April 25, 2025 • 49 mins
On this episode of The Middle, we ask you about your thoughts on the power that billionaires have in our politics. Jeremy is joined by Forbes senior editor Dan Alexander and USA Today Chief Political Correspondent Phillip Bailey. DJ Tolliver joins as well, plus calls from around the country. #billionaire #billionaires #wealthgap #DOGE #ElonMusk #Trump
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I'm Jeremy Hobson, along with our house DJ Tolliver, also
now the face of Xbox.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Apparently commercials. You saw that I did go well, you
posted it and I going to see it.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
As long as you continue to do the Middle, you
can do whatever you want with them. We're we're gonna
start things off with a pop quiz this hour. If
you are ready, I'm going to ask you a couple
of questions. First of all, do you know how many
billionaires there are in the world?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (00:49):
One hundred and ninety two?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Now three and twenty estimated net worth is about sixteen
trillion dollars. Do you know how many new billionaires out
of those three twenty eight were created in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Four outside of me?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
One thousand, two hundred.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
And forty seven is a correct answer.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
This one you're going to get.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
Do you know who?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Do you know who the richest.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
One of them is Elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Elon Musk exactly, and as you know, he has taken
an unprecedented position of power as a leader of the
Trump Administration's Department of Government Efficiency or DOZE, and DOZE
has been laying government workers off by the thousands, ending
government contracts, getting access to government data systems, all in
the name, they say, of cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.
(01:37):
The cutting and Musk's role in it, has led to
growing protests around the country, not to mention.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
People getting rid of their Teslas.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
So this week, on an earnings call for Tesla, which
has seen sales plummet, Musk said he would be scaling
back his role in the government.
Speaker 6 (01:51):
Well, continue to spend a day or two per week
on govern matters for as long as the President would
like me to do so and as long as it
is useful, But starting next month, I hope yeah, allocating
parlare of my time to Tesla. And now that the
major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency is done.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
But even with Musk pulling back, there are still at
least a dozen billionaires.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
In the Trump administration. So we want to know.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
This hour how you feel about that. The power of
billionaires in our politics, Tolliver, how can people reach us?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
You can call us that eight four four four Middle.
That's eight four four four six four and three three
five three. You can also write to us at Listen
to the Middle dot com. You can also comment on
all of our social medias, but especially our live stream
on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Okay, we're watching, We're watching.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Joining us on the panel this Hour, USA Today Chief
political correspondent.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Philip Bailey, Hay, Philip, Jeremy, What's hell?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
And on not too much, but we will find out
how people feel about billionaires this hour, and Dan Alexander
is also with a senior editor at Forbes and author
of the book White House incow Donald Trump turned the
presidency into a business. Dan, welcome to you, Ny. Thanks
appreciating so before we go to the phones with both
of you, Philip, Donald Trump ran for president appealing to
(03:11):
the working class, and it seemed at the beginning of
the administration like his supporters were just fine with him
putting all these billionaires into the administration and one hundred millionaires,
by the way, like Scott Bessen, who's not actually a billionaire,
the Treasury Secretary, but Elon Musk Linda McMahon, Howard Lutnik.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
What about now?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Are his supporters okay with the billionaires?
Speaker 7 (03:32):
I think it's an issue really of three things here.
But one, I think that yes, his supporters absolutely didn't
have a problem with Elon Musk, but I talked to
Trump supporters with his role in the administration. But I
think number one, it's what those billionaires are doing, right
when you have people who are making fourteen million dollars
(03:53):
a day on average back in twenty twenty three when
the market's rebound, and then you have them talking the
way they do about social security with the price of eggs. Remember,
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris really talked about the cost
of living in America. And I think that's the other
issue too. It's not just wealth inequality. It's just too
damn expensive to be an American. Rinse Er, high childcare,
is high healthcare, housing, right to buy a home, access
(04:17):
to the American dream. So to have those contrasts in
the country while having these very wealthy individuals in the administration,
I think does have people scratching their heads. But I
think when you talk to hardcore Trump supporters, they're still
holding firm. But I think when you see what these
recent polls, and Donald Trump is beginning to lose some
ground in the country, is beginning to sour on him,
(04:37):
particularly as these conversations about social security entitlements come up,
but also for one case taking a hit being his
trade war.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
And Dan help us understand why a billionaire would want
the kind of scrutiny that comes with a role in
the Trump administration. Is this a business decision for them?
Have they always wanted to be in government?
Speaker 8 (04:56):
What?
Speaker 9 (04:57):
Well, it depends on who you're talking about. And these
people are motivating by different things. But for many of them,
you know, they've achieved more money than they could ever spend.
So what they're really looking for is respect, another sense
of accomplishment. They want to be called secretary or ambassador
for the rest of their lives. That's a big driver
for a lot of these people. Many of them are
(05:18):
also just curious about a new challenge. You know, they
feel like they've mastered their industry, and many of them
feel like they've mastered business generally, whether that's true or not,
and they're curious about trying their hand at politics. And
then they're the people who just are attracted to the limelight.
You know, Donald Trump's one of those. He wants to
be in the spotlight. The more chaos, the better. He
loves all of the questions, loves all of the headlines,
(05:42):
all of the bright lights. That's what he's attracted to.
Howard Lutnik is one of those folks as well. So
they're all motivated by different things and it's hard to
pinpoint sort of a common thing for the whole group.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned Howard Lutnik, the Commerce secretary.
What are you learning about the billionaires that you've been
covering who are in the Trump administration.
Speaker 9 (06:02):
Well, what's fascinating is that Trump, whether in business or
in politics, has always attracted people with similar traits to him.
He's attracted people who are impressed by big brands. He's
attracted people who are impressed by you know, people who
are on television a lot, people who get a lot
of attention. Howard Lutnik is that kind of guy. Here's
(06:23):
a guy who became a CEO on Wall Street when
he was still in his late twenties and has been
doing that for decades, and he's always loved being on television.
He spent a ton of time on television right after
nine to eleven, for instance, much of the chagrin of
some of his colleagues who were booking long hours in
the office to try to build the firm back and
became frustrated with how much time he was spending on TV.
(06:45):
Somebody like that sees Donald Trump win an election and says,
wait a second, I'm a billionaire, I'm good on TV.
Why couldn't I be in office too? And so he's
attracted to that and decides that he wants to join
the administration.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Philip, does it appear that the true wealthy who are
in the government are achieving things that they want or
are they doing the things that Trump wants them to do? Like,
is there a difference between a cabinet secretary who's not
rich and what they're doing, and it's somebody who is
rich in the cabinet. I think you're you're muted there, Philip.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
That's he's just thinking's answer, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Sorry about that.
Speaker 7 (07:25):
I think when you look at the friction on the right, right,
the friction in MAGA world. Steve Bannon, one of Donald Trump's,
you know, foremost advisors, has really been pounding Elon Musk
and saying that you know, Look, there are some people
who are more interested in what the president wants to
accomplish or what's best for the country, and then there
are those who are acting in their own self interests.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
And he called out Elon Musk directly, right.
Speaker 7 (07:49):
He and Elon Musk have had many back and forth
over the airways, and you hear these reports about some
of the cabinet members feeling a way about Elon's role
so that he just does things.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
As he wants.
Speaker 7 (08:00):
He's one of the least popular members of the administration,
even though he's in a sort of unofficial role. He's
not a cabinet member per se, but he certainly acts
like one. And I think that there is a conversation
on the political right about who is the who are
these folks actually working for. Are they working for the
president's agenda, the more populist minded maga folks, or are
(08:20):
they simply working for themselves and the benefit, uh for
their own personal finances. I think that we saw when
the president declared, you know, the trade war and initially
announced it. When you look at you know, people call
it like sort of the best inside or trading ever
in the country's history. When you look and see who
is benefiting from that? Is it average Americans? Maybe it'll
be long terms with the President's promising, but in the
(08:42):
short term, you know, those stocks and everything changing that
certainly benefits the wealthier members of his administration.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Well, and we don't have any details yet about exactly
who was able to make trades. I guess before the
public knew that Trump was pausing the trade war, but
certainly there are people who are looking into that. Let's
get to the phones again. You can reach us at
eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four four
six four three three five three, and I'm going to
go to Mary, who's in Ennis, Texas. Mary, welcome to
(09:09):
the Middle. Go ahead with your thoughts.
Speaker 10 (09:13):
Well, I think that billionaires in the government don't have
in cabinet positions especially, don't have any idea what the
average American citizen goes through in their lives. They are
so far removed from the struggles of daily lives, especially
(09:35):
these days, that they're just out of touch and just
are in their own little bubble and it doesn't truly
help any of us.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Well, and Mary, just briefly give me a sense of
what kind of struggles are you going through?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Right now in your life financially.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
Well.
Speaker 10 (09:54):
For instance, my husband are building an apartment for my
mother in law, my sister in law so they can
live on our property with us. And since the pandemic,
which was also under Trump's presidency, for building materials have
gone through the roof, it's cost us at least thirty
(10:14):
percent more to build this apartment than it is to
build for the same materials when we were building our house.
And I don't know if that that's gonna go down
anytime soon, especially with the tariffs and all this nonsense
going on. And you know, anybody who's who's trying to
(10:35):
diyatt because it's saved this money and because we have
the ability to do our own construction, it's just exponentially
more expensive than it used to be.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, Mary, thanks for that call. Dan, just briefly, I
mean kind of gets to what you were talking about.
They live in a different world, it doesn't you know,
a billionaire doesn't notice the difference between gas prices going
up or building materials going up like that.
Speaker 9 (10:58):
That's right, And you know they come from different worlds too.
I mean, people get rich in a lot of different ways,
and some people inherited their wealth. So it's not even
like they you know, built up a massive business and
you know, had to go through a lot of hard
times to get there. Some of these people were just
born rich and have always been rich.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Will Telliver.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Bernie Sanders, the Senator from Vermont, has been warning about
the power of billionaires for a very long time.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Yeah, he's been traveling the country in recent weeks holding
huge rallies. Here he is speaking to a crowd in
Los Angeles.
Speaker 8 (11:30):
Mister Moss sent out a tweet and in essence he said,
you know, Bernie Sanders has been talking about the growth
of olagacke year after year after year.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Well, Elin, you're damn.
Speaker 9 (11:45):
Right, that's what I've been talking about.
Speaker 8 (11:53):
The difference is I'm no longer talking about how I'm
moving to oligaucky, talking about how we are living today
in an oligarchic form of society.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Did he say olive garden, oligarchy, oligacky.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
More of your calls coming up on the Middle.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you're just
tuning in the Middle is a national call in show.
