And now from the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host, David Axelrod.

Ken Buck is a peculiarity in today's politics, a right wing conservative who gained a reputation in the U.S. House for working with Democrats on issues of shared concern like reining in the power of Big Tech. A Freedom Caucus member who rankled his own tribe by defying Trump and voting to certify the 2020 election., One of the renegades who forced the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Buck quit the Congress a few weeks ago, in part to protest its dysfunctional state. I sat down with him the other day to talk about his life and career and whether the recent bipartisan votes under speaker Mike Johnson gave him hope. Here's that conversation. Ken Buck, former congressman Ken Buck, newly former congressman Ken Buck. It's it's it's great to see you. Thank you so much for joining me.

Well it's good to be with you, David. Thanks for having me.

So you have, you know, I usually begin this podcast by starting at the beginning of life and talking about your journey. And I wanted to do that, because it's really interesting to me, and kind of unique in some ways. But something happened over the weekend that is of such moment, and you are such an expert on all of this, that I would be remiss, and I think people would be mad if I didn't start with it. You left Congress in frustration, in part over the dysfunctionality of it and the inability to do what needs to be done because of the obstructionist tactics of a few of your colleagues. This weekend that that sort of dam broke and, Mike Johnson, Speaker Johnson, put on the floor four bills I suspect you would have voted for. Is that right?

Yeah.

One, finally, eight months later, funding Ukraine. And just in the nick of time. One with additional aid to Israel, including humanitarian aid, one to help undergird Taiwan. And then there was another that I know you have great interest in. We'll talk about this, that contained a measure that would force TikTok to disgorge itself from their Chinese overseers. I'm sure I'll get mail about that from TikTok fans, but tell me, were you surprised by what the speaker did? And what does it mean?

'No, I'm not surprised at all. David, I think that the speaker saw the humanitarian need in in all four areas and the the need to really accept this challenging historical moment. And I think that the, the bills had overwhelming support on the floor and the, the Ukraine bill was the closest in terms of the Republican vote. It was just barely below the majority of the Republican vote. But for all intents and purposes, a 50/50 split within the Republican conference. And I think a large part of that had to do with people knowing that the bill would pass, and so they didn't have to vote for it and have to defend themselves back home. So I think it would have had a two-thirds Republican vote if, if it had, if it was necessary.

You sort of came of age in politics in the era of Reagan. How is it that the Republican Party that, you know, less than half of Republicans, and you you suggested some of it is politics, but why were they so fearful about what would happen at home if they voted for that bill?

'It's a great question. And really it is mind boggling to me. You know, Ronald Reagan was the first candidate for president I voted for in my, while I was in college. And, certainly, Democrats are looking more like Reagan Republicans now than than Republicans are. And to a large extent, the Republican Party has this Reagan conservative wing and it has a MAGA populist wing. And the MAGA populist wing has been driven by a lot of messaging from Tucker Carlson, from Marjorie Taylor Greene and others about how evil Ukraine is and how they are Nazis, which, again, is is mind boggling to me how you call a Jewish president a kind of a Nazi and, and how all of Europe is supporting this Nazi, so-called Nazi country. And, the messaging is just outlandish, and, and yet, it has resonated with, with a lot of Republicans in in America.

Why is that, though? What is driving that? I mean, some of it obviously is Donald Trump. But I mean, you you literally see people like Marjorie Taylor Greene spewing what amounts to Russian propaganda about the war. You mentioned Tucker is obviously part of that. How much of it has to do with Trump?

Well, I think, I think a large part of it has to do with with Trump. But I think Trump is reacting. I'm not sure Trump is taking the heat on this. But, but if I could just go back to one point you made, just really briefly, it is clear that the intelligence agencies are putting messages into social media that are then picked up by social media influencers. Then Russian intelligence deletes their messages and covers up their messages and amplifies the messages of those influencer. So, it isn't just thought of that it may be propaganda. It is clearly.

Right, right.

Originating from, from Russia. But I think that, you know, we have become a divided country, and I think a lot of MAGA, conservative MAGA Republicans are of the opinion that if Joe Biden is for something, we're against it. And they're so frustrated with the border that they just want to shut everything down until, they hope, Donald Trump gets elected.

Yeah. Well, that's an interesting point, because one thing that wasn't in this legislation was border security. And that's, of course, what Marjorie Taylor Greene and others complained about. But that opportunity had been there. There was a bill working its way through the Senate that Senator Lankford had painstakingly negotiated. Nobody's, nobody's idea of a liberal. And Trump was very, I think, forthright about it. He he didn't want to hand the issue to Biden and have, you know, a solution pass, because then it would spoil the issue for the general election. One thing I notice is that, is that a red line? Because Johnson clearly didn't come close to that one. He went down and talked to Trump, we should point out, before these these votes.

Yeah, I don't, I don't know if it's a red line or not. It's not a red line for me. Any anything that is positive on the border would have been a good bill to pass in my mind, it doesn't have to be the perfect fix officially, but but it has to be something to work on. Disappointed that the Senate couldn't send something over our way to to work on the border. But it is it is clearly the primary issue that energizes those on the right of the political spectrum. It is that just, it drives everybody crazy on, on the right.

