00;00;27;27 – 00;00;38;15
Marty
Attorney General Derek Brown, thanks for being here. Great to be here.

00;00;38;18 – 00;00;39;14
Derek Brown
Thanks for having me.

00;00;39;16 – 00;00;46;22
Marty
Let’s start with the Utah game of where are you from and where did you go to high school? So did you. Were you born here and did you grow up here and where?

00;00;46;22 – 00;01;10;05
Derek Brown
I actually was born in Salt Lake. I grew up in the SugarHouse area. It was a very different demographic back in the late 70s, early 80s and I went to Highland High for about two weeks, and then my parents moved to LA. We our family moved to LA, and so I spent all my sort of high school years in the Los Angeles area.

00;01;10;07 – 00;01;12;28
Marty
Okay. And what brought you back to Utah? I decided to come back and go to college.

00;01;13;03 – 00;01;13;05
Derek Brown
To.

00;01;13;05 – 00;01;13;28
Marty
BYU.

00;01;14;00 – 00;01;21;04
Derek Brown
Undergrad, then went back to LA for law school and then moved to D.C. from there.

00;01;21;04 – 00;01;26;19
Marty
So you went to BYU. Let’s start at BYU. You started there with an interesting major and then switched it. I did.

00;01;26;26 – 00;01;30;10
Derek Brown
Start with a terrible major one that was just I was totally ill equipped for it.

00;01;30;12 – 00;01;32;12
Marty
We could have been sitting here with Doctor Brown.

00;01;32;13 – 00;01;53;05
Derek Brown
Doctor? Exactly. I was determined to do pre-med. And so I started in chemical engineering, and my first semester had, like a calculus class and a Fortran 77 programing class and a thermodynamics class. And halfway during the semester, I went, wait, I don’t like any of this. What am I doing? So long story short, I ended up majoring in English Literature.

00;01;53;07 – 00;01;55;02
Marty
English Literature. And then you went on to law school.

00;01;55;03 – 00;01;55;23
Derek Brown
I went to law school.

00;01;55;23 – 00;01;57;08
Marty
From there. California. Where in California?

00;01;57;09 – 00;01;59;08
Derek Brown
Pepperdine. Pepperdine. Law.

00;01;59;10 – 00;02;01;27
Marty
So, like the best campus in America, right?

00;02;01;29 – 00;02;11;12
Derek Brown
It’s a beautiful campus. But for the record, even though it’s really close to the beach, I think I went to the beach maybe twice in.

00;02;11;13 – 00;02;12;19
Marty
Very studious of you.

00;02;12;20 – 00;02;20;24
Derek Brown
Well, I was the editor of the Law Review, so I my third year of law school and most of my friends were out like surfing. I was in the library.

00;02;20;24 – 00;02;35;18
Marty
I’ve always wondered, and you won’t have an answer for this necessarily, but why is Pepperdine not like, one of the best basketball schools in the country? I get that they’re not big enough to be a football powerhouse, but like, isn’t the beach such a draw that you could get people to come play basketball?

00;02;35;19 – 00;02;39;05
Derek Brown
You would think so. But but they are a powerhouse when it comes to volleyball.

00;02;39;11 – 00;02;40;02
Marty
Okay. That makes.

00;02;40;04 – 00;02;42;02
Derek Brown
As a volleyball team they are there.

00;02;42;02 – 00;02;45;27
Marty
For volleyball and volleyball. Yeah. All right.

00;02;45;29 – 00;02;48;20
Derek Brown
From what I understand. But the law school is very different.

00;02;48;22 – 00;03;06;26
Marty
You didn’t cover that in the law review. Not at all. Pepperdine wave, is that right? Okay. That’s interesting. Is it waves? Yeah. Okay. I thought it might have been singular wave like Tulane multiple green wave. All right. So that’s where you went to school. Tell me about your family. You got four kids. Four kids for you and empty nester yet or get to that age.

00;03;06;27 – 00;03;16;16
Derek Brown
No, actually, not at all. I have two boys, one that just graduated from BYU. One that’s there and then two in high school. So my youngest just started high school this week.

00;03;16;18 – 00;03;20;17
Marty
All right. Our youngest kids are the same age then. So we’re getting there. So I still got on the horizon.

00;03;20;19 – 00;03;28;21
Derek Brown
For more years. So I did have one that just got married a couple of like 4 or 5 weeks ago. So we’re now kind of married and married phase. And so.

00;03;28;22 – 00;03;30;02
Marty
He added it in law.

00;03;30;04 – 00;03;35;13
Derek Brown
Got it in law. She’s delightful. And we jokingly say he is somebody else’s problem now.

00;03;35;15 – 00;03;38;29
Marty
But although I’ve heard that from a number of people that think.

00;03;39;06 – 00;03;40;28
Derek Brown
He’ll always be our problem. That’s how.

00;03;40;28 – 00;03;58;12
Marty
It works. That’s how it works out. We’ll get to this probably in more detail as we have the conversation, but I don’t want to get very far into the South saying, you’re very accomplished musician and you don’t. I think people would know that if they followed your social because you’re not afraid to get to the piano. Yeah.

00;03;58;13 – 00;04;19;29
Derek Brown
Well, that’s how I put myself through school. Okay. Is actually, when I decided not to do the chemical engineering major, I spent a lot of time in the music department. I, my wife and I were both in a performing group at BYU called the Young Ambassadors. I most of my money as a student, I earned playing at restaurants or recording studios or for musicals.

00;04;19;29 – 00;04;32;05
Derek Brown
And I have a father in law who is a professional musician who basically said, look, you’re good. But don’t don’t go into music. It’s a terrible profession. And so I went to law school instead.

00;04;32;08 – 00;04;34;10
Marty
As you play the piano, do you play anything besides the piano?

00;04;34;11 – 00;04;36;03
Derek Brown
No, that’s. Pianos were my.

00;04;36;03 – 00;04;39;11
Marty
Main, my main focus. What’s your favorite kind of music to play?