We're focused on elevating voices from the middle geographically, politically
and philosophically, or maybe you just want to meet in
the middle. This hour, we're asking you how you feel
about the power of billionaires in our politics. Tolliver again
the number please.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
for six four three three five three. You can also
write to us at Listen to the Middle dot com
or on social media.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
I'm joined by Forbes Senior editor Dan Alexander and USA
Today Chief political correspondent Philip Bailey. And before we get
back to the phones, Philip, is there a connection between
the increasing power of billionaires in our politics and the
Supreme Court decision Citizen United, which allowed in some cases
unlimited spending on elections.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Oh? Absolutely.
Speaker 7 (13:05):
I mean, let's go back twenty years ago, right when
there was sort of a bipartisan agreement between the late
John McCain and Russ Feiningeld, two senators who introduced campaign
finance reform. Right, this idea that there should be certain
rules and limitations on how much is spent on campaigns. Well,
the Supreme Court comes in in twenty ten with the
Citizens United decision and wipes that away.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Right in this idea and one of the opponents.
Speaker 7 (13:30):
Of campaign finance reform, my home state senator of retiring
Senator Mitch McConnell. The al idea on the right was
money is speech, and that idea, that ideology that ape
person of wealth can spend as much as they want
and not just spend jeremy as much as they want
in a campaign.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
But these dark money groups that.
Speaker 7 (13:48):
Don't have a lot of disclosures, don't have a lot
of rules to them, really have given a wealthier people
millionaires and billionaires, and outsized the role in our politics.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Democrats initially were railing against that.
Speaker 7 (14:00):
Every Democrat you saw so talking about reintroducing a constitutional
amendment to overturn that decision.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
But Democrats themselves have this problem.
Speaker 7 (14:09):
Too, where they have their own billionaires who are spending
millions upon billions of dollars in these races. It's really
created a wild wild West situation in the past fifteen
years in our politics.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
George Soros, Bill Gates, and might I add Taylor Swift
as a billionaire on the Democratic side. These days, you
wonder who you know when you see a music festival,
which one of them is a billionaire in addition to
be an artist.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
At this point, they have a billionaire stage.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Now exactly, Dan, how are the billionaires giving politically these days?
Are they targeted in their political spending or do they
give across the board just in case either side wins?
Do they hit the limit every time?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Do they go? I mean, how are you seeing that
play out?
Speaker 9 (14:49):
Well? It really depends on the person. So you have
some people who are super savvy and sophisticated about it.
You know, you take somebody like Peter Thiel, who really
bankrolled JD Vance's Senate ron and Ohio and Dvance one.
Now he also did the same thing to Blake Masters,
who did not but advanced one, and that sort of
propelled him to the vice presidency. Now you have somebody
(15:10):
who almost owes his political career to a billionaire. So
if you're looking as a return on investment, that's about
as good as you can get for an investor. Other
people take the approach of hey, I'm just going to
give to everybody because I want them to like me
when they're in power. One of the things that you
see a lot is after the election, people who might
(15:33):
have been sort of on the fence or not in
the headlines as a big supporter will come out and
donate to the inaugural committee. Now, that's as sure of
a bet as you can get, because you know that
the person's won. So if you want to get in
their good graces, you can throw in a million five
million bucks and allow them to throw a great party,
and all of a sudden you look like a huge
(15:55):
supporter of them. We're sort of in that stage now
where everyone is trying to get bed I'm Trump, whether
they were at the beginning or not, and say no, no,
I really am a supporter because they know that that's
where the power lies.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Right, let's go to the phones and Robert, who's in Chicago. Hi, Robert,
welcome to the middle. Go ahead with your thoughts about
billionaires in politics.
Speaker 11 (16:15):
My thoughts are, it doesn't make a difference to me
what their net worth is. I think it's more about
relevant experience. You know, for most of these positions, I
would probably like someone that's that's a politician or had experience,
you know. For cabinet secretaries are going to be looking at,
you know, pushing through legislation that the president wants. Well,
(16:36):
the presidents that that signed the legislation as opposed executive orders.
But and I think bringing that experience to bear. I don't.
It doesn't otherwise, I don't. I don't see a reason
that it matters. Maybe in the Treasury Secretary in terms
of their past their past relationships with industry, and I
(16:59):
think that definitely. You know, they showed that matter during
two thousand and eight, two thousand and seven when you
had them having to host calls, and I do think
it matters in that. But I can't think of any
other positions where someone their status as a billionaire is
going to help them make Dealing with the federal bureaucracy
or dealing with government, you need someone that has dealt
(17:21):
with it because government's not a business. It doesn't operate
in any of the any of the same ways, and
so they're status at being able to make money doesn't
do much for it.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, Robert, thank you for that call. Philip.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
We think of the Treasury Secretary right now, Scott Bessant,
who again is not a billionaire, but has hundreds of
millions of dollars, and it doesn't seem like he has
been getting for the most part, what he wants from
a policy perspective on the trade war. He seems like
one of the people has been pushing back against the
tariffs with Trump.
Speaker 7 (17:55):
Yeah, and look, I think the call makes an excellent
point here, and I think Dan made this point earlier too.
How these folks make their money, some inherit their money.
You know, some are in positions like let's take Linda
McMahon for example, right, the wife of Vince McMahon, made
her money through professional wrestling. How professional wrestling is connected
to her being the Education secretary. I'm not sure anyone
really absolutely knows. But this is the problem I guess
(18:17):
with our politics right now, is that the wealth conveys
this expertise. People assume that, oh, if this person's a
business leader or they're a millionaire a billionaire, they must
know what they're doing, because how can they be a
billionaire and a millionaire and not have some level of
acumen or some level of expertise. And going back to
the Treasury Secretary, you're right, I mean you would think
you would just simply defer to him on this. But
(18:39):
Donald Trump has been in love with tariffs right since
the nineteen eighties, even though history shows that those tariffs
have not actually worked out for America in the way
that a lot of us I think would want our
economy to operate. When tariffs are often high, there's often
a parallel between that and an economic recession.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
And I think that goes into what.
Speaker 7 (18:58):
I think the Democrats and others are trying to poke
and saying that, Look, these folks are billionaires. They might
have a whole lot of money, but do they know
what they're doing? And when you look at your checkbook,
do you see anything trickling down your way? I think
that's the lynchpin I think the Democrats and Trump opponents
are looking for. But in the broader discussion for both parties,
there needs to be I think a larger question of
(19:18):
are these folks even qualified outside of simply being wealthy.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Let's go to Reuben, who's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ruben, welcome
to the middle your thoughts on billionaires in politics?
Speaker 12 (19:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 13 (19:29):
So my thought, Liz, I don't know, As I said,
it's just essentially what are their motives to be in politics?
I know it was kind of hit that they have money,
but the question is if there's an a drive policies
that help them make more richer or policies that actually
help people that didn't. What they for them to join
is and I've never had anyone say I don't want
(19:49):
to make more money. So that's the question.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Well, do you think that the people who are in
Trump's administration right now, the billionaires in Trump's administration, are
just trying to make more money or do you think
that they're trying to help people.
Speaker 13 (20:03):
The thing is, there are so many things that people
get at that level, get information on that they can
easily use it to make more money. Whether they're trying
to do that or not, it's difficult to usuttain because
those things don't never come out. You're probably no five
years down the lane that someone made money by some
policy or some information they got from somewhere. But the
people who are right now in the administration, I'm not
(20:26):
too sure. You look at the individual, Each interview is
different and the need for you know, wanting to do
is different.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Dan, you know, you think about Elon Musk and Trump
putting tariffs on foreign cars and foreign car parts. That
obviously is very good news for Tesla, which is mostly
made in the United States. Do what do we know
about how some of these billionaires are making money themselves
because of their role or because of their closeness to
(20:56):
the president.
Speaker 9 (20:58):
Well, I mean, you know, Elon mush he also makes,
of course a lot of cars in China and a
lot of cars in Germany and imports parts from all over.
I mean, this is a complicated thing for people who
have multinational businesses. And he's come out and said, hey,
you know, I love what Trump's doing, but this whole
tariff thing, I'm not so sure. You know, what's fascinating
(21:19):
is that the real question here is what's in these
people's heads. You know, are they doing this because they
are trying to help or are they doing this because
they want to make money? And you can't tell what's
inside somebody's head. There's no way of getting in there.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
And so there are.
Speaker 9 (21:33):
All these sorts of systems to prevent the possibility that
people are trying to just enrich themselves. But those systems
have their own limitations. And I'll give you an example.
So Stephen Feinberg, who's the Deputy Secretary of Defense right now,
he was heavily invested in the defense industry for years.
He's a you know, Wall Street private equity investor, but
he had invested a lot of money in defense companies
(21:56):
recently now, when he took over his position, he had
to get rid of those interests. But one of the
ways that he was able to get rid of those
interests was just to hand him off to his adult children, which,
by the way, he was going to do anyway, That's
what billionaires do twenty years from now when they're trying
to do estate planning. So it might have forwarded his
estate planning a little bit, but it didn't fundamentally change
(22:17):
his relationship with those sorts of businesses. Now, on the
other hand, this is a guy who is heavily studied
defense companies, who knows how finances work and has very
sophisticated at such things, who's now helping look over an
enormous budget. That might be exactly the sort of guy
that you want in office. So handling that tension is
(22:39):
a difficult job for ethics officials and also a difficult
job for anyone who's rich going into government to figure out,
how do I handle this to make sure that it
looks okay, and also that I'm not taking a huge
bath on public service.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
And Feinberg has what five billion dollars?
Speaker 9 (22:54):
Five billion dollars?
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yeah, yeah, Tolliver, what's coming in online?
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Five billion?
Speaker 5 (22:59):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Desmond and Detroit says billionaires are a cancer of our
economic system, and like tumorus growths, they co opt the
resources meant for the good of all for their own
selfish uses. The Trump administration centering billionaires at the center
of power has shown this metastasis to be truly terminal.
Unless radical action is taken to excise their influence, our
democracy is dead. I'll do one more if Paul says,
(23:22):
considering our national debt, it appears to me that our
Congress does not know how to manage money. To become
a billionaire, person must have money management skills. My vote,
let's give them a chance. President Trump only has around
forty five more months in office.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
It's nothing.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Forty five months. I haven't thought of it that way.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
We've got a Jeremy alert on the phones. We don't
get that very often. Another Jeremy calling in from East Adam, Connecticut. Jeremy,
welcome to the middle. What do you think about the
role of billionaires in our politics?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Hi?
Speaker 5 (23:53):
Thanks a lot, guys. I don't like it. I'm gonna
be honest. But here's the thing. Money is about. Money
is a part of our electoral process. Now it's dominant,
and but we have the ability through capitalism to decide
whether they're going to be successful or not and to
hold them accountable. They've run their own businesses, they've made
(24:17):
a lot of money. Look, I'm extremely left onlike the
political spectrum, but if these guys are going to step in,
they're taking their own risks, and we're going to decide,
like whether they're successful or not, whether we spend money
in their business and hold.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Them accountable through capitalism by either buying their products or not,
if they are consumer facing products that they're that they're selling.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Exactly, we're a capitalist democracy, there's no way around it.