Let me get back to Johnson, who was your colleague. You ultimately voted for him for speaker. Tell me what your observation is of him. It struck me that he probably helped Republicans relative to the fall election, that in those swing districts where control of the House will be decided, that this will be a positive for Republicans. But it clearly antagonized the base. And we know that this, this sword is hanging over him of this motion to vacate that Marjorie Taylor Greene says she's going to bring to oust him, that he was essentially, Johnson was dead man walking, that he'll never be speaker again. And, you know, it sounded like a bunch of bluster to me. But then I thought about what does happen when the caucus has to choose a speaker again? And will that same group of people be able to do the same thing that they've done? And is he, in fact, on a short road here back to, not the backbench, but out of that job?

Well, I think people want to compare the Johnson situation with what happened to Kevin and what happened to Kevin. I think it was fundamental.

Kevin McCarthy.

Yeah. Kevin McCarthy. Kevin had, you know, kicked representives Omar and Schiff and Swalwell off of committees. And he had done things that had made the Democrats mad in retaliation for some of the things that they had done before. You know, January 6th was still, more fresh than it is now. And I think that people, Republican and Democrat, regret the three weeks that we went through that to pick a new speaker. So I think that that that piece of history informs the decision on Speaker Johnson. I don't think he will lose his position. I do think Democrats are more likely to support him as a result of the Ukraine bills and the appropriations bills.

They will now. I'm wondering after a new Congress takes office whether that will be the same.

I think the majority in Congress is really up in the air, and we'll see who wins the majority. But if Republicans win the majority, I think that Speaker Johnson will be given credit for having gone through a very difficult time period and having won the majority. And so I think he will probably be reelected as the speaker if the Republicans are still in the majority.

What about Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz and that crowd? Was this a watershed moment in terms of their power and influence?

Well, I think anytime you have a small majority, 1 or 2 people can be very influential. I distinguish completely Marjorie Taylor Greene from Matt Gaetz. Matt Gaetz is a very bright, seasoned political person. And Marjorie is really voicing propaganda from the Russians and others, and it's dangerous. And so, I think that if the Republicans get a majority of 15, 18 in the next election or if the Democrats are in the majority, I think Marjorie Taylor Greene is, is, and some of the others, are minimized at that point.

What do you think the calculations were for him? And do you think he expects to be returned as speaker, or has he just concluded that, I don't know how this is going to go, so I might as well just do what I feel I should and see what happens?

I know Mike on a personal level, having been on the Judiciary Committee with him, I've observed him on the Judiciary Committee and also as a speaker for a period of time. The first thing I'll say about Mike is he is a deeply, deeply Christian man. And that is really what motivates and drives him in his political life. He became aware within the last month or two that Russia has targeted evangelical Baptist Christians in Ukraine. And I think that had a real impact on Mike and his willingness to risk everything to to try to deal with this issue. And it's a, it's an issue that gets covered up largely in, in our media. But it doesn't get covered up in Europe. And and several Ukrainian groups brought people to this country to talk about how Russia has infiltrated Ukraine and is killing Christians in Ukraine, how Russia has targeted churches with, with their missiles. And I think that's a large part of the motivation for Mike. The other part of the motivation is, you know, you you've been you've you've seen egos in politics. And you certainly realize that, most of us want to make sure we're on the right side of history and that not, you know, it's, it doesn't really matter as much what it, how we're judged today. It matters more how we're judged a year, five years, ten years down the road. And I think that Mike knows that this is the right thing to do. And then the last part of the calculation is, if if Ukraine fell in September, October and Russia was planting its flag in Kiev, it would be disastrous for Republicans running up and down the ticket in, in the next November election. And so I think part of Mike's calculation was, this is something that politically we've got to do to make sure that we're in the right position in November.

You know, I just want to challenge for one piece of what you said, which is that most politicians think about how they they're going to be judged by history. I'm sure they do think about that. But as between how they're going to be judged by history and coming back the next session having won reelection, my experience is that the preponderance of politicians fundamentally believe that you can't do the right thing by history if you're not in office. And so, you know, that becomes primary. I mean, I've seen, I saw it in some of the battles we had on a number of big issues where people wanted to do what they thought was the right thing, but fear doing what they thought is the right thing because it might cost them their job. And having that job, you know, for a lot of your colleagues, that is their, that's their identity. They can't quite imagine life without it.

Well, I could tell you that life without this job is really, really good. So if any of my colleagues are listening to this.

