Something we talk about here at TYT often is the corrupting nature of money in politics. And if you look at the history of recent elections, you'll see election cycle after election cycle, more and more money is poured into campaign coffers [00:00:16] with, of course, strings attached. Take a look at this chart that shows you how much money in politics has impacted our elections in recent years. In 2022, you see the amount of money that's been spent on congressional races. [00:00:33] The yellow represents presidential races, and year after year, you'll see that the amount of money that pours into campaign coffers increases. Let's take a look at the amount of money spent on lobbying each election cycle. In 2016, $3.16 billion was spent on lobbying around the elections. [00:00:53] By 2023, that number had already grown to $4.27 billion, and so Sometimes it feels like we're alone here at TYT and constantly talking about this issue, because this is really the root of every problem we have. But luckily, now we have a podcast series that's helping us out [00:01:12] in spreading that message. It's an incredible podcast series here to talk to us about it is David Sirota, editor in chief of The Leaver, former speechwriter for Bernie Sanders and the man behind this new podcast series called Master Plan, which uncovers how corruption has absolutely destroyed America's democracy. [00:01:30] David Sirota, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks to both of you. It's good to see you. Good to see you, too. Well, let me start off with the first question. You know, I already love the podcast. I've already listened to the available episodes. And, you know, you kind of open up the series by discussing [00:01:45] how all the way back in the 1970s, Americans were already pretty furious about the corrupting impact of money in politics, and Nixon pretended to do something about it. But it was really just a joke So can you tell us a little more about that? [00:02:01] Sure. So in the early 1970s, this was before Watergate. There was a scandal in which Richard Nixon was essentially trading government favors for campaign cash when it came to food policy, specifically keeping the price of milk high in order to raise money from milk [00:02:20] producers, the big dairy conglomerates. And this scandal helped fuel a push for the first anti-corruption Federal Election Campaign Act in 50 years. And it passed. [00:02:35] Nixon signed it. Side note Nixon tried to kill it before he signed it, although he pretended the whole way in public that he was, he was for it. We found memos in which his white House was actually trying to kill it. He gets shamed into essentially signing it. And then very soon after, he and his henchmen are working furiously to go [00:02:55] around it in order to use illegal campaign money Illegal secret campaign money to fund the Watergate break in. Ultimately, they get obviously caught. I think a lot of people know about the break in. I think not a lot of people understand that. [00:03:10] It was the first campaign finance scandal of major campaign finance scandal of the modern era, in which major corporations, we're talking corporations like American Airlines, were prosecuted for illegal campaign donations that were that were it's like the first dark money donations that were secret, that were kept secret. [00:03:28] And out of that came the modern campaign finance laws building off of those earlier campaign finance laws. But again, the process of trying to weaken and water them down and kill them was already set in motion. And it was set in motion, in part by a guy who Nixon had appointed to the Supreme [00:03:47] Court, a guy named Lewis Powell, who had written a memo, saying that corporations needed to, in the face of the rising tide of reforms of government policy. This is the time of nadir of the creation of Medicare, Medicaid, the the EPA. [00:04:03] ET cetera. ET cetera. Powell writes this memo saying the corporate forces need to do everything they can to use their money to take over the political system, because essentially the government had become too democratically responsive to the people. And part of that plan was stacking [00:04:20] the judiciary with conservative justices and a focus on deregulating the campaign finance system. And so what came out of that, even after the Watergate reforms, was an effort, first to add loopholes to those reforms that allowed [00:04:36] for the explosion of corporate PACs. And then soon after that, the two major cases that were at the time radical, that created the idea that money is speech, not corruption, and that those constitutionally protected rights to free speech [00:04:54] extend to corporations and their spending in elections That came out of the Buckley case that came out of the Bellotti case, Lewis Powell participating in both of those, essentially executing his memo. And fast forward, here we are in the era of corruption. [00:05:10] Yeah. Hey, don't scroll away. Come back, come back. Because before the video continues, we just want to urge you to lend your support to TYT. You power our honest reporting. You do it at tight.com/team and we love you for it. Today I want to talk more about that. It's obviously a huge part of my book. [00:05:28] Justice is coming that same Powell memo at Buckley Bellotti and how they basically stole this country from us. But I want to ask a broader question first. So as I watched or listened to the first couple of podcasts in the series, an interesting thing pops out. One is since in Nixon's case, there's the tapes you can hear with your [00:05:47] own ears how much they lie, how you hear them in the Oval Office saying like, oh, we got to help the milk guys. They're giving us money and make sure we kill this legislation. And then you see them in an Or you hear them in an interview that you guys found saying the next week on air. [00:06:03] Oh my God, we got to get these reforms to make sure that we protect the American people. So, like, the mendacity is so audacious that it makes you realize how like, they have no conscience in lying at all about they're just glorified actors. [00:06:20] And then with the milk companies, big milk, as you called it, in the beginning of the, of the series. And it really is it to me, it was like the minute you hear it, it becomes obvious. Well, of course the people with a lot of money and power [00:06:36] and of course the companies with a lot of money and power are going to want to keep that money in power and add to it. And if you wanted to do that, you would