Mathew Lapinski is CEO of Crossroads Strategies, LLC. Mat represents a broad spectrum of clients across multiple practice areas. With two decades of advocacy experience, he is an expert in navigating Washington’s federal legislative and regulatory institutions.
Beginning as a lobbyist for health care and insurance interests, Mat now covers a broad array of policy disciplines including financial services, energy, health care, trade, education, and technology.
Called one of Washington’s most persistent lobbyists, Mat has spent his entire career dedicated solely to managing the legislative and regulatory process. He is adept at developing and implementing advocacy campaigns for corporate, association, and non-profit clients. He also provides risk management advisory services to clients seeking to better understand the impact of government action on business.
He has led client representations related to the largest federal interventions of the last 20 years including the response to the 2008 financial crisis, the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and the government’s response to COVID-19.
Prior to joining Crossroads, Mat was a Principal of the public policy practice at Dentons and part of the lobbying team at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.
Mat is a 2002 graduate of Georgetown University.
[00:00:11] Welcome back to another episode of Political Life. Today, Maggie and I come to you again from Washington, D.C. It is that time of year, things are picking up, the election is over, new people are coming in, and we are going to hear from a friend of Maggie's and a very, very smart person who is going to give us an overview of everything going on in Washington, and we're going to hear about his very, very interesting career.
[00:00:39] Matt Lapinski from Crossroads Strategies. Matt, welcome to the show.
[00:00:44] Thanks, Jim. Great to be here. And Maggie, thanks for the invite.
[00:00:47] Of course.
[00:00:48] And before I turn over to Maggie, I have two things. One, I have to tell, because we're not on video, I have to tell everybody that Matt has a New York Giants, you know, picture frame behind him, and so we can share in our misery these past few years.
[00:01:07] But Dan Jones is finally, well, I shouldn't say finally. He's gone, and we're moving on, and God knows when it will get better.
[00:01:14] But so, Matt, why don't we start off with your, not the Giants, but your first political job. How did you get into this crazy business?
[00:01:25] Well, my first real political job was interning on Capitol Hill for my hometown congressman, Paul Konjorski, Democrat from Northeast Pennsylvania.
[00:01:34] I'm a Republican. I won his award in high school, and they saw that I was going to school in D.C. and said, hey, do you want to come intern for us next year?
[00:01:42] And I said, well, I'm a Republican. And they said, that doesn't matter. You're going to be an intern.
[00:01:45] So that was my first job. But my first, what I'd say, real job in Washington, and this begins a very long and sordid journey to where I'm sitting right now,
[00:01:56] was for a small lobbying firm by the name of Jeffrey J. Kimball & Associates, which I found on the Georgetown Career Center website.
[00:02:05] My sophomore year of college, I said, I'm going to be really productive. I'm going to get up and go to the gym.
[00:02:11] I'm going to read the newspaper. I'm going to be a good member of society. And I found myself sleeping until 1055 for 11 a.m. classes.
[00:02:18] And after doing that for about two months, I said, all right, I need to go find something productive.
[00:02:23] So I found a job listing on this website. And this was in the day where you had to go to Kinko's and fax your resume and pay a buck 50 to send a fax
[00:02:34] for a quote unquote medical device lobbying firm on Whitehaven Parkway in Georgetown.
[00:02:40] And I expected this to be like prosthetic limbs hanging from the walls and stuff. I had no idea what medical devices were as a 19-year-old.
[00:02:47] And I walked up to what is now what was a townhouse. And I expected Whitehaven Parkway.
[00:02:53] This is going to be an office building. I'm going to walk into the suite and have a job interview.
[00:02:58] And I stood on this guy's stoop for a couple of minutes and said, am I going to do this? Am I going to knock on this door?
[00:03:04] And I did. And I walked in. First thing I saw was a giant Jake Elwood figurine, life-size Jake Elwood figurine, or Jake Blues and Elwood Blues figurines, Blues Brothers figurines.
[00:03:18] And I was like, what the hell is this? So anyway, I sat down and had what was a very conventional interview with one of the associates of the firm.
[00:03:26] And this guy, Jeff, kind of wandered in halfway through the interview, walked by me, walked upstairs, came back downstairs and looked at me and said, who are you?
[00:03:36] And I said, my name's Matt Lipinski, sir. I'm here to interview for the internship.
[00:03:41] And he kind of looked me up and down and he said, you'll do. And then he looked at me and he said, what are we paying you?