00;04;39;17 – 00;04;58;12
Derek Brown
I like jazz, I like some, you know, some of the classics, some of the 80s Billy Joel stuff. The stranger. I mean, I think some of the 80s songs, we peaked in the 80s. It’s been downhill since then. And I have a son who’s 24 who, like, that’s all. He listens to his 80s music, which I love. I feel like I’ve.

00;04;58;12 – 00;04;59;06
Derek Brown
I’ve succeeded.

00;04;59;06 – 00;05;02;28
Marty
Kind of 80s music that’s you can hit it to a decade. I mean, there’s a.

00;05;03;00 – 00;05;08;25
Derek Brown
Broad spectrum. You get the ballads like the Chicago or a journey. Journey. Exactly. That’s a.

00;05;08;25 – 00;05;09;12
Marty
Great.

00;05;09;15 – 00;05;10;11
Derek Brown
It’s a great concert.

00;05;10;11 – 00;05;19;20
Marty
By the way. I’ve always thought that some of you guys who are musically inclined in the political world here in Utah, should form a band. So that would be like maybe you, Howard Headley.

00;05;19;23 – 00;05;20;11
Derek Brown
He’s a singer.

00;05;20;12 – 00;05;22;25
Marty
He’s a great thing. He’s he’s also plays.

00;05;22;27 – 00;05;23;08
Derek Brown
Yeah, he does.

00;05;23;08 – 00;05;27;15
Marty
Play piano. You could maybe get Governor Huntsman to come back and play. He’s a keyboardist.

00;05;27;22 – 00;05;28;16
Derek Brown
Governor Cox plays.

00;05;28;16 – 00;05;37;23
Marty
The bass. Cox plays the bass. Like, I don’t know if you get those two in a band necessarily. Yeah. You could you could put a band together. Maybe a battle of the bands is what we gather, set up two bands to make that.

00;05;37;29 – 00;05;40;16
Derek Brown
We wouldn’t make any money, we wouldn’t be kind of any records.

00;05;40;18 – 00;05;47;28
Marty
That’s what we should have done during the pandemic campaign. It’s just like, all right, this is just a battle of the bands. We should. That’s how it’s going to decide.

00;05;48;03 – 00;05;51;06
Derek Brown
No one would be following us on Spotify. But yeah, that’s.

00;05;51;06 – 00;05;57;05
Marty
All right. How are you liking the job of attorney general? That’s a real hard hitting question, actually.

00;05;57;05 – 00;06;05;08
Derek Brown
But you know what? That’s a I don’t get that question very often. How do I like it? Okay, I’m a lawyer. So I practiced law in many.

00;06;05;09 – 00;06;06;20
Marty
Different sufferings.

00;06;06;22 – 00;06;32;13
Derek Brown
Used to suffering, used to build ours, used to difficult conversations. I love it, I mean, as a job, as a legal job. I don’t know that I can envision anything more interesting. It’s exhausting. It’s stressful. There are sleepless nights. There are nights when I’m up at 3 a.m., pacing in the kitchen, trying to figure out how do we address some sort of litigation issue or something involving the state.

00;06;32;14 – 00;06;33;19
Derek Brown
I mean, like there are.

00;06;33;21 – 00;06;46;19
Marty
Is it a lot of legal strategy thinking in that way, or is it just sort of should we take this on like, are they very legal driven decisions, or is it sort of like bigger gears? It depends on the case.

00;06;46;21 – 00;07;06;20
Derek Brown
It depends on the cases. I mean, I have a phenomenal team of litigators, but so there’s a few people know a lot about what I actually do as attorney general. There are about 320 lawyers in the office, which makes us, I mean, to put it bluntly, we’re the biggest law firm in Utah. I mean, there’s other firms like McConkey that have like 200 attorneys.

00;07;06;21 – 00;07;32;23
Derek Brown
We have more lawyers than anyone, about 600 people total. We have these teams that do about every kind of law and some of the bigger issues that involve kind of the hard hitting public relations type issues. I do get involved. Things that I care about. You know, we’ve been in a battle over like gambling, for instance, and like, I’m I’m very involved in the nuts and bolts of those legal decisions.

00;07;32;23 – 00;07;57;12
Derek Brown
And I’ve got great lawyers who are working on those cases. But but on those cases, like, I will spend a lot of time walking with them through legal strategy. What are we filing? Why are we filing it? Are we making these arguments? And and I try not to micromanage our lawyers, but I do sometimes provide a little bit of sort of a 30,000ft view of, of dynamics and policies and that kind of thing.

00;07;57;14 – 00;08;02;23
Derek Brown
And so but anyway, to answer your question, really, I love it because no two days are ever the same.

00;08;02;25 – 00;08;20;13
Marty
Yeah, I would imagine that that’s a can be difficult when you have a job where you’ve gotten to sort of the top and you know how to do all of the minutia that that’s a that takes some self-control, probably to not get too much into the money because you have to make some of the bigger you have to make the bigger decision.

00;08;20;13 – 00;08;28;13
Marty
The biggest decisions for the for the AG’s office as opposed to getting into the minutia, how do you how do you strike that balance and how do you do you feel like you’re doing a good job?

00;08;28;13 – 00;08;58;29
Derek Brown
I think as a leader, your job is to empower the people to the people that work with you to make the decisions. And if you know, a lot of times I will go along with their suggestions and I mean, like on this, you know, the gambling issue. I have two lawyers, Josh and Mark. I mean, Josh is with was a with a huge firm in Utah, clerked for the chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court, Mark was with a huge firm in Utah, clerked with Chief Justice Roberts of the United States Supreme Court.

00;08;59;01 – 00;09;20;14
Derek Brown
These are phenomenal lawyers, top notch lawyers. Like like I can go toe to toe as we talk about these issues, but I’m I’m going to defer to them generally if I I’ve seen some sort of other reason for doing so. I mean, they’re really good at what they do, but I want to be involved and make sure that we are like hitting the right sort of strategic notes that we need to hit as a state.

00;09;20;14 – 00;09;26;11
Derek Brown
So anyway, it is a balance, though, because I do I do believe in empowering those lawyers to make decisions.

