c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. >> you are looking c-span2, your unfiltered viewof government . created by america's cable television company and today brought to you by these television companies to provide it to viewers as a public service. >> joining us is robert wiseman, president of public citizen to talk about ethics or lobbying rules . tell our viewers what your group does and how you are funded beforewe get started with the conversation . >> is free to be with you. public citizens have been around for nearly 50 years founded by ralph nader. we work on a wide range of issues to advance the public

interest and we are very concerned about too much concentrated and corporate power. done a lot for all five of our decades focused on keeping our democracy and improving governmental ethics . at a big attention for us. individuals d by and foundations we don't take any money from corporations or the government . >> presidents signed recently and executive order. at that set the following, respect former appointees from lobbying their former agencies for two years. it has restrictions on shadow lobbying and a golden parachute fan for incoming appointees. let's begin with the first ee restriction of former appointees from lobbying their former agency for two years. who does this apply to? >> it's applying to the political appointees of the biden administration, the top people go in so county officials and people belowthe doing confirmation by the senate as well as top white house employees .

and the first division that talking about is what happens when you leave government and prohibiting you from basically cashing in on your service by getting a job as a lobbyist. focused on the work you have done while you are in er government. >> does this apply to president trumps staff? >> it does not. this is an executive order that will apply to the appointees of the biden administration. president trump adopted a similar less strong, similar executive order beginning of his term. however unfortunately, the end of his administration, he said the deal is off. everybody's free to go, notwithstanding policy in place. >> what is shadow lobbying ? >> shadow lobbying refers to people that are technically lobbying work where people are doing things regular people consider to be lobbying but registering as lobbyists sothere's a formal

process by which lobbyists have to register with congress . but it's really self enforcing and you can sort of say i'm giving strategic advice, i'm giving guidance, not spending my time on the hill meeting with members of congress who is not lobbying. that had been a full in some of these prior executive orders provide an executive order by the on ethics try to solve that problem by saying you can't just say you're not lobbying anything that lobbying, were going tocover that to. >> and golden parachute, what is that ? >> golden parachute is a problem that emerged in the last couple of decades especially in affect people to work on wall street but other firms to where they get payments when they basically people coming from wall street going into government. they get payments from their old firms . compensate an extra for going into government so you might leave say citigroup or be

goldman sachs and have been an executive there ivto take a position in government and radio contact says did you take a job in government and leave us we will give you $2 million that would be a golden person. but my on your way out as your jumping off ofthat organization. that company. the problem is it amounts to goodwill money to take care of your old employer when you go in government . it is an incentive to go into government and take care of your old friends and it's a positive thing for the biden demonstration is prohibiting the practice . >> i want to invite our viewers to join in and seek your insight on ethics and lobbying in washington dc area what questions do you all have about those topics? start dialing in because robert reichmann will answer your questions or comments request democrats dial in, republicans 202-748-8001 and independence 202 48 8002. while we wait for hosted island, why are these rules

even needed? >> because there's rampant abuse and i think were going to hear this from republicans, democrats and independents . people are worried rightfully about corruption in government. there are a lot of dimensions to corruption but this is one of the really major things because it affects people individual self interest and it affects both, these rules apply both to where you were working and where you go to work after your time in government. so it puts limits on whether people can be lobbyists and incumbents of government and work for the same interest they had been involved serving when they had been lobbyists . a really serious concern and one we saw play out in the trump administration where an oil and gas lobbyists ended up as editor of interior and it deals with the problem of what happens when you leave government, do you get paid

off quite interest that you may have served while you were in government that is to say you're benefiting from outside corporate interests instead of the public interest. the prospect of that employment is really corrupting influence on people while they're serving in government, where they're supposed to be serving the public , their spending their time thinking about the next job and how they're going to get paid off are not going to do right by the rest of us . >> why shouldn't these people be able to leverage their expertise in a certain area. and their previous, most recent experience in how that works. >> they get plenty of opportunity but the short answer is their personal interests has to be subordinated to thepublic interest . it shouldn't go into c government with the idea that you're going to capitalize on it to make the most money you ca can when you get out area and if that is what you go into government, you're not likely to do a good job for the people. >> we will go to michael

