Congressman Seth Magaziner

In this episode, Congressman Seth Magaziner offers a sharp critique of current Washington policies, explores how corruption and big money influence governance, and shares his vision for reforming American politics ahead of the midterm elections. His insights reveal the deeper struggles behind headlines and the path toward a more accountable, fair government.

Key Topics:

• The chaos and dysfunction within Washington, driven by corrupt interests and elitism
• The economics of inequality: tax policies benefiting billionaires and corporations at the expense of working Americans
• Foreign policy debates, including the risks of military intervention in Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba
• Democratic Party’s strategic approach: combining opposition with an affirmative policy agenda
• The impact of AI and emerging technologies on jobs, energy costs, and regulation
• The urgent fight to ban insider trading and reform prediction markets in Congress
• The debate around gambling, sports betting, and the regulation of online prediction platforms

Timestamps:

00:00 - The surreal spectacle of a UFC fight on the White House lawn and Washington chaos

02:20 - How current administration policies favor elites over working Americans

03:42 - The implications of the Iran nuclear deal and international conflicts

05:31 - The motives and mental state of President Biden in foreign diplomacy

07:16 - Democratic strategy for midterm success: affordability, healthcare, anti-corruption

09:54 - The influence of AI on policy, jobs, and energy costs

15:00 - The potential of revenue-sharing models like Sanders’ Alaska Fund for AI companies

16:29 - The risks of insider trading and prediction markets in Congress

19:34 - The controversy over online sports betting and gambling regulations

21:00 - The importance of transparency and regulation in emerging industries

Transcript

Bill Bartholomew 0:00

Congressman Seth Magaziner, welcome back to Bartholomew Town. Great to be back. Thanks for having me. We're on the heels today of what was a UFC event on the lawn of the White House. Um it it really kind of personifies the idiocracy uh the of the moment uh in in real time. But just from your standpoint, what what is it like right now to be in Washington as a part of the opposition trying to do something, as you have oftentimes signaled, trying to do something to impact the flow of what seems to be more and more craziness, chaos, and dystopia every single week?

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Yeah, I mean the interesting thing about this second Trump administration is that they're not even trying to pretend that this is about helping the average person anymore. And, you know, my job is to advocate for working Rhode Islanders, for people who work hard for a living, not for the entrenched special interests. And instead, what you have now is is uh a reality in Washington where they just cut taxes by trillions of dollars for billionaires and big corporations while cutting health care and SNAP benefits for the middle class and for poor people. They are spending taxpayer money on these elaborate monuments for Donald Trump and then turning around and saying that there isn't enough money to meet the basic needs of the American people. And um, just the grift is off the charts, right? The president of the United States selling cryptocurrency out of the White House, uh, all of these shady real estate deals getting done. Um, you know, even last night with the UFC fight, I think one of the underdiscussed elements of that fight is that the Ellison family made a lot of money off of streaming the fight. Uh, you know, the Trumps were selling their cryptocurrency, advertising their cryptocurrency during the fight, but you know, to the average fan who maybe likes you know UFC who wanted to watch, uh, it wasn't free for them to watch. So again, like, you know, it's the average person is subsidizing the incredible wealth of the elites. And that's the way it's been throughout the administration. So on the one hand, you know, if you ask like what is it like for me as a member of Congress who's trying to fight for for the average person, um it's incredibly frustrating just to see people losing their health insurance, people not being able to afford food, people not being able to afford housing at the same time that their taxpayer, hard-earned taxpayer dollars are being used to subsidize the lavish lifestyles of Donald Trump and his friends. But it also means that electorally, Democrats, I think, are in a good position heading to the midterms because more and more people who voted for Trump are saying this is not what we signed up for.

Bill Bartholomew 2:50

Right. And I'd like to get back to the affordability issue that you just really raised right there. But also it's while we're on it here in terms of contemporarily, do you buy anything from this administration when it comes to Iran right now? The notion that we have a deal, no matter what who the the the is a signee on this deal, no matter what the parameters are, doesn't does it even matter at this point?