[00:03:48] And I said, well, the listing said $7 an hour. And he looked at me and he said, well, man's got to eat, make it eight.
[00:03:56] So that was it, eight bucks an hour.
[00:03:59] First assignment, walked up to his house the next day. This guy lived in Georgetown.
[00:04:04] He walked downstairs in a robe and pajamas and said, I need you to go to Safeway and get 2% milk and some Honey Nut Cheerios.
[00:04:11] So that was my first paid job in Washington, D.C.
[00:04:15] Sounds about right with how we all got our start.
[00:04:18] Pretty much.
[00:04:19] Crossing the line between personal and professional every day.
[00:04:22] Yeah.
[00:04:24] Yeah. And then and so what did you what did you do after fast forwarding to college?
[00:04:30] You graduate from college and then what?
[00:04:31] So I did that for about three years on and off work from literally all of my college career.
[00:04:37] So I graduated from school.
[00:04:40] I tried to get a job on the Hill.
[00:04:42] I sent about 50 resumes to 50 Hill offices.
[00:04:44] I went and had a bunch of courtesy interviews.
[00:04:47] There was just nothing open.
[00:04:48] And so this was in the days before Obamacare and my mom and dad were like, you're off our insurance at the end of August.
[00:04:55] You need to find a job.
[00:04:59] And so I sent resumes to a couple of people that I had met over the course of my internship.
[00:05:04] And I found a very exciting position is basically the assistant to the head of government affairs for a property casualty insurance trade association.
[00:05:13] And got a job is more or less an executive assistant to a guy who was sort of finishing up his career in D.C., an old school guy.
[00:05:21] He would write messages out longhand and make me type emails like I'd have to go get him lunch every day.
[00:05:27] But I was lucky in that some of the other people in the office recognized that I was smart and sort of ambitious.
[00:05:33] And they gave me additional responsibilities.
[00:05:36] And I ended up running their political action committee.
[00:05:39] And then I ended up doing a bunch of work on grassroots and writing for a bunch of their internal publications.
[00:05:44] Then they got in a merger conversation.
[00:05:48] And some people retired.
[00:05:49] Some people got laid off.
[00:05:50] There was a hiring freeze.
[00:05:52] And then they said, you have to go lobby.
[00:05:53] And I said, I don't know how to lobby.
[00:05:55] I'm 24 years old.
[00:05:56] And they said, you'll figure it out.
[00:05:59] So I got to go at a very, very young and tender age, sit in on meetings at Capitol Hill.
[00:06:05] They were generally coalition meetings.
[00:06:06] It wasn't really lobbying.
[00:06:07] It was more or less just sitting there and reporting and writing little messages back to the members.
[00:06:12] But I was interacting with staff.
[00:06:14] And I was like, all right, I'm just going to roll with this until somebody tells me not to do it.
[00:06:17] So that's how it all started.
[00:06:20] So do you think it, looking back, do you think it would be if someone had their choice,
[00:06:25] would it be better to start on Capitol Hill or to start at a lobbying firm?
[00:06:30] I mean, I think it's really important to see both sides of the house.
[00:06:34] And I mean, the traditional pathway is still, I think, probably the best pathway.
[00:06:38] And I tried to go to the Hill three times.
[00:06:40] Or I had three very serious conversations about going to the Hill.
[00:06:44] On all three of those occasions, they decided they didn't want me.
[00:06:47] So I just gave up on the idea at about age 30.
[00:06:51] But I think there is a lot of value to it.
[00:06:53] I don't think people can truly understand both the pressure of the environment and what it's like to be in a room negotiating,
[00:07:01] in a room trying to write a piece of legislation.
[00:07:04] You know, it's demanding bosses.
[00:07:07] It's long hours.
[00:07:08] It's terrible pay.
[00:07:10] The esprit de corps and the relationships that you build at a very young age there are things that it's very, very hard to replicate.
[00:07:17] With that said, particularly here at Crossroads, we've had a lot of young people come in in sort of junior associate roles here,
[00:07:24] either just out of college or after a year or so on the Hill.
[00:07:29] Come here for a while.
[00:07:31] See a bit how the private sector side of the house works and then go to the Hill.
[00:07:35] And I've found them to be really effective and successful staffers, a lot of whom are still up there,
[00:07:40] a lot of whom have transitioned back into lobbying jobs.
[00:07:43] You do get another level of understanding and exposure seeing this at a young age.
[00:07:47] But again, I think there's no replacement for going to spend some quality time on Capitol Hill,
[00:07:53] serving the people and serving the government.