'You've only experienced it for a couple of weeks here. So we we we may have to check back with you on this. But I always, I always say there's a reason Profiles in Courage was a slim volume. You know, it's not easy in politics to, maybe it should be easier but it's not, to to do what you think is right if you know that it could cost you here. You know, the other thing that's interesting to me about this. You your first experience in and around Congress was as a young man, you were brought there by a representative named Dick Cheney to help on the, on the Iran-Contra hearings. And you stayed and worked for the Justice Department. But you were around the Congress in the mid 80s. The thing that caught everybody's attention here, it seems like it's almost, you know, an unnatural thing now when Republicans and Democrats get together on something big and actually cooperate. And to Marjorie Taylor Greene, you heard her on the steps of the Capitol. The fact that Johnson cooperated with Democrats on these bills is prima facie evidence that he needs to be replaced.

Yeah. But, David, you know, there were a few points in American history that that were significant in how we look at politics. Certainly, the, you know, the Civil War and and the Great Depression. I would argue that one of the, in my lifetime, certainly, political events, you can look at the pre 94 Newt Gingrich revolution and the post 94 Newt Gingrich life in Congress. And pre 94, when I was there in 86 and 87, members lived in DC, their spouses socialized together. They went to their kids ballgames with each other. There was a camaraderie, a collegiality that doesn't exist now. And, now, every weekend, I got on the plane and I was going to a fundraiser to help somebody get reelected, or I was coming back to my district for events for for nine years and three months. And, and I could tell you that the ability to work across the aisle depends on personal relationships. And those personal relationships don't get built, get built while everybody is on a plane going different directions.

Yeah. There are other factors here that I want to, we'll we'll talk about them later because I do want to spend some time on social media, because you are someone who's spent a lot of time in Congress thinking about these issues, but there are so many forces that force us into our corners and, you know, separate us in ways that we think of people who have different points of view as alien. I mean, I have many, we we can talk about this, too, many differences of opinion with you on some issues. But that doesn't mean that I have to invalidate you as a human being or invalidate you as a patriotic American or. But that that's become too much the norm in our politics. But let's talk about your history, and we'll come around back to those, because I always thought of you as sort of, craggy westerner, westerner, westerner, you know, kind of like, stolid, conservative cowboy type character from the West. And then, lo and behold, I find that, you grew up in Ossining, New York, best known for the Sing Sing prison there, that you grew up, where Willie Sutton and Lucky Luciano and the Rosenbergs lived involuntarily for some periods of time, but. And then you spent some time in Switzerland, living in Switzerland. And then you went to Princeton, of all places. Like what kind of cowboy are you?

Well, let me back up a little bit further. My grandfather started in a shoe repair store in Greeley in northern Colorado. My dad grew up in northern Colorado. And, every summer I would leave New York and I would go to Wyoming and work on my uncle's ranch. So I had this sort of schizophrenic childhood where I went to high school, junior high and high school, in suburban New York and then went out west and put on my cowboy boots and drove my first pickup truck when I was 12 and had my first beer when I was 14. And then, loved the libertarian lifestyle in, in Wyoming. So after college, I moved to Wyoming and went to law school there and went back to DC for a few years to work with Mr. Cheney in the Department of Justice. But, ultimately, identify as somebody who shares the values of the folks in the Rocky Mountain West.

'I think you lived overseas as a child in the sort of, right in the sort of post-Vietnam era. So there must, you must have experienced how the world was looking at the U.S. at that moment. Talk about your experience overseas as a child. I think you spoke French. That alone should have gotten you expelled from the Republican Party.

So I was there, I think, when I was five, six, seven years old. So, it was an interesting experience because, the, the, the Swiss did not like Americans involvement, America's involvement in the Vietnam War. And there were a lot of hard feelings. And my parents thought it'd be a great idea to put me in public school. And that lasted all of about a year. And, it was clear that that was not a, being in Swiss public school was not going to work out with the tension. And, and it taught me something about America's role in the world. You know, America is absolutely loved when we do the right thing in Ukraine. But, the, the world also, the world also expects us to be there, and to be the force for good and stability and peace around the world. And so it is it's really a push pull situation. But, you know, speaking, speaking French hasn't hurt me. Most of it I've [unclear]. But, every once in a while, I could come up with a, a line or two.

We're going to take a short break and we'll be right back with more of The Axe Files. And now back to the show. And Princeton. Your folks really wanted you, you and your sibs to go to Ivy League school.

Yeah. My dad. It's very interesting. My dad was born in rural Colorado and went to the University of Colorado and graduated and then went into World War Two. He fought in the armor area, in tanks in North Africa. He, then took the GI Bill and went to NYU law school and met my mom at NYU Law school. So he was an international lawyer. My mom was a real estate lawyer. And the really fascinating thing was that as a result of his background in, his undergraduate background in particular, he could not, even though he clerked for a judge in New York, he could not get a job with the big law firms. And he would tell us over and over again at the kitchen table, my kids are going to go to an Ivy League school. Well, I had a different idea. I wanted to go in the Army when I graduated from high school, and he said, no, you're going to go to college. And so I applied to to two schools, and I withdrew my application from one of them. So I had one, one college application in, and that was to Princeton. And, lo and behold, the football coach liked me and got me into Princeton. And so I was, I was a football player at Princeton and, and loved the the four year experience there.

Was politics a big thing in your, your home, was that discussed?