00;09;26;14 – 00;09;47;09
Marty
You keep some praise on your team. It sounds like that’s with good reason. How much of your job is somewhat similar to being like a college football coach? And do you have to go out and recruit good talent to come be lawyers in your office or or do you find people that are just saying, hey, for whatever period of my career, I would like to go work in the Attorney General’s office, and then maybe.

00;09;47;12 – 00;09;52;21
Derek Brown
It’s both. I mean, yeah, we do. You know, I do get involved in recruiting and I’ve, I’ve, you know.

00;09;52;25 – 00;09;56;27
Marty
Are you like a football coach, like in the living room, like trying to sell them on it or like recruiting looks?

00;09;56;28 – 00;10;01;23
Derek Brown
I mean, it depends. I mean, like the guy, the clerk for Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court, of course.

00;10;01;26 – 00;10;02;07
Marty
That sounds.

00;10;02;07 – 00;10;03;22
Derek Brown
Like it was absolutely.

00;10;03;25 – 00;10;04;13
Marty
Blue chipper.

00;10;04;15 – 00;10;13;12
Derek Brown
Yeah. And I literally, like, spent a lot of time with him and, and I basically said, look, you’re working for the government. You’re not going to make anything like you’re making in this private sector.

00;10;13;14 – 00;10;14;04
Marty
There’s no nil.

00;10;14;05 – 00;10;38;09
Derek Brown
Money, no nil money. But look at the kind of stuff you’re going to be doing. And he basically said, look, I’m making more money at this firm, these big law firms. But like, I’m doing just stuff that’s really boring. Like, there’s nothing like what the attorney general’s office does in terms of just interesting cases. I mean, if you can think of any major, interesting case going on in the state of Utah, I mean, we’re right in the middle of it.

00;10;38;10 – 00;10;41;02
Derek Brown
And so for a lawyer, yeah, it’s a it’s a dream job.

00;10;41;02 – 00;11;00;05
Marty
Can we talk about some of those? Because it feels like you guys from a somewhat of an outsider’s perspective, I would say the impression I get is you guys are on a bit of a hot streak. Things are winning. You get that oppression wood. And make sure this I should say this this podcast is a jinx free zone where we say nice things about you and it won’t knock you off momentum.

00;11;00;05 – 00;11;07;08
Marty
So tell me about the Kalsi case. The prediction market case. I don’t know if it’s specific to one company. I’d love to kind of have more.

00;11;07;09 – 00;11;19;13
Derek Brown
It is. It’s an industry issue, and I kind of have a bone to pick with the whole industry. But this is really I mean, this this lawsuit involved Kelsey. Okay. And and so for those who don’t know, these are and a lot of people are saying.

00;11;19;14 – 00;11;21;01
Marty
Prediction markets basically you can bet on.

00;11;21;01 – 00;11;23;01
Derek Brown
Any bet on anything from the weather to.

00;11;23;03 – 00;11;25;15
Marty
I could have been what color tie you were going to wear to.

00;11;25;22 – 00;11;31;13
Derek Brown
Exactly. And if somebody else were willing to bet, you know, you know, like me, then something else. Yeah.

00;11;31;16 – 00;11;33;05
Marty
That’s that’s the downside is you could have.

00;11;33;06 – 00;11;44;18
Derek Brown
Because I could have been I would have known better than you. But yeah, I mean, you literally you can bet on who’s going to win the Super Bowl, who’s going to, you know, what is you know, what’s the first song. And halftime.

00;11;44;18 – 00;11;45;25
Marty
Will rain tomorrow.

00;11;45;26 – 00;11;56;03
Derek Brown
Will it rain. There was a guy that bet that there were $70,000, that there would be a streaker during the Super Bowl, and then he proceeded to streak during the Super Bowl. I mean, it’s ridiculous.

00;11;56;03 – 00;12;14;08
Marty
I think there was a guy who bet on the weather, whether or not it would go above a certain temperature, and he knew where the reader was, like the thermometer that actually reads what logs as the temperature, and he went and like, put a light bulb by it, kicked it up over the thing and won the money. So these are like innovators, sort of like, no, it feels like the Wild West and this is what you guys want.

00;12;14;09 – 00;12;34;17
Derek Brown
Well, and the reality is what happened is, is in Utah and this is the background is in 2018, there was a Supreme Court case, the Murphy case that basically said, look, when it comes to sports gambling, betting on sporting events, states get to choose. So new Jersey is like, you know what, we’re all in for sports betting. And Utah was just the opposite.

00;12;34;17 – 00;12;54;14
Derek Brown
In fact, Utah is one of only two states in the country where we have a state constitution that prohibits gambling. The other state is Hawaii, so literally US and Hawaii. So we now have these platforms coming in that are allowing 18, 19 year old kids to bet on sports, which they’ve never been able to because it’s always been illegal.

00;12;54;14 – 00;13;13;07
Derek Brown
So what she did is they said, look, it’s actually not sports betting. It’s it’s sort of a derivative. It’s a market swap. It’s that kind of thing. I mean, I literally the morning of the Super Bowl, my sitting next to my son, who’s about 23 years old, and he gets this ad that says, hey, you can trade on football futures.

00;13;13;09 – 00;13;24;19
Derek Brown
And I’m like, wait, so you can’t bet on the Seahawks winning? But you can trade on a football future in which the Seahawks win, to which course you would say wink, wink, not nod. Yes you can.

00;13;24;20 – 00;13;28;16
Marty
So that’s things are completely different. Exactly. That’s what they’re saying.

00;13;28;17 – 00;13;46;00
Derek Brown
Yeah. They’re going like this. You see. No gambling here. Long story short, we have a lawsuit with them. They sued me because they said, no, no. I think that the federal government has preempted Utah’s ability to enforce its gambling laws. I said absolutely not. We fought him in court. And about a week and a half ago, we won.

00;13;46;06 – 00;14;06;03
Derek Brown
And so, you know, they’re going to appeal. But this is this is a huge victory. And ultimately, I think this this issue, it can be solved one of two ways. One, Congress can can tie this up. But that would entail them doing something. And they don’t do things right. They talk. They don’t actually do stuff. This would be an easy bill.