[00:07:58] Do you know any other lobbyists that actually never were on the Hill?
[00:08:02] So there is an increasing...
[00:08:04] We are a very secretive club.
[00:08:07] We do not like to share this information with others.
[00:08:09] But it does seem like there's an increasing number of people who are starting to figure out this special sauce.
[00:08:16] And I think a couple of things happen.
[00:08:18] One, you just have way less traditional people coming to D.C. now in both positions on Capitol Hill
[00:08:26] and positions in the administration.
[00:08:27] So I think people are a little more open-minded in terms of the kind of people that they want for jobs,
[00:08:34] the skill sets that they're looking for in the open-mindedness about the kind of people people hire.
[00:08:42] I mean, this is a sales job at the end of the day.
[00:08:45] It's a sales job with a unique set of wares and a very unique set of audiences.
[00:08:50] But at the end of the day, if you have those interpersonal skills that you can use here,
[00:08:56] they're transferable from other jobs as long as you can figure out sort of the jargon and the relationship piece of it.
[00:09:03] And it's ultimately a relationship job and a sales job.
[00:09:06] So you can do it.
[00:09:07] It's just hard to do.
[00:09:10] So you think that one of the keys to your success is the ability to influence through sales, essentially.
[00:09:16] But maybe what are one or two other key differentiators that have made you in this very competitive town that has grown?
[00:09:24] I think it's a $3.5 billion industry that has substantially grown in your tenure lobbying.
[00:09:32] Like, what are the two other, you know, keys to your success?
[00:09:35] Well, I mean, part of it was I was lucky I was in the right place at the right time on a number of occasions.
[00:09:40] And I found myself at a point where I was young in Washington when Republicans were sort of in ascendance
[00:09:48] at the very beginning of the Bush administration in the middle of what was a pretty good run for Republicans standing back to the mid-90s.
[00:09:55] But I also I kind of knew I wanted to do this.
[00:09:58] I don't think a lot of 19-year-olds know they want to be lobbyists.
[00:10:01] And I kind of had a sense that that was what I want to do.
[00:10:04] I think that probably makes me a sociopath at some level.
[00:10:06] But I had an idea that this was what I wanted to do.
[00:10:10] And I took a lot of just I made a lot of decisions and I took a lot of active steps to try and cultivate a network here to do and be in places that would lend.
[00:10:23] Lend themselves to really advancing that cause.
[00:10:26] And I was lucky I was I was a 19 year old.
[00:10:29] I was a 20 year old, but I was running around with a bunch of 24 and 25 year olds who I knew through this internship.
[00:10:35] And it was, you know, Matt, the intern, but Matt, the intern, was able to go to a bar with the LCs in the LAs.
[00:10:42] So I found myself graduating from college in 2002 with people with relationships with people who are half a generation older,
[00:10:51] you know, five to 10 to 15 years older, who I knew, lo and behold, like, wow, these guys have real jobs and I can call them and they'll call me back.
[00:10:59] So it was it was a lot of it was a lot of luck, but it was also intentional.
[00:11:03] And I mean, the other thing I'll say is that the Cheerios story was one of many, many, many menial things that I did as a young person.
[00:11:12] And people say to me to this day, what I remember about you is everything that you did when you were 19 and 20 and 21.
[00:11:21] You did it enthusiastically. You did it well.
[00:11:24] You did it in a way without complaining or whining or saying how terrible it was.
[00:11:28] And people remember. And I say this to everybody I talk to people.
[00:11:32] People's first job in Washington is always probably a little beneath them.
[00:11:36] And people remember and want to help the people who did those jobs. Well,
[00:11:41] and saw it as an opportunity just to be in the room. Yeah.
[00:11:46] So let's go to Crossroads. You left Denton's, I believe, to go to Crossroads and and are now CEO of Crossroads.
[00:11:54] Again, you know, don't want to disclose ages on here, but at still a relatively long young age ascending in your own firm.
[00:12:02] Can you share kind of why you chose to go to Crossroads and also how do you think that your own personal success has come to bear in and be reflective in Crossroads growth as well?
[00:12:15] Yeah, I mean, I think part of the reason I came to Crossroads are that the two founders of the firm,
[00:12:20] John Green and Stuart Hall, are two people been mentors, mentors to me my entire adult life.
[00:12:25] I mean, I've known them both since I was 19. John's known me since I was 19.
[00:12:30] Stuart would tell you he's known me since I was 35. But we first met when I was 19.
