Listen to the latest episode of Former Member, where I talk to former members of Congress—Democrats and Republicans—to get their perspectives on what it was like to serve, and how things are different today vs. when they were around.
Last week, I spoke with Steve Russell, a two-term Republican Congressman from Oklahoma who served in the last two years of the Obama presidency and the first two years of the Trump presidency.
He’s also the author of We Got Him!, which covers his time in the Army and his role in the capture of Saddam Hussein. (The memoir was just released as an audiobook.)
Give it a listen! Details below.
Topics from my conversation with Steve Russell
0:00 – 6:14: Introduction, including Steve’s background, service with the Army, and time in Congress.
6:15 – 17:47: Government waste and inefficiency, and how to actually make government more efficient.1
17:48 – 23:11: How politics changed between 2014 and 2016.
23:12 – 29:44: Comparing Hillary Clinton’s server scandal to Pete Hegseth’s Signal scandal.
29:45 – 32:56: Political forgiveness and admitting that you’re wrong.
32:57 – 39:52: Anything that you regret from your time in Congress?
39:53 – 52:12: The politics of refugees in the U.S., and how we get people to care.
52:13 – 56:34: How quickly the pendulum of politics can swing.
56:35 – 59:19: The challenges of a commuter Congress, and conclusion.
Note: A few people have told me that these emails are sometimes going into spam folders. If you a) mark the email as “not spam” and b) save bensamuels@substack.com to your contacts, that should address the issue.
I’ve written a bunch about government inefficiency, but here are two articles in particular on the topic that I want to highlight:
