and you've said that they don't deserve a minimum wage. And like, I want to know, it was like, I was like, oh, my, I was like, what is like, my mind was like blown like, and I've gone back and I've looked at those videos. I'm like, I can. I still get the sensation of my mind being blown for the first time, right? And I was like, oh, this [00:21:30] is a way different job than anybody else I've got. I've fallen into a job that's way different than anybody else who's doing who's being a press secretary.

Caleb Newquist: That's right. Yeah.

David Sirota: For any other member of Congress, like it was, it was it was incredible. Right. And, and through that experience, a long way of saying you start to understand the sort of larger project of Bernie Sanders, uh, and, and, and then to see Congress through [00:22:00] that, those eyes, I think was really formative. And I, I tell the story in our book master plan, uh, about the really disillusioning money and politics moment for me was towards the end of my time with Bernie Sanders. Um, one of his big causes when I happened to be there and working for him was, um, the disparity in prices of prescription drugs between the United States and Canada. Yep. And Bernie Sanders was the first member of Congress. We were organizing bus trips to Canada with seniors to help them [00:22:30] buy lower priced, uh, prescription drugs. The same drugs, just different prices over in Montreal. It was a big press thing. He got a lot of press all over the press. Other candidates running for for Congress and Senate back then started doing the same thing. Bernie was the originator of it.

David Sirota: Uh, and ultimately, we actually get a bill passed through the House, the Republican House, uh, passed through the Senate, Republican Senate, um, and [00:23:00] signed by Bill Clinton to, uh, allow for wholesalers to, to do what's called parallel importation that had been outlawed, uh, up until that point, the pharmaceutical industry had created a closed market. You know, for all the talk of free trade, the pharmaceutical industry had had created the best deal for itself the same prescription drugs, literally the same drugs. The the companies themselves can manufacture [00:23:30] them anywhere in the world, and they can import them wherever they want, including into the United States. But the consumer is not allowed to go outside of the United States to buy them at the different market prices that those companies are charging. I mean, it's a it's if you're a pharmaceutical lobbyist, that's a great deal for you. So pharmaceutical lobbyists are so the lobby is so powerful. They obviously hated the bill we passed. They fought it tooth and nail. It was a huge victory, like a really unlikely victory.

Caleb Newquist: Yep.

David Sirota: And to me, [00:24:00] it was like we made the system work. This is incredible. Like we overcame all the money, like campaign contributions, lobbying, like we fought the good fight and we won. And then right before Christmas, like three weeks before Bill Clinton is going to leave office, remember he signed the bill. He got a bunch of publicity about it. Like he's doing the right thing. Right before he's about to leave office. Donna Shalala, the HHS secretary, uh. Declines [00:24:30] to certify the program. And what that means is somebody slipped a poison pill line into the bill in the final hours of that bill being ironed out, which gave the HHS secretary a way to have the bill pass into law. But then the HHS secretary can essentially pocket veto it. So the week of Christmas, when essentially nobody was looking, the HHS secretary said, um, I'm not this I'm killing this program before [00:25:00] it even starts. And I remember being like, so basically we defeated money, and money still won.

Caleb Newquist: They don't talk about that on schoolhouse Rock like we didn't.

David Sirota: Exactly like that's a that's the perfect thing. That's the perfect metaphor, right? Like they. When you listen.

Caleb Newquist: To that, that's not how it's supposed to work.

David Sirota: Right? When you listen to that song. There's no verse that's like. And then they slip a poison pill and. And then after the bill passes and you think you won, actually you've lost.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. Cabinet secretary can just torpedo [00:25:30] it anyway.

David Sirota: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So it.

Caleb Newquist: Was.

David Sirota: It was that was like the moment where I was like, okay, this is like way more fubar than I ever really appreciated. Right. And that, and then I was sort of off and running in a journalism career where the first book I, I, I wrote was, was called Hostile Takeover about all the other ways that the political process is really controlled and bought, ways that are less easy to see than just cash in [00:26:00] an envelope. Right. We moved out to Montana. I was I had taken some time off when I was working for Bernie to work for a Senate candidate who came from nowhere. It was like the, you know how we have a lot a lot of these candidates now who sort of come from nowhere and then become like a like a sensation. Yeah. Brian Schweitzer in Montana was like the, like really one of the first to ever to ever really do that. This is back in 2000, he was a farmer, had never run for office, got within two points of defeating the Republican incumbent in the very red state of Montana. [00:26:30] Ultimately, he lost that Senate race, which I worked on. He gets elected governor. And so. So after my time in Washington, I go to work for Brian Schweitzer, although I'm skipping over something important because because the first thing I did before I left for Montana and wrote that book about corruption, you know, I shouldn't skip it. I, I, I got a job working in the House Appropriations Committee, which controls all the money in Congress. Like that's like you could essentially get get rid [00:27:00] of 90% of Congress except for the Appropriations Committee. Appropriations Committee does like the actual real work of like the budget.

David Sirota: And so I learned all about how Congress works there. Uh, for a guy named Dave Obey. And it was during and after nine over 11 and the Iraq War and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. So I saw all that disgustingness. And then I got a job working for the center for American Progress, which was the sort of Clinton machine [00:27:30] in exile that was trying to build like a Democratic version of the Heritage Foundation. And I should mention not to go on so long, but if you're talking about how I learned about corruption, there was a moment there that was also formative, which is I went to work for for John Podesta. And, you know, the premise was we're going to be we're going to put forward a vision of what the Democratic Party should be, regardless of, of, of [00:28:00] what the Democrats in Congress may or may not want more of a more of an ideological vision, not just like a party vision. And. Right. This is about the time when Joe Biden is pushing forward one of the most disgusting bills, really, in the last 30 years, the bankruptcy bill to to make it easier for credit card companies to essentially make you an indentured servant to debt and to make it much harder for you to get out of debt or to escape predatory, predatory conditions. [00:28:30] Um, and our organization was against this. And as it moved, as the bill moved to the final stages, I put out a report showing how much money the like 30 key Democrats in the House had taken from the credit card industry, the 30 key Democrats who were about to help the Republicans and Joe Biden in the Senate passed this disgusting bill.