That's the reality of what the world is right now
and what this country is. And so we've got to
lean in. And Musk is a prime example of that.
His company is taking and you know what, it's those
of us that feel like this country needs to change
that are holding him accountable through his pocketbook. And if
(25:06):
he decides he wants to keep at it and make
America a better place, you know, then he'll he'll do that.
But you know what, he won't. He's going to step away.
And this is what we need to do. We absolutely
need to do this.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Jeremy thank you very much for that call. Philip.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
I'm sure that you have heard from voters like Jeremy
as you've traveled the country and people that have either
sold their Tesla, sold their Tesla stock, or I've seen
people putting like Audi logos on their Teslas so that
nobody knows it's a Tesla.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Right.
Speaker 7 (25:41):
I see folks around here driving Teslas with bumper stickers.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
I bought this before I knew right.
Speaker 7 (25:47):
But look, to quote the late George Carlin, it's a
big club and you ain't in it. It's very hard
for billionaires to lose, right. I mean, in twenty twenty three,
with the market was rebounding, billionaires were making I think
eight hundred and fifty two Dan, maybe check my numbers
on the eight hundred fifty two billion to their fortunes
in the first half of that year. That's fourteen million
(26:10):
dollars each day, and I challenge everyone to count to
fourteen million.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
You probably won't be able to live that long.
Speaker 7 (26:17):
Billionaires don't loose often, So when Americans talk about capitalism
and the way it works now in our democracy, it's
very hard for I think the American public to wrap
their minds around how much money and wealth. These individuals
actually have again fourteen million dollars a day.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Think of that when you have folks who.
Speaker 7 (26:36):
Are literally trying to steal a harvest chicken so they
can buy and purchase eggs. I mean, the wealth disparity
here is insurmountable. I think in a lot of people's
mind to put to scale. So I disagree with the
caller in this aspect that there is some sort of
democracy that can hold these folks accountable through some some
sort of boycott or consumerism. I think the real question
(26:58):
is for both Democrats and Republicans is when does the
rubber meet the road here on populism. I think you
see here folks are very aspirational. They want to be
millionaires and billionaires. People want to be successful. But at
the same time, the wealth inequality, the expensiveness of America.
That's what the contrast is really I'm hearing from voters.
It's not the hatred of billionaires and billionaires. I'm seeing
(27:21):
these folks make all this money, and where is that
trickling down? Where is that American dream for me as
a regular American?
Speaker 1 (27:28):
I also thank you Philip for using probably the cleanest
George Carl ud quote that.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Exists in the world.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
I try it because this is broadcast radio. Let's go
to Juliana, who's in Denver, Colorado. Hi, Juliana, welcome to
the middle. Go ahead with your thoughts.
Speaker 14 (27:45):
Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 13 (27:46):
I mean, there's a lot.
Speaker 14 (27:47):
Of thoughts, right, but I'll keep it brief because you've
got other callers. If these people weren't known for their philanthropy,
we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. There's reasons they're billionaires.
Speaker 10 (28:00):
Exploited their workers.
Speaker 11 (28:01):
It's where they are.
Speaker 14 (28:03):
You look at who's doing the NLRB to end labor protection.
It's a lot of the billionaires sitting around Donald Trump.
Speaker 12 (28:11):
I don't trust them.
Speaker 14 (28:12):
I don't think there's any reason to trust them. And
to say that they're billionaires because they've done good business
or managed their money really well, it kind of escapes
the points how they became billionaires.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Juliana, I thank you. Dan. What do you think about that?
Speaker 9 (28:29):
Well, you know, people do get rich in a lot
of different ways, and certainly there are some that you
could make the case that they, you know, just exploit labor,
but a lot of these people also have created products
that you know, they didn't even necessarily set out to
get rich, but those products became incredibly popular, and what
(28:50):
do you know, all of a sudden they have billions
of dollars and have to sort of figure out what
to do with it. I mean, there are all these
different ways to get there. But one of the interesting
thing things, I think one of the earlier collers said,
you know, if they're that rich, they must be good
at financial management. You know, you can get rich by
being good at a lot of things that are not
(29:10):
financial management. You know, you could be For instance, Donald
Trump is maybe the greatest marketer in American history. He
is terrible at financial management. I mean, this is a
guy who has had multiple bankruptcies of his companies, and
business takes a lot of different skills, and you can
get really rich being good at some of those skills
(29:32):
and not all of them.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Well, you know, I'm glad you brought that up, because Tolliver,
some of the billionaires who supported Donald Trump are kind
of angry at how he's managing the economy right now
because of the stock market volatility.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Yeah, here's head spun billionaire Ray Dalio speaking on NBC's
Meet the Press.
Speaker 15 (29:51):
Right now, we are at a decision making point and
very close to recession, and I'm worried about something the recession.
We have a breaking down of the monetary order because
we cannot spend the amounts of money. So we have
that problem. And when we talk about the dollar and
we talk about tariffs, we have that we are having
(30:14):
a profound changes in our domestic order, how ruling is existing,
and we're having profound changes in the world order.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Billionaire Bill Ackman, by the way, who was a huge
Trump supporter, was also pretty upset by the tariffs. He
said on X the president is losing the confidence of
business leaders around.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
So we'll see fair weather friends look at that.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Only when the economy is doing well.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
We'll be right back with more of your calls on
the Middle. This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. In
this hour, we're asking you how you feel about the
power of billionaires in our politics.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
You can call us at.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four four
six four three three five three. You can also reach
out to us at listen Toothmiddle dot com. My guests
are USA Today Chief political correspondent Philip Bailey and Forbes
Senior editor Dan Alexander. And before we go back to
the phones, Philip, what about the growing protests that we've
been seeing around the country. We heard from Bernie Sanders
(31:14):
earlier on. He's been out with Alexandria or Casio Cortez,
having these huge rallies around the country, and a lot
of the focus is on the threat of an oligarchy.
How is the extreme wealth in the administration galvanizing the
opposition in politics right now?
Speaker 7 (31:31):
Well, I think you know Bernie Sanders an AOC in particular,
who come from the more democratic socialist wing of the
Democratic Party and have always had an economic critique of
capitalism and come from that wing of the party.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
I think they are having their moment.
Speaker 7 (31:46):
I mean, you're seeing them in Idaho, You're seeing them
in major metropolitan areas as well. The question I think
for them is that is that should be simply your
base that was always there. Are you actually attracting new
voters and new people? And I think Democrats are trying
to find that lightning in the bottle, trying to find
that populist mantra, that populist messaging and energy.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
But the concentration of wealth.
Speaker 7 (32:10):
Certainly is something that Bernie Sanders and AOC are talking about,
and I think it's beginning to spread in the country
as a whole, as you see, like I think it's
eight hundred billionaires, jeremy, who have about as much as
about fifty percent or have more than fifty percent of
the wealth and the entire nation. The problem for Democrats, though,
is that they have billionaires too. I mean, it was
at the DNC convention that was there when Bernie Sanders spoke,
(32:32):
and then a few moments later, Illinois Governor J. D.
Pritzker got on the stage and mentioned, you know, and
sort of laughingly mentioned, well, I'm a billionaire too, right.
And I think if we look a hundred years ago,
right when the DuPonts and the Carnegie and the Rockefellers
and those major industrials were pretty much running our country,
it took a wealthy individual like an FDR to get
into the presidency and have a more progressive tax system
(32:54):
that sort of swung the pendulum back from really World
War two to nineteen seventy six. Will that be the
person who catches the lightning in the bottle of the Democrats,
I'm not sure, but that certainly is something I think
that they're going to lean into going into twenty twenty
six and twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Let's go to Rodney, who's in Lake Bronson, Minnesota. Hi, Rodney,
go ahead.
Speaker 16 (33:14):
I'm really not too concerned. I don't think anybody should
be concerned about the billionaires and millionaires in charge of
the country. I'd be more concerned about the ones that
are that are leaving, are becoming the millionaires or the
billionaires while in office. I think that's more. But worried
that everybody should have. But coming in this one.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
You're worried about people who get rich off the office
rather than people who already are rich and then come
in and work in.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
The government.
Speaker 16 (33:43):
Exactly. I mean, because you look at an annual salary
of a lot of these people, you know, anywhere from
fifty thousand dollars up to one hundred and seventy five
dollars dollars on average deal a year. Yeah, I mean,
they have to have some living so I'm sure that
the government puts the bill for a lot of their
stuff and a lot of their given the place there.
(34:04):
But I'm sure they have all the three giety that
they can handle. A transportation, so they would worry about
it anyway, But I don't see how a person.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Could be.
Speaker 16 (34:16):
Drian is salary bus anywhere. It's like fifty one hundred
and seventy five thousand dollars year, be an office for yeah,
six years, that all of a sudden they're a millionaire
or a multimillionaire when they leave office. It kind of
makes you wonder about that more than coming in as one.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Yeah, Rodney, thank you. You know, it's a good point.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
A lot of times they write a book or they
start giving speeches, but there are also other ways that
they make a lot of money. Dan, your book is
called White House, Inc. How Donald Trump turned the presidency
into a business. So I'll let you take take that one.
People who come in and then get rich while they're there,
and by the way, including Donald Trump, whose wealth has
gone up quite a bit since he became the President
(34:58):
of the United States the first time.
Speaker 9 (35:01):
That's right. There's nobody in American history who has made
more money on politics than Donald Trump. That's mostly based
around the creation of a social media business which is
now trading in the public markets at a wild valuation.
He hangs on to a big chunk of the shares
and that's created billions of dollars for him, but it
also goes to things like, you know, selling sneakers and
(35:23):
guitars and meme coins and all sorts of stuff based
on his popularity. He recognizes that being a politician and
being a celebrity aren't all that different, and if celebrities
are able to sell all this merchandise and stuff based
on their fame, why shouldn't he also, And so he's
really kind of revolutionized the game on how to make
money from politics. You know, I think there are a
(35:46):
lot of people who sort of stir the pot on
this issue. And don't get me wrong, there are a
lot of people who have become very wealthy in politics.
But you stir the pot about there must be something
nefarious in all of these situations. You know, Bernie Sanders
is a millionaire, and he became a millionaire because he
wrote a few books and they sold really well, and
(36:08):
so he made a few million dollars. Other people, you know,
Mitch McConnell is worth more than twenty million dollars. That's
because his wife comes from a very wealthy shipping fortune
and they inherited a chunk of that. Much of these
massive gains in wealth that you see while somebody is
in office are actually explicable. You can look at moments
(36:30):
when they inherited big chunk of assets, when they sold
a book, when there was something that got them really rich.
