Full interview w/ Rep. Chris Deluzio - Why We Need To “Trump-Proof” The Presidency

And joining me now is a member of Congress from western Pennsylvania, which is probably as important of a swing geographic area as there is in the country. It's Congressman Christallusio. He's from the seventeenth district. And for political junkies when they think of PA seventeen, the first name they may come to mind is Connor Lamb. Well, Christi Luzio replaced

You know, when Connor first won that special election, big offset, right, he really won that seat, captured the country's attention. Pennsylvania Supreme Court drew fair maps after that there was a Republican gerrymander. So the district that he represented from really twenty eighteen on very similar to mine. It maybe a

Well, you grew up there, so you know this.

You know, there was the I don't know whether the infamous saying James Carvell once said about Pennsylvania, which is no longer true, but it used to be. He'd say, just for political purposes, Philadelphia and the east, Pittsburgh and the west, and Alabama in the middle.

And the point.

He was making is that, as you know, the Democrats needed to care about the two coasts of Pennsylvania, you know, putting coasts.

In plural there. But the fact of the matter is, you.

Know, as the Pennsylvania, as the Philly suburbs, became more democratic, the reason the state didn't become a lot more democratic is that western Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh market, became much less democratic. That is, your childhood to adulthood, walk me through that chain, you know, tell me how your community.

Sort of swung there.

From there, I would argue Reagan Democrats to Clinton Democrats, to even some Obama Democrats to now Trump Republicans.

I think a big part of that story the factory towns and the rural communities, right And the factory towns you drive along the rivers in my district, especially through Beaver County on the Ohio River and the Beaver those

A lot of those communities.

And I think as you saw those jobs go away in a lot of what's southwestern Pennsylvania, you saw political realignments, You saw anger and frustration at how that happened. And also where you see Democrats like me who are winning and overperforming, and those kinds of communities we're winning and overperforming, and those exact types of towns, and the same story.

Those counties or losing those towns to.

Eat out a win. Did you over perform Casey? Yes, who's the McCormick Deluzio voter.

There's a state House district Beaver County, communities like Ambridge, al Equippa, Beaver Falls. Rob Matzey's the state rep there and that state House district he won it. I won it, and Dave McCormick won it, and it's an interesting story, right, and Donald Trump won that district too. And you know, I think if you spent time in that part of my district, I think you talk to the voters who might have voted that way, voted for me, or voted for Rob Matsy and maybe voted above us as Republican.

So you operate that there are swing voters, there are there are not everybody agrees that there are right that there's two. I always say there are two types of swing voters. I do think there are voters that facillate between party strategically, but far more often the most common swing voter is somebody that swings between voting and not voting.

So I think both things are true, and I don't want to oversay that it's just, Hey, you can convince someone to vote Republican for president Democrat for the US House. It's the other thing to believe. I mean, we have work to do on turnout and frankly, rebuilding some of the trust with younger voters. I mean, I'm forty one, makes me an older millennial, right, so I guess I can't call myself a young voter anymore. We'll see, but I do think there are folks who will split ticket.

I saw it in my election.

I saw it with the vote drop off from presidential right Harris Trump, Casey McCormick down to my race. I mean, they exist, and you got to get you got to know your district.

You gotta have candidates who know their districts.

I come back to I think the economic fight, not the expense of anything else, but fighting on the economic front principally is a good way to earn those votes. And you don't have to be a whip about it. You don't have to be backtracking on anything else. I think it's the part of the path for Democrats to win more consistently in places like western Pennsylvania.

Look, it's an eighty percent. Nobody likes concentrations of power, right, that's an eighty percent. You know, people, you know recoil from too much power, too much concentration of power, government corporations, whatever.

How much does the D next to your name make it harder?

I had a couple of independent candidates now they're running an Idaho in South Dakota. This is not Western Pennsylvania, Okay, but they they said not having the D next and then their name actually was an impediment to having the conversation with some voters about the economy. Moving to an eye next to their name at least opened the door to a conversation.

Doublass, I mean, I'll tell you at least and from my part of the world, and again, like it's different everywhere.