David Sirota: We [00:29:00] put it out. And the House Democrats who were listed on the report that I wrote absolutely freaked out. They dragged John Podesta up to the hill. They scream at him. Essentially, they're like, you have to fire this guy. Or like, you know, you got, you got to muzzle this guy, right? And I remember being like, yeah, but I was just doing what were like, I don't like. And there were a lot of people in the organization who were mad at me, to be fair. John Podesta was very good to me about it, although I think he was caught off guard. And I and I remember being like, I thought, [00:29:30] we're doing like the right thing, even if it pisses off some Democrats, right? And I it was sort of a lesson in like, you're supposed to be against corruption as long as being against corruption, um, helps the party that you're affiliated with or adjacent to. And I remember being like, if I really want to focus on corruption and rooting out corruption, the [00:30:00] sort of tribal partizanship any situation where I am in a tribally partizan Operation, you're going to end up running up against. You can you can combat corruption, but only up until a point. Right? Right. And it was that was a very. And that's when I was like, I don't think I have a future working in Washington, DC. I just, I don't think I want to be here. And that's when I went to go, you know, go to Montana and, and ultimately [00:30:30] come down.

Caleb Newquist: You went to the literal wilderness.

David Sirota: I went to the literal wilderness. That's right. The actual wilderness.

Caleb Newquist: So I want to ask you something, um, kind of pretty high level and broad. I, I gave a guest lecture, uh, to a forensic accounting class a couple of weeks ago. And, you know, we talked a lot about, you know, they, they studied some of our podcasts episodes and like talked about various issues within fraud and corruption. And I posed this question to them and no [00:31:00] one really gave me an answer because they're kind of dumbfounded. But like, I think you might be one of the few people I know that can actually answer it. But how do you know David Sirota? Or how does a person know? How do they know corruption when they see it?

David Sirota: That's a great question. When I use the term corruption, what I generally mean is. It's, it's it's something that [00:31:30] interferes with how a system is supposed to work. And specific how a democratic institution is supposed to work. Uh, negatively interferes. Like if we, if we presume that a democratic institution small-d not Democratic party, a democratic institution is supposed to generally reflect the will of what the majority wants. [00:32:00] Uh, and, and, and the public will, if you will, then corruption is what short circuits that and corruption specifically is usually money. I mean, you can call it political power, but the fuel of political power is money. So the public generally wants lower priced prescription drugs. The public generally, according to polls, [00:32:30] overwhelmingly thinks it's not fair that the same medicine costs 50% or 75% less in Canada. The public want, like the public will, is make it easier for Americans to access world market prescription drug prices. I'm using that example from from the Bernie Sanders fight that we had. The corruption of the process is that money nonetheless made sure that the public will was not expressed in the law. That is to me. You [00:33:00] know it when you see it that now that is legal corruption, right? Right. Like there can be illegal corruption and legal corruption. And I think when we look at the United States on these, like sometimes there are these like world rankings of like most corrupt, least corrupt.

David Sirota: Yeah. And the United States ranks somewhat high, not certainly at the top, but like has ranked somewhat high in terms of the entire world, like compared to autocracies, like actual dictatorships. [00:33:30] Et cetera, et cetera. Right. Because, and I think, I think it's a, it's a, it's an inaccurate reflection in this way because we are a deeply and have been a deeply corrupt political system, but we have legalized it. Right. That the way we, we sort of analyze NGOs, analyze corruption is like money under the table. That is, according to the law, not allowed. Right. Like that. Okay. But like [00:34:00] you can then make your government seem clean if you just say it's allowed, right? Like, like think about what we define as corruption in the, you know, like actual prosecutable corruption, although it's getting narrower and narrower. Yeah. Right. And we can get into that. But like most people would say, if I give a envelope of literally cash, you know, $5,000 to my congressperson and [00:34:30] ask and tell them in exchange for this, you're going to put a line in the bill. Most people would say, okay, that is literally you can be prosecuted and go to jail.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah.

David Sirota: If I give if I had and gave $50 million to a dark money group that then spent $50 million electing 25 congresspeople to write every bill that I want them to write and pass [00:35:00] it. That's perfectly legal, right? Right now they're you know, the one that's illegal is a tiny is a much smaller amount of corruption than the one that's legal. So we have legalized the corruption in a way that that most other certainly most other Western democracies have not legalized corruption. I'm not saying it's perfect everywhere else. I'm just saying like, like we have created this patina of, [00:35:30] uh, that's just politics. That's just the way it works. It's all legal. So there's nothing dirty. This like idea that our democracy is, is not as corrupt as it actually is. This is a deeply, deeply corrupt system. We've just we've just put a nice fresh coat of paint on it. Now, I think more and more people can see through the coat of paint right at this point.

Caleb Newquist: Do you remember did you remember that movie Syriana?

David Sirota: Yeah. Of course.

Caleb Newquist: Okay. So do you remember Tim Blake Nelson? He plays. [00:36:00] He's like, he works for that oil company. Yeah. And, um, Jeffrey Wright's character near the end, he tells him that he's going to be prosecuted on corruption charges and that he freaks out and he gives that speech totally. And that and that that the line that, um, what is I I'm going to butcher it, but he says, um, uh, corruption is, uh, regulation interfering into the free market. And he says, that's Milton Friedman. He won a goddamn Nobel [00:36:30] Prize. And he said, corruption. We, you know, they, they pass that. So we know exactly what we can get away with. Yeah. And he basically says the quiet part out loud. And I mean that, that that's a 20 year old movie.

David Sirota: Yes.

Caleb Newquist: You know, and it's just like, but it, it. And because in preparation to talk to you, I went back to it and I was just, I kind of went down a rabbit hole of it, but it so encapsulates what you're talking about so well. And it is. You're right. [00:37:00] We have we have it's it's it's kind of sad to put it so simply, but we've accepted it.