It was a huge thing. Yeah. You know, my my, I have two older brothers. One of them is a lawyer. My parents were lawyers. You didn't, you didn't get any additional mashed potatoes unless you made a good argument for why you were going to get those mashed potatoes. And the the, the issue of politics was was really a hot topic. My dad, you're going to find this hard to believe, David, but was very conservative and, but, as an international lawyer, he, he traveled to the Middle East in the, in the 70s. And, when, you know, the Palestinian Liberation Organization was hijacking airplanes and there were all kinds of, really, the Vietnam War had just ended, and America was going through a difficult time in terms of what is our role in the world. And so, it really helped form my opinions about conservative values and a strong, national defense.

And how was it at Princeton? Was was there, did you find kindred spirits there?

You know, I think when you play a sport and especially when you play something like football, where there's there's a lot of camaraderie, but but also, you you live a different life than than the rest of the student body. We're we're up early for workouts before class. We're, there's certain classes we can't take because conflicts with practice. And so I think that, my group of friends, we just met down in Florida, football buddies, that that's probably the closest group that I had in the school. And I loved Princeton, because one thing it taught me, as with a lot of universities around the country, everybody there was great at something. And the message to me was, I could do anything I want to do. If I work hard enough, there is no ceiling. And I think my, my friends in college have proven that with with in during their lifetime.

After you graduated, you went right back, you went to Wyoming. And you worked for, I guess, the state legislature for Republicans in the legislature. So you must have known, correct me if I'm wrong, but you must have known then that you want to be involved in some way in the public square.

Yeah. So actually it was a staff position, sort of a neutral, bipartisan staff position. Both both houses of the legislature were Republican at the time. But, I, I had an interest in politics. But my goal, coming out of football, and I tried out with the New York Giants, and that didn't work, but but my goal was to try to be a sports agent. And so I was going to go to law school and then try to be a sports agent. And it's just interesting how one door opens and another door closes, and I followed the, the open doors towards politics.

You would have made more money in sports agentry, judging from the salaries that are being paid today. But, water under the bridge. You met Dick Cheney through that legislative experience?

I met Dick Cheney while I was in Wyoming. I lived there for six years and met him at different political events and other events. The folks in the law firm that I was working for knew him. He called and it was very interesting. He said, a plane has gone down in Nicaragua. I can't tell you anything else on an open line, but if you want to come back and work, we've got a job in DC. And so ultimately, I went back.

Pretty mysterious.

Yeah, but, you know, I trusted that it would be an interesting job with that introduction. And so it was. It was very interesting.

That was a huge scandal at the time. It had to do with dealings with the Iranians in order to help fund the resistance in Nicaragua. And it was all sort of sub rosa. Is that a fair description of it?

Yeah. I think the allegation was that funds that were being used to free our hostages in Lebanon through Iran were then diverted to the Contras. And whether it there was a an amendment on , foreign aid bill that prohibited that, and it's whether the executive branch violated one of the congressional demands, requirements. But but it's funny to me because I don't even think it would be a blip on the screen in, in today's environment. Then it was a big deal.

What what did you learn from that?

A lot of things. One, it really impressed me with the importance of the Constitution as a rule book that we should follow. And also, one of the most important things I learned is how there are some really outstanding people in Congress, and there are some really average people in Congress. And, I knew at that point that if I wanted to work hard enough, I could I could work my way into Congress. And so, I, I put my mind to doing some things that would give me that opportunity. But I also saw.

Got some advice, I guess, from an old Princeton man too, right, Don Rumsfeld.

That's a great story. You really got some good research there. The head of the Princeton Football Association was Donald Rumsfeld's roommate in at Princeton. And so he said, you got to go talk to Rummy. You got to go talk to Rummy. A Chicago guy, by the way. This is in the old days when the White House wasn't as secure, but there was a park next to the White House, and we sat on a bench and and he said, if you want to do anything in D.C., get out of town. You know, Dick Cheney's had two heart attacks already, and you don't want to tie your star to somebody that may not be around. And, you know, he wasn't suggesting he was going to die, but he may not be as active in politics.

And Cheney was appointed defense secretary. So he he offered you a job?

Yes. He offered me a job moving from Congress to the Department of Defense. But later when I was running for the Senate in 2010, I mentioned to a reporter that I'd had this conversation with Don Rumsfeld, and then I got a max out check for Donald Rumsfeld, who I hadn't talked to since that time, but he just read the article and and sent me those checks. It was very, very fortuitous.

Would that all fundraising be so easy, right? You just do an interview, and the money flows it. So, you spent a fair amount of your life following that in the Justice Department, first in Washington and then, what, 12 years as, assistant U.S. attorney in Colorado? The Justice Department is taking a beating right now, and Trump is leading that beating. But tell me how you view the attacks on the Justice Department, the attacks on the FBI, through the prism of your experience as someone who worked there for all those years.