first in pennsylvania, democratic caller. >> good morning greta. i have to questions. number one, what is the time period once you leave office that you can become a lobbyist and number two, who actually watches this? is there a committee, i guess i would think ethics would be something to come into play but who watches and oversight of the people who leave and then become lobbyists? >> guest: thank you michael. the biden rule will apply for two years after you leave government service and the answer to the second question is some combination of existing administration because it is not done by law, it's done by executive order e so it lands in the existingadministration and outside groups like ours that do monitor these things . and do try to hold people accountable but we can only

do that if the rules are in place from the get-go be one michael in queens village, independent. >> caller: i want to thank you for the work you do for the people and i want to ask, i want to know how do we as a people and the corruption and violation of both that people in government take in the movie the big short people in government were more keen to please their potential future employers or the same business industry they work lobbying and regulating and overseeing as opposed to keeping their oath and loyalty to regulating and protecting the people inthose businesses ? thank you. >> guest: one thing you're heading on is this stuff matters . we think back tothe wall street crash and the great recession . a lot of the, why did that

happen? a lot of the reason it happened was there had been a decade previous the regulation of wall street and that deregulation was tied to the exercise of political influence by wall street interests . lots of campaign contributions, lots of money spent on lobbyists and lots of jobs given to people who left government. some one piece of this anticorruption policy that we need is this executive order. dealing with this problem in dc circles known as the revolving door problem because you come from private industry, worked to government and revolve back out . this by executive order does a lot to clamp down on the revolving door policy. it is one piece of what we need so we need a lot more to including especially a clampdown on the money interest in politics. particularly in campaign-finance. there's important legislation that's going to move in the house call before the people act, the first in the house to consider hr one and it's onthe sink to . if we get that legislation passed which we do a lot of things but include

substituting out big-money contributions or a system that where politicians rely on small contributions and matching money, it would make a world of difference for how corrupt or not corrupt politics are in washington dc . >> what else do you think the biden demonstration could put into place? what isn't in this executive board would have liked to have seen you. >> i would have liked to go a little beyond justlobbyists . so this executive order focuses on people work as lobbyists who are registered as lobbyists and say you can't come into government unless you get a special waiver which is great. the people of other conflicting interests may have worked directly for corporations or especially they may have been attorneys. corporate lawyers working for large corporations. and people who come from private industry either working directly with an executive in the company or working as lawyers for companies that have a lot of

the same conflicts that lobbyists do. this policy doesn't cover them that would be the top thing iwas focused on in terms of how this might have been expanded . >>. >> host: the associated press reported biden's family circle on to nonprofits, the bible institute at the university of delaware and bovine and foundation for the protection of children. the conflict of interest is there according to your government affairs representatives. >> .. if joe biden as president of the united states, there is in fact a risk, that some corporation

may give a million dollars to the joe biden foundation not because they want to advance the good work of the foundation but because they want to curry favor with the president. i thank you will need those foundations will need to adopt their own ethics policies of their own restrictions around what money they can take at least while joe biden's president. >> lisa, new jersey, republican. >> caller: hello, how are you doing? >> host: question or comment. >> caller: yes, i would like to make a political statement aiming towards the democratic congress. okay. from the very beginning any of this should not have happened and it is the democrats that started it. it is nancy pelosi, chuck schumer, adam schiff. they are the leaders in all this conspiracy. >> host: lisa, started what?

>> caller: started all this commotion with the capital. >> host: i will move on to her stick to our topic print market, omaha, nebraska, republican. >> caller: yes, thank you for taking my call and thanks for c-span. i am kind of a gift of senators and lobbyists taking jobs after they leave office but making the exception to an explorer and american interest or american companies with all these foreign companies but the real thing that i think is the problem and what should be looked at in a might be unrelated but how did they get so wealthy during the times that they are in office? i think we should take a look at everyone has joined congress and what was their self worth before they join the government and what is their self worth when they finished it because it is unbelievable how often 174,000 a

year they are millionaires, multi, multi millionaires and the money is coming from somewhere but it is just not —-dash there is lobbying going on, inside a training because making 174,000 and trying to afford two houses in their home state and living in washington dc you should not be able to get wealthy by being on the government payroll. >> host: okay. robert wiseman. >> guest: you make great points, mark. on this lobbying for foreign interests that is a special an additional issue besides working for corporate interest generally. i'm happy because we will make positive steps to restrict people's ability when they leave government to go work for foreign governments. you know, the other question you're raising about how people make money in congress, two points. one, it's important to know a lot of people enter congress