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Aaron Powell Well, if the president broke his promise to the American people by getting us into an unnecessary war, uh it's cost us a lot of money, it has degraded our stocks of munitions, and it's cost innocent lives, the lives of American service members and the lives of a lot of innocent civilians as well. And for what? Uh the best case scenario is some sort of a deal that gets us uh a worse outcome than what we had under Obama's Iran deal. I mean, uh, you know, the Republicans raked President Obama over the coals for that deal, which, you know, I think opened up something like a billion, a billion and a half dollars of frozen assets for the Iranians in exchange for freezing their nuclear program. Now, under this framework that the president is talking about, you know, they're giving numbers like $300 billion, again, of taxpayer dollars to the Iranians on top of the tens of billions of dollars that have already been spent on the war. Uh it was a terrible move all around. Now, look, I hope that this deal sticks or some version of it, because we can't continue spending lives and money and and wasting our resources and our best and brightest on these unnecessary wars. We need to turn our focus back to helping people here at home. But um, you know, if your question is, do we believe that that this one is going to stick? I don't know. I mean, uh you know, the president has said that Iran is within days of of giving up something like 30 times in the last couple months. And uh unfortunately you just can't trust uh what he says. But I hope, I mean, I hope that the conflict can end and we can get back to doing what the American people want us to do, which is actually have a government that focuses on proving the li improving the lives of Americans and not just serving the ego of the person in the White House.

Bill Bartholomew 5:01

Aaron Powell What is the goal here? What do you think the goal is, or what have you been told the goal is when it comes to Iran and when it comes to kind of the the the the Trump to international position of when you look at Venezuela, when you look at what's likely to happen in Cuba, things have shifted. Uh American quite frankly, empire building has shifted, and it's just now f it just seems so surface level that this is what's happening. But what are you hearing? What do you know?

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Well, my my sense is that you know the president is losing his mental faculties. He is very obsessed with his um what his legacy is going to be, and in his mind, his legacy is not defined by how many people he helps, how many people get access to health care or housing or anything like that. You know, he thinks of himself as a old school imperialist, and he wants to make his mark on the map. And in that context where he has imperialist tendencies and declining faculties, other people are taking advantage of him. You know, Netanyahu has been trying for 30 years to get American presidents to launch an attack against Iran, and uh Trump is the first one who he was able to convince to do it. Um similarly, you know, Marco Rubio and you know, I think some of the South Florida voices have always wanted the United States to take military action against Cuba, against Venezuela, and others. And so, you know, with Trump, they see someone who is impressionable, who's sort of a weak leader, doesn't have clear convictions, but you know, thinks that the way that he will establish his legacy is by changing the map somehow. And it's caused us to go into this series of violent and costly misadventures that have not made anything better for anyone. I mean, in Venezuela, you know, the new government is just as bad as the old one when it comes to human rights and repressing people. Uh, you know, in Iran, it seems like the same will be the case. And and again, like what have the American people gotten out of any of this? Costs are up, not down. The deficit is larger, not smaller, and you know, people here in America are feeling left behind.

Bill Bartholomew 7:17

Aaron Powell How does that sentiment you just described there turn into electoral victories for Democrats this autumn?

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Aaron Powell Well, I think the key thing is that we need to not just be the anti-Trump party, but we need to run on an affirmative agenda for how we are going to deliver something better and different for the American people. And so I have been in a series of conversations led by Hakeem Jeffries, our House Democratic leader. We expect that we are going to be announcing the House Democrats' agenda for what we will do when we take back the majority. Um, I think in July. Um I I've seen, you know, I've seen some drafts, I've given feedback on the drafts, we're pretty close. And I think what you can expect is basically a three-tier platform for how we are going to end this chaos and make lives better for the average American. Um, first, there'll be a focus on affordability, uh, making it easier for people to afford housing, making it easier for people to afford food, also making it easier for people to afford care for their family members, both early in life and elder care as well. Um, so that'll be the first plank. The second plank is improving health care. And to be clear, that doesn't mean just restoring all of the disastrous cuts under the Trump administration, although we do need to do that, but it also means going farther and introducing a comprehensive set of bills that will lower people's premiums and expand access to care. And then the third plank is going to be uh taking on the corruption that is really fueling all of this economic inequality that we're seeing. Like the reason that Washington does not work well for the average person these days is because of the corruption. Like that is the underlying cause. And we need to root it out wherever it is. I've got my bill to ban members of Congress and the president from trading stocks. I expect that that will be part of the agenda. Um, but we're also going to go after all of it. No more cryptocurrency being sold out of the Oval Office, no more dark money flooding elections, real reforms to the Supreme Court, which we haven't had in, you know, in decades but are desperately needed. So you've got to be careful with these things, not to have a laundry list so long that that people don't have a clear sense of your priorities. But I think broadly, our agenda is going to be affordability, improving health care, and cracking down on corruption. We're going to announce that in the next uh few weeks. And that, I think, in addition to just the total disconnect on on display from the Trump administration and the Republicans, where they are clearly focused more on vanity projects than they are on actually helping the American people, will power us to a big win in November.