David Sirota: We have accepted. Yeah. We've we've systematized it. And in systematizing it, we've normalized it and we've accepted it. Although I think I think I think things may be changing, but I but I would say I would put it this way. I think, you know, fast forward some years to the to the Obama years. Let's think about that. I mean, I don't think like people [00:37:30] do not perceive then and now in retrospect, a lot of corruption from the Obama administration. Right? In comparison to Trump. Um, now, I, I certainly think Trump is, is way more transactionally corrupt, way more explicitly corrupt. But I think the fact that we didn't understand, as one of many examples, it was not [00:38:00] really part of the narrative or the or the, the way we understood politics or the way most people understood politics, that Obama comes in campaigning on hope and change ends up delivering massive government bailouts, right? Anywhere between depending on how you count it, 7 trillion to $16 trillion worth of government bailouts. Uh, and no, it was not all or even mostly paid back. Like, I [00:38:30] don't even want to go down that rabbit hole, but like only a very fraction of it was quote unquote, paid back, all while millions of Americans were thrown out of their homes. Right. And that was sold to us as the only thing that could have been done that there was no there was no alternative. The the old Margaret Thatcher idea. There is no alternative. Right? Uh, Hank.

Caleb Newquist: Paulson was what did Hank Paulson say he was giving that press conference, he's like, or maybe it was somebody else. But like people saying how people are going to be fighting over bread in the street or whatever. [00:39:00]

David Sirota: Exactly. Like there's no the only thing we only thing we can do. Yeah. Bush and then Obama did this and it was not ever really in the public consciousness that after campaigning for hope and change, Obama doing this, that it might have had anything to do with the fact that Barack Obama raised more money from Wall Street than any candidate in the history of the United States. Now, I'm not saying that like it's a 1 to 1 transaction. What [00:39:30] I'm saying is, at minimum, the idea that that was the only thing that could be done is an idea that's easier to take precedence inside a white House. When the person who won the white House was the person who raised the most money in the history of the United States from Wall Street, when the. When that person is talking disproportionately to Wall Street donors, that there's kind of an ideological, uh, rhetorical [00:40:00] capture, right? There's a there's the distinction between corruption and capture is capture is actually a, a larger version of corruption in the sense of if you capture the entire debate, the entire idea of what is possible and not possible, then you're not even you don't even have to buy individual votes. You've captured the whole system. And my point in telling that little story is, is that we haven't [00:40:30] well understood that that is the systemic, pervasive, almost invisible corruption that is that is among the most pernicious. And I think in a sense, to fast forward to to Trump, I think that Trump, if there's one tiny little silver lining in all of the awfulness it is that he's made it explicit. Like there's no denying it anymore, right? Right. There's no I don't care if you're conservative [00:41:00] liberal, like Donald Trump is an explicitly transactional politician. Yeah. And, and I'm not crediting him for this, but like he's a pathological liar sentenced to sentence, but he's actually in one way almost more honest than anyone has ever been about the transactional, corrupt nature of politics. Right? He is explicitly transactional.

Caleb Newquist: Dave Chappelle did that whole monologue about it, right? Where he goes. He's in that debate with Hillary Clinton and he he says, what [00:41:30] does he say? He's like, he's like, I know that the the tax system is rigged because I use it. Exactly. And Chappelle's like, God damn, he just said it out loud.

David Sirota: Exactly. And so I actually think like the, the one hopeful feeling I have right, right now is that as opposed to not being able to understand at a mass level, the corrupt capture of campaigning on hope and [00:42:00] change and then bailing out your Wall Street donors. Okay. Where lots of people didn't, that wasn't really a central understanding of what was going on. Now, I think corruption is part of our the country's central understanding of politics. And so, so when we're talking about rooting out corruption, you don't have to anymore explain that there is a problem, right? Like everybody understands that there is this problem. And, [00:42:30] and that's why I think that's what we wanted to show in both the audio podcast master plan and the book version of the, of the podcast, which is that if you're traumatized and upset about Donald Trump's corruption, Let me introduce you to the last 50 years of big money buying literally everything in the public sector, in government policy that is not nailed down to the floor, right? Like this. Donald Trump is [00:43:00] a symptom of a A of a larger problem that was manufactured, uh, in deliberately, uh, and, and methodically, uh, to deregulate the campaign finance system and narrow down the legal definition of corruption so that it's almost unprosecutable. And I think that like, you know, we say in the show and in the book, this is a hidden [00:43:30] plan. And I know some people hear that and they're like, oh, you're telling me what? Oh, I know everything. Like I, of course, everything. There's nothing hidden about this at all. And my, my point is, yes, there is a lot hidden.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah.

David Sirota: Right. Like you. You're right. The, the, the actual, um, symptoms of the, of the, of the, of the problem are no longer hidden. You can see the corruption every day in the headlines, but the systems that were put in place to allow for this, that's [00:44:00] what was hidden all along the way, right? Like, like how public policy and the laws were sculpted to lead to this predictable end point is the part that was hidden, methodical, not easy. Um, and, and, and, um, and almost in a certain sense, impressive in the fact that, right. A handful of people really actually pulled this [00:44:30] off starting after Watergate, um, when Watergate was the moment where there was real reform. Watergate was the first real dark money scandal in the modern era. And there were real, actual money in politics, anti-corruption reforms. And so the people who didn't like those when they were looking out at the world in the early 1970s, they had ideas that that, that, that at that moment seemed insane, like, oh, we're going to [00:45:00] really deregulate the campaign finance system. We're going to really like uncork something even worse than water. Like, like, like they were the real, I mean, some might call them dreamers, right? Like evil dreamers, right, right. Like, and, and it's amazing what they were able to pull off because, because everything that's now normal when it comes to this was like a crazy idea back then, right? I mean, I, I think one of the interesting stories, uh, of, of that era was, you know, this guy, Lewis Powell, uh, [00:45:30] writes this memo.

David Sirota: Lewis Powell in 1971 as a top, uh, head of the American Bar Association. He's on the board of Philip Morris, very establishment, very well respected guy. He writes this angry memo about Ralph Nader winning all these all these fights in Congress. And he he a now famous memo called the Powell memo. He writes this memo that says corporations need to effectively start buying American politics because democracy effect. I'm paraphrasing here, he's not right. But like the message is democracy. The. The government [00:46:00] is too responsive to people. Corporations, big money oligarchs need to start buying the government. And very soon after that, Lewis Powell is on the. Gets himself nominated onto the Supreme Court. And very soon after that comes a case to tear down the basic post-Watergate campaign finance reforms, the. The reforms that are like. You have to tell how much money you're getting, um, their campaign spending limits, etc., etc.. And Lewis Powell ends up engineering [00:46:30] a ruling that takes a radical fringe idea. Money is not corruption. Money is constitutionally protected. Free speech, an idea architected by, among others, John Bolton. Yes, the same John Bolton.