obviously go capture the government. And how would you do that? By giving money to the politicians. It's so I wonder if you're getting a reaction back and, and, you know, [00:06:55] a question to you that in regards to the media, let's put it this way, okay? Because I think a lot of Americans, they might if you ask them, do you know that they'd probably say like, yeah, yeah, I guess so. I guess I knew that and I hate corruption, but I don't think that it actually [00:07:12] resonates with people on a visceral level until they hear it with their own ears and see it with their own eyes. And so has the finally getting to the question, has the media here woven a tale for us over the last 40, 50 years of an act, [00:07:28] a play that's being played in Washington that isn't even close to reality? That reality is what they do in the white House talking brazenly about. And it's not just Nixon, it's all these politicians. Oh yeah, let's get the money and then do the favors for the donors. And the only reason that the American people don't know that in its entirety is [00:07:46] because the media has hid that from them. Yeah. I think look, I think that the, the there is reporting on pay to play corruption that periodically crops up in the headlines. But I think that over many years the country has become desensitized [00:08:04] in a sense, to it. I think in the country becoming desensitized to corruption, in essentially thinking that corruption now is just the way it's done. It's not. It's no longer scandalous. It's just what politics is. That that in many cases, the media doesn't see the corruption, doesn't see money [00:08:22] in politics as quote unquote news. It's just the way it is. And that really is the process of normalizing corruption now. I would also say this, that at times in our in our history, political leaders have [00:08:40] said, no, I'm not going to accept the idea that this is normal and acceptable and not even newsworthy in our series. In later episodes, we get into an example of that. John McCain in his 2000 presidential run. John McCain. [00:08:55] People, I think, forget about this part of his political career. John McCain's first major set of headlines when in politics was in the Keating Five scandal, where he was one of five senators who was caught pressuring a federal banking regulator on behalf of a donor. [00:09:10] And unlike most politicians, John McCain reacted to that not by pretending it didn't happen. Not by retiring, but instead by joining the campaign finance reform crusade with the zeal of a convert. And he ultimately ran for president on an anti-corruption [00:09:27] campaign finance reform message. And in the podcast, you'll hear his aides talking saying, you know, we told him we didn't think it was going to be a very big, resonant issue among voters. And he said, I think it's going to be. And it ended up being his entire brand. [00:09:42] Now, he didn't win the Republican primary, but ultimately he got George W Bush, the personification of money in politics, to actually sign campaign finance reform legislation and the the supreme Court actually upheld it. [00:09:58] So now you could say, well, the Supreme Court was then. They replaced Rehnquist and O'Connor and they quickly then overturned it. That's true. But I think the point here is, is that clearly the public understands how corrupt the situation is, doesn't like it, and is waiting for political leadership to actually raise [00:10:18] the issue and say, this is not normal. We haven't really had that political leadership. I mean, I think Bernie Sanders tried to raise that issue, that set of issues in his presidential campaigns. But I think the last time you can really say it was salient at the center [00:10:34] of our politics as a political issue. You probably have to reach back about 25 years to John McCain's campaign. You know, I mean, look, I don't think anything positive has happened in this country with Americans just sitting by hoping that political leadership is going to do the right thing. [00:10:49] So I think that's the number one mistake. But I also don't begrudge the American people in feeling a little bit hopeless in this particular issue, because the very people who would have to change the laws and pass reforms are people who are enjoying the status quo. [00:11:05] Members of Congress who love the, you know, money pouring into their campaign coffers. And just real quick, going back to the brief discussion we had about the media and why journalists kind of refuse to put this story front and center. I don't think it's necessarily because they feel the American public [00:11:23] is desensitized to this issue, or that the journalists themselves are desensitized to this issue. The fact of the matter is, our journalistic organizations and institutions have also been captured by the same money. I mean, you look at the legacy media outlets and they're usually [00:11:38] under this massive conglomerate, massive corporation that probably doesn't want a lot of in-depth reporting about how our democratic process and our democracy has been completely undermined by money in politics. And so it's not just about passing laws to do something [00:11:56] about campaign finance reform. I just think money has had a corrupting influence on a lot of our major institutions. Is that something that you touch on in your podcast? Yeah, it's a really good point. And I and I would also add that I think it's actually worse when we talk [00:12:12] about money and politics coverage, because while I mentioned once in a while there are some scandals that come out and that are reported, most of the money in politics coverage is celebrating the money in politics. We judge candidates based on who has raised the most money. [00:12:29] And we, we, we denigrate candidates who haven't raised enough money from, again, typically corporate special interests billionaires who want government favors. So so the coverage is really, in a sense, Orwellian. And I think you're right, it does tie back to who's delivering the coverage. [00:12:48] If you're a major corporation and you have a media brand outlet, you're not going to want your media brand to scandalize money in politics. If you, the giant corporate conglomerate, is trying it has business before the same government that's being elected with that money. [00:13:03] That's that's absolutely true. And we get into this, this what we're really talking about is going beyond the legislative debate to whether corruption is being normalized psychologically, culturally, and what I fear and what we get to at the very end of the of the series is that I fear it's like the David Foster Wallace speech about the two fish. [00:13:23] One fish swims by, another fish says, hey, how's the water today? And the other fish says, what's water that they're so used to? We're all so used to being immersed in corruption that that it almost seems like it's just the system. I mean, let's not forget, Bernie Sanders in 2020 felt compelled to apologize [00:13:41] for an op ed written by Zephyr Teachout at the in the presidential campaign, pointing out Joe Biden's all too close relationship with corporate donors. She said he has a corruption problem. Bernie Sanders felt compelled to apologize for that, Katie Porter said after her loss [00:13:57] in the Senate race, said something to the effect of billionaire spending at that point was crypto billionaires. Billionaire spending ends up rigging elections, and she was vilified for saying that. And the reason I bring that up is because you start wondering, wait a minute. The culture is now the political culture. [00:14:14] The political class is sort of saying corruption isn't the problem. Calling out corruption is the problem. And if we get to that point, if we accept that level of normalization, then I think there really is no pendulum swing back to the era of reform. [00:14:29] It means we've accepted this as just what American politics is. I don't accept it. I don't think we should accept it. Yeah. David, one more question for me, at least on on this. So, you know, as usual, I agree with so much of what you're saying. And media is such a huge portion of this. That's partly why you started the lever. [00:14:48] We, I started The Young Turks to counter these media narratives that, as you point out, are just Orwellian It's absurd to say. Oh, the person who got bribed the most. Congratulations. You're the leading candidate. You're wonderful. Oh my God. Katie Porter, you called out corruption, which is clearly there [00:15:04] and definitely affected your race. How dare you! You're so evil for pointing. I mean, that's insanity. And by the way, McCain in 2000 was the last Republican I voted for. So I feel good about that vote, too. But but overall, look, as I wrote about Lewis Powell, your master [00:15:19] Plan podcast is about this memo. This unfortunately worked more brilliantly than any political memo in history. And that he wrote in 1971, basically laying out a blueprint for corporate rule and how corporations can take over the U.S. Government, take over our democracy and, and, and rule us all. [00:15:38] And they executed it pretty much perfectly. And one of the things he reminded them of is, hey, you knuckleheads, you got more money than everybody else. Just start spending it and the politicians will do whatever you want. And of course, the two things you should capture are the media and the courts. [00:15:53] So that that leads to again, David, I think we live under corporate rule. But since almost no one in corporate media and mainstream media, establishment media, whatever you want to call it, ever says that phrase corporate rule. [00:16:10] And if you said it, they would probably call you a conspiracy theorist, right? That it it doesn't wake the American people up to the fact that. Oh, right. Almost everything we do, we can't even negotiate drug prices [00:16:25] with drug companies because they're corporations and they control what we pay. Not it's not a free market. There's no bid contracts over and over in the government. And we can go on and on. Right. In fact. Let me let me jump in on this and kind of piggyback off your question, Jake, [00:16:41] because the other thing that's been kind of fascinating to watch is how right wing media has managed to spin the corruption. And like Reshift, the focus of Republican voters toward corporations, but not over how they facilitate and engage in this corruption, but over [00:17:00] the influence they have culturally. Right? These corporations are too woke. That's the real problem. No, the real problem is these corporations are really the ones who call the shots on on how you're treated at work, what you're getting paid at work, what your neighborhood looks like. Every issue that touches you on a daily basis is impacted by money in politics. [00:17:18] It has less to do with, you know, virtue signaling about cultural issues and more to do with the fact that these companies are looking out for their bottom line. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think this speaks to the the democracy crisis, like, like I have been, kind of shaken by the fact, not surprised, [00:17:37] but, but disturbed by the fact that we're supposedly having a conversation in this election about saving democracy. Right. Democracy. We got to save democracy. Democracy is survival. A lot of that talk, by the way, at the Democratic convention, a convention sponsored by the anti-democratic forces in our politics. [00:17:57] Corporations are. And their takeover of the government is that is the democracy crisis, right? I mean, that is that is the long term democracy crisis. It is a crisis. Lewis Powell's memo is an outline for ending or certainly limiting democracy, [00:18:15] limiting the one person, one vote paradigm of how power is supposed to be dispersed and distributed in this country, to a point where money essentially short circuits that democratic idea. So what's really crazy to me is there's all this talk of democracy in election [00:18:35] where there's more and more corporate money, more and more anonymous dark money that's actually buying the election. Like if you're worried about the democracy crisis right now, let me introduce you to the last 50 years of creating, as you call it, junk corporate rule in America. [00:18:52] David, it is increasingly difficult to find any journalist who is actually motivated by their principles, their values, and you have always stayed true to your principles and values. So thank you so much for everything you do. Thank you for putting this podcast series out again everyone. [00:19:10] It's called Master Plan. Please check it out wherever you get your podcasts. I listened on, you know, Apple Podcasts and thank you again, David. I hope you come back soon to talk to us about anything involving money in politics or the political landscape in general. [00:19:25] Thanks to both of you. Really appreciate it. Thanks for watching The Young Turks. Really appreciate it. Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. 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