[00:12:34] So I did have a relationship with these two. And honestly, if you look at the people who have been incredibly successful lobbyists in this city for the last 25 years,
[00:12:42] I think you'd have to put John and Stuart at the top of that list.
[00:12:45] They built and sold what's now Ogilvy Government Relations and built and sold Crossroads into a really premier firm.
[00:12:54] So what made me come over here was really first and foremost, my relationship with them.
[00:12:59] It was also still not a startup entity, but it was a very much ground floor entity.
[00:13:05] When I came to Crossroads, we were a small firm.
[00:13:06] There were probably five or six of us and going from this massive global law firm of 1700 lawyers and 50 policy people.
[00:13:16] Conflicts became an issue and just the politics and bureaucracy of a big organization became an issue.
[00:13:22] So coming to a smaller place was something that was both exciting and interesting for me.
[00:13:28] I was at a point in my career where I had running room to build a book of business and continue to grow professionally,
[00:13:35] while at the same time coming in with an established group of folks.
[00:13:39] It was a really appealing prospect for me at the time.
[00:13:43] And, you know, we've grown in a big way.
[00:13:45] We've gone from that sort of six person boutique lobbying firm to 30 people, 130 clients, bipartisan, bicameral.
[00:13:53] We've got two former U.S. senators.
[00:13:54] It's great that my mother gets to tell people like two U.S. senators work for my son.
[00:13:59] It's a great source of personal pride.
[00:14:00] And really, I think it's a testament, again, to the vision that John and Stuart have had for this organization,
[00:14:06] that they put their faith in me to help run what they've started.
[00:14:11] And I'm really proud of a lot of the transformations that we've made here in terms of broadening our group,
[00:14:16] diversifying our team, really growing our book of clients to a firm that's really going to be great for the next 15 years.
[00:14:23] It's a firm that's been incredible for the last 15.
[00:14:25] But we're building a team now to make this a premier firm for the next 15 or 20 years.
[00:14:31] So last.
[00:14:32] Oh, no, John.
[00:14:33] Go ahead, Maggie.
[00:14:34] Keep going.
[00:14:35] Last question.
[00:14:36] How do you successfully maintain a bipartisan firm?
[00:14:40] Because the interpersonal inside the firm are just as important as the client relationships.
[00:14:44] But it's becoming a more hyper-partisan environment that we're existing in.
[00:14:49] So how do you strike that internally and grow a successful team?
[00:14:54] And if I could just add to that while you're answering and give our listeners kind of an overview of the firms in Washington are most, you know, one side or the other bipartisan.
[00:15:07] Is that do you have a unique niche by your approach?
[00:15:12] No, I mean, I think you have people who have different models.
[00:15:16] And I think increasingly you've seen sort of the firms, even the firms that are traditionally either a Democratic firm or a Republican firm, sort of bringing in people of the other parties.
[00:15:28] And I think that's really important for a couple of reasons.
[00:15:31] One, and you've seen this really dating back to, let's say, 2006.
[00:15:35] You've seen these quick swings back and forth between control of the White House, of the House, of the Senate.
[00:15:42] So the volatility that you see in Washington now almost mandates that you have that bipartisan team to be able to account for what clients want.
[00:15:51] I mean, the clients that we want to don't want to be finding a new lobbying firm or new lobbying firms every two years.
[00:15:56] They want partners who, first and foremost, are going to be with them for the long run.
[00:16:01] Number two, can get to know their business and understand their business.
[00:16:05] And number three, can put the pieces in play to really account for what's really shifting in politics.
[00:16:12] And it's not only Republicans and Democrats.
[00:16:14] I mean, you've got this sort of move toward populism.
[00:16:18] You've got this now geographical sort of reorientation of the two parties.
[00:16:22] People would rather have one place that can do more things than have to manage a whole bunch of different things.
[00:16:27] So it's been a real area of focus, again, for us to make sure that the offering that we're making really reflects what the marketplace is driving.
[00:16:41] And how do we keep levying it along?
[00:16:44] Everybody can't be like nobody takes himself seriously.
[00:16:48] There's there's a rule that's inherent in our hiring that I think we've all heard about in the past.
[00:16:52] I won't use a foul piece of language on on the air, but, you know, we have an O.A.
[00:16:57] holes rule here. That's that's kind of how we've been.
[00:17:00] And I think that's how we continue to be.
[00:17:02] And ultimately, this is about the clients.