Right.

You know, some of the folks in some of those factory towns maybe for generations, were Democrats and they've left my party, right, And so I'm trying to rebuild some trust and reconnect.

With those new deal routes.

For why for three four generations your family might have been a Union household, you may have been voting Democrat and at the same time picking up.

And earning new two votes. And say, the.

Suburban parts of a district like mine, right, where folks aren't as longer as long term Democrats who are coming in to the party, those things can be attention. But we can't find a way to do both of those things. We're not going to win, nor can the Republicans. By

I think it helps with those guys too.

You've spent time in the Navy, and you're a lawyer. You went to Georgetown Law School. Why'd you decide on public service?

So I was a senior in high school.

Nine to eleven happens, and I was pursuing the Naval Academy. I mean that day sealed it that if I got in, I go. And I got in pretty shortly thereafter, and I went, And it's a tough place, it's a special place. I really internalized, you know, the mission of what we signed up to do there, which is a lifetime of service, whether that's in uniform or public service. We talk about citizenship even and so I just believe it deeply. That's who I am. It's the part of the world I'm from.

So it is.

It's quite a moment, right, It's a There are times that I know I feel powerless, but I'm not an elective office. But you're in the minority, which sometimes means you're also can be more powerless than you'd like to be. It is, you know, every week I can put together a list of stories that says, boy, this feels this feels like we're are we are? We did we really just take the wrong fork in the road. How the

I am concerned.

I think it's healthy and normal insane to look around and say something's not right. And it's not just the political violence, which of course is a problem, and I think a symptom of a deeper wound to be American psyche.

That we got to fix.

And I think about now, I can criticize Donald Trump, and I will. Right, He's identified that wound, and he offers to me snake oil, right, division, autocracy, threats to the rule of law. Okay, let's criticize that. But then what do we have to offer that's different?

But he does identify the problems, and I think we have to start with that. That's right.

Like this is where I think sometimes you know that there are some Just because Trump has identified a problem correctly, doesn't you know, doesn't mean it's not a problem. Right, just because Trump says it's a problem, you shouldn't ignore it.

And I've always said that.

I think the voters when they when they sour on Trump, they don't sour on the problems he's identified. They sour

So I'm forty one, and we can look at this data pretty quickly. If you're my age, you're younger, you're now the first Americans since at least the Second World War who don't expect me better off than your parents. That is a failure of our government, across parties, across decades. That's multiple presidents think of that, and you should be mad about that. I'm mad about that. If you're younger than me, you're even angrier about it because the prospects

Right.

If you're going to work hard and follow the rules and you still can't afford your life, you are mad and maybe you don't trust the way our governments work. So to me, I think battling corruption, rebuilding trust, putting muscle back in the American dream, those things are all linked. It's part of why the anti corruption fight matters so much to me. It's part of why this vision of economic patriotism mine others are talking about matters putting muscle

It's not going to work in my voot. How do you feel about the redistricting wars? I say this because look, you're because your state's not going to do it. There's a variety of reasons for that. There's just I think the legislature's too split. There's even if you wanted to,

You know.

But I look at how the Democrats are fighting this, and simultaneously you've got Pete Bootagees going to Indiana saying please don't do this. And then you've got Democrats raising money so that Gavin Newsom can win a proposition which, like I, at least you get the voters get You're including the voters in the say so here because they have to. But that feels like such a mixed message that I you know, it is really hard to get my arms around if you're upset about disenfranchising voters in Texas.

That was in what was.

I don't know, for the People Act or HR one, but before I got to the Congress.

Some of that was in there, and there was also a lot of partisan stuff which made it less of a serious bill unfortunately. I mean, look, I'm for somebody that says, you have messaging bills, and you have bills you want to get passed.

That was a bill for messaging, not necessarily.

Let's do a federal anti jerryman ring thing. Just take this off right, it's out of the playbook for either party. While it's not the standard until that happens, I'm not interested in Democrats fighting with like a wet spaghetti noodle while the Republicans are carrying to Maszooka like this is control of Congress and how they write a map and say Indiana and Texas affects what happens to my constituents.