And usually the people who are sort of congress people
who might go from zero to two or three or
four million dollars, usually that's because of books or selling
some sort of merchandise or something like that, which is
(36:52):
not necessarily as corrupt as people make it out to be,
although there are certainly.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Exceptions, right, And obviously we talked about sort of the
idea of insider trading just recently, and it's going to
be interesting to see if any lawmakers had some information
ahead of time and did that.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Julia is in southern Missouri. Hi, Julia, go ahead, Hi there.
Speaker 12 (37:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 17 (37:18):
So I teach special education in one of the poorest
counties and definitely the poorest district in the Forest County
in the Ozarks. I have a lot of IEP meetings
this time of year, a lot of new kids coming
into the district, and a lot of parents are asking,
(37:40):
how are all these changes going to affect my kids.
I don't have an answer, because our Department of Education
no longer exists. In addition to that, the vast majority,
over ninety percent of the family that our district live
below the poverty limits. They rely on government assistance to
(38:02):
feed their children inside the school because we are fully
funded through a program, or we were to no longer
exist to feed the kids in our school. For a
lot of the kids, those are the only two meals
a day that they got it.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
And the head of the Department of Education, as we've said,
is a billionaire, Linda McMahon.
Speaker 17 (38:24):
I doubt she's been hungry.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yeah, Julia, I really appreciate you you calling in and
good luck with everything that's going on there. I'm sure
there are a lot of people around the country dealing
with very similar situations. Although you, as you say, are
in one of the poorest counties, appreciate the call. Philip,
what do you think about that? I mean, this is
a real, real life example of somebody who is dealing
(38:51):
with the cuts that are being made by this administration,
affecting extremely poor people in this country and being made
by a billionaire who who is shutting down the Department
of Education.
Speaker 7 (39:02):
Right, and I completely empathize with her. I mean, as
a Kentuckian right. We have some of the poorest counties
in the entire country here in the Bluegrass State, particularly
in eastern Kentucky. And you see when the proposal to
for example, cut snap benefits food stamps. You know who
has some of the highest percentage, Who has the highest
percentage in the congressional district of food stamps in the
(39:23):
entire state. It's not here in a place like Louisville
where it's represented by a Democrat. It's out and how
Rogers District, right, district that went overwhelmingly for Donald Trump.
What I'm looking for, Jeremy, is when this tax the
Trump tax cuts come back up, what will the debate
be around that. I'm also interested to see again how
Democrats are they going to really lean into and tap
(39:45):
into this across the board. We don't really have a
working class political party in this country. When the previous
college I talked about insider trading, I talk to voters all
the time when that stuff comes up. They've mentioned Nancy Pelosi,
they mentioned Democrats. Democrats have their own of House they
have to get in order to hear this is not
really a partisan issue, right, And I think what's happened
(40:06):
in this particular administration where you're seeing sort of going
back to a pre FDR federal government where basic fundamental
things are now being stripped away and taken away. I'm
interested to see, particularly heading into the midterms, will those
more populous minded Trump supporters, right those steel workers, those
people who worked on farms in North Carolina, people who
live in Missouri or Missouri, depending on what part.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Of the state you're from, how to pronounce it.
Speaker 7 (40:29):
I'm interested to see how they're going to respond when
these basic amenities that many poor white rural voters who
voted for Donald Trump rely upon. Are they going to
turn on him politically if they don't see something here? Again,
as I said earlier, I don't think Americans disdain people
who are wealthy and who are successful. I do think, though,
that they disdain people who are wealthy and successful when
(40:51):
they are seeing basic parts of the public good being
eradicated and pulled back.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
You could see that.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
I came from Illinois. That's why I called it Missouri
and always have. Let's go to Jade, who's in San Antonio, Texas.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Hyjade your thoughts by there.
Speaker 12 (41:10):
Well, I've listened to a lot of stuff that I
do agree with, especially the gentleman just now what he
was talking about about how people are going to respond.
But you know, it made me think about if you
were to head a household, if you were to have
a household, it would be wrong for you to focus
on your own self while you're you know, leading your household.
(41:35):
So I don't really care about whether or not you
got billions of dollars, and you made it legitimately, I mean,
you're entitled to it, But what do you do while
you're in service to the government. You're not there because
of your money or for your self serving interests. It
is a time to put away. Government is for the people,
(41:56):
So that's what you should be doing during that period
in billions shouldn't have an impact or an influence on
how you operate. You're governing for the people. And if
I can give you one more analogy, a police officer.
If a police officer gets into that industry, to that
(42:17):
career set, I mean, we know that a lot of
power comes with being a police officer, but that's not
the reason you're supposed to get into it. You get
into it because you're serving the people, protecting the people.
That is what government's about. So keep your billions, but
do what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Thank you, yeah, Jade, thank you very much. Dan, What
do you think about that?
Speaker 1 (42:40):
And of the billionaires that you can think of in
the Trump administration, are there ones who are legitimately doing
it for the people, and that not because they want
to be called the secretary or because they want to
make more money, you know, in their own businesses.
Speaker 9 (42:56):
Well, I do think that there are questions about mentioned
Stephen Weinberg earlier, questions about his family's finances. But you know, look,
here's a guy's worth five billion dollars to decide to
join the government, to become pete Hegseths number two. Okay,
it's not exactly a glamour role that he's taken, and
he could do a lot of things with his time
and with his experience and with his intelligence. I do
(43:19):
think that he's somebody who if I were to guess
what's inside his head, which is always a guest, you
never know, I would guess that he's doing it for
the right reasons. You know. One of the things that
is set up are these ethics rules to prevent exactly
you know what the caller was talking about. People doing
things for their own businesses, and that applies across the
board to people in the executive branch, but it does
(43:41):
not apply to the president or the vice president. And
so Donald Trump is an exception here and that he
has hung on to his businesses and is taking actions,
for example, deregulating Crypto that do directly affect his own
companies and lead to a lot of questions about what
his motivations are.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Let's get to another call here and Cordel, who's in
Salt Lake City, Utah High Cordel, what do you think
about billionaires and politics?
Speaker 18 (44:10):
Well, I have a really difficult problem understanding why the
billionaires are able to just let go of their responsibilities
and just make more and more money off of everything.
I worked as a in the Utah Arts Council as
(44:34):
a member of the Utah Arts Council's board of directors,
and I had to give up my entire career in
order to support the programs that were going on. So
I had to let go of any opportunities that would
(44:57):
benefit me as an artist, and I had to sign
off on them and just say it was okay that
all this money went to somebody else. And then not
only that, But even after like four years of being
on the Arts Council, even after that, I didn't get
(45:17):
any other commissions. And I don't understand why it is that,
for instance, Elon Musk and Donald Trump can make all
kinds of millions of dollars and position themselves to make
even more and more money against the American public swill,
and then all of a sudden cut all of their
(45:39):
benefits and just make it where it's like another dictatorship.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
Yeah, Cordell, I think we've got it there. Thank you
very much for that call. Philip Bailey, what about like
the conflicts of interest? And we've talked a little bit
about it this hour, But is anybody policing that, is
anybody really with teeth coming in and saying you can't
do this because you've got a clear conflict of interest
over here?
Speaker 7 (46:03):
Well, part of in the first one hundred days of
Donald Trump's blitz really of Washington and using his executive
authority is probably more so than we've ever seen a
president really governing by signature. Right, very few bills have
been passed by this Republican control Congress.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
I think what we're seeing here, and we.
Speaker 7 (46:21):
Saw Donald Trump so to go after a lot of
these regulatory agencies, go after a lot of these ethics
folks in government, and basically just fire them. Right, politically speaking,
Republicans have no appetite to hold him accountable, to.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Use their powers in that way.
Speaker 7 (46:35):
It's really becoming more from the judicial branch than anything else.
So look, this is what the American people voted for.
And I think the experiment that we're seeing here as
Democrats and people on the left are feverishly worrying about
a constitutional crisis and the abuse of power. I think
for the Trump's supporters and folks who are still trying
to give him a chance. But I think we're seeing
that weighing a bit here now in these first one
(46:57):
hundred days. His numbers are really beginning to sour, particularly
on the economy. But we're not seeing any oversight. We're
not seeing anyone sort of step in here and say no,
mister president, you can, at least not publicly.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
The only time you really see.
Speaker 7 (47:09):
It is when the markets go bad or when there
are these private conversations, often from billionaires. We're probably tapping
the president on the shoulder and saying, look at my portfolio.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Mister president.
Speaker 7 (47:18):
So we already seen him, for example, Thaw today on Hey,
I'm going to lower the tariffs on China.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Let me rethink this here.
Speaker 7 (47:25):
One thing about the Trump presidency and MAGA overall is
never admit defeat, never admit weakness.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Right. So I don't think you're right, but.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
I think people are willing to give him the benefit
of the doubt if the economy is going well, and
certainly if prices start to come down, maybe, but perhaps
not if those don't happen. Before we go, Dan, let
me just ask you about one more thing. The billionaire
ex wife of Bill Gates, Belinda French Gates, said recently
on CNN, if you have a billion dollars, that's.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
An absurd amount of wealth.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
You have a moral responsibility to give away at least
half of it. There are others who believe that any
wealth after a billion dollars should basically be taxed on percent,
that that's enough money for one person to have. Do
any billionaires you talk to share those views?
Speaker 9 (48:06):
Well, certainly there are a lot of billionaires who have
committed to giving away more than half of their wealth
they while they are still living. But what's interesting is
that because their wealth compounds as these numbers get really big.
If you have one hundred billion dollars in an average year,
(48:26):
you're gonna increase your net worth by ten billion dollars.
It gets hard to give away that much. And so yeah,
they like the idea of it, yeah, but actually doing
it in practice is hard.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
They could give it to the middle. That would be
very easy.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
And listen to the Middle dot com text I want
to thank my guest for senior editor Dan Alexander and
USA Today chieflylical correspondent Philip Bailey.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Thanks so much to both of you.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
Thank you guys, and.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Don't forget the Middle is available as a podcast in
partnership with Iheard Podcast on the iHeart Apple wherever you
listen to podcasts. We've got an episode of our podcast
Extra One Thing Trump Did coming out in the next
couple of days. We're gonna be talking about the US
relationship with China. And next year we'll be right back
here with journalist Derek Thompson on his book Abundance, which
he co wrote with Ezra Kline about how a country
as rich as the US is far behind on things
(49:14):
like housing and infrastructure.
Speaker 4 (49:17):
Yes, next week, as always, you can call in at
eight four four four Middle.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
That's eight four four four six four three three five three.
Speaker 4 (49:22):
You can also reach out to listen to the Middle
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Speaker 2 (49:30):
Does it have your face on it?