with a lot of money. congress is overrepresented by really rich people and that's not a good thing and there is a reason for it which is our campaign finance system. it's much easier to run for congress if you start off with personal money. you get a major leg up in a race because you can self fund and draw from rich funds. that's a big problem we could deal with and is in vacant part with campaign-finance reform like i discussed earlier. other thing is, you are right. there is an issue with members of congress trading on information they have in the markets, relying on special information they get as members of congress. we've done quite a bit of work on this and we were happy in the during the obama administration to get legislation with modest steps forward to lease requiring members of congress to disclose their stock trading while they are serving in congress. but they are not prohibited from

doing it. the better move would be to say you can't be in the business of trading individual stocks while you are in congress. you can take a break from that or do it "after words" but while you are in congress you can't take the chance that your trading on special information you have. there is evidence they do better than the market and since trading while in the market is not a qualification for getting to congress there's a lot of reason to speculate and worry that in fact, they are leveraging their inside information for their own personal trading benefit. >> host: what rules are in place, ethics, lobbying rules are in place for the 117 congress and the house led by democrats? >> guest: well, they will have some reasonable but members of both parties are in congress will impose strong ethical rules on themselves. we don't have strong ethnic, sufficiently strong ethical rules on what congress can do when they leave office.

we don't have sufficiently strong rules in the area we just talked about. there are good rules with the abuses we've seen historically with the a berm off scandal and the gift acceptance and outright bribery that catalyzed characterize that scandal but i don't think it happened as much as it did and it prohibited it now. we have made some progress but there's more than needs to be done. >> host: when it comes to the white house how concerned are you about this story and the front page of "the wall street journal" written by julie bickel with and the machete brothers rise in dc. they write, as the white house counsel or he's a top competence of president biden and one of the most important new power brokers. his younger brother has a growing roster of lobbying clients seeking to access those powerbrokers. among them are amazon.com along with others. >> guest: yeah, it's a real concern.

leaving that family aside for a second, the big challenge is with the ethic issues what he do about family members and it's very tough problem because if you leave aside the president's family it's awfully difficult to say if you have or take a position in government your spouse can't do certain things or your siblings or cousins can't do certain things. on the other hand, there's definitely a worry that people or family members leverage their ties to people in government to get business, jobs and financing that maybe they otherwise would not get. in this case, involving the brothers both are confidence of president biden, steve is close to the president and has a number two position in the white house and his brother is a lobbyist who is received new clients since biden was elected and it is not illegal but it

does raise real concerns. the brother say they won't talk about business together even if they don't, it's hard to understand why jeff is getting the business except for his ties to the administration and something we probably can't view it by hard and fast rules and in this case it will require a lot of monitoring by "the wall street journal" and by organizations like ours and others to make sure that nothing gets too out of sorts. >> host: james in new hampshire, democratic caller, you are up next. >> caller: yes, hello. i appreciate the access. i followed, to a certain extent, for an extended time the impact on upon government activities and private activities. i did not take them seriously when i interacted them in a period of time down in the washington area and then i saw

him on the public channel for a three hour exposure but i just began to realize how much a fickle giant his approach may be sometimes unrealistic to educate people in the ethical ideals both with government and industry but i think he is a man of amazing impact and professionally what we need. it is one thing to talk about it academically but another thing to apply it in practice but i applaud what you are doing and i certainly hope that it has the effect intended, your presentation, after the prior administration was centrally and an ethical blackhole to educate people in ethics is a very

difficult thing to do, politicians and the citizens. >> host: james, robert weissman, would you agree with him that there was an ethical blackhole in the last and administration? >> guest: oh yeah, for sure print the trump demonstrated was the most unethical administration, most corrupt administration in american history. it is not just the president and his family although it starts there but it pervaded almost everything that the government did. pick an agency in the government and as big as it is the odds are pretty good and if you look at closely as the close corruption problems that happened during the trump administration. let me say about ralph nader who i worked with directly for 12 years and continue to work in your -- >> we take you like to capitol hill from to hear from senate majority leader chuck schumer and other democratic leaders.