Bill Bartholomew 9:54

I want to touch on the insider trading and just sort of uh get into that a little bit in just a moment, but just back to the affordability question. How much of that plan or how much of your thinking right now is based on indications of a changing workforce, indications of a changing world because of AI, and how much of it is based on the idea that we're gonna have whether it's a moratorium or an awakening of some kind when it comes to AI that won't be as much of a disruptor as some of the predictions that we see right now?

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Aaron Powell Well, let me take that question in a couple of parts. So, first, when it comes to affordability generally, it's important for people to understand that the affordability crisis that we have now didn't happen due to some unforeseen external force, right? This isn't like a natural disaster or COVID or something like that. The affordability crisis that we have right now is because of bad decisions that were made in Washington that need to be corrected. The tariffs that Trump put in place is making life more expensive, they need to be reversed. The war needs to be ended. The cost of housing is too high because we've made it too hard to build in America. And by the way, Democrats share some blame for that as well. That's not a partisan issue. Same is true on energy. We've made it too hard to build the transmission lines uh that are needed to connect affordable clean energy to the grid. So a lot of the affordability crisis that we face, it's not because of some external new force, it's because of bad policy choices that can and should be corrected, and that I'm going to fight very hard to correct, uh. Especially when Democrats are back in the majority and and are able to set the agenda. To your question about AI, um I think there is a reason for concern here. Um, we know that AI, and we've heard you know from some of the people who are more bullish on AI, that the technology has some great positive potential to do things like help with new drug discovery and advancing technology and so forth. But we also have, I think, good reason to be concerned in a number of ways. There are right now no consumer safeguards in place in the law to prevent people from using AI to build weapons, to launch cyber attacks, uh, to build bioweapons, which I think is actually one of the biggest risks. And so there needs to be a real consumer safety regime that is mandatory, not voluntary, like the current framework under the Trump administration. Uh job displacement is something else that we should be very concerned about. I think you're already starting to see it in some sectors, and the government needs a plan. Uh I've been talking with a colleague of mine, Nikki Badzinski from Illinois. Um, you know, there's something called um TAA Trade Adjustment Assistance. This is an old program from a few decades ago that was created so that when uh say a factory shuts down because the jobs are being moved overseas due to a bad trade deal, that there would be some assistance in place for um, you know, not just unemployment, but but job training and the like for um uh for people whose jobs are impacted through trade. Uh we could use a similar framework for AI. We we need a plan. And then you know when it comes to energy costs, um, yeah, for sure. I think there's actually a risk and an opportunity there. You know, data set big data centers can absolutely drive up energy costs if uh regulators don't do their jobs. But one of the things that that I think is an opportunity is that the big data center companies, and and these are primarily like some of the biggest companies in the world, like Amazon, like Meta, which which you know also known as Facebook, there is such a gold rush going on right now, and they have so much money that I actually think in some cases, not in some cases, in in in cases with those big companies, you could actually require them to spend more than what it costs to run their own data center, and they could actually subsidize the rest of the electrical grid and bring down energy costs for people, but you need smart regulation in order to mandate that, and you also need to maintain a level of local control so that if a community just doesn't want a data center, they have that right. Um all of this is to say that like AI is very complicated and you need to have smart people with the right values in charge of crafting the legislation and crafting the regulations. What you have instead under the Trump regime is just it's the Wild West. And, you know, the big AI companies have lavished Trump with gifts and, you know, from a golden iPhone to, you know, sponsoring the UFC fight last night in exchange for basically no regulation at all except for voluntary regulation, which is not really regulation, right? And so you you gotta put the adults back in charge to actually come up with a framework that will allow the positive aspects of AI to continue, but protect jobs, protect energy lower energy costs, and protect people from the dangerous applications of the technology.

Bill Bartholomew 15:00

What do you think of Senator Sanders' idea, something along the lines of the Alaska Permanent Fund that would, in essence, give a 50% stake of all of the AI companies to the American people through a one-time tax, basically making the American people partners with AI mega companies. This is something actually President Trump in some ways has signaled some support for as well.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Yeah, you know, I think it's interesting. As long as as the biggest companies in the world continue to get larger and larger and richer and richer, and everyone else is being left behind, um, we need to find a way to ensure that all Americans can share in that wealth and that prosperity. And so whether that is some sort of a ownership sharing or revenue sharing model like Senator Sanders proposed, or just taxing capital gains, taxing um taxing the rich more, which is something that I very much support, we need to have a fairer system for of of revenue distribution in this country, uh for sure. But that is, I think, like a valid idea, but it's not a replacement for the other things that I'm talking about, which is that you also need to focus on compute on consumer safety, on job displacement, and on um uh and on managing energy costs as well.