I think that's where this has to go.

And I think, look, ruck I also think this goes to that distrust and government problem when politicians are right in their own maps, when they're picking their districts, when they're carvering little communities and all the matters is a competitive primary, I don't think you get great representation.

But you understand that, look and understand the issue of of when when you sort of compromise your principle for you know, and again like I get it right, I understand the rationale and I get all of that. It

You don't you don't know what you've opened up.

No, and look, when you draw these things with aggressive Jerry managers, I think you're alluding to this fact. You make some of those seats potentially gettable, especially if it's a big way of election the other direction, right, And so that's a part of this. That's a risk they're gonna have to take on because I hope and expect we might have a good year next year.

And that could go very different webs.

So, speaking of ways to do confrontation with Trump, there's we consider in debates shutdown, no shutdown. I sort of understand, Hey, when you've got leverage, use it right. That's that's sort of part of the process. That's what politics is about.

It does feel like the timing now is when do you use it right? Is this is this six.

Week cr the hill to die on? Or do you let this one go and you fight the fight in November? Where's your mindset on this?

Well?

Number one, nobody wants a shutdown let's just start with that.

But I don't have to go along with saying yes to rescinding funding.

I don't just stick go along with saying yes to using the bully pulper the White House to suppress speech and to shut down critical voices.

In the media. I don't do any of those things.

And so I think there's a path here. They can decide to work with Democrats responsibly, or they can do it on their own, because they have enough power to do it. And if they shut the government down, it falls on them. It's not going to fall on the House minority Democrats who aren't saying yes with a crazy spending plan.

No, I get that. I mean, I just guess just tactically.

Like you know it.

I go there because I see the shoes literally been on the other foot on that. Hey we need six more weeks to negotiate. Can we buy that while we get through this. It's one of those where you're like, you know it's That's what I mean is do you die? You know you got to pick. I get the battle's going to happen. The question is when do you want the battle to happen.

Well, look, if there's any real effort to work with us to have some kind of negotiation, great, let's do that. I haven't seen any of that, And so I think to your point, if it's about buying time to work something out, responsible, okay, I think you actually have support for it. I haven't seen any of that yet. I mean, maybe what I heard today is there some interest from the White House, a meeting with Leader Jeffreys and Schumer.

One of the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania has already indicated he's going to vote to keep the government open pretty much no matter what.

And you know betterman, it's been interesting viewed him for my.

About I guess it's been about five or six months now, and his mindset was, Look, we've got one north starts the seven swing states. Whatever it takes to get a majority of the seventh swing state ought to be the focus of the party. See, I get that. That's an interesting north star. That's what you'd want the head of the party to say. He's been in uh shifted on that. What do you make of it? And do you where are you with his He doesn't want to shut down the government mindset?

Yep, me neither, And yet I wouldn't vote for a shutdown bill that repealed the Civil Rights Act or you know, made national right to work or some national abortion band like.

Of course not.

We can do a basic level of analysis and have some basic values that we're not going to compromise, and so I don't think it's that complicated. We can say and support funding the government and also say on there are lines I'm not going to cross.

May we balance those and put those in different places.

I guess we do, But I don't really get the argument that there is no circumstances ever where I wouldn't vote against a very partisan bad spending bill from the Republicans.

There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like there's a reason. Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. For the last thirty five years, they've recovered twenty five billion dollars for more than half a million clients. It includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing,

You know it's funny. I don't.

I don't really think about him or maybe even Joshapiro right like our Pennsylvania Democrats in that way, I don't think we're so obviously in a certain orientation in the party, and certainly now things are different. But like I think there has been a scrambling of the old centrist, progressive, whatever lanes of the Democratic Party. I think there is a very different orientation now about your willingness to be a fighter.

I don't just mean about Trump. I mean on this.

Economic against say it's monopoly power against corruption. I think

Labels, who are all in with me.

On a fight against say, corrupt congressional stock trading or who are with me about.

Fighting against monopolies?

I mean, I did this monopoly Buster's Caucus with colleagues like Pat Ryan Promilagaia, Paul Maggie Goodlander. Right, it's an interesting re scrambling of those old labels, you know, different ways.

