David Rutherford Show: The Lobbying Firm That Controls Trump's White House
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
iHeartPodcasts
4.5 • 11.4K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2026
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
💰You've heard "follow the money" your whole life. Today, I'm going to show you exactly where it leads. There's a K Street lobbying firm most people have never heard of — Ballard Partners — that now controls more access to the Trump White House than just about any other outside entity.
Before Trump's first election, they had zero federal clients. Today they're billing $88.1 million a year and representing foreign governments from Qatar to Saudi Arabia to Libya. And the firm's former employees? They're the White House Chief of Staff, the Attorney General, and — through connected networks — the Secretary of State.
This isn't a partisan attack on Trump. Some of what this administration is doing I think is exactly right. This is a SEAL and a former CIA officer showing you how the game is actually played — so you can stop being a pawn in it.
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🕒 Timestamps:
00:00 — The war inside the Republican Party no one is naming
03:11 — What is the "deep state" — and where does it actually live?
11:13 — Ballard Partners: $88.1M, 300 clients, 3 continents
19:39 — The pipeline: Susie Wiles and Pam Bondi came from the same firm
26:25 — Foreign clients: Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Libya
27:35 — The client roster: Amazon, TikTok, Nippon Steel, UnitedHealth
34:04 — Why David supports some of what Trump is doing — and what worries him
36:21 — Susie Wiles: foreign agent, Netanyahu's campaign, and the DC expansion
43:20 — Pam Bondi: lobbied for Uber and Geo Group before becoming AG
46:40 — The Rubio 2028 setup: donor class picks the next candidate
53:31 — The bipartisan machine: Democrats running the "Republican" firm's DC office
57:21 — What this means for you in 2026 and 2028
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.3 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:04.2 | There's definitely a civil war in MAGA right now. |
| 0:08.4 | But I'm here to tell you it's bigger than a civil war in MAGA. |
| 0:12.5 | There's actually an insurgency in the Republican Party. |
| 0:16.2 | And it's coming from the top lobbying firm that controls the White House right now. |
| 0:22.0 | Today on the David Rutherford show. |
| 0:33.7 | Welcome back to the show. |
| 0:35.9 | It has been a pretty wild ride for the last, I don't know, a couple weeks, |
| 0:42.3 | huh, Jordy, where we are seeing just an absolute shit show when it comes to the MAGA coalition. |
| 0:54.1 | Obviously, everybody's talking it. |
| 0:56.3 | Everybody's picking their sides. |
| 0:58.8 | And, you know, you've got the pro-Israel side. |
| 1:02.1 | You've got the Tucker Carlson side. |
| 1:05.3 | You've got the Nick Fuentes side. |
| 1:07.4 | You've got the Dan Holloway side. |
| 1:10.4 | You've got, you know, the people who love |
| 1:12.8 | Maha, the people who are libertarians. |
| 1:17.1 | Man, and it's all these factions that have split apart, which I believe is what those that |
| 1:25.7 | are at the real core of power want to actually happen. |
| 1:30.5 | And based on my recent exploration and support of Joe Kent and his resignation, |
| 1:39.1 | and I had the incredible opportunity a week ago Monday to spend most of the day with my best friend Sean Ryan |
... |
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