Speaker 1 (49:31):
The Middle is brought to you by Longnok Media thanks
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Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I'm Jeremy Hobson, along with our house DJ Tolliver, also
now the face of Xbox.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Apparently commercials. You saw that I did go well, you
posted it and I going to see it.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
As long as you continue to do the Middle, you
can do whatever you want with them. We're we're gonna
start things off with a pop quiz this hour. If
you are ready, I'm going to ask you a couple
of questions. First of all, do you know how many
billionaires there are in the world?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (00:49):
One hundred and ninety two?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Now three and twenty estimated net worth is about sixteen
trillion dollars. Do you know how many new billionaires out
of those three twenty eight were created in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Four outside of me?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
One thousand, two hundred.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
And forty seven is a correct answer.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
This one you're going to get.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
Do you know who?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Do you know who the richest.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
One of them is Elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Elon Musk exactly, and as you know, he has taken
an unprecedented position of power as a leader of the
Trump Administration's Department of Government Efficiency or DOZE, and DOZE
has been laying government workers off by the thousands, ending
government contracts, getting access to government data systems, all in
the name, they say, of cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.
(01:37):
The cutting and Musk's role in it, has led to
growing protests around the country, not to mention.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
People getting rid of their Teslas.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
So this week, on an earnings call for Tesla, which
has seen sales plummet, Musk said he would be scaling
back his role in the government.
Speaker 6 (01:51):
Well, continue to spend a day or two per week
on govern matters for as long as the President would
like me to do so and as long as it
is useful, But starting next month, I hope yeah, allocating
parlare of my time to Tesla. And now that the
major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency is done.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
But even with Musk pulling back, there are still at
least a dozen billionaires.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
In the Trump administration. So we want to know.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
This hour how you feel about that. The power of
billionaires in our politics, Tolliver, how can people reach us?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
You can call us that eight four four four Middle.
That's eight four four four six four and three three
five three. You can also write to us at Listen
to the Middle dot com. You can also comment on
all of our social medias, but especially our live stream
on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Okay, we're watching, We're watching.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Joining us on the panel this Hour, USA Today Chief
political correspondent.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Philip Bailey, Hay, Philip, Jeremy, What's hell?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
And on not too much, but we will find out
how people feel about billionaires this hour, and Dan Alexander
is also with a senior editor at Forbes and author
of the book White House incow Donald Trump turned the
presidency into a business. Dan, welcome to you, Ny. Thanks
appreciating so before we go to the phones with both
of you, Philip, Donald Trump ran for president appealing to
(03:11):
the working class, and it seemed at the beginning of
the administration like his supporters were just fine with him
putting all these billionaires into the administration and one hundred millionaires,
by the way, like Scott Bessen, who's not actually a billionaire,
the Treasury Secretary, but Elon Musk Linda McMahon, Howard Lutnik.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
What about now?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Are his supporters okay with the billionaires?
Speaker 7 (03:32):
I think it's an issue really of three things here.
But one, I think that yes, his supporters absolutely didn't
have a problem with Elon Musk, but I talked to
Trump supporters with his role in the administration. But I
think number one, it's what those billionaires are doing, right
when you have people who are making fourteen million dollars
(03:53):
a day on average back in twenty twenty three when
the market's rebound, and then you have them talking the
way they do about social security with the price of eggs. Remember,
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris really talked about the cost
of living in America. And I think that's the other
issue too. It's not just wealth inequality. It's just too
damn expensive to be an American. Rinse Er, high childcare,
is high healthcare, housing, right to buy a home, access
(04:17):
to the American dream. So to have those contrasts in
the country while having these very wealthy individuals in the administration,
I think does have people scratching their heads. But I
think when you talk to hardcore Trump supporters, they're still
holding firm. But I think when you see what these
recent polls, and Donald Trump is beginning to lose some
ground in the country, is beginning to sour on him,
(04:37):
particularly as these conversations about social security entitlements come up,
but also for one case taking a hit being his
trade war.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
And Dan help us understand why a billionaire would want
the kind of scrutiny that comes with a role in
the Trump administration. Is this a business decision for them?
Have they always wanted to be in government?
Speaker 8 (04:56):
What?
Speaker 9 (04:57):
Well, it depends on who you're talking about. And these
people are motivating by different things. But for many of them,
you know, they've achieved more money than they could ever spend.
So what they're really looking for is respect, another sense
of accomplishment. They want to be called secretary or ambassador
for the rest of their lives. That's a big driver
for a lot of these people. Many of them are
(05:18):
also just curious about a new challenge. You know, they
feel like they've mastered their industry, and many of them
feel like they've mastered business generally, whether that's true or not,
and they're curious about trying their hand at politics. And
then they're the people who just are attracted to the limelight.
You know, Donald Trump's one of those. He wants to
be in the spotlight. The more chaos, the better. He
loves all of the questions, loves all of the headlines,
(05:42):
all of the bright lights. That's what he's attracted to.
Howard Lutnik is one of those folks as well. So
they're all motivated by different things and it's hard to
pinpoint sort of a common thing for the whole group.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned Howard Lutnik, the Commerce secretary.
What are you learning about the billionaires that you've been
covering who are in the Trump administration.
Speaker 9 (06:02):
Well, what's fascinating is that Trump, whether in business or
in politics, has always attracted people with similar traits to him.
He's attracted people who are impressed by big brands. He's
attracted people who are impressed by you know, people who
are on television a lot, people who get a lot
of attention. Howard Lutnik is that kind of guy. Here's
(06:23):
a guy who became a CEO on Wall Street when
he was still in his late twenties and has been
doing that for decades, and he's always loved being on television.
He spent a ton of time on television right after
nine to eleven, for instance, much of the chagrin of
some of his colleagues who were booking long hours in
the office to try to build the firm back and
became frustrated with how much time he was spending on TV.
(06:45):
Somebody like that sees Donald Trump win an election and says,
wait a second, I'm a billionaire, I'm good on TV.
Why couldn't I be in office too? And so he's
attracted to that and decides that he wants to join
the administration.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Philip, does it appear that the true wealthy who are
in the government are achieving things that they want or
are they doing the things that Trump wants them to do? Like,
is there a difference between a cabinet secretary who's not
rich and what they're doing, and it's somebody who is
rich in the cabinet. I think you're you're muted there, Philip.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
That's he's just thinking's answer, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Sorry about that.
Speaker 7 (07:25):
I think when you look at the friction on the right, right,
the friction in MAGA world. Steve Bannon, one of Donald Trump's,
you know, foremost advisors, has really been pounding Elon Musk
and saying that you know, Look, there are some people
who are more interested in what the president wants to
accomplish or what's best for the country, and then there
are those who are acting in their own self interests.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
And he called out Elon Musk directly, right.
Speaker 7 (07:49):
He and Elon Musk have had many back and forth
over the airways, and you hear these reports about some
of the cabinet members feeling a way about Elon's role
so that he just does things.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
As he wants.
Speaker 7 (08:00):
He's one of the least popular members of the administration,
even though he's in a sort of unofficial role. He's
not a cabinet member per se, but he certainly acts
like one. And I think that there is a conversation
on the political right about who is the who are
these folks actually working for. Are they working for the
president's agenda, the more populist minded maga folks, or are
(08:20):
they simply working for themselves and the benefit, uh for
their own personal finances. I think that we saw when
the president declared, you know, the trade war and initially
announced it. When you look at you know, people call
it like sort of the best inside or trading ever
in the country's history. When you look and see who
is benefiting from that? Is it average Americans? Maybe it'll
be long terms with the President's promising, but in the
(08:42):
short term, you know, those stocks and everything changing that
certainly benefits the wealthier members of his administration.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Well, and we don't have any details yet about exactly
who was able to make trades. I guess before the
public knew that Trump was pausing the trade war, but
certainly there are people who are looking into that. Let's
get to the phones again. You can reach us at
eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four four
six four three three five three, and I'm going to
go to Mary, who's in Ennis, Texas. Mary, welcome to
(09:09):
the Middle. Go ahead with your thoughts.
Speaker 10 (09:13):
Well, I think that billionaires in the government don't have
in cabinet positions especially, don't have any idea what the
average American citizen goes through in their lives. They are
so far removed from the struggles of daily lives, especially
(09:35):
these days, that they're just out of touch and just
are in their own little bubble and it doesn't truly
help any of us.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Well, and Mary, just briefly give me a sense of
what kind of struggles are you going through?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Right now in your life financially.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
Well.
Speaker 10 (09:54):
For instance, my husband are building an apartment for my
mother in law, my sister in law so they can
live on our property with us. And since the pandemic,
which was also under Trump's presidency, for building materials have
gone through the roof, it's cost us at least thirty
(10:14):
percent more to build this apartment than it is to
build for the same materials when we were building our house.
And I don't know if that that's gonna go down
anytime soon, especially with the tariffs and all this nonsense
going on. And you know, anybody who's who's trying to
(10:35):
diyatt because it's saved this money and because we have
the ability to do our own construction, it's just exponentially
more expensive than it used to be.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, Mary, thanks for that call. Dan, just briefly, I
mean kind of gets to what you were talking about.
They live in a different world, it doesn't you know,
a billionaire doesn't notice the difference between gas prices going
up or building materials going up like that.
Speaker 9 (10:58):
That's right, And you know they come from different worlds too.
I mean, people get rich in a lot of different ways,
and some people inherited their wealth. So it's not even
like they you know, built up a massive business and
you know, had to go through a lot of hard
times to get there. Some of these people were just
born rich and have always been rich.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Will Telliver.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Bernie Sanders, the Senator from Vermont, has been warning about
the power of billionaires for a very long time.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Yeah, he's been traveling the country in recent weeks holding
huge rallies. Here he is speaking to a crowd in
Los Angeles.
Speaker 8 (11:30):
Mister Moss sent out a tweet and in essence he said,
you know, Bernie Sanders has been talking about the growth
of olagacke year after year after year.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Well, Elin, you're damn.
Speaker 9 (11:45):
Right, that's what I've been talking about.
Speaker 8 (11:53):
The difference is I'm no longer talking about how I'm
moving to oligaucky, talking about how we are living today
in an oligarchic form of society.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Did he say olive garden, oligarchy, oligacky.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
More of your calls coming up on the Middle.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you're just
tuning in the Middle is a national call in show.
We're focused on elevating voices from the middle geographically, politically
and philosophically, or maybe you just want to meet in
the middle. This hour, we're asking you how you feel
about the power of billionaires in our politics. Tolliver again
the number please.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
for six four three three five three. You can also
write to us at Listen to the Middle dot com
or on social media.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
I'm joined by Forbes Senior editor Dan Alexander and USA
Today Chief political correspondent Philip Bailey. And before we get
back to the phones, Philip, is there a connection between
the increasing power of billionaires in our politics and the
Supreme Court decision Citizen United, which allowed in some cases
unlimited spending on elections.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Oh? Absolutely.