Interesting Like you know, during the twenty twenty two primary, Connor Lamb was the supposed centrist in John Fetterman was the supposed progressive right. Is that is that how that primary would look today?

It's a great question. I don't know, you know, and

And much of our conversation up to this point has been about the style of what a Democrat in Washington is in the opposition in the minority, and so it's a very different posture of going back to twenty two. I first ran Democrats on the White House, and we're still riding in the House with some control, and so it's a very different posture.

And again I.

Don't think the current if there are phisures, it's not so much about progressive lane, centrist.

Lane, moderate, whatever. I think it's now much more.

About what weather you're fighting and on what grounds you're fighting more than it is are you going to support this, that or the other piece of legislation, and what kind of label democrats.

That make you.

No, it's an interesting thesis. I don't disagree with it that there is sort of a little bit more. This is no longer about size of government issues and government spending issues that it really is more of how should the power of government be used?

Well, yeah, I agree, and I think, look, you have Donald Trump trying to take what has become a very powerful imperial presidency and put it on steroids, and a question of what the heck do you do to stop that and to protect the constitution, to assert the Congress's rule, to assert the Court's rule. I don't think that lends itself to a progressive, liberal, moderate centrist, whatever kind of lens. It's a question of how do you be effective in shoring up our constitution.

I had a friend of mine who might have called himself a progressive, say three or four years ago, who said, I want my own Donald Trump. And I said, what do you mean? I want somebody in there with strength, right,

It tells me we are likely to have.

A political I'm a believer in political physics an equal and opposite reaction, so we're probably going to have from the other side of the ideological spectrum, also pursue a more robust use of government. Can you do it without it coming across as borderline authoritarian?

Well, Number one, I sure hope that's the case. And look, I think there will be different political party in power in Washington. There will be a democratic provitable right, will be a democratic conference. And I think whomever that president is should use their power to shore up the government, to shore up trust and government. I talked about the economic fight, why that undercuts trust. They also should be clear about where there's been overstepping and overreach, where this

Orcement agencies like I look at the FBI and the Department of Justice right now, and they couldn't be totally untrustworthy. But I'm not going to sit here and say you automatically restore trust by simply electing the other party. How do you build in a safeguard so that the next

Right? What do you do?

Do we change the status like there's a you know, does the Justice Department get treated more like the Federal Reserve? Although we're about to find out whether the Federal Reserve has any independence left. But in theory, right, the Federal Reserve a little bit different as far as it's supposedly the Supreme Court has claimed it will be treating it differently, more independent than as part of the executive branch.

Is that the model of our love that we ought to be.

Taking with law enforcement, considering once you lose trust in that, you've lost the democracy.

Yeah, and frankly, not just I think you identify and diagnose a real problem, but it also is about well, the person who sits atop that law enforcement system, are they willing to call for prosecution of their enemies to rip up those norms? And so we can't. My point is we can't be at the whim of what's in the heart of mever happens to be the President, and that to me is about structural change.

We got to have reform so.

That whether you've got a good or bad guy or gal at the White House, it doesn't matter. They don't have the tools to abuse something as base.

Against Look at their Look at this story that's circulated over the weekend about Tom Holman and cash right, this

There's no denial of the facts of the story. There's just simply well, we're not going to prosecute. There's nothing to prosecute. And by the way, in fairness, bribery cases are a high bar. They you know, if you can't find the quit the you know, the quo in the quid pro quo, it is always it is certainly difficult. I assume the irs will have a little something to say about mister Homan's extra income from the COVID takeout. But when you look at a story like that and

Yeah.

Well, and to me, again, I think it's a symptom of we now have a person who is willing to look around and say, wow, I have all this power, I can abuse it, and there aren't formal guardrails in place to stop it. So to me, that just goes to we have to have better structure, better form. There's not some single silver bullet I can explain to you on this podcast to how we do that. But to me,

Let's talk about an entity that you have some familiarity with, being somebody who's served in the Navy.

It feels like there's an attempt.