'So, David, I, I rarely prosecuted a case where I wasn't attacked for being a racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Mormon, anti-Christian, anti-something. You know, nobody could ever get to the facts of the case. It was always this ill-motive that the prosecutor or the judicial system has. And when I saw the Department of Justice being attacked by a lot of the MAGA folks, including, former President Trump, it just reminded me of those days when I was in the courtroom trying my best to do justice, trying my best to do the right thing. And yet, all these folks wanted to attack me from the outside. So, I, I have a huge amount of respect for Merrick Garland. I was the chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney's office when he was in Denver prosecuting Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bombing case. And so we didn't meet at that time, but I knew of him. I knew his work, and I knew he was a, you know, the real deal. He was a prosecutor at heart, and I knew he wouldn't let a, a prosecution go forward that wasn't, you know, didn't didn't meet the very high standards of the Department of Justice. And the same with the FBI, the best federal law enforcement agency and and filled with people that have real integrity. They've had some bad apples. You and I might disagree about some of the things that happened during the Comey time period. But the bottom line is, I, I felt that the, the people who are there now are doing their very best to to apply justice in an equal and fair way.

But that is not the prevailing view within your party right now?.

No it's not. It's not the prevailing view at all. I think, well, I shouldn't say that. It is not the loudest view in my party. I think most people in my party, you know, we we championed the rule of law for a long time in the Republican Party, and now it's become very gray. And the defund the police movement is something that the Republican Party tried to take full advantage of and politically and the, the the folks who are yelling the loudest, I think, are in a minority. The folks who understand the need for the FBI and that applying the rule of law in a fair way, I believe, whether they're quiet or not. And it goes back to what you're saying about Profiles in Courage. Whether they're quiet or not, they realize that the FBI is a great institution in America.

I actually wrote a piece that's in the Atlantic today about Trump and the way he was brought up and the fact that, you know, his father said there were the world is made up of killers and losers, and you have to be a killer. And the subtext was rules and laws and norms and institutions are for suckers. And in the, in the jungle that the world is, you take what you want, however you can get it. And you know the weak fall away. As he sits in a courtroom today that is still, I think that's what he earnestly believes. I don't think he believes in rules of laws and norms and institutions. And there is an audience for that out there that's dangerous, isn't it?

It is dangerous. David, it is dangerous on both sides. The there are a lot of folks on the right who, who think that the left has violated some of those norms and therefore, forget about the rules. Let's just fight back. One example I can give you is the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas. I voted against the impeachment of Donald Trump because I didn't believe they rose to the level of being a, a high crime or misdemeanor. It wasn't that it was good conduct, but that was the kind of conduct that could be judged in an election as opposed to an impeachment. And I voted against the impeachment of second time monarchists and the folks, I talked to a number of Democrats who said, you know, thanks, Ken, for voting against us impeachment. And, you're you're right on this. And I said I was right on the Trump ones also. And they said, yeah, you were. And I think a lot of Democrats realized that they made a mistake on the Trump impeachment. And I think a lot of Republicans voted the way they did because they, were concerned about their next election.

Really. I mean, so on the Trump impeachments, I mean, the first impeachment, just to remind people, was him calling Zelensky and asking for an investigation against the Bidens, which certainly was untoward, but also at a time when he was holding out arms assistance to the Ukrainians. And there were asks in from the Ukrainians, seemed like the intrusion of American politics, you know, recruiting a foreign leader to involve themselves in American politics. But the second one can, knowing everything that you know now, seeing everything that you saw and you were probably on the, in the House when all of this erupted on January 6th. And understanding all the evidence that has flowed since then and will, more so if there's a January 6th trial, it wasn't actually the right decision not to vote for impeachment?

I absolutely believe that. And here's the reason why, David. The the time frame, we didn't hold hearings. If we had held hearings and they were bipartisan, where the the Trump supporters could defend the president's actions, and and the folks who are for impeachment could, could attack. There was no due process between January 6th and January 20. You have two weeks. And in fact, even when the Senate held its trial, the chief justice, chief justice wasn't even presiding over that trial. So if it had had due process, and if I had heard that evidence, perhaps, it would have been an impeachable offense. I think it was certainly of the kind of of action that could have been impeachable. But, the time frame was just, just too short and the due process wasn't there. And it's not something, you know, think about how many impeachments we've had in this country's history. And, to, to do it in that kind of time frame, just wasn't right.

You went back to Colorado. We mentioned that. And then you ran for D.A. and Weld County, which is in northeast Colorado, right at the top of Colorado. Now, probably considered an exurb of Denver. Did you see this as a step toward going to Congress, or what provoked you to run for D.A.?