00;14;06;03 – 00;14;09;12
Marty
For them. They do things just not within two years of an election. Yeah, exactly.

00;14;09;15 – 00;14;37;23
Derek Brown
Yeah. So we’ll see come November. You know, talk to me November 10th and I’ll let you know. But the other answer is that this will probably go to the Supreme Court. It’s one of those issues. And so anyway. But but I am like I’m you know, this kind of lights me up because the last ten years we’ve seen social media and sort of the body image issues impacting our young girls and for whatever reason, the gambling, the online gambling is really impacting our young boys.

00;14;38;00 – 00;14;56;18
Derek Brown
It’s the same issue. I mean, you talk to anyone who’s watching right now, if you’ve got a 21 or 22 year old son, ask them if they’re on a prediction market app or if they’re not, ask them how many of their friends are, and I guarantee they’ll be like, oh, most of them are doing this. Yeah. And so, I mean.

00;14;56;20 – 00;14;58;21
Marty
It’s a bigger problem than people realize. It is.

00;14;58;23 – 00;15;12;01
Derek Brown
A huge problem because gambling has always been a problem for thousands of years. This is human nature. And we’ve always confined it to like, you know, the middle of the desert, a casino, and now it’s in your pocket, giving you notifications all night.

00;15;12;01 – 00;15;31;00
Marty
Long, not just sitting in your pocket, coming at you, as you mentioned. Exactly. All right. I want to talk about another case, this one dealing with 23 and me, where they do the like, collect your DNA and figure out your, your genetics and your your family history and such. What was that case all about and what did Utah win out of that?

00;15;31;01 – 00;15;51;03
Derek Brown
Well. We a lot of times what we do is, as attorney general, I have called parents patriot. It’s a legal phrase that basically means I can step into the shoes of people in Utah, our citizens, and file a lawsuit on behalf of them to protect them. And what we saw with 23 and me is the company went into bankruptcy.

00;15;51;03 – 00;16;10;20
Derek Brown
And so, as is the case when there’s bankruptcy and by the way, there was a there was a data breach too. So there was a data breach with some of the information sold on the dark web. But but with 23 and me, they’re in bankruptcy. So you sell the assets and one of the assets is all of this genetic data for like hundreds of thousands of people.

00;16;10;21 – 00;16;31;06
Derek Brown
I mean, like the most like critical personal data you can imagine. And so it was sort of like, okay, well, it auctioned off to the highest bidder. And so they’re getting ready to auction. And as a group of AGS, we went, hang on, hang on. This is not like you’re auctioning off a building or a technology or some random asset you’re auctioning off.

00;16;31;08 – 00;16;32;05
Marty
It’s not office furniture.

00;16;32;06 – 00;16;57;24
Derek Brown
Yeah, this is not office furniture. And so we actually got involved and helped negotiate, making sure that that whoever were to buy it in the end would have protections. Basically, we wanted to make sure that there were guardrails put in place and so that it wasn’t some random, nameless, you know, company with a parent, with a Chinese parent umbrella company or that kind of thing.

00;16;57;25 – 00;17;07;01
Derek Brown
So anyway, so there was some monetary damages that we got as a state, but that’s mostly that’s that’s what it came down to is protecting protecting the information.

00;17;07;02 – 00;17;11;09
Marty
I want to talk about one more, because I think this is the one that everybody is on your side.

00;17;11;11 – 00;17;12;22
Derek Brown
Everybody. I don’t know about that.

00;17;12;23 – 00;17;36;01
Marty
I think everybody is on your side. And this is the robocalls okay. Okay. So okay, so Derrick, what are you going to do to clear up my voicemail and get the people to stop calling, saying, hey, listen, I’ll make this quick. It’s clearly a robot wanting to contact me about my car’s extended warranty or get me to check in on a bank loan that I didn’t apply for everyone.

00;17;36;02 – 00;17;41;02
Derek Brown
You’re right. Everyone agreed. And by the way, like I’m no different. I mean, all day long I get voice messages.

00;17;41;09 – 00;17;42;13
Marty
I actually.

00;17;42;15 – 00;18;07;03
Derek Brown
I have two phones, so it’s even and I literally get get spam garbage on both of them. And, and you can delete it and report it as spam. And then it keeps coming in right from different numbers. And everyone’s like, well, why? I thought I’d reported it as spam. It’s because the folks that are doing this churning through these numbers, and rather than just taking a number and sticking with it, they’re buying lots of numbers.

00;18;07;03 – 00;18;28;22
Derek Brown
And so they’ll start with a number. And then once it makes it, it gets hit by the spam filter. They just use another number. So what we did as a group of AGS is we went to the FCC and we said, look, here’s the thing. We have some ideas of what you need to do. And don’t tell us you can’t do it even though you know, you don’t tell us Congress has to pass a law or whatever.

00;18;28;23 – 00;18;46;19
Derek Brown
We said things like the churning of the numbers, you know, you can put an end to that. We’d like accountability. Who are you selling these numbers to? We’d like to know when are they using them and when they, you know, when they delete them, you know, what are they doing with them? So we want to know who the bad actors are.

00;18;46;20 – 00;19;09;17
Derek Brown
So ultimately that’s, you know, the FCC probably could take a big chunk out of this and save your phone. But I would also say one of the best things I ever did, just as a side note, is, if you have an iPhone, there is a setting where you can literally send a number you don’t know directly to voicemail, and I’ll have 15 to 20 calls a day that I missed.

00;19;09;19 – 00;19;11;14
Derek Brown
And it went to voicemail and they didn’t leave.

00;19;11;14 – 00;19;21;02
Marty
A voicemail, so I’m okay. I used to be the spokesman for the governor. I know how to send people automatically to voicemail, especially that setting has been on since about 2013. In some way.

00;19;21;03 – 00;19;36;00
Derek Brown
Everyone, everyone should do that. And I also think people should realize we have this feeling, this maybe it’s a cultural thing, like if someone’s calling like, I should answer, I should, oh, the dignity of responding. If you don’t recognize the number, you don’t, you don’t know them any any obligation.