To politicize the military right now in ways that we've never seen go into it. I mean, I think about I've already heard you know, I think there are parts of this that don't get enough reporting including what's happening at war colleges, what's happening to academy at the Naval Academy at West Point.

But tell me what you understand is happening.

There is a real attempt here, and I think one of the opening salvos of that you mentioned the Naval Academy where I'm a graduate. I'm on the board there now, and there was an attempt.

Still on the board, they don't take you out.

There's a congressional slate and there are a presidential appointees. So there are Democrats from the congressional slate on the.

Band that Trump couldn't just eat Theron and Seth can't remove you either, correct, And.

So there was an attempt to take books out of the library. You know, this is a look, it's a proving ground and a training place for future Navy Marine Corps officers. It's also an academic institution. There are faculty who do research, and so that's just one little piece of a bigger problem. I saw the President at the West Point Commissioning wearing a Maga hat. He was in front of the troops down in North Carolina. There was

To serve the civilian leadership who we elect.

In this country.

It's interesting to me.

I don't think the timing of this attempt by the Pentagon to stifle press coverage.

It literally came two days after.

The Wall Street Journal reported that there were lawyers at the Pentagon nervous that nobody was taking their legal concerns seriously regarding what could be extra judicial killings that are taking place in the Caribbean Sea. You know, if there is what I would call legal dissent and you have legal count basically members of the military legal team saying, hey, this is of questionable and none of how is it

I think part of that answer, or part of my answer, gets to the importance of congressional oversight. And look, I'm on the Armed Services Committee that we don't have a subpoena power. As Democrats and the minority, I expect we're

Your chair at all, is the Chair of Armed Services at all interested and at least finding out what authority is being used here to just bomb ships that the President claims are famous Psyco terrorists.

I hope so, because I can tell you my Democratic colleagues do I suspect some of my Republican colleagues do. I'd like them to put some muscle behind that.

Because all seems concerned, Yeah, what it's worth.

And say, he's a voice in the Senate who's actually spoken up here. It looks like I'm a veteran of the war in Iraq, Right, I'm.

A veteran of a war that I don't think we should have fought.

But at least the Congress, for crying out loud, debated and had an authorization.

They went to the UN and he went to Congress. Like we could debate was the intelligence manipulated or wrong?

Right?

Was it purposely wrong or it just was wrong? We could have that debate. But the but the separation of powers was respected.

And that's my point.

And look, I think, and I'm convey this in private, I'll say it to you here, my Republican counterparts. Right now, right, they're enjoying full control of Washington. That's not going to last forever. And you ought to have some respect for Congress's power, the people's power president of matter what party

You know, I was thinking about you came in in twenty two and so you have no memory. You're not part of the institution that was. And frankly, it's really been about twenty years since the House knew how to be bipartisan, where committee chairs and ranking members would there was some coordination at some form or another. There's probably

What works best?

It's a great question. So I'll tell give you two pieces of this. One is a very direct way I try. I'm in this caucus for country caucus. It's veterans of both parties. We mostly can find places to work together on defense, maybe some veterans issues, and so that's a real effort to try to find.

Has that gotten harder.

Yeah, it has gotten harder, and it's gotten harder to be candid with Donald Trump as president and the threat that he always has over Republicans of they may lose a primary and look the other and may be more productive. Not more productive, but a way that I've seen some success. You know, my district right on the border with Ohio, right on the border with East Palestine. We had people in the evacuation zone of that horrible derailment. We have

Is one of my co leades. JD.

Vance was before he was the Vice president, you know. And so where I got to find partners to do something that's right.

I do it.

It doesn't always work. I'm not naive about the moment

And I get it. And you're right though at the beginning of the question, you know, I've.

Never served in a Congress that was something like I've heard about, which is not the Congress.

The good old days, whatever the hell that means. All I know is when I was younger, they kept telling me about the good old days that it turns out I was in the good old days.

But what did I know?

And yet the nineties were seen as the most divisive era we'd ever had in politics.

My god, if it should come take a look.