Well, I was a federal prosecutor for 15 years. I, stepped away with the idea that I was going to run for district attorney and worked as a business executive in a construction company in, in Colorado. The idea of running for D.A. look was important to me, because one of the things a federal prosecutor does is ask Washington, D.C. for permission to prosecute a tax case, to prosecute a RICO case, to prosecute a wide variety of cases. And as a D.A., really in control of an office. I spent a lot of time while I was a federal prosecutor working on crime prevention programs, especially for at risk youth. And we implemented, we reduced crime by adult crime by 50% and juvenile crime by 75% in, in my judicial district. And we did it by offering a lot of really good programs for kids that had learning disabilities or kids that had a substance abuse problem or mental health issue. And, and then we also got a lot of really tough sentences and sent a message to, to people that if they violated the law, there'd be a penalty. And so, my, my desire when I ran for district attorney was to be a good district attorney. There are term limits on district attorneys in Colorado. And so, I didn't look at. And and ran for the U.S. Senate. And in 2010, my intention was to run for attorney general. The sitting attorney general decided he wasn't going to run for the Senate. He was going to stay as attorney general. And so then I ran for the Senate.

And that was an interesting year. Obviously, that was the Tea Party year. And in many ways, you lined up very well with the Tea Party. That was motivated in part by spending. There was resistance to the Affordable Care Act cap and trade legislation. You were all, you were on the right side of that. And gun rights, you were opposed to abortion, gay marriage. I mean, you were you were very much in that ilk, but in that, mainstream. And I want to talk to you about a couple of those issues in a second. But you also called people who questioned Obama's citizenship, President Obama's citizenship, which was a dominant theme among the Tea Partiers, you call them dumb asses. And it's sort of interesting to me. First of all, I agree with you. I, I think that was a dumb ass position, and we wasted a lot of time and energy on that. And I think there are still some people who believe what is palpably not true. But this is a characteristic of yours. You're in some ways the quintessential kind of Republican right candidate or office holder, and then you but you work with Democrats and you call out stupid things when you see them. How has that helped you in politics?

It hasn't. It hasn't.

I watched this develop with the, 2008 during the 2008 presidential campaign after John McCain named Sarah Palin his running mate. And you saw that these rallies where people fundamentally believe that Obama was not an American, was alien, was threatening, was, you know, a Muslim, which to them implied real danger. And this was shortly after, you know, this was just seven years after 9/11 when you saw that. What did you think?

David, I want to go on a little bit of a tangent here if I can, and, you know, after the 2000 election, where it was decided in Florida and then in the Supreme Court, President Bush was delegitimized he, you know, he wasn't a real president. He he stole the election. And then we get to President Obama and we say, oh, my goodness, you know, he's not an American. He, you know, he should be qualified to run for president. And then and that's from the right. And then we get to President Trump. And he conspired with the Russians to, to steal the that election. And that was shot down by the special counsel. We as Americans, we just have a hard time believing that our views aren't the majority view. And and, you know, and then again, in 2020, the election is stolen. And so I just it's so disappointing to me that we just can't have what Ronald Reagan called this this peaceful transfer of power. It's one of the things that makes us unique in the history of the world. And we have to get back to that. And, and, you know, as an American, I'm going to call that out every time and just say, we've got to accept that people with different views are in power for four years, and we've got to work with them and do the best we can for America. Oppose them. We can we can certainly voice our opposition. But if we don't, stand up and agree that the border is a huge problem and we've got to fix it, we we're we're in a much worse position.

Yeah. Look, I agree with much of what you said. I do think, that what happened in 2000 was a forerunner of some of this. Although I do remember Al Gore conceding gracefully, conceding the election, which I think was the right thing to do. I very much appreciated when I was involved with President Obama, we were in the transition, how gracious President Bush was to us, perhaps because of his experience in 2000, and gave us every everything that we asked for, in, in terms of meetings and prep and materials and support, because he thought he's the trustee of the democracy. And the people had spoken and this was his responsibility. I'm a little bit. I don't know that the special counsel did away with the notion that the Russians helped Trump in 2016. I think pretty clearly they did help him. The question was how closely, if at all, did they coordinate? And he said there wasn't enough evidence or that he was going to leave it to the attorney general to decide if the evidence warranted an indictment. We're going to take a short break and we'll be right back with more of the Axe Files. And now back to the show. I want to ask you about a couple of these issues, because I did work hard on the Affordable Care Act, and it made it was particularly important to me. And people who listen to this podcast know why. I have a daughter, Lauren, who's now an adult who, had terrible struggle with epilepsy when I was young parent. And, we almost went bankrupt because she had a preexisting condition or ensure her insurance wouldn't cover it. And her medications and second opinions were just monstrously expensive. So I experienced the health care system the way a lot of Americans have experienced the health care system. And I wept the night the Affordable Care Act passed. And since then, tens of millions of people have gotten insurance who otherwise wouldn't have had insurance, including people with preexisting conditions. What's wrong with that?