00;19;36;01 – 00;19;38;01
Marty
Do we know where these people are?

00;19;38;04 – 00;19;41;06
Derek Brown
I think a lot of them are overseas. I mean, it’s so easy to.

00;19;41;06 – 00;19;46;13
Marty
Be if we know where they are. Like, this is what Seal team six was created. I think we’ve gotten to that point.

00;19;46;19 – 00;19;47;02
Derek Brown
So at.

00;19;47;02 – 00;19;47;06
Marty
Some.

00;19;47;06 – 00;20;04;16
Derek Brown
Level, you were right. This is when we all lock arms. Everybody. I mean, and I do a lot of work with attorneys general from both parties. We have our National Association of Attorneys General. We’ve got 50 members. And like this is an issue where I think we had all 50 states together saying, look, let’s, let’s, let’s fix this.

00;20;04;17 – 00;20;15;29
Marty
I’m telling you, and you would know this without me telling you, you win on that or even partially went on that and cut those in half or cut them by, cut them, eliminate them entirely. That’s the only thing you put on a reelection.

00;20;16;01 – 00;20;16;29
Derek Brown
That’ll be my billboard.

00;20;17;01 – 00;20;26;23
Marty
Remember, when you get calls, ironically, you could send a prerecorded robocall to constituents to tell them to vote for you on that. Well, you would be stopped.

00;20;26;24 – 00;20;42;08
Derek Brown
And what’s funny is I actually had someone that recommended during my first campaign a couple of years ago, like, we should use a robocall and you can record it and we can set it to hundreds of thousands of, you know, they talked me through the price and the effectiveness and whatever. And I’m like, no. Yeah. And they’re like, well, why not?

00;20;42;09 – 00;20;48;22
Derek Brown
I’m like, because I hate them. Yeah. Like really I hate them. I don’t want to get one of those calls. Why would I be sending.

00;20;48;22 – 00;20;50;28
Marty
Them a better person than I am? Because I’ve used them on you.

00;20;50;28 – 00;20;52;15
Derek Brown
Use them. Shame on you.

00;20;52;17 – 00;21;10;25
Marty
But I wouldn’t. If they were illegal, I would have. There we go. In there. Okay. That’s really helpful to understand a little bit better. Is there any like case, I know when a case is sort of in litigation, you have limits on what you should appropriately talk about. Is there anything that you want to tease for us or something out there where you say like, this is an issue that we’re working on, maybe not even specific to a case.

00;21;10;26 – 00;21;11;10
Marty
Here’s an issue.

00;21;11;13 – 00;21;34;13
Derek Brown
We’ve been I mean, one of my big issues, I mean, if I could give you like the umbrella issue that animates everything I do, it is addressing things that are designed to addict our kids. I mean, I call the addiction economy. And I mean, this goes back to the late 90s when Congress, basically Congress didn’t do anything about nicotine.

00;21;34;14 – 00;21;52;20
Derek Brown
They had all these hearings where all the all the the CEOs are like, yeah, I don’t believe it’s you know, it’s not it’s not addictive. It’s not addictive. You know, Congress did nothing. So the Aggies got together, filed lawsuits and said, no, you’re actually impacting our kids. And it is doing something. And we filed lawsuits and got documents and discovery.

00;21;52;20 – 00;22;20;21
Derek Brown
And we realized that they were lying. Well, we have substances that are addicting, kids. Vaping is a huge one. We just want a big case on vaping because the legislature outlawed flavored vapes. Creighton’s another one. We won a big case on that. What’s up? Kratom is a it’s a substance that that that mimics an opioid like sensation. And it’s derived from a plant in Southeast Asia and the legislature we saw a lot of deaths from it.

00;22;20;21 – 00;22;43;03
Derek Brown
And so the legislature banned it. And just recently the manufacturers of kratom basically filed suit. And my job is to defend those laws. So we defended it. And we were able to keep that that substance out of the, you know, the synthetic forms out of out of gas stations. But so we’ve got the substances, we’ve also got social media, and that’s another one.

00;22;43;03 – 00;23;04;00
Derek Brown
We have multiple lawsuits on that. And that’s something we’re working on ferociously right now. We have a lawsuit on meta against meta. We have a trial date of November 2nd coming up, one against Snapchat, one against TikTok. And so from a from a competing for your attention. That’s a that’s another issue that we’re doing a lot of work on.

00;23;04;00 – 00;23;23;16
Derek Brown
And then the other big area is just AI and chatbots and what they’re doing with kids and so, so and how they’re addicting kids. So I mean, if you’re asked if there’s stuff I’m working on, a lot of them go back to that concept of what’s out there trying to addict our kids.

00;23;23;19 – 00;23;44;06
Marty
That’s a good area to focus in. I want to talk a little bit about some of the things you’ve done in your career. Before you became the Attorney General? As I was looking through it, I was aware of all of them, but I kind of went through and reviewed like, oh, Derek did this and he did this. You may have like the best political resume in the entire state as far as like varied and thorough.

00;23;44;08 – 00;23;46;06
Derek Brown
Better career ad.

00;23;46;08 – 00;23;58;16
Marty
Could be one of those things. But like, I mean, you’ve been a member of the House, you’ve worked for, you know, Senator Lee, you’ve been the head of the Republican Party. What am I missing? You’ve been a lobbyist. Like, it’s sort of.

00;23;58;18 – 00;24;01;16
Derek Brown
Like I worked with two major law firms. I clicked with the judge.

00;24;01;17 – 00;24;17;00
Marty
Yeah, I mean, you’re sort of the guy that’s like, well, he can play any position so we can plug him in anywhere. And now you’ve had the experience and all of that. But I wanted to talk to you. Some of those, like you were the chair of the Republican Party. How does your time as the chair of the Republican Party help you in the job that you do now?

00;24;17;01 – 00;24;22;10
Marty
Did you learn something from that that says, well, this is something I’m patience.