Speaker 7 (13:05):
I mean, let's go back twenty years ago, right when
there was sort of a bipartisan agreement between the late
John McCain and Russ Feiningeld, two senators who introduced campaign
finance reform. Right, this idea that there should be certain
rules and limitations on how much is spent on campaigns. Well,
the Supreme Court comes in in twenty ten with the
Citizens United decision and wipes that away.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Right in this idea and one of the opponents.
Speaker 7 (13:30):
Of campaign finance reform, my home state senator of retiring
Senator Mitch McConnell. The al idea on the right was
money is speech, and that idea, that ideology that ape
person of wealth can spend as much as they want
and not just spend jeremy as much as they want
in a campaign.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
But these dark money groups that.
Speaker 7 (13:48):
Don't have a lot of disclosures, don't have a lot
of rules to them, really have given a wealthier people
millionaires and billionaires, and outsized the role in our politics.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Democrats initially were railing against that.
Speaker 7 (14:00):
Every Democrat you saw so talking about reintroducing a constitutional
amendment to overturn that decision.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
But Democrats themselves have this problem.
Speaker 7 (14:09):
Too, where they have their own billionaires who are spending
millions upon billions of dollars in these races. It's really
created a wild wild West situation in the past fifteen
years in our politics.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
George Soros, Bill Gates, and might I add Taylor Swift
as a billionaire on the Democratic side. These days, you
wonder who you know when you see a music festival,
which one of them is a billionaire in addition to
be an artist.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
At this point, they have a billionaire stage.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Now exactly, Dan, how are the billionaires giving politically these days?
Are they targeted in their political spending or do they
give across the board just in case either side wins?
Do they hit the limit every time?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Do they go? I mean, how are you seeing that
play out?
Speaker 9 (14:49):
Well? It really depends on the person. So you have
some people who are super savvy and sophisticated about it.
You know, you take somebody like Peter Thiel, who really
bankrolled JD Vance's Senate ron and Ohio and Dvance one.
Now he also did the same thing to Blake Masters,
who did not but advanced one, and that sort of
propelled him to the vice presidency. Now you have somebody
(15:10):
who almost owes his political career to a billionaire. So
if you're looking as a return on investment, that's about
as good as you can get for an investor. Other
people take the approach of hey, I'm just going to
give to everybody because I want them to like me
when they're in power. One of the things that you
see a lot is after the election, people who might
(15:33):
have been sort of on the fence or not in
the headlines as a big supporter will come out and
donate to the inaugural committee. Now, that's as sure of
a bet as you can get, because you know that
the person's won. So if you want to get in
their good graces, you can throw in a million five
million bucks and allow them to throw a great party,
and all of a sudden you look like a huge
(15:55):
supporter of them. We're sort of in that stage now
where everyone is trying to get bed I'm Trump, whether
they were at the beginning or not, and say no, no,
I really am a supporter because they know that that's
where the power lies.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Right, let's go to the phones and Robert, who's in Chicago. Hi, Robert,
welcome to the middle. Go ahead with your thoughts about
billionaires in politics.
Speaker 11 (16:15):
My thoughts are, it doesn't make a difference to me
what their net worth is. I think it's more about
relevant experience. You know, for most of these positions, I
would probably like someone that's that's a politician or had experience,
you know. For cabinet secretaries are going to be looking at,
you know, pushing through legislation that the president wants. Well,
(16:36):
the presidents that that signed the legislation as opposed executive orders.
But and I think bringing that experience to bear. I don't.
It doesn't otherwise, I don't. I don't see a reason
that it matters. Maybe in the Treasury Secretary in terms
of their past their past relationships with industry, and I
(16:59):
think that definitely. You know, they showed that matter during
two thousand and eight, two thousand and seven when you
had them having to host calls, and I do think
it matters in that. But I can't think of any
other positions where someone their status as a billionaire is
going to help them make Dealing with the federal bureaucracy
or dealing with government, you need someone that has dealt
(17:21):
with it because government's not a business. It doesn't operate
in any of the any of the same ways, and
so they're status at being able to make money doesn't
do much for it.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, Robert, thank you for that call. Philip.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
We think of the Treasury Secretary right now, Scott Bessant,
who again is not a billionaire, but has hundreds of
millions of dollars, and it doesn't seem like he has
been getting for the most part, what he wants from
a policy perspective on the trade war. He seems like
one of the people has been pushing back against the
tariffs with Trump.
Speaker 7 (17:55):
Yeah, and look, I think the call makes an excellent
point here, and I think Dan made this point earlier too.
How these folks make their money, some inherit their money.
You know, some are in positions like let's take Linda
McMahon for example, right, the wife of Vince McMahon, made
her money through professional wrestling. How professional wrestling is connected
to her being the Education secretary. I'm not sure anyone
really absolutely knows. But this is the problem I guess
(18:17):
with our politics right now, is that the wealth conveys
this expertise. People assume that, oh, if this person's a
business leader or they're a millionaire a billionaire, they must
know what they're doing, because how can they be a
billionaire and a millionaire and not have some level of
acumen or some level of expertise. And going back to
the Treasury Secretary, you're right, I mean you would think
you would just simply defer to him on this. But
(18:39):
Donald Trump has been in love with tariffs right since
the nineteen eighties, even though history shows that those tariffs
have not actually worked out for America in the way
that a lot of us I think would want our
economy to operate. When tariffs are often high, there's often
a parallel between that and an economic recession.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
And I think that goes into what.
Speaker 7 (18:58):
I think the Democrats and others are trying to poke
and saying that, Look, these folks are billionaires. They might
have a whole lot of money, but do they know
what they're doing? And when you look at your checkbook,
do you see anything trickling down your way? I think
that's the lynchpin I think the Democrats and Trump opponents
are looking for. But in the broader discussion for both parties,
there needs to be I think a larger question of
(19:18):
are these folks even qualified outside of simply being wealthy.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Let's go to Reuben, who's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ruben, welcome
to the middle your thoughts on billionaires in politics?
Speaker 12 (19:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 13 (19:29):
So my thought, Liz, I don't know, As I said,
it's just essentially what are their motives to be in politics?
I know it was kind of hit that they have money,
but the question is if there's an a drive policies
that help them make more richer or policies that actually
help people that didn't. What they for them to join
is and I've never had anyone say I don't want
(19:49):
to make more money. So that's the question.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Well, do you think that the people who are in
Trump's administration right now, the billionaires in Trump's administration, are
just trying to make more money or do you think
that they're trying to help people.
Speaker 13 (20:03):
The thing is, there are so many things that people
get at that level, get information on that they can
easily use it to make more money. Whether they're trying
to do that or not, it's difficult to usuttain because
those things don't never come out. You're probably no five
years down the lane that someone made money by some
policy or some information they got from somewhere. But the
people who are right now in the administration, I'm not
(20:26):
too sure. You look at the individual, Each interview is
different and the need for you know, wanting to do
is different.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Dan, you know, you think about Elon Musk and Trump
putting tariffs on foreign cars and foreign car parts. That
obviously is very good news for Tesla, which is mostly
made in the United States. Do what do we know
about how some of these billionaires are making money themselves
because of their role or because of their closeness to
(20:56):
the president.
Speaker 9 (20:58):
Well, I mean, you know, Elon mush he also makes,
of course a lot of cars in China and a
lot of cars in Germany and imports parts from all over.
I mean, this is a complicated thing for people who
have multinational businesses. And he's come out and said, hey,
you know, I love what Trump's doing, but this whole
tariff thing, I'm not so sure. You know, what's fascinating
(21:19):
is that the real question here is what's in these
people's heads. You know, are they doing this because they
are trying to help or are they doing this because
they want to make money? And you can't tell what's
inside somebody's head. There's no way of getting in there.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
And so there are.
Speaker 9 (21:33):
All these sorts of systems to prevent the possibility that
people are trying to just enrich themselves. But those systems
have their own limitations. And I'll give you an example.
So Stephen Feinberg, who's the Deputy Secretary of Defense right now,
he was heavily invested in the defense industry for years.
He's a you know, Wall Street private equity investor, but
he had invested a lot of money in defense companies
(21:56):
recently now, when he took over his position, he had
to get rid of those interests. But one of the
ways that he was able to get rid of those
interests was just to hand him off to his adult children, which,
by the way, he was going to do anyway, That's
what billionaires do twenty years from now when they're trying
to do estate planning. So it might have forwarded his
estate planning a little bit, but it didn't fundamentally change
(22:17):
his relationship with those sorts of businesses. Now, on the
other hand, this is a guy who is heavily studied
defense companies, who knows how finances work and has very
sophisticated at such things, who's now helping look over an
enormous budget. That might be exactly the sort of guy
that you want in office. So handling that tension is
(22:39):
a difficult job for ethics officials and also a difficult
job for anyone who's rich going into government to figure out,
how do I handle this to make sure that it
looks okay, and also that I'm not taking a huge
bath on public service.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
And Feinberg has what five billion dollars?
Speaker 9 (22:54):
Five billion dollars?
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yeah, yeah, Tolliver, what's coming in online?
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Five billion?
Speaker 5 (22:59):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Desmond and Detroit says billionaires are a cancer of our
economic system, and like tumorus growths, they co opt the
resources meant for the good of all for their own
selfish uses. The Trump administration centering billionaires at the center
of power has shown this metastasis to be truly terminal.
Unless radical action is taken to excise their influence, our
democracy is dead. I'll do one more if Paul says,
(23:22):
considering our national debt, it appears to me that our
Congress does not know how to manage money. To become
a billionaire, person must have money management skills. My vote,
let's give them a chance. President Trump only has around
forty five more months in office.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
It's nothing.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Forty five months. I haven't thought of it that way.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
We've got a Jeremy alert on the phones. We don't
get that very often. Another Jeremy calling in from East Adam, Connecticut. Jeremy,
welcome to the middle. What do you think about the
role of billionaires in our politics?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Hi?
Speaker 5 (23:53):
Thanks a lot, guys. I don't like it. I'm gonna
be honest. But here's the thing. Money is about. Money
is a part of our electoral process. Now it's dominant,
and but we have the ability through capitalism to decide
whether they're going to be successful or not and to
hold them accountable. They've run their own businesses, they've made
(24:17):
a lot of money. Look, I'm extremely left onlike the
political spectrum, but if these guys are going to step in,
they're taking their own risks, and we're going to decide,
like whether they're successful or not, whether we spend money
in their business and hold.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Them accountable through capitalism by either buying their products or not,
if they are consumer facing products that they're that they're selling.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Exactly, we're a capitalist democracy, there's no way around it.