Caleb Newquist: Yep.

David Sirota: Okay. And this fringe idea gets enshrined in the Buckley v Vallejo case, which becomes the building block for another case soon after that, in which Lewis Powell, now [00:47:00] on the Supreme Court, says that now uses another ruling to say corporations are entitled to those free speech rights to spend as much as they want on buying elections. Right. And those become the building blocks for Citizens United, Citizens United. Right, which becomes the building block for a system where elections are not elections anymore as much as they are auctions. Meanwhile, they're narrowing down what is considered, uh, prosecutable [00:47:30] bribery to the point where very there's a whole other string of cases to the point where very recently in a in a real ruling, although people don't believe this is real, they literally cannot believe this is a real ruling where a very recent ruling where an Indiana mayor delivers a municipal contract to a particular company soon after the municipal company gives him $10,000, and the Supreme Court he gets he gets prosecuted for bribery, gets convicted. The Supreme Court overturns the conviction, saying [00:48:00] that that's not a bribe. That's a gratuity. So it's legal. Okay? That's where we are. I mean, that is literally where we are right now, right?

Caleb Newquist: Right.

David Sirota: So all of that is to say, just to reiterate, because we've gone down all around all that to say all of that, all of what we are living through is the product of a well executed blueprinted master plan. And the thing I take, the two hopeful points I have from it is, one, [00:48:30] most people now see the corruption. They can't deny it. You don't have to convince people. Uh, American politics is rotted through with corruption. And the other hopeful piece of that, I think reality is that if this was all created by a master plan, if it's not just a force of nature, if it's not just inevitable, as we show, if it was created by humans, you can have a different set of laws and policies put in place [00:49:00] to unwind that master plan. That's that's quite literally what happened after Watergate. And it can happen today.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. Right. Let me ask you along the way. I mean, I'm just curious, like, did you. Where did you or what are some just some examples of stories that you've done over the years where you, you thought, wow, this is something that nobody understands [00:49:30] and but it's but it's corrupt. It's wrong. It's it's working against people. Like I think the, the pharmaceutical example you gave when you were working in Congress. That's, that was, that's a pretty good example. As a journalist, are there things that you exposed that you really think, man, that that was something that we kind of blew open or that's something that we exposed that I don't necessarily I'm maybe I'm asking you, what do you feel proud of? But like, what, what are, what are some of the stories [00:50:00] that, you.

David Sirota: Know, I mean, I haven't.

Caleb Newquist: That's made a difference.

David Sirota: I have an answer to, well, I'm not sure it made a difference, but I know that it was something that very few people still don't understand, which is the connection between Wall Street corruption and one of the largest pools of money in the entire world, which very few people, except the most powerful people in the world really pay attention to, which [00:50:30] is all the money in government workers pension plans? Yep. So I'm sure people hear that and they're like starting already. When they hear that, they're already starting to fall asleep. Like, oh, public pensions. That like makes me tired. I want to go to sleep. There's, I think there's four, maybe there's four or even $5 trillion now.

Caleb Newquist: Right.

David Sirota: In public. These are the biggest pots of money. Some of the biggest pots of money in the entire world. They are run at the in [00:51:00] a lot of places. A lot of ways, the state and local level. So they're not really well focused on in the media. Um, and in many ways, they have become among the largest and most efficient upward transfer of wealth from workers to Wall Street that exists in the entire economy, just thrumming every hour of every day in, in the investment side. Okay. Now, this is a these are this is pot of money that [00:51:30] workers, You know, when they, when a when a firefighter or a first responder gets paid.

Caleb Newquist: Public school teacher.

David Sirota: Public school teacher, they get paid. Some of their money goes to their retirement. The retirement money is in one giant pool. It gets invested to earn a return to be able to pay benefits later, right? Well, a larger and larger share of that money is being invested in stuff like private equity, hedge funds, venture capital, which you might be saying, oh yeah, that's that's fine. Well, [00:52:00] is it fine? And this is what the reporting I started doing about seven, ten years ago. Um, looking at how much fees are charged because when you invest in a Vanguard fund, you're paying almost nothing.

Caleb Newquist: Almost nothing. Yep.

David Sirota: When you invest in a private equity firm or a hedge fund or a fund of funds or a venture, the fees are absolutely astronomical.

Caleb Newquist: 220 or whatever.

David Sirota: Two and 22.

Caleb Newquist: And 50, whatever.

David Sirota: Astronomical.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah.

David Sirota: And oftentimes the returns aren't as good as. Had you just [00:52:30] put all the pension money in a Vanguard.

Caleb Newquist: Your Vanguard ETF. That's right.

David Sirota: Like the idea that private equity hedge funds, the masters of the universe on Wall Street are so genius that they're beating the market over the long haul. And remember, pensions are the longest hall hall investment or pools of money. There really are. Right. They're not day trading here. Right? Right. Like the idea that the master, even Warren Buffett, would say nobody can beat the market, right? No. No one over the long haul can beat the market. So why then are public [00:53:00] officials putting pension money into high risk, high fee, super opaque, so-called alternative investments? Well, maybe it has something to do with the fact that the people who run the alternative investment firms give a lot of money to politicians. Maybe it has to do with the fact that that because the public officials Controlling the money don't really have necessarily have [00:53:30] skin in the game. It's not really their money. They don't mind, uh, helping out a donor or helping out a set of political power brokers by giving them $100 million.

Caleb Newquist: And they can get out there on the stump and just say, it's like we, these people are experts. They're super smart. They're good at what they do. We're, we're doing this for our pension holders because we want them to be able to retire to, you know, whatever they sell it as. It's the smart thing, prudent investment.