00;24;22;13 – 00;24;44;04
Derek Brown
I learned to to focus on what matters. Parties tend to focus on. They tend to spend most of their energy focusing on things that will have minimal impact. And you know, it’s interesting now in my job, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of things as attorney general that could consume most of my time that have very little impact.

00;24;44;04 – 00;25;02;24
Derek Brown
So as chair, I mean, it was that, but also working with a lot of different people. So I think that’s probably the benefit. And and also getting to know our elected officials. I mean, because there seems to be this it seems to be vogue to say that there’s all this corruption in Utah. There’s not I mean, like, you know, our elected officials.

00;25;02;26 – 00;25;19;08
Derek Brown
Yeah, you get some egos or whatever. But for the most part, these are great people that are just trying to make a difference. You know, saying, I mean, I was talking to some of the other day who said, we need term limits for the House of Representatives here in Utah. And I said, well, you realize the average House member serves about six years.

00;25;19;10 – 00;25;26;01
Derek Brown
It is about six, 6.2 years. And they’re like, well, there should be term limits. Well, what would it be? Well, no more than eight years.

00;25;26;02 – 00;25;40;01
Marty
I’m like, all right. Fair enough. Well most of us on there a handful that will stay around longer than that. But again their constituents voted them in. Right. So to me, as long as the system for nominating them and electing them is fair, then I think you’re in good shape there.

00;25;40;02 – 00;25;49;25
Derek Brown
So that was that was not an easy time because I was the chair during Covid. And so that, I mean, my hair all went gray. I had no great.

00;25;49;28 – 00;25;51;27
Marty
Person meetings, but, you know, at least you had.

00;25;51;28 – 00;26;02;10
Derek Brown
Oh, but but we had like seven weeks to design a statewide online convention with, with serious elections going. We had a governor’s race in 2020.

00;26;02;11 – 00;26;11;09
Marty
A crowded one. I think by the time I went to convention, there were still seven gubernatorial candidates. It thinned out after the convention down to.

00;26;11;11 – 00;26;13;02
Derek Brown
There were still quite. A bit. Yeah, I mean.

00;26;13;06 – 00;26;15;29
Marty
Before still a crowded field for a lot of people.

00;26;16;00 – 00;26;17;07
Derek Brown
Well, when there’s a plurality. Yeah.

00;26;17;09 – 00;26;26;17
Marty
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So the party, some things. What did you like about being an elected official in the legislature? What did you like about being in the legislative branch?

00;26;26;19 – 00;26;44;25
Derek Brown
Well, well, I’ll tell you that. See, I worked I’ve worked with I was chief counsel for Bob Bennett, and then I worked with Senator Hatch, and I worked with Mike Lee. And my frustration with our US, the Congress is they just go so slow and they don’t really do anything. I mean, so when I jokingly said they don’t do things.

00;26;44;26 – 00;26;47;07
Marty
It’s designed to be a slow system, but maybe not as slow.

00;26;47;08 – 00;27;10;17
Derek Brown
Well, yeah. And and those who are in it have now abdicated their responsibility to do anything. The difference is, in the legislature we have a 45 day session. And if there are ideas that someone comes up with, you can get it done. I mean, like, I was in the House on the law enforcement committee and we had someone who was starving himself in prison and the attorneys there for the prison.

00;27;10;19 – 00;27;29;19
Derek Brown
And, you know, my office and others were like, how do we how do we navigate their First Amendment rights to express themselves, but also our fiduciary and our ability, our, our rights to basically keep them safe and alive? Like, how do we do that? And so I was able to create a system. And within about 3 or 4 weeks we came up with this legal system.

00;27;29;19 – 00;27;43;24
Derek Brown
We got a pass through the House and the Senate. The governor signed it like done. And it’s literally in place. And a couple of weeks ago I met with our lawyers who work with correction, and they were talking about how the system has been working and how great it was. And like, we did that in like a month.

00;27;43;24 – 00;28;04;14
Derek Brown
So that’s the thing I loved is you could actually, at the state level, solve real problems. And at the federal level, they just talked about it. I mean, that’s why like we see all these AI bills here in Utah, it’s because like, we can actually do something about AI here. And Congress has talked about AI for years, and they have yet to pass a single piece of legislation.

00;28;04;15 – 00;28;27;27
Marty
I think I think it’s an interesting point you make that you can move quickly and get something done. And maybe the underrated and unspoken part of that is you can also undo or fix problems quickly. So sometimes that quick movement creates unintended consequences, but it also gives you the ability to fix those quickly. And now that you’re dealing with sort of the laws that are on the books as opposed to the ones that are theoretical.

00;28;27;29 – 00;28;33;21
Marty
I wonder if you see that as like a tremendous advantage still, that we can fix things quickly and then fix things that we fixed really quickly.

00;28;33;22 – 00;28;55;23
Derek Brown
Yes. And that’s the benefit of coming back year after year. In fact, my very first legislative session, we’ve had a total number of votes on the bills and committees and over and over was like a thousand different votes in 45 days. And at the end of that, I remember sort of jokingly saying to one of my friends who was in the Senate, I said, you know, with my kids, we sometimes give them what we call do overs.

00;28;55;23 – 00;29;09;07
Derek Brown
We’ll give you a do over. I sit on a couple of bills. Yeah, I’d love a do over or two just because in hindsight, you know, it went fast and I don’t know if I made the right call. And he looks at me, he goes, you do get a do over. I said, what do you mean? He goes?

00;29;09;08 – 00;29;27;29
Derek Brown
Next session he goes, I promise you a lot of the bills that you might have heartburn about. They’re going to come back and you’ll get a chance to address them. So it moves fast. And in my office, the thing I love most is that we can read about an issue in the morning, and by 3:00 in the afternoon, I’ve got something in motion to solve the issue.

00;29;27;29 – 00;29;42;26
Derek Brown
And that’s something that the legislature can’t do and Congress can’t do, and the governor can’t do. Like, I’m the one person in the state who can see a problem and say, all right, we’re going to go, here’s what we’re going to do. Here’s what we’re going to start fixing this. And so it is it is a lot of it’s a lot of fun.