'Well, I'll tell you. One, I first of all, let me say, what the insurance companies did was not just heartless, it was, morally wrong. It was, it should be illegal. And I learned that, frankly, when I was, working on the repeal of the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, and held town hall meetings and heard over and over again from Americans how their insurance was canceled because of a preexisting condition or even even, you know, somebody gets cancer. Next thing you know, their their insurance is canceled. And that that is absolutely wrong. And I am so happy that that aspect of the Affordable Care Act was passed. My problem is, I believe that the states should be running health care and not the federal government. Now, the federal government obviously runs Medicare, Medicaid, VA benefits and some other areas. But to have this umbrella, this one size fits all is a problem. We are going bankrupt as a country. And the very people who we are both concerned about and that we want to make sure government helps, the the folks who are the most vulnerable, are going to be hurt the worse when we go off that cliff. And I just at that time, I, I had a, a commercial that I did that I was holding up a sign and it said, I had a can out with some coins in it. I was at a side of a road with a sign that said, please donate, national debt, $13 trillion or 11 trillion or whatever. We're 34 trillion now. We can't keep going this way. We've got to find ways, to make sure we don't. So the Affordable Care Act was passed, and a lot of the pay-fors that were repealed down the road. And this program is is on the books and is, is is part of the reason why we are in the financial position we're in.

'Well, I certainly agree with you that that the pay for it shouldn't have been, repealed. And, you know, the, quarter of just about a quarter of that national debt that you're talking about was accumulated over the last, over the over those Trump years, part of it, because you guys voted for a very big tax cut. And I imagine that you would argue you've got to right-size government, not, you know, not add more taxes. And, but, that was a, that, that was the signature achievement of the Bush years was this $1.7 trillion tax cut. And it certainly exacerbated the problems that we have, didn't it?

Well, I would argue, David, that and again, I'm a supply sider. And so yeah, we disagree about this, but when, when we are sending so many jobs overseas because the cost of manufacturing in America is so high, we need to make sure that we are lowering those costs. Now, the the corporate tax rate, I think ended up at 21, 22% under the Trump tax cuts. President Obama actually argued that it should be at 25%. So there was a 3 or 4% difference between, the two policies. Now, President Obama had other things in there. And President Trump had some other things in there. But but the basic corporate tax rate, I think we have to have competitive with the rest of the world. So, revenue has increased every year since the Trump tax cuts, except for the Covid years, obviously, the economy shuts down during those years, but, I don't think that the tax cuts hurt us and try trying to bring back good jobs and revenue to this country.

'You ran for Congress and you got elected in 2014. One of the areas in which you became quite focused and expert is antitrust. This is an area where you and I probably can agree that if you want to have a robust market economy, competition is an important part of that. But I want to talk specifically about your work on social media. You know, a guy came into my office when I was in the White House. Someone brought in a guy from Facebook and he said, you don't understand. Facebook's not a company. Facebook is a nation in and of itself. It transcends the traditional borders. You know, ultimately we'll have our own currency and it's going to it's going to be bigger than any one country. And of course, that was prescient in some ways. But the power of the tech companies is enormous, and the practices of the tech companies are justifiable from the standpoint of their profit, but deleterious to the well-being of the of of our society, of our democracy. Talk to me about that and your experience with that and what can be done. I know some you passed some legislation, antitrust legislation. What do you think should be done about big tech?

David, I'm a I'm a free market guy. So it took a while for me to get from where I am on free markets to recognizing that these companies are monopolies and there is no market where these companies operate. And Congress got it right. Initially, they saw the power of the internet and realized that there needed to be some regulation. And so they passed some really important laws in the 90s. But then Congress stepped back, and these companies kept growing and their political power grew. They spent, according to reports, over $400 million to defeat the antitrust bills that David Cicilline from Rhode Island and I were introducing and trying to, to move forward.

We should point out he was the Democratic chair of the, the subcommittee on antitrust. And you were the ranking Republican.

Right. And so, we worked very closely together, held hearings and, and tried to pass bills. We got a few bills passed. But the the really significant bills were defeated because of the, the strength these companies. And and, you know, there's one thing that I, I'm all for prosperity and I think everybody is for prosperity. Let people make as much money as they can, legally and morally. But the idea that somehow we are going to allow companies that make this huge amount of money interfere in the political marketplace is, is really a challenge. And so, we've got to be very hesitant in allowing that. And the reason I mentioned the history of antitrust work with Big Tech is we're on the precipice of another huge technological advance with AI. Artificial intelligence needs to be scrutinized by Congress and the administration. We need to come up with the right boundaries for AI. Or it could be very, very dangerous for consumers in America. But it also has this potential to to transform the world into a much better place.

You know, one of the things that concerns me as we talk about how divided our country is, is that the profit, the profit model of these social media platforms is to keep people online however they can. And they're they're, I was talking about this with Fareed Zakaria last week or a couple of weeks ago. The great insight that their algorithms have developed is that outrage, anger, grievance, resentment, these are things that keep people online. Conspiracy theories. We don't know what these algorithms do exactly, because none of them are transparent. They're proprietary. But we do know that a lot of divisive and often false information flows through those pipes. What do we do about that? How do we force more transparency? How do we hold, these platforms accountable for the, the, the, the, the sludge that they're trafficking it?