David Sirota: They're sophisticated, [00:54:00] right? They're so sophisticated that we're now tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars of fees are being skimmed off of workers retirements. So all that to say is I blew open a series of a lot. I did a lot of stories on this, uh, in new Jersey. Uh, we blew open the fact that, um, the head of the pension fund, the guy, the, the head of the pension investment committee was also investing in some cases alongside the pension. And what kind of deals was his private [00:54:30] firm getting as he was giving the the the the the same investment company, $100 million of pension money. Et cetera, et cetera. We exposed that, um, a number of states, uh, after we did some of our reporting, pulled back on their hedge funds and pension investments, some of them did at least transparency, right? A lot of this stuff is like if you go to your state right now, if you're listening to this, you go to your state and you say, I want to see how much money of our public because by the way, the taxpayers put pitching [00:55:00] into this, right? Yes. As the employer of public, like I want to see how much of our taxpayer money that we're paying to, to teachers is going to, you know, private equity billionaires, right? Your state and city might not tell you the answer. They still they keep it all behind closed doors. And, and I wish it got more attention. Um. But the thing is, is what I what I learned through that is. Yes, in specific cases, we made some [00:55:30] real. We, we secured some real changes. The thing is, though, you're you're going up against this machine.

Caleb Newquist: Oh, yes.

David Sirota: That, like.

Caleb Newquist: The work never ends.

David Sirota: The right that relies on. Nobody's really paying attention except for the most powerful people in the world.

Caleb Newquist: That's right.

David Sirota: Right. Like the mass public, even the sort of rank and file politician is just not paying attention because there's a culture war over here. [00:56:00] There's this or that going on. And the headlines.

Caleb Newquist: The NFL, the NFL, 18 weeks a year. Exactly.

David Sirota: Exactly. Meanwhile, in a typical state, there's $100 billion.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. Right.

David Sirota: Sitting right over 100. Right. Sitting right over here that, you know, like four people are paying attention to. And then like 20 of the most powerful billionaires in Wall Street, right on Wall Street are paying attention.

Caleb Newquist: We did a recent episode where there was a comparison of like, oh [00:56:30] gosh, I can't remember it. But it said the gross domestic product of Vermont is $18 billion, and I'm like $18 billion, and there's only 650,000 people. That's amazing.

David Sirota: It's great. Right? I mean, there's listen, there's a reason why the old cliche is the mafia ripping off the pension fund. I mean, like literally like it's a cliche at this point, right? Like it's like, oh, we'll just, we'll just go loot the pension fund if we want to do something right. It's because like, oh, right, it's a giant pot of money that seems boring [00:57:00] that no one's paying attention to. And we can just like rip it off. Yeah. Like that is happening like every day in every state and city in America. And it's like, not a story. And so for a time, we, when I was working for International Business Times, we had a lot of success trying to raise the profile of that. And by the way, I should say it kind of blew my mind. Like I remember being like, I can't even believe I've never even heard of it. I can't believe this is happening. Right? And to, to, you know, the contracts between the cities and states are kept secret, [00:57:30] right? So you can't even access the actual. And like, we got a couple of leaks. And one of the things that we found, I mean, this is so crazy to think about that. So the pension fund invests in, let's call it, you know, private equity fund number one, right? Pension fund invests $100 million. Then like oligarch billionaire invests in the same fund. Right? Okay. Now, is there any guarantee that oligarch billionaire is paying the same fees [00:58:00] as the pension fund? Or is oligarch billionaire friends with the head of the pension, head of the investment fund?

Caleb Newquist: Yep.

David Sirota: Is the oligarch billionaire like, I'm not going to take that that crappy fee rate you're paying me. I'm only going to put my money because it's my money. I got skin in the game now. So What I learned, and you can, if you can read it in some of these documents, if you get Ahold of them, is the investment funds reserve the right to give different fees to treat different investors differently in [00:58:30] the same fund? So the idea being that the, the, the so-called as it's as it's pejoratively referred to on Wall Street, dumb pension money where the pension official, you know, in a medium sized city, right? Uh, who's, who's not a financial expert. They're appointed to the board by, you know, the governor or the mayor or whatever. Right? They're throwing $10 million and it's not their money, so they'll take whatever, you know, the Wall Street guys come in and do a, you know, magic show. Look at how sophisticated [00:59:00] we are. Fine. We'll take your two and 20. Meanwhile, the billionaire who's investing alongside you, he's like, I'm not taking your two and 20. If you want my my $10 million, my $100 million, you got to give me a good deal. And what that ends up meaning is the pensioners are subsidizing the free ride of the billionaire who's investing alongside? So like, my mind was kind of blown by this.

David Sirota: And the thing was one, one last thing I'll say is that when we really started digging out this stuff, for instance, in new Jersey, I mean, you can tell when you're on to a real story when like really powerful people start [00:59:30] to react, right? Like, like they start to because this is like the real heart of power, right? This is like where the real money is, right? This is not a couple of million. This is like billions and billions of dollars. And Chris Christie, at one point when he was governor of new Jersey, this is when he was at the beginning, when he was popular. Yeah. I mean, he got up at a press conference and I mean, he's just like, he just like, ripped on me by name, like, and then he started doing it like it was like 3 or 4 times. Yeah. Because he was being asked about our reporting [01:00:00] about the new Jersey pension fund and, and the sort of political connections and why was so much money going to hedge funds? Et cetera, et cetera.

David Sirota: And, and, and it was like. I remember being like, this is this is interesting that Chris Christie then national figures responded. But I was like, what? What's going on here? Like why? Like and and, and I remember being like my editor being like, man, you're not talking about, you know, $5 million, right? You're talking about [01:00:30] $100 billion pension fund. Like, there are a lot of really powerful people that want things from that and you're getting in their way. Yeah. And like, they're probably yelling at Chris Christie about it. Yeah. You know, like, like if you're messing up his formula, right? So I was like, so what I learned is, is that there may be the sort of spectacle of like the culture war and this or that political controversy or whatever happening over here. But oftentimes where [01:01:00] politics is, is really happening. Like the most important things are like where nobody's looking at all. Nobody except the most powerful people in the world. And they want to keep it that way. They want to make sure that no one's looking. And so when you get into. I love getting into stories where the powerful people presume. And, and definitely want nobody to be looking. And you're looking.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah.