00;29;42;28 – 00;29;51;05
Marty
I suppose it’s only fair if I say, what did you like about being a legislator that I asked, what did you like about being a lobbyist and having those compare.

00;29;51;07 – 00;30;16;13
Derek Brown
Being in the private sector? Yeah. Well, and it’s funny because here’s the irony. I just as a, because since you’ve done lobbying, you get this dynamic. You know, I had someone who kept, you know, saying that I was unqualified to be the attorney general because I had lobbied, which is kind of funny. I have spent the last 6 or 7 months repeatedly in Washington, DC, working with the administration, lobbying on behalf of the state of Utah.

00;30;16;15 – 00;30;41;04
Derek Brown
And I didn’t realize that until I had a meeting with the number two person at DOJ. And at the end of the meeting, he literally kind of jokingly said, hey, you’re a great lobbyist for your state. You know, you should lobby for a living. Kind of joking, he had no idea in my background, and I realized that that those skills, lobbying and learning how to advocate for a client, well, that’s all I’m doing now.

00;30;41;07 – 00;30;42;29
Derek Brown
My clients, just the state of Utah.

00;30;43;01 – 00;30;43;08
Marty
Yeah.

00;30;43;14 – 00;30;44;05
Derek Brown
It’s the same thing.

00;30;44;07 – 00;31;00;11
Marty
It’s the same, I imagine being an attorney to some extent, especially if you’re in like a policy crossover area, being a legislator, being a lobbyist, being a spokesperson for an administration. It’s still here’s the thing we’re trying to get done. Here’s the best way to do it. And how do I make the argument to the decision makers to do that?

00;31;00;15 – 00;31;07;25
Marty
Because campaign is really the same thing. It’s just talking to the people that make the decision and explaining what it is you’re trying to do or what you think should be done.

00;31;07;27 – 00;31;33;01
Derek Brown
And as attorney general, literally, that is I spent a lot of my time lobbying, I lobby. I mean, the reality is my office doesn’t get magically funded every year. It takes an attorney general to I’m testifying in front of committing committees all the time. We’re lobbying for our funding. We’re lobbying for additional funding for things that that I mean, the legislature gave us $1.7 million for Financial Crimes Intelligence Center to address fraud.

00;31;33;02 – 00;31;42;12
Derek Brown
And we also have dozens of bills that we’re working on dealing with law enforcement. And ultimately, I’m lobbying for or against a lot of this.

00;31;42;14 – 00;31;46;24
Marty
It’s the same thing. Lobbyists just need to rebrand to be advocates. And that’s what is really just.

00;31;47;00 – 00;31;55;23
Derek Brown
And that’s what I did as a as a lawyer. I mean, when I litigated with these firms in Washington, DC, that’s really all I was. I was advocating for my client with with.

00;31;55;23 – 00;32;10;28
Marty
The court. And there’s really not a lobby at the Capitol to stand in anyway. It’s like a rotunda. That should be rotunda or something. Exactly, exactly. We’re running short on time, so I want to just hit you with a lightning round of questions. These are less serious, fun questions just to help us get to know you a little bit better.

00;32;11;00 – 00;32;14;03
Marty
Okay. All right. Favorite food?

00;32;14;06 – 00;32;22;12
Derek Brown
Oh, favorite food would have to be, well, healthy food or not healthy food you pick. I mean, because I’m kind of a gummy bears guy, but but.

00;32;22;14 – 00;32;23;20
Marty
Gummy bears, not.

00;32;23;22 – 00;32;25;23
Derek Brown
My favorite food. It’s lasagna.

00;32;25;24 – 00;32;26;14
Marty
Okay.

00;32;26;16 – 00;32;29;03
Derek Brown
Whenever I go to Italian restaurant, you can count on me.

00;32;29;06 – 00;32;32;25
Marty
Get follow up question do you hate Mondays? And are you Garfield?

00;32;32;28 – 00;32;36;26
Derek Brown
So and you know those reference that makes me laugh. You know that. But yes.

00;32;36;28 – 00;32;44;08
Marty
Yeah. Okay. Do you hate Mondays? Do love lasagna. That’s. We’ll leave it at that. All right. Favorite political figure? Current or historical?

00;32;44;09 – 00;32;46;20
Derek Brown
Political figure, John Quincy Adams.

00;32;46;21 – 00;32;49;02
Marty
Wow. That’s not an answer that we’ve had before.

00;32;49;03 – 00;32;58;08
Derek Brown
I mean, he was not a great president, but. Well, we don’t even have time to go into this. But what’s awesome about him is he he gets defeated.

00;32;58;10 – 00;32;59;16
Marty
In 19 or 18.

00;32;59;17 – 00;33;21;18
Derek Brown
24. Yes. In what was a disaster of a race, he goes back home and he basically gets talked into running for Congress. And so he runs for Congress and he wins. And he spends the next two decades of his life fighting against slavery. And he’s largely the reason that we made so many strides against slavery in the 1830s and 40s.

00;33;21;19 – 00;33;29;05
Derek Brown
And it’s awesome. And he literally died on the floor of the House of Representatives after he cast a vote involving the Mexican War and slavery.

00;33;29;08 – 00;33;40;27
Marty
And most people wouldn’t know this, but 1824 1828, widely considered by historians, I believe, to be the most mudslinging, contentious, hard fought campaigns for president.

00;33;40;27 – 00;33;44;08
Derek Brown
I just got through. I’m in the middle of a book. Been there, done that by Greg.

00;33;44;11 – 00;33;45;23
Marty
Reading the same one. That’s why I know.

00;33;45;25 – 00;33;46;07
Derek Brown
That’s why you.

00;33;46;07 – 00;33;53;14
Marty
Know it. It’s all thanks for bringing it up now I sound I thought, I sound really smart about John Quincy Adams for a second there, but now everyone knows but never read.

00;33;53;14 – 00;33;56;26
Derek Brown
It because I love. I love the story about Adams j.k.

00;33;56;28 – 00;34;04;07
Marty
That’s right. All right. Give me a book, a podcast, a TV show or a movie recommendation. Something that I haven’t checked out that I should.