Bill Bartholomew 16:19

Aaron Ross Powell All right. We have uh just a couple of minutes here. Uh you've done some work on insider trading. Now it's expanded into the prediction markets space, which is a wild space. I mean, let's let's be honest about it. I mean, you've got George Santos, a former colleague of yours, actually, who placed a bet on whether or not he would attend the state of the uh State of the Union. You know, he he placed a bet that he wouldn't actually I should say he entered into a contract, that he wouldn't show up at the State of the Union and then or that he would show up, then he didn't show whatever the case is, he rigged it. And it's it's very simple to do so from an inside trading standpoint. Uh that's one example. There are probably many others. Calci and the other prediction markets, they say they look into this stuff. There have been some sanctions, uh, but how does that fuel into your overall insider trading work that you've been doing when it comes to stock trading by members of Congress?

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yeah, I mean, there are a number of different ways in which corruption in Washington have just totally rigged the system against the average people and average person, and this is one of them. So yeah, I mean there's a lot that we need to do, and that I think we will do as part of this anti-corruption plank when House Democrats take the majority back. Um certainly banning stock trading by members of Congress and the White House and the Supreme Court has been one of my top priorities. Um, you know, my bill, which is called the Restore Trust and Government Act, uh now 190 House members have signed on, which um which is a big number. No more than 80 had signed on to any stock trading bill before the last Congress. So we've really ramped that up, and I think we're gonna get it done. Prediction markets, like you said, are the wild west. Not only members of Congress, but like anyone really in a government role should not be trading on on elections or on um on public policy on prediction markets. One of the like the wildest, craziest things is like if you go on CalCHI right now, you could actually, I'm not gonna do this, but you could actually bet on whether my stock trading ban bill will pass. Like that is actually like an account on CalShi that people trade on. It's insane. Um And then I think there's also a real move to ban certain types of trading for everyone. Um and look, I I'm generally like like this is a free country. I think people should be allowed to bet their money on stupid things with the right guardrails in place. However, um, you know, betting on war, betting on um, you know, on military action, I think there's some real obvious problems with that, um, both morally and in terms of like the safety of our troops. So that is probably something that those platforms should not be allowed to offer. Um and then a different but related subject, you know, sports betting. Um we have sports betting, obviously, in Rhode Island and most places across the country. And again, my general view is it's a free country, if that's what people want to use their money for, fine. But sports betting is also very heavily regulated in Rhode Island and in other states around the country. And these online platforms are now offering sports betting, but they're saying, oh, it's not really betting, so we shouldn't be regulated like gambling. It's it's something different. When it it obviously is not something different. And so there's a lot that needs to be dealt with in that space as well.

Bill Bartholomew 19:38

Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's a whole arena of conversation when it comes to is gambling something that any civilized, organized society should sanction in general? And I think that that's a fair question. I know that again, that the free the freedom of uh opportunity uh sh that argument is fair, but I think it's a it's a reasonable question to say, hey, wait a second, is this something that we want to be in partner in league with um as a country, as a state? But at the same time, the outcomes are mostly people having a good time.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Yeah, I mean look, I personally don't gamble. I've never enjoyed it. Like I don't have uh necessarily a moral qualm. Again, if that's what what people want to spend their time and money on, then fine. But and and by the way, before, for example, lotteries were were public entities, um that was a major driver of organized crime in this country in the mid-20th century, was that you know gaming was illegal, and so you know, the only place to go was to, you know, was to to to the mob, essentially. But that being said, we regulated very carefully in in Rhode Island and in other places, right? Um, there's a certain amount of transparency over what the odds are. There you know are all kinds of rules to protect to prevent money laundering, to prevent um uh you know people um from being taken advantage of. Uh and again, on these prediction markets, like none of that exists. Um even like online sports books like FanDuel and stuff like that, like they have agreed to a lot of regulation. But you know, CalShi, Predict it, all of these new trading platforms are are essentially unregulated right now. And that's not good for anybody. Congressman Magaziner, thanks so much for your time today.