David Sirota: Those are my favorite stories.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. Okay, cool. We're [01:01:30] getting close on time, so I wanted. I've got a list of just, um, and you've, you basically have answered all my questions that I had kind of sketched out. Um, so this has been great, but now I've got a few, um, this is just a grab bag of stuff and, um, maybe they'll go in, maybe they won't, but they're fun. Um, so let's do it. All right. First is, uh, the Epstein files. Is this the least surprising? Like, uh, the grossness aside, like the sketchiness aside, but the, the kind of [01:02:00] self-protection of elites in the Epstein files has become just, like you say, just undeniable at this point. Is this the least surprising thing to you that you've ever seen?

David Sirota: It makes explicit what we've all implicitly known, and it makes it explicit in incredibly granular and colorful ways. Uh, and I think it is therefore, um, very important that all of [01:02:30] the documents come out. Um, I think, yes, there's a danger that like conspiracy theories that are wrong can be woven from this. But I also think it confirms a kind of systemic, not conspiracy theory, a systemic conspiracy.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. Just the systemic reality.

David Sirota: Of right of of elite impunity. Yeah. Right. I mean, one of the things that kind of blows my mind about this is [01:03:00] not just what was done. And, you know, you're still dealing with Jeffrey Epstein even though he had, you know, I mean, it's one thing to have dealt with Jeffrey Epstein before he gets.

Caleb Newquist: Dead for seven years, like.

David Sirota: Yeah, but like when you look at the timeline, it's like one thing to like have dealt with Jeffrey Epstein before. He's convicted the first time, right? You're like, oh man, oh, fine. Maybe you didn't know. Okay. The number of people who were like, most of this stuff coming out is after he was already convicted the first time.

Caleb Newquist: That's right. Yes.

David Sirota: So one of my takeaways [01:03:30] is, wow, elite impunity is such a powerful culture. Yeah. That there was a presumption that you could put all this communication in email even after. Right? Like, like nobody was like, maybe I should just pick up the phone and not like a paper trail.

Caleb Newquist: Like Larry, Larry.

David Sirota: Summers.

Caleb Newquist: Larry Summers is getting women advice from this guy.

David Sirota: Right? Like, how is there not like a, okay, listen, this guy's convicted. Maybe I should if I want the women advice, [01:04:00] maybe I should at least, like, pick up the phone and not have like the, the, the sense of presumptuousness of I'll never get caught. Right? There's nothing wrong with this. I'm just going to put it in email. I mean, that tells you how deep it goes, right? The fact that they weren't trying to hide anything actually tells us it's not just reckless. It's like they got so used to this. The Epstein class got so used to never being held accountable for literally anything. Right. And I kind of [01:04:30] put it in this context. If you've gotten away with lying America into the war, if you've gotten away with you keep getting promoted in government and in prestige jobs for deregulating the economy and creating a financial crisis, I guess it's not that far a jump to think that like if I communicate with a convicted sex predator, that'll be fine too. There's no problem there. Like that's that's, it's the product of an accountability free society.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. Okay. Um, what [01:05:00] is your Bernie's Bernie Sanders story like where somebody goes, oh, yeah, that's exactly what would have happened in that situation with Bernie Sanders.

David Sirota: Uh, that's a really good question. Um, boy, am I Bernie, Bernie Sanders. Um, there's so many to choose from. So many. Uh, I, I often think of like, uh, on the campaign [01:05:30] trail. Um, I, uh, this is the 2020 campaign. I was going to meet, I met him in Chicago airport, uh, O'Hare and we were going out to, uh, Iowa City. Um, and, um, we meet and I fly from Denver. He flies from, from, uh, from DC, I think, uh, and we were supposed to get a connecting flight to Iowa City, I think Iowa City. Yeah. Or Des Moines. Uh, and, um, the, the Des Moines leg gets canceled. [01:06:00]

Caleb Newquist: Okay.

David Sirota: And I remember it was like, well, we got to get to this meeting. Like, what are we going to do? And like, right. And you're in the O'Hare and he's sort of being mobbed, you know, like. Right, right. Like this is the middle of the campaign. And he was like, well, the only thing we got, we, we only have one choice. We're going to rent a car. So I'm like, okay, great. And you know, you have these imagine you imagine like, are you going to rent a car? There'll be like a. So [01:06:30] we literally, I'm walking through O'Hare airport, down to the basement, to the rental car bus with Bernie Sanders. Like, okay, like literally he's like carrying his own bag. Yeah. It's like, and like, I just remember like, and I guess this is less a story about him than it is about like, I just remember like everyone's like on the bus, like we're literally on the bus. Yeah. And he's like standing, holding the thing, right? You [01:07:00] know, like, right. Because there's never and people are like, they're like looking up like, is that burnt? Like that can't be burning. Like. Like it was like, I remember looking at like, and, and him. I guess this is a compliment to him. I don't he didn't see anything like out of the ordinary. Right? Like it's very it's a very endearing, very practical. Yeah.

Caleb Newquist: Like this is what we have.

David Sirota: He does not carry himself as a celebrity. Right. And, and so I [01:07:30] could tell you a negative Bernie stories where he's like gruff and like sort of prickly and whatever. But like, I always appreciate it. And I was always actually really lucky to work for people, whether it was Brian Schweitzer or Bernie Sanders. Dave. Obey people who carry themselves. They are politicians, but they do not carry themselves as celebrities. And I think there's not that many of those people left in national politics. And so that's why Bernie and I have actually have this amazing.

Caleb Newquist: That's a good one.

David Sirota: I have this amazing picture of him getting [01:08:00] on the rental bus, like, like, it. Like where? You can't see his face. You just see his back. And I'm holding the bag. Yeah. And it's just this incredible. I don't know, just, like, just says it.

Caleb Newquist: All right? Yeah.

David Sirota: Airport. It's like gray cold, like it's trains, planes and automobiles. And like, it's the middle of the presidential campaign. And Bernie Sanders is getting on a rental car bus.

