How lobbying works, with super-lobbyist Tony Podesta

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Politics, News, News Commentary, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.5 • 11.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2016

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When the New York Times profiled Tony Podesta, the headline was simply: "Tony Podesta, superlobbyist." Podesta is head of the Podesta group, and considered by many to be the most powerful, or at least one of the most powerful, lobbyists in Washington. Companies turn to him in their greatest time of need — he represented BP after the oil spill, and Bank of America after the financial crisis. Lobbying is not exactly the most popular profession. And yet, DC is full of lobbyists — they're a genuinely important part of how decisions get made, of how information is spread, of what policies end up happening. Podesta explains what it's like to be a lobbyist, what he actually does during the day, and in a world where his profession is a bit of a dirty word, why it feels to him like a good thing to do. It's an illuminating conversation about a profession that's widely loathed, incredibly important, and frequently misunderstood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The following podcast contains explicit language.
0:06.9	Hello people on podcast land. I am Ezra Klein, host of Well the Ezra Klein show
0:12.6	Hey Vox.com and Panably Podcast. This is the second edition of the show, the first one which I
0:18.5	hope you heard and enjoyed and shared with my friends was an interview with the great Rachel
0:23.2	Maddo. And I wanted to start that show by jumping right in. But before we get to today's interview
0:29.1	with Washington super lobbyist Tony Pidesda, I wanted to talk for a moment about the theory of
0:34.5	the show and what you can expect. I'm going to try to do a couple things in these conversations that
0:39.6	are not totally normal and I want to tell you why so it's not totally confusing. The first is that
0:46.1	I want to make these interviews as ever green as I possibly can. I want you to be able to come
0:50.4	into the episode archive a year from now, even five years from now, click on Rachel's interview
0:55.1	and really enjoy it. And that means not asking questions about what is going on in the news right
1:00.4	now. So if you don't hear me ask about this or that story that is completely dominating the headlines
1:05.6	this week, that's why I didn't forget I'm not afraid to press my guest on it. But it's not what I'm
1:11.2	trying to do here. I want to give you a lasting record of how my guests think about the world, not
1:15.6	an ephemeral look at what they thought about the specific stories going on in the world right now.
1:20.5	The next thing is that I really want this to be a place where you can understand why people are
1:26.7	the hero of their own story. I'm going to make it a point in this series to talk with a lot of
1:31.5	people I don't agree with. Sometimes people I really won't agree with. And while I'm going to try
1:36.1	to be very present in those conversations and I want to press them in places where I'm confused
1:40.2	about why they think what they think or confuse about whether the evidence supports them,
1:44.4	I'm not trying to do takedowns here. The goal is to understand they're thinking not to prove
1:49.0	them wrong. I think there are plenty of venues in politics right now where we tell each other why
	...

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