That's the reality of what the world is right now
and what this country is. And so we've got to
lean in. And Musk is a prime example of that.
His company is taking and you know what, it's those
of us that feel like this country needs to change
that are holding him accountable through his pocketbook. And if
(25:06):
he decides he wants to keep at it and make
America a better place, you know, then he'll he'll do that.
But you know what, he won't. He's going to step away.
And this is what we need to do. We absolutely
need to do this.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Jeremy thank you very much for that call. Philip.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
I'm sure that you have heard from voters like Jeremy
as you've traveled the country and people that have either
sold their Tesla, sold their Tesla stock, or I've seen
people putting like Audi logos on their Teslas so that
nobody knows it's a Tesla.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Right.
Speaker 7 (25:41):
I see folks around here driving Teslas with bumper stickers.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
I bought this before I knew right.
Speaker 7 (25:47):
But look, to quote the late George Carlin, it's a
big club and you ain't in it. It's very hard
for billionaires to lose, right. I mean, in twenty twenty three,
with the market was rebounding, billionaires were making I think
eight hundred and fifty two Dan, maybe check my numbers
on the eight hundred fifty two billion to their fortunes
in the first half of that year. That's fourteen million
(26:10):
dollars each day, and I challenge everyone to count to
fourteen million.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
You probably won't be able to live that long.
Speaker 7 (26:17):
Billionaires don't loose often, So when Americans talk about capitalism
and the way it works now in our democracy, it's
very hard for I think the American public to wrap
their minds around how much money and wealth. These individuals
actually have again fourteen million dollars a day.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Think of that when you have folks who.
Speaker 7 (26:36):
Are literally trying to steal a harvest chicken so they
can buy and purchase eggs. I mean, the wealth disparity
here is insurmountable. I think in a lot of people's
mind to put to scale. So I disagree with the
caller in this aspect that there is some sort of
democracy that can hold these folks accountable through some some
sort of boycott or consumerism. I think the real question
(26:58):
is for both Democrats and Republicans is when does the
rubber meet the road here on populism. I think you
see here folks are very aspirational. They want to be
millionaires and billionaires. People want to be successful. But at
the same time, the wealth inequality, the expensiveness of America.
That's what the contrast is really I'm hearing from voters.
It's not the hatred of billionaires and billionaires. I'm seeing
(27:21):
these folks make all this money, and where is that
trickling down? Where is that American dream for me as
a regular American?
Speaker 1 (27:28):
I also thank you Philip for using probably the cleanest
George Carl ud quote that.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Exists in the world.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
I try it because this is broadcast radio. Let's go
to Juliana, who's in Denver, Colorado. Hi, Juliana, welcome to
the middle. Go ahead with your thoughts.
Speaker 14 (27:45):
Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 13 (27:46):
I mean, there's a lot.
Speaker 14 (27:47):
Of thoughts, right, but I'll keep it brief because you've
got other callers. If these people weren't known for their philanthropy,
we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. There's reasons they're billionaires.
Speaker 10 (28:00):
Exploited their workers.
Speaker 11 (28:01):
It's where they are.
Speaker 14 (28:03):
You look at who's doing the NLRB to end labor protection.
It's a lot of the billionaires sitting around Donald Trump.
Speaker 12 (28:11):
I don't trust them.
Speaker 14 (28:12):
I don't think there's any reason to trust them. And
to say that they're billionaires because they've done good business
or managed their money really well, it kind of escapes
the points how they became billionaires.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Juliana, I thank you. Dan. What do you think about that?
Speaker 9 (28:29):
Well, you know, people do get rich in a lot
of different ways, and certainly there are some that you
could make the case that they, you know, just exploit labor,
but a lot of these people also have created products
that you know, they didn't even necessarily set out to
get rich, but those products became incredibly popular, and what
(28:50):
do you know, all of a sudden they have billions
of dollars and have to sort of figure out what
to do with it. I mean, there are all these
different ways to get there. But one of the interesting
thing things, I think one of the earlier collers said,
you know, if they're that rich, they must be good
at financial management. You know, you can get rich by
being good at a lot of things that are not
(29:10):
financial management. You know, you could be For instance, Donald
Trump is maybe the greatest marketer in American history. He
is terrible at financial management. I mean, this is a
guy who has had multiple bankruptcies of his companies, and
business takes a lot of different skills, and you can
get really rich being good at some of those skills
(29:32):
and not all of them.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Well, you know, I'm glad you brought that up, because Tolliver,
some of the billionaires who supported Donald Trump are kind
of angry at how he's managing the economy right now
because of the stock market volatility.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Yeah, here's head spun billionaire Ray Dalio speaking on NBC's
Meet the Press.
Speaker 15 (29:51):
Right now, we are at a decision making point and
very close to recession, and I'm worried about something the recession.
We have a breaking down of the monetary order because
we cannot spend the amounts of money. So we have
that problem. And when we talk about the dollar and
we talk about tariffs, we have that we are having
(30:14):
a profound changes in our domestic order, how ruling is existing,
and we're having profound changes in the world order.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Billionaire Bill Ackman, by the way, who was a huge
Trump supporter, was also pretty upset by the tariffs. He
said on X the president is losing the confidence of
business leaders around.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
So we'll see fair weather friends look at that.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Only when the economy is doing well.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
We'll be right back with more of your calls on
the Middle. This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. In
this hour, we're asking you how you feel about the
power of billionaires in our politics.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
You can call us at.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four four
six four three three five three. You can also reach
out to us at listen Toothmiddle dot com. My guests
are USA Today Chief political correspondent Philip Bailey and Forbes
Senior editor Dan Alexander. And before we go back to
the phones, Philip, what about the growing protests that we've
been seeing around the country. We heard from Bernie Sanders
(31:14):
earlier on. He's been out with Alexandria or Casio Cortez,
having these huge rallies around the country, and a lot
of the focus is on the threat of an oligarchy.
How is the extreme wealth in the administration galvanizing the
opposition in politics right now?
Speaker 7 (31:31):
Well, I think you know Bernie Sanders an AOC in particular,
who come from the more democratic socialist wing of the
Democratic Party and have always had an economic critique of
capitalism and come from that wing of the party.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
I think they are having their moment.
Speaker 7 (31:46):
I mean, you're seeing them in Idaho, You're seeing them
in major metropolitan areas as well. The question I think
for them is that is that should be simply your
base that was always there. Are you actually attracting new
voters and new people? And I think Democrats are trying
to find that lightning in the bottle, trying to find
that populist mantra, that populist messaging and energy.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
But the concentration of wealth.
Speaker 7 (32:10):
Certainly is something that Bernie Sanders and AOC are talking about,
and I think it's beginning to spread in the country
as a whole, as you see, like I think it's
eight hundred billionaires, jeremy, who have about as much as
about fifty percent or have more than fifty percent of
the wealth and the entire nation. The problem for Democrats, though,
is that they have billionaires too. I mean, it was
at the DNC convention that was there when Bernie Sanders spoke,
(32:32):
and then a few moments later, Illinois Governor J. D.
Pritzker got on the stage and mentioned, you know, and
sort of laughingly mentioned, well, I'm a billionaire too, right.
And I think if we look a hundred years ago,
right when the DuPonts and the Carnegie and the Rockefellers
and those major industrials were pretty much running our country,
it took a wealthy individual like an FDR to get
into the presidency and have a more progressive tax system
(32:54):
that sort of swung the pendulum back from really World
War two to nineteen seventy six. Will that be the
person who catches the lightning in the bottle of the Democrats,
I'm not sure, but that certainly is something I think
that they're going to lean into going into twenty twenty
six and twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Let's go to Rodney, who's in Lake Bronson, Minnesota. Hi, Rodney,
go ahead.
Speaker 16 (33:14):
I'm really not too concerned. I don't think anybody should
be concerned about the billionaires and millionaires in charge of
the country. I'd be more concerned about the ones that
are that are leaving, are becoming the millionaires or the
billionaires while in office. I think that's more. But worried
that everybody should have. But coming in this one.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
You're worried about people who get rich off the office
rather than people who already are rich and then come
in and work in.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
The government.
Speaker 16 (33:43):
Exactly. I mean, because you look at an annual salary
of a lot of these people, you know, anywhere from
fifty thousand dollars up to one hundred and seventy five
dollars dollars on average deal a year. Yeah, I mean,
they have to have some living so I'm sure that
the government puts the bill for a lot of their
stuff and a lot of their given the place there.
(34:04):
But I'm sure they have all the three giety that
they can handle. A transportation, so they would worry about
it anyway, But I don't see how a person.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Could be.
Speaker 16 (34:16):
Drian is salary bus anywhere. It's like fifty one hundred
and seventy five thousand dollars year, be an office for yeah,
six years, that all of a sudden they're a millionaire
or a multimillionaire when they leave office. It kind of
makes you wonder about that more than coming in as one.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Yeah, Rodney, thank you. You know, it's a good point.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
A lot of times they write a book or they
start giving speeches, but there are also other ways that
they make a lot of money. Dan, your book is
called White House, Inc. How Donald Trump turned the presidency
into a business. So I'll let you take take that one.
People who come in and then get rich while they're there,
and by the way, including Donald Trump, whose wealth has
gone up quite a bit since he became the President
(34:58):
of the United States the first time.
Speaker 9 (35:01):
That's right. There's nobody in American history who has made
more money on politics than Donald Trump. That's mostly based
around the creation of a social media business which is
now trading in the public markets at a wild valuation.
He hangs on to a big chunk of the shares
and that's created billions of dollars for him, but it
also goes to things like, you know, selling sneakers and
(35:23):
guitars and meme coins and all sorts of stuff based
on his popularity. He recognizes that being a politician and
being a celebrity aren't all that different, and if celebrities
are able to sell all this merchandise and stuff based
on their fame, why shouldn't he also, And so he's
really kind of revolutionized the game on how to make
money from politics. You know, I think there are a
(35:46):
lot of people who sort of stir the pot on
this issue. And don't get me wrong, there are a
lot of people who have become very wealthy in politics.
But you stir the pot about there must be something
nefarious in all of these situations. You know, Bernie Sanders
is a millionaire, and he became a millionaire because he
wrote a few books and they sold really well, and
(36:08):
so he made a few million dollars. Other people, you know,
Mitch McConnell is worth more than twenty million dollars. That's
because his wife comes from a very wealthy shipping fortune
and they inherited a chunk of that. Much of these
massive gains in wealth that you see while somebody is
in office are actually explicable. You can look at moments
(36:30):
when they inherited big chunk of assets, when they sold
a book, when there was something that got them really rich.