Caleb Newquist: That's right. All right. Um, during the, uh, during your Oscar whirlwind tour, I have to ask who was unexpectedly the nicest person you met where you're [01:08:30] just like, oh my God, like who, who, who, who in your mind was really intimidating and then you met him and you're just like, Holy shit, they were really nice. I didn't, I didn't see that coming. Did someone come to mind?

David Sirota: That's a great question. Um. The person I most enjoyed meeting, I was kind of I'll put it this way. I was kind of, um, it was interesting to see how my own mind like who I reacted to, who I was like, it's the coolest thing ever. And I'm like, whatever. Like I got to meet [01:09:00] Will Smith, by the way, right before the you know. And Will Smith was like super nice. It was right before the slap. That was cool. He was like.

Caleb Newquist: He's a Philly guy too. Yeah.

David Sirota: And he's like very charismatic and he was super nice. Um, I got to meet, um, uh, my really one of my favorite actors, maybe my favorite actor, J.K. Simmons.

Caleb Newquist: Oh yeah.

David Sirota: From whiplash. And I was like, I was kind of intimidated, although he's so nice. I mean, he was like, so, but like whiplash, he's like, oh my God, what a that's like one of the [01:09:30] best movies ever. Yeah. Uh, and so I got really excited to meet him, uh, at the luncheon where they announced the nominees. Uh, I was announced by the emcee was Alfred Molina. Oh, which was like incredible. Yeah. And I got to meet him after and I was like, dude, I, because there's all these like really big star, like, right. Like Alfred Molina's like, yeah. I mean, he's.

Caleb Newquist: You know, what I think of when I think of that guy, I think of Boogie Nights when he is hitting that crack in Boogie Nights. I'm like, amazing.

David Sirota: I [01:10:00] was like, literally like, like he's in this crowd of all these stars and like, no one's really paying attention to him. And I was like, dude, you're the coolest person ever. Like, yeah, like you're like, I in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yeah. Right. Like, you know, and he was so nice. And he actually had us take two pictures, um, because he wanted to show like the cinematic effect. He's like, you want to see how, how Hollywood works? He's like, take a picture at like eye level, a selfie of us at eye level and smile. Now we're going to take a picture where we put the camera underneath us, like, like sort of below us looking [01:10:30] down at it and look mad. And it was, it was super cool. So he was cool. And then at the very end of the end of the whole, um, Oscar night, I'm at the Netflix party. And who walks in other than none other than none other than Harvey Keitel and I got to like, hang out with. I got to.

Caleb Newquist: Like, wow.

David Sirota: Really hang out with Harvey.

Caleb Newquist: That's cool for like.

David Sirota: 20, 30 minutes. And I was like, this is the baddest ass thing ever. [01:11:00] Like.

Caleb Newquist: This is.

David Sirota: The. That's like legend, right? I mean, like total legend and such a nice guy. I mean, such a nice guy. So those are my like, those are some of my.

Caleb Newquist: Those are good. Those are good. Yeah. All right. Uh, two more. What what are your critics say about you that you find to be pretty much accurate?

David Sirota: Um. That's a great question. What do the critics say [01:11:30] about me?

Caleb Newquist: I only ask great questions.

David Sirota: Obviously that's accurate. Um, well, first of all, my, my voice of my inner voice of self-loathing can't say anything worse than, than any of my critics say. I know I sort of, I sort of have that. I think, I think what my critics say that's accurate is that, um, look, sometimes, um, certainly online, sometimes in my work, I can be, um, I can be a little bit I don't want to call it hotheaded, but I can be a little bit like sort of too harsh. Yeah. [01:12:00] Right. Like where the, where the harshness, um, undermines what I'm trying to do.

Caleb Newquist: Right?

David Sirota: Right. So like sometimes you don't have to. I think I grew up in an internet culture, you know, of sort of like, you know, like there's a, there's a fine line between telling it like it is and sort of saying it in a way where persuadable people can't hear it.

Caleb Newquist: Right.

David Sirota: And so I think that is a very fair criticism of me and something that I've, that I've tried to work on. [01:12:30]

Caleb Newquist: All right. What so what's and this is, this is the most practical question.

David Sirota: And I should just can I, if I can add, add to one thing on that.

Caleb Newquist: Of course.

David Sirota: I think this is why I think I find it funny, and I now understand why that people are who meet me in real life. I mean, I'm not like patting myself on the back. They always seem like surprised that I'm like a fairly nice person. Oh my God, I'm like a fairly chill person. Yeah, right. I'm I wouldn't call myself chill, but like, [01:13:00] I'm not like yelling at them. Right? And I think it's because like the internet sort of flattens people's perception.

Caleb Newquist: Of.

David Sirota: You, right? It's not that I'm trying to create a persona, but it's more like they're like, wow, you, you actually are a thoughtful, you know, nice, you know, nuanced person and you're, you know, and it's like, I'm like, why are you surprised about that? Yeah. And it's sort of like, well, because like on the, on the internet, it kind of can seem like you're a dick. Yeah. You know, and I'm like, I, that's a good, that's, that's good feedback. I should try to fix that.

Caleb Newquist: Right? Right. Okay. [01:13:30] Last one. Um, what's, what's. I'll ask for three things. But if you only got one thing, that's fine too. What is something that every day ordinary people can do to fight corruption? And if you've got three things, we'll take three things. But what's just like what can the average person do to fight corruption?

David Sirota: It's a great question. I think the things that come to mind are, if you're thinking about going into politics, run for a local office, uh, [01:14:00] at a level where corruption can be. I mean, corruption is everywhere, but get your start in politics at a level where corruption can be where you can. The contest is small enough that you can meet enough voters face to face so that you don't need to just buy the election right there. Are those those levels of politics still exist, and I think people should get their start. Don't. Just like I want to run for office, I'm going to run for U.S. Senate. No. Start at the local level where you can win [01:14:30] an office. Um, in a way where it's a small enough group of voters that the election isn't singularly determined by money. Yeah. I think the other thing you can do is find a political causes that have a chance to reduce corruption. So what am I talking about? Um, there are ballot initiatives to say that corporations can't spend money in elections that's happening in Montana. Uh, there are and these can be done locally, [01:15:00] right? Like at your city level, at your state level, you can run those ballot measures, um, dark money disclosure laws. You can do that at the ballot too. If they're happening in your state or city, uh, participate in the phone banking and the organizing for them, push your state legislator or your city council to do those kinds of things.