[00:17:04] At the end of the day, we don't get paychecks.
[00:17:06] We can't pay our mortgage.
[00:17:07] We can't go on vacation unless the clients are happy and the clients aren't going to be happy unless what you're providing the clients is reflective of the realities of politics in this country.
[00:17:18] And those realities are, again, like things swing back and forth.
[00:17:21] And it really is an evenly divided country for the most part.
[00:17:29] So let's look ahead to 2025.
[00:17:32] Massive election in November.
[00:17:34] Yeah.
[00:17:35] How are you framing up the the opportunities and the new Congress for clients?
[00:17:42] And what does a second Trump administration look like for all of us?
[00:17:47] Well, I think 25 is obviously going to be an incredibly important year from just a policymaking perspective.
[00:17:54] We're all deeply concerned about the tax cuts.
[00:17:57] I don't want my taxes to go up.
[00:17:58] So first and foremost, government has to grapple with what to do with four point six trillion dollars in expiring tax cuts at the end of this year that are going to mandate congressional action.
[00:18:09] I think that's going to be one of the big organizing principles that we see on Capitol Hill is what does the pathway look like to passing a tax bill?
[00:18:17] You know, I think everybody thought and there was this original impression that you'd get that right out of the gate in the first hundred days.
[00:18:23] But it's it's turning out to be more complicated than that just because of the small majority in the House and disagreements between House and Senate about what the best pathway forward is.
[00:18:34] But ultimately, that's going to be sort of the big ticket item for the year.
[00:18:37] You also have to, as part of that process, raise the debt ceiling.
[00:18:41] People forget that the debt ceiling turns back on in about two weeks and we'll have to grapple with that again.
[00:18:47] And then you have to fund the government.
[00:18:49] I mean, we're we're in the midst of a conversation right now about a continuing resolution, which is going to run until March.
[00:18:55] And then in March, Congress is going to have to get together and figure out how are we actually going to fund the government to the end of the fiscal year and beyond.
[00:19:03] And a reminder, you can't do that on a party long vote.
[00:19:06] You need 60 votes in the Senate.
[00:19:08] You need 218 in the House.
[00:19:09] So passing an appropriations bill is going to be a challenge.
[00:19:12] And then you throw all the sort of other things you want to do on top of that.
[00:19:16] Is it energy permitting reform if that doesn't get done this year?
[00:19:19] Is it some immigration and border security policy?
[00:19:23] Does Congress choose to engage in tariff policy?
[00:19:26] You know, there's still other unfinished business from from this year.
[00:19:29] Consumer data privacy, AI regulation.
[00:19:32] There there is a lot in the soup that is going to compete for time and compete for attention next year.
[00:19:38] But again, I think a lot of it is going to come back to how do they how do they handle the issue of tax policy in 2025?
[00:19:46] And then from the administration's perspective, we've all given been given sort of a preview of this.
[00:19:53] And I think a lot of people forgot how frenetic the pace was during the Trump administration.
[00:19:57] And what Trump tweeted is what basically led the day.
[00:20:01] So we've seen a couple of occasions where he said things like 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico on day one.
[00:20:07] And that became four days of work that we didn't anticipate doing, trying to figure out what does that actually mean?
[00:20:14] What does that mean for clients?
[00:20:15] How's the Hill responding to this?
[00:20:16] Is he actually going to do this?
[00:20:18] And I think it's a reminder that you've got this traditional sort of administration that I think is going to look a lot more conventional than the first Trump administration.
[00:20:27] But then you lay on top of it the principal, the president, and then these sort of informal circle of outside advisors, people like Elon Musk, people like Vivek Ramaswamy, people like Don Trump Jr.
[00:20:40] that are going to add a level of complexity to this conversation that's going to be something that people have to consider as they navigate not only Congress, which is going to be a pretty Trumpy Congress on the Republican side,
[00:20:51] then the apparatus of government and then the sort of informal system that sits atop of it.
[00:20:58] So it's going to be a pretty complicated and interesting puzzle to try to put together next year.
[00:21:04] From where I sit on the state side, I think in terms of 2025, there is more opportunity and more probably necessity to be plugged in with our federal partners than there was before because of two major things,
[00:21:20] the threat or opportunity of Doge and then the fall of Chevron.
[00:21:25] Like both trickle down in just such substantial ways that I think that the policymaking apparatus will be more connected than it has probably in the last 15 to 20 years.
[00:21:37] Yeah, agreed. And I mean, I, you know, it's, it's the whole, it's the classic phenomenon.
