Miller is president of the National Institute for Lobbying & Ethics and principal of the lobbying firm Miller/Wenhold Capitol Strategies.
Attacking lobbyists isn't a new phenomenon, it's been happening for decades. It happens every election cycle when candidates troll for cash and votes. It happens when Washington is gridlocked. It's an easy way for some to dodge the hard questions from constituents about why things aren't getting done in D.C. It's easier to simply blame those damn special interests for shutting down the process than it is to explain your own actions.
What's new is the growing intensity against everyone's right to petition their government — even if it means playing fast and loose with the Constitution. I get that a lot of this is for the public and ensuring candidates get elected.
The problem with that belief is that we are a social-media-driven society that can quickly turn fake news into real news (or reality) within minutes. The concerning part isn't the words, but how quickly the information is shared and how little facts play into it being viewed as truth.
As a profession, we need to set the record straight when it comes to attacks on our work. We need to be concerned that a portion of those elected to Congress are using the Constitution as a political tool to silence some and strengthen the voice of others. Our Founding Fathers meant for the Constitution to be a document that protects everyone's rights. Lobbyists give voice to those who want to be heard and that makes legislating hard when people won't blindly follow or simply support your own personal policy agenda. This makes us a target.
We've heard a lot recently about discrimination, especially when it comes to the issue of equal pay thanks to the U.S. women's soccer team. We've seen members of Congress stand up for Team USA, demanding that they get paid equal to the men's team. Yet, in the very next breath, these same leaders want to interpret the Constitution another way when it comes to the lobbying profession.
When it comes to us, there is no hesitation to take our voice away or create discriminatory policies against lobbyists solely based on our profession. This view comes from those who rely on us for information. From those who need our help getting elected. From those who go to great lengths to ask for our financial support. We are today's necessity, tomorrow's fall guy.
Words matter; just ask those who protest every time the president tweets. Words matter here, too. A spokesman for Sen. Elizabeth Warren stated, "The first thing she would do as president would be to pass her anti-corruption bill that would end lobbying as we know it." We need to take a comment like that very seriously. It's broad and can mean almost anything. Just so I didn't misunderstand Warren's spokesman, I went back and looked at her proposal and this is what I found and why we need to wake up to comments like this.
The Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act legislates issues already in law. For example, it would ban lobbyists from giving gifts. This is already current law. The legislation has two standards: It bans corporations from having their voice heard but does not set the same standard for labor. Her legislation bans federal employees from lobbying their former offices for two years. Already in law. That ban extends to six years for corporate lobbyists, but she says nothing about the same applying to labor lobbyists. Warren's legislation creates a new expanded definition of what a lobbyist is. It then creates a corporate lobbyist definition. Again, nothing on a new definition for labor lobbyists.
The reality is, if you create a new definition for what a lobbyist is, shouldn't it apply across the board?
It appears this is a bill that discriminates against a group of people (former members of Congress and corporate lobbyists) simply based on their chosen profession. This bill looks to reward others who choose the same profession but may be more in line with the senator's views. Her bill prohibits lobbyists from taking government jobs for two-years after lobbying. It does grant waivers if such hiring is deemed in the national interest. This waiver process only applies to non-corporate lobbyists. That sounds like a special-interest carve-out to me.
I'm not sure this is what our Founding Fathers had in mind.
We cannot continue to sit back and allow some to push a policy agenda that violates the very document giving every citizen the right to petition the government. We cannot sit back and allow some to discriminate against us simply because of the profession we've chosen. If we do nothing, they get away with it. Social media gives credence to ideas like this. Social media builds momentum for discriminatory ideas like this. Just look at the number of followers some of these people have and the reach they have. Words matter and we better start caring.
The Constitution clearly states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." It's time for some to remember this and it's time for our profession to stand up and protect it.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.