David Sirota: And then ultimately the cause that, that I think is the most important cause, uh, is publicly financed elections, whatever you can do at the state or local level, uh, the municipal level [01:15:30] to, to get into the realm of political possibility that campaigns should be publicly financed so that people can run for office, uh, if they get enough grassroots signatures, they can get access to a certain amount of public funding to run a well-resourced campaign, as opposed to relying on private donors who demand legislative favors. Right? The legalized bribery public financing of elections is the, to my mind, the best way. [01:16:00] It's not a perfect way, but the best way to ultimately reduce the power of money of of private money in politics. When you look at what happened in New York City. Zoran Mamdani, I don't care what you feel about him, about his particular policies. He ran against the billionaires in the in the capital, in the in the world capital of of finance. How was he able to even win? Well, he had a great message. He had a good website. He was charismatic. None of that matters if he didn't have at least a competitive amount of money to run for that, that office, with all the billionaires spending so much money against [01:16:30] him in a very expensive race because it's such a big electorate.

David Sirota: The way he was able to do that was New York City has a system of public financing on the books for the last 30, 35 years, maybe 40 years. Uh, he was able to access a certain amount. If he got enough grassroots support, he would. The public financed his campaign and to be clear, its public financing is for. It's not ideological. It's whoever qualifies right. You can be Republican, Democrat, libertarian, socialist doesn't matter. So get involved [01:17:00] in making a public financing system happen in your local community, your city, your state. There's a chance these systems exist in some cases across the country. Get involved in expanding them to me. I mean, it's, you know, when we talk about the master plan and, and back in the 1970s, the people who who legalized corruption, they're looking out at a world where the things they're talking about are considered unrealistic. They worked at it for 50 [01:17:30] years. Those dreamers made their dream happen. And now we're all living in their in a nightmare. Yeah. Like you have to dream big and understand that it's not going to be fixed overnight. So something like public financing seems right now to be like, you know, crazy and unrealistic. But like, the work starts now.

Caleb Newquist: Okay. There you go. David Sirota, his latest book that he co-wrote with Jared G-Accon, [01:18:00] is again master plan The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America. And that book, they it was adapted from a podcast by the same name. So however you want to take it in, you got options. Also, check out News.com to see what David and his team are covering day to day. They've got podcasts, they've got a newsletter. They do ebooks, exclusive content for subscribers, for paid subscribers. Check it out. Lots of good stuff. [01:18:30] Um, I don't know in terms of lessons. I don't know what we learned. We learned a lot, uh, learned a lot about David, of course, learned a lot about kind of the, just the kind of deep. Just how deep corruption kind of goes. It just isn't. It's it's kind of infused in the fabric of how things are done now. And I think the stuff that David is doing and it's, it's in, we talk about this on [01:19:00] other episodes, but, um, you know, you, you're, you're out there and you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're being a business person or you're doing whatever it is that you do in your day to day life. And you know, if you're, if you're in this professional circumstance and, and you're taking somebody to a ball game or you're taking somebody to a concert, um, does that constitute corruption? I mean, uh, would, would, would is someone making a choice is going to, is someone [01:19:30] going to make a different choice? If you don't take him to that ball game or are they going just like in politics where it's like, is someone going to write the law differently? If some corporate interest doesn't donate to your campaign.

Caleb Newquist: Like there's so many different circumstances where they're where we have these, uh, kind of gray areas. And again, you know, David talked about it a lot. So much of this is just 100% legal. And [01:20:00] I think I said it in the episode where it's in that movie Syriana where they, they, they wrote the laws so that they know what they can get away with. So they're saying, this is the line you can't cross. So you can walk right up to that line, of course, and you're good. Everything over that line. Yeah. We tried to tell you, we tried to tell you that this was the line. And so, I mean, there's just countless examples I think of, um, uh, we haven't done an episode on this, but there [01:20:30] was the case of a KPMG partner. I covered this in my going concern days, but there was this case of a KPMG partner he provided, uh, Confidential client information to someone who made insider trades.

Caleb Newquist: So basically people traded on the information from confidential client information. So this guy, he's a partner, he had big time clients like Herbalife was one of them. And he would see press releases before they would go out that would [01:21:00] announce how they did in a quarter, you know, their quarterly profits or whatever. And he would give it to a golf buddy or a tennis buddy or whoever it was. It's an old story. It's over a decade old now. But like he that guy, uh, he he, he he got a cut of the action. Like this guy cut him in and they got busted. And, you know, that's that's, that's kind of like a cartoonish that's like cartoonish corruption, right? Guys in parking lots [01:21:30] with bags of money that have big dollar signs on them or just envelopes stuffed with cash. You know, that's, that's what we think about when I, I think we think about corruption. And it's so it's just far more sophisticated than that. And the people who are, uh, quote unquote winning and David gave a bunch of examples. It's like they, they play to win and they write the laws. A lot of times they are the ones writing the laws so that they can win, so that they can tip [01:22:00] the scales in your favor.

Caleb Newquist: In their favor. And how, I mean, how do you unwind something like that? How do you how do you, you know, how do you reform a system that is so deeply enmeshed and, and, and how and the DNA of which is built for that exact purpose? It's a it's a mind job, man. I don't I don't know, David. David sounded optimistic, [01:22:30] which, you know, I think he'd be the first to admit to say it's like that's not really his strong suit, but um, but he does. He he he he he had a he had a tone or a note of optimism that, uh, I was kind of surprised by. So we'll see what happens. Okay, that's it for this episode. And remember, if you see someone on a rental car shuttle bus and they look like Larry David, it's probably Bernie Sanders. Email us comments, complaints, story ideas, [01:23:00] whatever you got, send it to omar@cpe.com. Omar, fraud is created, written, produced and hosted by me. Caleb Newquist. Zach Frank is my co-producer, audio engineer, and music supervisor. Laura Hobbs designed our logo. Rate review and subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. If you listen on earmark, get some CPE for that. Okay. All right. Join us next time for more ava.r swindlers and scams from stories that will make you say, oh, my fraud.