And usually the people who are sort of congress people
who might go from zero to two or three or
four million dollars, usually that's because of books or selling
some sort of merchandise or something like that, which is
(36:52):
not necessarily as corrupt as people make it out to be,
although there are certainly.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Exceptions, right, And obviously we talked about sort of the
idea of insider trading just recently, and it's going to
be interesting to see if any lawmakers had some information
ahead of time and did that.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Julia is in southern Missouri. Hi, Julia, go ahead, Hi there.
Speaker 12 (37:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 17 (37:18):
So I teach special education in one of the poorest
counties and definitely the poorest district in the Forest County
in the Ozarks. I have a lot of IEP meetings
this time of year, a lot of new kids coming
into the district, and a lot of parents are asking,
(37:40):
how are all these changes going to affect my kids.
I don't have an answer, because our Department of Education
no longer exists. In addition to that, the vast majority,
over ninety percent of the family that our district live
below the poverty limits. They rely on government assistance to
(38:02):
feed their children inside the school because we are fully
funded through a program, or we were to no longer
exist to feed the kids in our school. For a
lot of the kids, those are the only two meals
a day that they got it.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
And the head of the Department of Education, as we've said,
is a billionaire, Linda McMahon.
Speaker 17 (38:24):
I doubt she's been hungry.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yeah, Julia, I really appreciate you you calling in and
good luck with everything that's going on there. I'm sure
there are a lot of people around the country dealing
with very similar situations. Although you, as you say, are
in one of the poorest counties, appreciate the call. Philip,
what do you think about that? I mean, this is
a real, real life example of somebody who is dealing
(38:51):
with the cuts that are being made by this administration,
affecting extremely poor people in this country and being made
by a billionaire who who is shutting down the Department
of Education.
Speaker 7 (39:02):
Right, and I completely empathize with her. I mean, as
a Kentuckian right. We have some of the poorest counties
in the entire country here in the Bluegrass State, particularly
in eastern Kentucky. And you see when the proposal to
for example, cut snap benefits food stamps. You know who
has some of the highest percentage, Who has the highest
percentage in the congressional district of food stamps in the
(39:23):
entire state. It's not here in a place like Louisville
where it's represented by a Democrat. It's out and how
Rogers District, right, district that went overwhelmingly for Donald Trump.
What I'm looking for, Jeremy, is when this tax the
Trump tax cuts come back up, what will the debate
be around that. I'm also interested to see again how
Democrats are they going to really lean into and tap
(39:45):
into this across the board. We don't really have a
working class political party in this country. When the previous
college I talked about insider trading, I talk to voters all
the time when that stuff comes up. They've mentioned Nancy Pelosi,
they mentioned Democrats. Democrats have their own of House they
have to get in order to hear this is not
really a partisan issue, right, And I think what's happened
(40:06):
in this particular administration where you're seeing sort of going
back to a pre FDR federal government where basic fundamental
things are now being stripped away and taken away. I'm
interested to see, particularly heading into the midterms, will those
more populous minded Trump supporters, right those steel workers, those
people who worked on farms in North Carolina, people who
live in Missouri or Missouri, depending on what part.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Of the state you're from, how to pronounce it.
Speaker 7 (40:29):
I'm interested to see how they're going to respond when
these basic amenities that many poor white rural voters who
voted for Donald Trump rely upon. Are they going to
turn on him politically if they don't see something here? Again,
as I said earlier, I don't think Americans disdain people
who are wealthy and who are successful. I do think, though,
that they disdain people who are wealthy and successful when
(40:51):
they are seeing basic parts of the public good being
eradicated and pulled back.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
You could see that.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
I came from Illinois. That's why I called it Missouri
and always have. Let's go to Jade, who's in San Antonio, Texas.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Hyjade your thoughts by there.
Speaker 12 (41:10):
Well, I've listened to a lot of stuff that I
do agree with, especially the gentleman just now what he
was talking about about how people are going to respond.
But you know, it made me think about if you
were to head a household, if you were to have
a household, it would be wrong for you to focus
on your own self while you're you know, leading your household.
(41:35):
So I don't really care about whether or not you
got billions of dollars, and you made it legitimately, I mean,
you're entitled to it, But what do you do while
you're in service to the government. You're not there because
of your money or for your self serving interests. It
is a time to put away. Government is for the people,
(41:56):
So that's what you should be doing during that period
in billions shouldn't have an impact or an influence on
how you operate. You're governing for the people. And if
I can give you one more analogy, a police officer.
If a police officer gets into that industry, to that
(42:17):
career set, I mean, we know that a lot of
power comes with being a police officer, but that's not
the reason you're supposed to get into it. You get
into it because you're serving the people, protecting the people.
That is what government's about. So keep your billions, but
do what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Thank you, yeah, Jade, thank you very much. Dan, What
do you think about that?
Speaker 1 (42:40):
And of the billionaires that you can think of in
the Trump administration, are there ones who are legitimately doing
it for the people, and that not because they want
to be called the secretary or because they want to
make more money, you know, in their own businesses.
Speaker 9 (42:56):
Well, I do think that there are questions about mentioned
Stephen Weinberg earlier, questions about his family's finances. But you know, look,
here's a guy's worth five billion dollars to decide to
join the government, to become pete Hegseths number two. Okay,
it's not exactly a glamour role that he's taken, and
he could do a lot of things with his time
and with his experience and with his intelligence. I do
(43:19):
think that he's somebody who if I were to guess
what's inside his head, which is always a guest, you
never know, I would guess that he's doing it for
the right reasons. You know. One of the things that
is set up are these ethics rules to prevent exactly
you know what the caller was talking about. People doing
things for their own businesses, and that applies across the
board to people in the executive branch, but it does
(43:41):
not apply to the president or the vice president. And
so Donald Trump is an exception here and that he
has hung on to his businesses and is taking actions,
for example, deregulating Crypto that do directly affect his own
companies and lead to a lot of questions about what
his motivations are.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Let's get to another call here and Cordel, who's in
Salt Lake City, Utah High Cordel, what do you think
about billionaires and politics?
Speaker 18 (44:10):
Well, I have a really difficult problem understanding why the
billionaires are able to just let go of their responsibilities
and just make more and more money off of everything.
I worked as a in the Utah Arts Council as
(44:34):
a member of the Utah Arts Council's board of directors,
and I had to give up my entire career in
order to support the programs that were going on. So
I had to let go of any opportunities that would
(44:57):
benefit me as an artist, and I had to sign
off on them and just say it was okay that
all this money went to somebody else. And then not
only that, But even after like four years of being
on the Arts Council, even after that, I didn't get
(45:17):
any other commissions. And I don't understand why it is that,
for instance, Elon Musk and Donald Trump can make all
kinds of millions of dollars and position themselves to make
even more and more money against the American public swill,
and then all of a sudden cut all of their
(45:39):
benefits and just make it where it's like another dictatorship.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
Yeah, Cordell, I think we've got it there. Thank you
very much for that call. Philip Bailey, what about like
the conflicts of interest? And we've talked a little bit
about it this hour, But is anybody policing that, is
anybody really with teeth coming in and saying you can't
do this because you've got a clear conflict of interest
over here?
Speaker 7 (46:03):
Well, part of in the first one hundred days of
Donald Trump's blitz really of Washington and using his executive
authority is probably more so than we've ever seen a
president really governing by signature. Right, very few bills have
been passed by this Republican control Congress.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
I think what we're seeing here, and we.
Speaker 7 (46:21):
Saw Donald Trump so to go after a lot of
these regulatory agencies, go after a lot of these ethics
folks in government, and basically just fire them. Right, politically speaking,
Republicans have no appetite to hold him accountable, to.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Use their powers in that way.
Speaker 7 (46:35):
It's really becoming more from the judicial branch than anything else.
So look, this is what the American people voted for.
And I think the experiment that we're seeing here as
Democrats and people on the left are feverishly worrying about
a constitutional crisis and the abuse of power. I think
for the Trump's supporters and folks who are still trying
to give him a chance. But I think we're seeing
that weighing a bit here now in these first one
(46:57):
hundred days. His numbers are really beginning to sour, particularly
on the economy. But we're not seeing any oversight. We're
not seeing anyone sort of step in here and say no,
mister president, you can, at least not publicly.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
The only time you really see.
Speaker 7 (47:09):
It is when the markets go bad or when there
are these private conversations, often from billionaires. We're probably tapping
the president on the shoulder and saying, look at my portfolio.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Mister president.
Speaker 7 (47:18):
So we already seen him, for example, Thaw today on Hey,
I'm going to lower the tariffs on China.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Let me rethink this here.
Speaker 7 (47:25):
One thing about the Trump presidency and MAGA overall is
never admit defeat, never admit weakness.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Right. So I don't think you're right, but.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
I think people are willing to give him the benefit
of the doubt if the economy is going well, and
certainly if prices start to come down, maybe, but perhaps
not if those don't happen. Before we go, Dan, let
me just ask you about one more thing. The billionaire
ex wife of Bill Gates, Belinda French Gates, said recently
on CNN, if you have a billion dollars, that's.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
An absurd amount of wealth.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
You have a moral responsibility to give away at least
half of it. There are others who believe that any
wealth after a billion dollars should basically be taxed on percent,
that that's enough money for one person to have. Do
any billionaires you talk to share those views?
Speaker 9 (48:06):
Well, certainly there are a lot of billionaires who have
committed to giving away more than half of their wealth
they while they are still living. But what's interesting is
that because their wealth compounds as these numbers get really big.
If you have one hundred billion dollars in an average year,
(48:26):
you're gonna increase your net worth by ten billion dollars.
It gets hard to give away that much. And so yeah,
they like the idea of it, yeah, but actually doing
it in practice is hard.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
They could give it to the middle. That would be
very easy.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
And listen to the Middle dot com text I want
to thank my guest for senior editor Dan Alexander and
USA Today chieflylical correspondent Philip Bailey.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Thanks so much to both of you.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
Thank you guys, and.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Don't forget the Middle is available as a podcast in
partnership with Iheard Podcast on the iHeart Apple wherever you
listen to podcasts. We've got an episode of our podcast
Extra One Thing Trump Did coming out in the next
couple of days. We're gonna be talking about the US
relationship with China. And next year we'll be right back
here with journalist Derek Thompson on his book Abundance, which
he co wrote with Ezra Kline about how a country
as rich as the US is far behind on things
(49:14):
like housing and infrastructure.
Speaker 4 (49:17):
Yes, next week, as always, you can call in at
eight four four four Middle.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
That's eight four four four six four three three five three.
Speaker 4 (49:22):
You can also reach out to listen to the Middle
dot com. You can also sign up for our free
weekly newsletter and buy Middle merch with my face on it?
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Does it have your face on it?
Speaker 1 (49:31):
The Middle is brought to you by Longnok Media thanks
to Steve Mork, our technical director. This week, I'm Jeremy Hobson.
I'll talk to you next week.
Host
Jeremy Hobson
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