{"id":1552,"date":"2024-08-29T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-29T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/america-project.org\/?p=1552"},"modified":"2024-08-29T12:42:00","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T12:42:00","slug":"theo-von-asked-all-the-right-questions-trump-gave-the-wrong-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/america-project.org\/index.php\/2024\/08\/29\/theo-von-asked-all-the-right-questions-trump-gave-the-wrong-answers\/","title":{"rendered":"Theo Von Asked All the Right Questions. Trump Gave the Wrong Answers."},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week,<\/span> Donald Trump sat down with former-MTV-reality-star-turned-comedian-turned-podcaster Theo Von. The interview was surreal. Von repeatedly called Trump \u201chomie\u201d and explained how much he had previously enjoyed\/hated cocaine\u2014\u201dYou think it\u2019s going to be easy, and then you\u2019re go-kart racing with hookers and stuff, and it gets bad,\u201d Von explained.<\/p>\n

The interview and and its implications are complicated to unwind\u2014Trump himself looked befuddled for large parts of it\u2014and Von is not without his own issues<\/a>. But Von did<\/em> at one point ask Trump a series of quite probing, and accurate, questions about the way lobbying works in Washington. Following a discussion of the opioid epidemic, Von began querying Trump about just why there are so many pharmaceutical lobbyists in the nation\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I wanted to ask you about, like, the big pharma lobbyists\u2014 there\u2019s, like, 1,800 big pharma lobbyists in Washington, D.C. There\u2019s only 535 total representatives or senators, total, so, just the fact that there\u2019s this whole other almost drug government,\u201d Von said. \u201cThey\u2019re, kind of pushing agendas and influencing things, like, how do we stop that, man? It just seems like, it\u2019s obviously killing people, like, people are dying, you know, it\u2019s like, what do we have to do that our own government wont\u2019 help us?\u201d<\/p>\n

Von was expressing what most voters feel. A recent Pew report<\/a> found that 73 percent of Americans think that lobbyists have too much influence and that the majority of lawmakers are focused on their own financial success rather than the concerns of their constituents.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s a good question.<\/p>\n

According to OpenSecrets.org, the non-partisan non-profit that tracks money-in-politics and lobbying, in 2023 there were 1,871 registered lobbyists<\/a> representing the pharmaceutical industry in Washington in some capacity or other. Von was right about that. The industry reported spending $383.6 million on those lobbyists, and that\u2019s likely a fraction of what it really spent trying to influence lawmakers and regulators\u2014it only counts the expenses on specific, legally defined lobbying activities.<\/p>\n

Trump never directly responded to Von\u2019s question\u2014what can be done?\u2014and while he sometimes did a pretty good job of reinforcing Von\u2019s concerns over the role of lobbyists, he was also pretty dishonest about his own record.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, you have to stop listening to lobbyists,\u201d Trump said. \u201cYou know, I was not a big person for lobbyists, and if they have even a little access to a president or a senator or a congressman or woman\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump trailed off as Von interjected, \u201cThey\u2019re snakes!\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, Trump has long had very close relationships with lobbyists. And lobbyists have loved him. The very idea that access to Trump can be sold has long been prevalent within Trump\u2019s inner circle. From the first days of his administration, some of his closest associates were hanging out the shingle as Trump-access-experts. His long-time fixer (later turned enemy) Michael Cohen registered as a lobbyist<\/a> and his original campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, quickly followed suit, opening a lobbying shop<\/a>. (Notably, Lewandowski has recently returned to the fold, as a senior campaign adviser to Trump\u2019s 2024 campaign).<\/p>\n

And just two years into his administration, a review by ProPublica of Trump\u2019s political appointees found that one out of every 14 appointments Trump had made went to a formerly registered lobbyist. In total, by 2019, Trump had recruited 281 lobbyists<\/a> into his administration. (By comparison, a similar review of Barack Obama\u2019s administration found 65 former lobbyists<\/a> working in the administration.) Thirty of those former registered lobbyists<\/a> were appointed by Trump to positions at the Department of Health and Human Services. That\u2019s the agency that includes the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n

Instead of talking about that<\/em>, however, Trump pointed out that many lobbyists actually just rip off their clients. Also, he noted, some lobbyists work for the alcohol industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey get a lot of money, in some cases they just take the money, they don\u2019t do anything,\u201d Trump mused. \u201cBut you have a lot of lobbyists in Washington pushing, and certainly a lot for all the things that we\u2019re talking about , including alcohol.\u201d<\/p>\n

(The alcohol industry, for the record, spent about $29 million on lobbying last year.)<\/p>\n

Trump then repeatedly tried to steer Von in a curious direction\u2014a discussion of how the most effective way to limit the influence of lobbyists on an administration would be a rule banning people who had served in government from going to work as lobbyists, or vice versa.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could say that if you\u2019re an elected official or if you work in government, you can never be a lobbyist,\u201d Trump suggested, before going on to repeatedly talk about how people who work in agencies that hand out large military contracts often go work in the defense industry after they leave the government. Von attempted to tie Trump\u2019s comments back to the opioid crisis, noting that the Sackler family, which ran Purdue Pharma, often hired former regulators. Undeterred, Trump went back to talking about military contracts.<\/p>\n

The reason this was such<\/em> a weird direction for Trump to take the conversation is that he had<\/em> such a ban in place when he took office. It was, more or less, a watered down copy<\/a> of the ban that his predecessor, Obama, had implemented.<\/p>\n

And then, Trump cancelled it. One of his last acts before he left office, in fact, was to toss out the very ban<\/a> that he now wistfully told Von might solve the problem, if only it could be enacted. Thanks to Trump\u2019s own decision, the method he describes as the best way to combat the swamp\u2019s \u201csnakes\u201d was dismantled.<\/p>\n

Trump was not the first president to cancel a ban on lobbyists on his way out the door. Bill Clinton had done precisely that. Obama, on the other hand, had left his ban in place when his term ended. In 2017, when Trump implementing his own version of the ban, he excoriated Clinton for having previously axed it, claiming<\/a>, \u201cHe rigged the system on his way out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apparently unaware of the role that his interview subject played in encouraging the lobbying industry, Von lamented the whole concept of the lobbying revolving door: \u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re playing both sides of the net.\u201d<\/p>\n

As if he was helpless to do anything about it, Trump told Von that he wished he could\u2019ve done something more to curtail the influence of lobbyists.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously a probelm, and it\u2019s a big problem, and we were doing things about it, but then we had to get down to other business, we had to solve a lot of other problems in this country,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

The interview then moved on.<\/p>\n

Probably not coincidentally, Von had another recent conversation on his podcast\u2014with a very different politician\u2014that had touched on related subjects. In a similarly goofy interview with Bernie Sanders released earlier that week, Von homed in on the lobbying issue. Sanders had a lot to say, and to Von\u2019s credit, he seemed to have been listening.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know how many lobbyists there are in Washington, representing the pharmaceutical industry?\u201d Sanders asked Von. \u201cTake a wild and crazy guess!\u2019<\/p>\n

Decked out in a tie-dyed Grateful Dead shirt and backwards hat, Von thoughtfully rubbed his chin.<\/p>\n

\u201cUm, 2,000?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou got it! That\u2019s a pretty good guess, about 1,800!\u201d Bernie crowed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWow!\u201d Von said, looking stunned.<\/p>\n

Bernie\u2019s whole eye-opening lesson on influence in Washington can be seen below.<\/p>\n

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