Yeah, yeah, if only we could have to day, that's what the how it felt in the night, because that was compared to the eighties. Right, it's always about you know what you're what are you comparing it to? Right now, the good old days of New Gigrids at Bill Clinton seem like it seemed like small potatoes. Well, the reason I was setting me up on that, to be honest,

Now, I don't know why I can't. You can't get people if we if we know this product's terrible for kids, why should we assume it's not terrible for adults.

But one step at a time, if we can get everybody agreeing this is a human brain experiment that should no longer be used on our children, then maybe over time we'll convince them that yet this, this digital smoking is bad for you, no matter what age you are.

But there does seem to be real possibilities here.

On kids and sort of getting at the big tech algorithm issue and all these things through the abuse of our children.

It has been a rare place.

I mean when you've got Kathy Hokeel and Sarah alb Sanders down in Arkansas both signing similar.

Chats in the Senate, right.

Yeah, So it's a place I see it in my own district around smartphones and schools. I sent a survey out to all my school districts just to see what they're doing. Should you know, I asked a public survey about banning smartphones from classrooms and it was like an eighty twenty response. So it seems to be a place where it hasn't fallen down on the sort you know, the typical partisan line. Parents are very worried about what's.

Going on with the kids. I'm a dad, I got young kids, Believe me, I'm worried.

And so maybe it's the one place we still have where we can find something to do to protect these kids, and it hasn't become the usual source of d versus are. I think there's real anger at the big tech companies. I think not just parents. People know this stuff is designed to be addictive. Right, You're talking about like teenage and preteen brains. Those kids are vulnerable, and I think politicians are just catching up to really how frustrated, especially

No?

And it feels like once we get everybody focused on that, then we're all going to.

Say, hey, wait a minute, what was everybody else? What about everybody else?

And then of course, like we also have this huge content and that's the other part of this, and this is where, you know, I had a conversation with Steve Bannon who said, you know who was a big fan of Lina Kahn. And he said something that was frankly

Done with crypto.

And I've got my questions about it as it is. But what we are doing is we're concentrating a small group of people to control. I mean, look at media now. It is all Donald Trump's friends who are owning a piece of TikTok. You're now going to have potentially one family, two families control Fox, CBS and CNN.

Right.

If the Ellisons go through with both CBS and an acquisition of Warner Brothers, that's a huge concentration of power, which I don't understand where the small c conservatives are.

On this well.

And I think look in this moment, especially where you're seeing a president and his allies willing to stifle dissent and use the power they have to kick people off TV.

Right.

The problem of concentration of power is related to this. If you've got a diffuse competitive market, it's a lot harder to bully. Yeah, a very competitive market versus just a handful of corporations who you have hanging over their head, the threat of blocking a merger, for instance, right finding some use of government power you can use to get action that you want somewhere else. The competition would make

To weekend free speech and week in the constitution.

I think they are very very linked.

Well, this gets it too, And I'm curious how you answer this question, because I'm sure you've had a constituent when you bring up this corruption issue, and I'm like, I am just alarmed at the level of pay to

God love us, But what do you say to that?

Because I really do think the biggest problem we've got is with the public is they agree that what's happening is bad, but they sit there and say it's hey, man, I thought the last guy was somewhat corrupt to you may not have thought he was as corrupt as I did, but it certainly didn't look any that much better.

And all of these.

People get rich off of politics, whether it's liberals or conservatives. And the thing is is that even I could say, well, it's lopside. It's like when everybody wants to have this fight over who whose extremists are more violent, it doesn't matter if everybody's got violent actors on their side. You need to police it, But how do we break this sort of that cynical while they're all corrupt? So I you know, I even had people say, yeah, I know

So I'll give you an example on congressional stock trading. Okay, I had constituents at town hall or Senior Center event, and I'll bring it up or they'll bring it up and they might think they've so I'm gonna get chick. So I'm going to name some Democrat who abuse this, and then my answer is that I don't care. We no one should be doing this. Let's ban the damn thing. And it's an easy anti corruption thing that we should do.

You just need that.

And I think it seems like a low hanging through of something we could take on and just do right now, and we ought to do. And frankly, there has been movement finally of some legislation that you've got Dems and Republicans both on we should just do this stuff.