[00:21:42] Like let's go try to do something in Texas and Florida and let's try to do it in New York and California and see what we can make stick
[00:21:47] and exporting things that you can't get done at the federal level to states.
[00:21:52] And now even localities and municipalities try to push policies that we can't get done here.
[00:21:57] So we see that too, Maggie, between what's going on at the state, striving what's going on at the federal level and vice versa.
[00:22:04] Yeah, I think that the flow will probably swing back a little bit federal to state because of these big existential questions.
[00:22:10] Um, instead of trying to have a patchwork of 50 state laws on something, but we shall see.
[00:22:18] Yeah. Um, here in Connecticut, they're closely following a PBM regulation that may potentially happen.
[00:22:26] And, you know, it's happening here. Uh, the discussions are happening here and in every discussion, they're talking about Washington.
[00:22:32] Um, but as you said, Maggie and, um, and Matt, it has a much, this, this administration seems to have a much different feel and the pace so far has been really quite incredible.
[00:22:44] The, the, the rolling out of nominees, the, the, the things that he wants to have happen.
[00:22:49] Uh, I mean, do you ever remember a new administration coming in with this much activity before the inauguration?
[00:22:55] No, I mean, I think probably the last one where you saw this and it was the first Obama administration
[00:23:01] where you did have a turning of the page and you had time to think and time to plan.
[00:23:06] Um, you know, you had the accidental Trump presidency in 2016, then you had the COVID presidency of 2020.
[00:23:12] Um, and those are the last times you really didn't have this sort of lead up period, but you had a president who did this once.
[00:23:20] Um, and then almost did this again, but basically had the last four years to, to build a more formal team around him.
[00:23:29] Um, um, and to, to come up with sort of a governing thesis that's in many ways, like a team of rivals, the, the dramatic tension that's going to exist within this administration is going to be fascinating to watch too.
[00:23:41] Um, but, um, but ready to go.
[00:23:43] I mean, they, they, they have a mandate.
[00:23:45] I mean, they feel that the popular vote, the size of the electoral win, but the holding of the house, the taking of the Senate, um, and just the way the exits looked, they have a very particular point of view that they believe that they have been asked and, um, and encouraged to implement.
[00:24:03] And I think they're going to try and implement it.
[00:24:04] Yeah.
[00:24:05] Yeah.
[00:24:05] I, I appreciated the, the continued reminder that the, the new national security advisor, um, was on face the nation yesterday morning.
[00:24:14] And he kept saying, this is what we are considering doing, but for the time being, we continue to be in consultation with the current administration.
[00:24:23] It's like, everyone has kind of fast forwarded to January already, but I appreciated his, you know, nodding to the current, um, administration as the decision maker on key issues like Syria.
[00:24:39] All right, Maggie.
[00:24:41] Want to close this out?
[00:24:43] Sure.
[00:24:44] So we always end every conversation with two questions.
[00:24:48] Um, the first, where were you last?
[00:24:52] What was the best meal that you had on the road?
[00:24:55] And your last question is where are you headed to perhaps for the holidays?
[00:24:59] So if someone wants to reach out to you, um, via LinkedIn and make a friend, uh, they can send you a restaurant recommendation for your next travels.
[00:25:08] So I hate to admit this.
[00:25:10] The last place I was, was Las Vegas.
[00:25:13] Uh, I don't frequently visit Las Vegas.
[00:25:16] This was the first time I'd been there in a decade.
[00:25:18] Uh, and the best place I ate was Piero's off the strip, uh, kind of off.
[00:25:24] From the Encore, uh, lovely Italian place.
[00:25:27] They filmed some of, uh, casino in it, but great spot.
[00:25:30] And where am I going to be next?
[00:25:32] I will be with my mother-in-law and father-in-law and mother and father, uh, in Ocean Ridge, New Jersey, or excuse me, Ocean Ridge, Florida, uh, between Palm Beach and Delray Beach.
[00:25:43] If anyone wants to come see me, I'd love to get out of the house.
[00:25:49] Very nice.
[00:25:49] Well, thank you, Matt.
[00:25:50] Always good to chat and appreciate the time, especially during this bum rush to the end of, uh, the year.
[00:25:57] Great.
[00:25:57] Thank you both.
[00:25:58] Really appreciate it.
[00:25:58] Merry Christmas.
[00:26:00] Thanks, Matt.
[00:26:01] We'll see you next time.
[00:26:01] Bye.