Well, there are there are now lawsuits that are moving forward that really compare the addictive qualities of these platforms to tobacco. And they're using the same type of theory to move forward with those. And the courts will deal with that. My frustration is that, you know, as a Republican, as a conservative, I always talked about the fact that we shouldn't appoint judges who legislate from the bench, that that the legislative branch should do the legislating. And in this case, the legislative branch refuses to do the legislating because of the political power of these outside groups. But clearly, the legislative branch should be passing privacy laws, should be passing consumer protection laws that. I have heard over and over again how Gen Z suicides have risen, depression has risen as a result of these platforms and what they put out. I have a lady that lives 30, 40 miles from me tell me heartbreaking story of her teenage daughter who committed suicide. Went online to learn about future Farmers of America, issues that a ranch girl would want to know about. And, what she was fed after a few months was, you know, how to commit suicide, and you can't beat depression. And don't tell your parents. And, all these messages, eventually led to her, led to her death.

'Yeah, there's there are too many stories like this. And, I think you've set up the challenge exactly right, which is the power and the lobbying power of these, of these mega companies versus the public interest. And we'll see what happens. Listen, before we go, I have to talk about the experience you had. You were early after the election asserting the probity of the election--not, you know, not every aspect of it everywhere--and Congress's responsibility to certify the electors that were sent by the states and so on. And you were there on January 6th, as I mentioned before, and you became very outspoken about this. You defended Liz Cheney, who was a friend of yours, when she was dispatched by the Republican caucus as the conference chair. Tell me how that affected you and what kind of pressures that put on you personally.

Well, if I can, I'll tell you the real quickly the story. January 4th, January 5th. I was sitting in a, library room in an upstairs built, you know, upstairs of a building near the Capitol, with one senator or two other members of Congress. And we were talking about, it just isn't constitutional for Congress to override the popular vote and to decertify the electors based on this set of facts. And every one of us agreed that we're going to lose our next election, but we've got to do this. This is the right thing to do for America. We were sent here, we took an oath, and this is what we're going to do. And then, we all acted in that way. And, the, the riot happened, the impeachment happened, and, Trump and MAGA focus was then on the people who voted for impeachment, not the people who voted to decertify. So, we sort sorted out a political pass, if you will, on, on voting to do the right thing at that time. But it was, you know, it was, again, one of those things where you have to decide why you're in Congress, why you're in public life, and if it is to get reelected, then God bless you. But, that that wasn't the the attitude that a whole lot of Republicans and a lot of Democrats took.

Did you get threats? Were there security issues for you?

There were security issues. And, Speaker Pelosi actually appropriated money, and I had protection, as well as a lot of other members at that time.

Let me ask you a very personal question. And you can bark on it if you want. But I know that you've been married twice, and your your second wife was in politics, as well, and she was in the legislature. I think she, at the end of that, after that election called for the Dominion Company to be investigated. And, and I'm just wondering what kind of strains having a spouse in, this was two years after you guys were divorced. So. But were there strains on you personally, did it affect your personal life to take the positions that you took?

'Well, it certainly. No. I don't think there was any conflict between my political views and those of my ex-wife. I do think that, you know, when I go off to Washington, DC every week and she goes off to Denver for, for for four and a half months, that that is a very difficult, time. And it is, there are some folks who are wealthy and they, their spouses join them in DC, and they, they buy a place. And, you know, life is a little easier in that situation, but, I don't think people really realized the stress the Congress puts on a person: having two homes, two sets of suits, two cars, two everything. On a salary of $174,000. Well, that seems excessive to a whole lot of people out there. And it is more than than the average American makes. The, the costs of being a Congress financially are great, and personally are also very great.

What do you do next, Ken? What do you see for your future? I know all the people who were disparaging you when you left, said you were setting yourself up for a career and in television commentary. And I'm sure there's interest in you in that, but what is it that you. What do you want to do next?

David? I have a passion for the issues that I had a passion for before. And I am exploring at this point the best ways to to be involved in promoting what I think are important issues for Americans. They include issues like how we choose candidates in primaries, how somebody can win a primary with 32% of the vote and then run in a very red or very blue district and get elected because everybody votes for the Republican or Democrat. And and we get these knuckleheads in Congress, who, or the state legislature or other areas that shouldn't be there. And so it's, it is it is a passion of mine to stay involved in the marketplace of ideas and going to figure out how to do that. But I absolutely didn't have any contract or any promise when I left Congress to to do anything in particular out there.

Well, let me just say that I vigorously disagree with you on a whole range of issues, and I'm pleased to know you. And, I'm happy that you're you're going to stay in the, in the fray, because we need to reestablish the notion that we can disagree and still respect each other in our politics. If we don't, we are going to have very, very rocky times ahead. So I appreciate you and I appreciate you sitting down with me.

Well thank you, David, it's been a pleasure.

Thank you for listening to the Axe Files, brought to you by the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago and CNN Audio. The executive producer of the show is Miriam Finder Annenberg. The show is also produced by Saralena Barry, Jeff Fox, and Hannah Grace McDonald. And special thanks to our partners at CNN, including Steve Lickteig and Haley Thomas. For more programing from the IOP, visit politics dot uChicago dot edu.