I mean, it's crazy. Notion here, what if you combine the Congressional stock band with a pay raise? Oh gosh, look, I know that it's about Look you know, I'm one of these people who at least understands the life you live, and like you know, if you don't want members of Congress to interact with each other, then make them sleep in their own offices and make them not. If you do want them to interact, then you better pay them a decent salary so they can maybe have their family

You end up.

I mean, look, there's I could I could sit here and talk myself in circles about what's better or worse. But if I've been empathetic to. One argument about the Congressional stock band is, if you're a middle class person who's had a decent job, got a four to one k, what are you supposed to do?

What you get there?

And you get it, but hey, I'm trying to plan for retirement too, and it isn't a very you know. I know, it sounds like a lot of money that you make, and it is to a lot of people.

But what I always say is great, try having two households on that one hundred and six seventy two thousand dollars a year salary. That's hard.

Yeah, no one's going to feel bad for us.

And you know, you know, you know that and like it to the point on.

I know, I'm like baiting. I don't mean to pitch it, like to make it, but I do think that it is. It is not the easiest lifestyle for a member of Congress,

One look, even let's let's do the retiring example you talk about. You could just have ETFs or mutual funds and you are trading individual companies, which I think is such a an obvious red flag given the count.

And we saw this during the pandemic, where wow, Richard Burr made a whole bunch of trades literally an hour after he got the word about what was coming with the pandemic, like, yeah, that was bad.

So I'm not going to cry tears for you know that. That get that.

Look at the end of the day, this is public service. It's a great honor to get to do this job.

Okay, here's the problem I'm trying to solve for yaes.

I want a working class person to be able to percent, to be able to be a member of Congress. And the way it all works now is you really need to be wealthy in order to be an effective member of the House, and that's that shouldn't be how it works.

I agree, and that's a real problem. And part of it is look, when we've got candidates, and the Republicans

No, it's a lot of lawyers. No offense to your JD.

But like, in fact, that is a lion's share of the Democrats that are in the House or lawyers.

Right, yeah, no, I get it. It look like at the end of the day, we're lawmaking. That helps a little bit. But man, you've got to have different perspectives. It can't just be one thing. And I think that's a really good question, and what we do about it is not an easy answer. But a part of it has to be folks helping when we've got good candidates who come from a working class background, getting some supported help, because man, the fundraising reality of getting elected to Congress is obscene.

I want to get you out of here on two more questions, once politics and one will be easy because it's it should be easy because it's sports.

But I'm a politican front.

It seems like every Democratic strategists out there, and no matter the flavor that they may be ideologically, all is agreeing on the same thing, which is, hey, Democrats need to drop the culture stuff and just focus on economics and sort of day to day things. It's easy to say, but it's turned out to be really difficult in practice, hasn't it.

I guess that here's what I'll say.

And look, I talk about my own experience running and winning, and I've never backtracked on people's civil rights. And you know,

Play in your community.

What is the one big economic issue that you think is about to just explode that you know we'll like people aren't realizing it about three to six months X is going to happen.

People's energy bills are already been going up and they're mad about it. And that's on top of healthcare getting more and more expensive.

Is there a good.

Explanation on energy what's happening here? Because this doesn't feel like an easy answer.

And here's the things. Yeah, it's a mix.

I've been working with Congressional Research to get really dug in on what's going on in my part of the country.

Pj's across the board.

I don't know if you saw the New Jersey governor's race, both candidates are, hey, we're going to try to fight for you, Like yeah, when you see both candidates do it something, you're like, oh, this is everywhere.

Trust me. I mean my wife and I had this discussion. Yeah,

You've got a problem with not enough power generation period, no matter the source of power.

That's a real problem. And you know, you.

Also got a mix of the traditional co ops, but you've got these investor owned or private owned utilities that's seen to be jacking up prices at.

Higher rates than the old co ops. If you've got that in your part of the world.

And I think it's a power generation problem. It's the monopolies. They're all monopoly essentially on the transmission distribution side, some of those investor owned companies there. There's not an easy answer, but man, I think people are mad about it, and I think the Republican Big beautiful.