00;34;04;10 – 00;34;22;25
Derek Brown
Probably the Anxious Generation, the book Jonathan Height. So that is one of my favorites. And when I was party, I probably should tell you this when I was a state party chair, my first meeting for the Central Committee of 186 people, I gave them all a copy of probably my favorite authors book and my favorite authors, Arthur Brooks.

00;34;23;02 – 00;34;29;21
Derek Brown
And he wrote a book called Love Your Enemies. And it’s all about it’s about life, but it’s really about politics, too.

00;34;29;23 – 00;34;31;16
Marty
You gave this to people in the party when you were a party.

00;34;31;21 – 00;34;33;04
Derek Brown
I gave it to one.

00;34;33;04 – 00;34;35;11
Marty
Of them. You are a brave. Yeah.

00;34;35;14 – 00;34;41;17
Derek Brown
Some of them were not happy. Most of them were like, this is really cool. Yeah. And which is what I. What what I wanted.

00;34;41;20 – 00;34;50;28
Marty
You’ve had a lot of jobs and we’ve covered a lot of it. What you’ve done in your career? Not all of it. Tell me the job you would most like to try that you’ve not tried.

00;34;51;00 – 00;34;58;08
Derek Brown
Oh, that I would most like to try.

00;34;58;11 – 00;35;05;28
Derek Brown
I would like to be an airline pilot. I’ve always wanted to get a pilot’s license. It makes no sense at all.

00;35;06;02 – 00;35;09;28
Marty
Would you like an airliner or fly like a jet? Yeah, I would rather fly.

00;35;10;03 – 00;35;12;09
Derek Brown
I would love it. I think that would be. Yeah, that would be fun.

00;35;12;10 – 00;35;16;15
Marty
How about a job that you would not like to try? Something you’d say like, no way.

00;35;16;16 – 00;35;22;25
Derek Brown
That’s any job. That’s just monotonous. I think my biggest fear is just a monotonous job.

00;35;22;25 – 00;35;25;14
Marty
Practicing law, so. Well.

00;35;25;15 – 00;35;36;28
Derek Brown
I have some. Yeah. My last year at a law firm, I build like 2600 hours. Yeah. So anything, any job where I have to account for my life in six minute increments.

00;35;37;01 – 00;35;38;13
Marty
It makes perfect sense to me.

00;35;38;14 – 00;35;38;28
Derek Brown
Because I’ve.

00;35;38;28 – 00;35;43;09
Marty
Done it. What’s your what’s your least favorite chore besides counting billable hours?

00;35;43;10 – 00;35;44;28
Derek Brown
Unloading the dishwasher?

00;35;45;00 – 00;35;46;24
Marty
What do you hate about unloading the dishwasher?

00;35;46;26 – 00;35;49;23
Derek Brown
It’s just monotonous. You’d rather, you.

00;35;49;23 – 00;35;53;22
Marty
Know, so you would prefer to load the dishwasher than.

00;35;53;24 – 00;36;05;27
Derek Brown
You know, there’s also just taking the trash out, but it’s, you know, it’s it’s what we do. Yeah, that’s that’s why we have children. Although mine aren’t always as good as the the loading and unloading.

00;36;06;02 – 00;36;13;14
Marty
We found our headline. Utah’s attorney general doesn’t like to take out the garbage. It’s interesting position. Are you an early bird or a night owl?

00;36;13;16 – 00;36;14;12
Derek Brown
Both.

00;36;14;15 – 00;36;14;26
Marty
Okay.

00;36;14;28 – 00;36;15;10
Derek Brown
You go back.

00;36;15;10 – 00;36;16;18
Marty
And forth. Naturally. You’re both.

00;36;16;19 – 00;36;35;24
Derek Brown
Naturally. I’m more of a night owl, but I aspire to be an early bird. And so the mornings I love nothing more than. Like this morning I woke up naturally at 5 a.m., went to the gym like, felt great. So. So I aspire to be an early bird, but I end up staying up later because I get. It’s when you have kids.

00;36;35;26 – 00;36;44;01
Derek Brown
I mean, having kids I think makes you a night owl because once the kids go to sleep, then you’re like, it’s so quiet, I can get stuff done. That’s right.

00;36;44;03 – 00;36;48;07
Marty
Biggest pet peeve in politics or in media?

00;36;48;09 – 00;37;03;06
Derek Brown
People clamoring to be relevant by simply attacking others and having nothing to offer. I mean, it’s the people who are not the builders, it’s the burners. And there’s plenty of those in politics.

00;37;03;08 – 00;37;06;13
Marty
What’s your go to pizza order?

00;37;06;15 – 00;37;09;29
Derek Brown
Pineapple, pineapple and Canadian bacon. I know that’s.

00;37;09;29 – 00;37;11;13
Marty
A controversial position.

00;37;11;14 – 00;37;12;22
Derek Brown
I probably should have thought twice.

00;37;12;24 – 00;37;15;08
Marty
It is not that election year.

00;37;15;10 – 00;37;24;11
Derek Brown
And that’s not going to be a billboard on my next election is like pineapple on pizza, because I realize that’s that’s a little iffy, but yeah.

00;37;24;12 – 00;37;36;12
Marty
Hey, you just order what you like. That’s what I say. All right, last question. You can give one piece of advice to younger. Let’s say a 1718 year old version of yourself. What’s the piece of advice you offer?

00;37;36;14 – 00;38;05;01
Derek Brown
Oh, I generally say do it. Do in life what it is you love. And if you do it, you love. There will be opportunities and opportunities will breed income and success. The people that I admire the most, who are the most successful, are the ones who have spent their life doing hard things, but things that they love. And so that’s that’s what I will say when it comes to comes to school, when it comes to majors, when it comes to studying.

00;38;05;02 – 00;38;05;29
Derek Brown
So.

00;38;06;01 – 00;38;07;29
Marty
General Brown, all I got for you. Thanks so much.

00;38;08;00 – 00;38;11;01
Derek Brown
Hey. Thank you, I appreciate it. It was a lot of fun.

00;38;11;03 – 00;38;12;24
Marty
A lot of hard hitting questions there. Right.