Bill just made it worse.

And we're going to see as those tax credits go away for things like getting new power, new transmission going, that's going to make bills go up.

I'm old enough to remember when the Republican stance on energy was all of the above. I'm and suddenly it's no longer all of the above. It's whatever. President Trump likes oil and gas, he likes nuclear, he's okay with solar, he doesn't like wind.

And you're like, what does it matter? Don't we want all of it? Tell you why?

You talk to people in the building trades in western Pennsylvania. They would just like jobs and any any energy work. Those can be good jobs.

Are you going to go to the you know the your I assume you're a beloved Pittsburgh Steelers fan.

I am.

I think when we when this, this will air before you,

Double right about this coming Sunday, I think, yeah.

That's got to be a tempting field trip.

No, I'm not going. I'm staying home. I'll watched from Afar. It's going to be like an early game on Sundays as well.

Well the Rooneyes. I mean, I just think, what a right the pop on me was the ambassador. I mean, that's going to be.

I mean, I have a feeling that's going to be a Pittsburgh home game.

You know, some tells me if Steelers will travel well everywhere, and I'm gonna guess we got good fans in Double.

How how you holding up with the Aaron Rodgers experience. I'm from a weird fan. I know, I know this world.

Well, he's older than me, I'm pretty sure, which is bizarre.

You guys are about the same age. I think that's right. Yeah. Yeah.

The New England win, so we're recording this Monday after.

We just beat the Patriots. It was kind of an ugly game. You know, better win than lose. Better the win than lose.

He is and and then of course there's the Pittsburgh Pirates. It is why does an incredible franchise with its history like that? You know, I say this, I come from Miami and we didn't have baseball on I was growing up. I moved to Washington and didn't have baseball. Now has the Nats. I feel like Pittsburgh's just a worse version than what Miami and Washington have experienced, which is owners that just either don't have the resources or don't spend the resources.

I think it's a simple question of whether you're going to spend and invest in the team. I mean, look, we play in a beautiful ballpark. You got a fan base who will show up a magnetic ballpark, meaning people will travel. You hear it all the time, Like you know, there's a.

Whole baseball community that loves to do the ballpark traveling. I mean yeah.

In fact, my son is one of them. He's one of the few eighteen year olds that actually likes baseball. As he says, he's in college and he goes, yeah, I wanted to go check out a Rangers game. He's down in Texas and he had a hard time recruiting people to go check out a baseball game, Like, that's how badly baseball is not penetrating gen Z. But he

Well we't even gone to the fact that we have the best pitching.

He's so great.

I mean, Paul Skeens is unbelievable.

He's going to be terrific for the New York Yankees one day.

And you know, it kills me to know that we are probably not going to be able to keep this guy. And you know, I look at from his perspective. You want to win, and you want an ownership that wants to win. I mean, we should be pitchers.

Do this.

What's your career lifespan? Right, Like you'll have a finite amount of time before your arm falls off, you.

Know, I know, I know, I wish. Look, I want to build a team around this guy. I want us to compete and win.

I mean, we have this guy who's such a generational talent. And I don't know, are the.

Pirates owners good community citizens? I mean, do they invest in the community or not really.

I think if you went to a game, you would see his banners and T shirts and tell them to sell the team. And that tells you about what the public sees. You know, Look, they want to winner. These guys would would spend and invest. People would come around this ownership. I think it's a simple lesson and you see it with We're talked. We talked about the Rooneyes and the Steelers. They invest, they spend a win, they have a culture of winning. The Bucos could do this with a little bit of money.

One last question.

If you go through the various suburban communities on a college football Saturday, are there going to be more Penn State flags or Pitt Panther flax?

Well, I'm a pit fan through and through, so we're we're going with Pitt.

But there are pretty big fifty is it it? It's? Is it? Well? And they're also West Virginia fans. We're not that far from Morgantown, right, so you got a little bit of that too. Yeah, it's a mix, all right. Congressman, it's great to get to know you appreciate the time Chuff Banks found me on