David Rubenstein said the United States is now paying more every year in interest on its $40 trillion of debt than it spends on national defense, and that the crossing of that line is the historical marker of a country losing strength.
Most of the 26 minutes was not about markets at all. The Carlyle co-founder spent the bulk of the interview on literacy, on who gets to run the Library of Congress, and on the original documents he buys and lends out — and only turned to the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the new Fed chair in the last five minutes.
"Whenever a country paid more interest on its debt than it did for its national security, that's a sign of weakness in the country."
Rubenstein co-founded the Carlyle Group, worked in Jimmy Carter's White House at 27, has chaired the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress support board, and owns the only copy of the Magna Carta in private hands.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 26 minutes of audio, 18 minutes of reading.
Here are the 13 insights that matter.
👤 Guest: David Rubenstein, Co-founder of The Carlyle Group, chair of the Library of Congress support board and an interviewer and author who buys and lends out original American documents
🎙️ Host: Brian Sozzi, Executive Editor at Yahoo Finance
📰 Published: 14 September 2026 on Yahoo Finance (Power Players with Brian Sozzi)
🟢 Spotify | 🟣 Apple Podcasts | 🔗 Episode page | ⏱️ 26 min | ✅ Time saved: 8 min
Key Takeaways
The interest bill has passed the defense budget, and Rubenstein reads that as a weakness signal
He put both at about $1 trillion, with interest still rising
House members spend roughly half their working time raising money
Conference committees are gone, so House and Senate members no longer know each other
19% of American adults cannot read past a fourth-grade level
Around 80% of people in federal prisons are functionally illiterate, he said
More than half of American adults did not read a single book last year
He owns more copies of the Declaration of Independence than the US government does
He has sent replicas to every Major League Baseball owner, every NBA owner, every governor and every embassy
The Magna Carta he owns sits in the National Archives inside a case he paid for that he calls atomic bomb proof
A 1,000-person White House ballroom ends the state dinner as he knew it
At 230 guests a president can shake every hand in about 45 minutes
He rates Kevin Warsh as qualified as anyone who has ever taken the Fed job, and says it is too early to judge the method
1. Dinner With the Other Party
Sozzi opened on the new book, due in October, and asked why Rubenstein keeps writing them at this stage of his career.
The book is a collection of interviews he has been running for years at the Library of Congress, where he chairs the support group. The National Book Festival, which Laura Bush developed as First Lady, has just finished its 26th year and brings 100,000 people from around the country to meet authors.
The dinner series came out of a suggestion he made to the late Librarian of Congress, Jim Billington: sit members of Congress down on a bipartisan basis, put an interview in front of them — David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin — and then feed them. Roughly 250 people come to each dinner; every member may bring one guest, usually a constituent, a spouse or a chief of staff.
The draw is not the food. It is that nobody is watching. There is no press, so a member can sit beside someone from the other party without being asked why.
"They tell me, sadly, this is the most interesting thing they're doing in Congress at times." Retired members still come back to them.
His structural explanation for why members no longer know each other is the disappearance of the conference committee. Legislation used to mean the House passed a bill, the Senate passed a bill, and the two went to a conference committee. Those committees no longer exist — everything is done out of the leadership offices — so House and Senate members never meet in the old way.
Sozzi's aside, that no legislation is getting passed anyway, drew a flat correction from Rubenstein: the dinners are still happening.
2. Half the Day Is Fundraising
Sozzi asked whether more camaraderie between the parties would be a good thing.
Rubenstein agreed it would and said it is out of his hands, then named what actually occupies a member's day. Washington now runs on fundraising, on the belief that the candidate with the most money wins.
The rules make the money worth keeping even in defeat. It used to be possible to lose and pocket it; now a losing candidate keeps the money for political purposes — supporting other candidates, for instance — so it never goes to waste.
"Many people would estimate that House members are spending roughly 50% of their time raising money." The return on it is two-sided: a big war chest scares off some opponents, and beats the ones it does not scare off.
3. The Library of America
Asked what would surprise people about the Library of Congress, Rubenstein gave its founding history and then its present scale.
James Madison proposed it in 1783 under the Articles of Confederation Congress; it took 17 years for Congress to act, and John Adams signed the legislation in 1800. The appropriation was $5,000, which bought 600 books and three maps.
It burned twice. The British burned the Congress, and the library with it, in 1814. Thomas Jefferson then offered to sell his library — the largest held by any private citizen in the country — and the government bought it. That collection later burned as well.
"Now the Library of Congress is a misnomer. It's really the Library of America, because it has more books, more pamphlets." More comic books and more audio-visual material than any other library in the world, he said, and anyone from anywhere may use it. Only members of Congress can check books out.
It now occupies three buildings in Washington — the Jefferson, the Adams and the Madison — and has been pushing recently to bring young people in, including a program where children can learn to read with help from staff.
His summary of its standing was a borrowed advertising line. "It's an old saying, Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee." Nobody dislikes the Library of Congress either: walk into the main reading room, sit all day, and have books brought out to you. It is where many of the country's best scholars do their research.
4. The 19% Who Cannot Read
The literacy program led Rubenstein into the number he returned to twice.
He said 19% of adults in this country are functionally illiterate, meaning they cannot read past a fourth-grade level. He drew the boundary deliberately: not immigrants who read their own language but not English, but people who cannot read their native language.
"If you can't read past the 4th grade level, and you're functionally illiterate, you have a hard time getting a job."
The downstream figures are where the cost shows up. "It turns out that roughly 80% of the people in our federal prisons are functionally illiterate, and about 2/3 of people in the juvenile delinquency system are functionally illiterate."
The problem replicates itself, because a parent who cannot read cannot teach a child to read — and reading to children at night is how most children learn.
He called it a sad situation in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with the biggest GDP in the world. He funds monetary awards through the Library of Congress for people doing good work on literacy, and described that as a drop in the bucket.
5. Half Read No Book All Year
Sozzi asked whether anything can fix this at scale. Rubenstein split the problem in two, and the second half is the one he finds harder.
Illiteracy can be taught away, but the window closes. Past grade school it is very difficult to catch up, though he said it can be done.
The second phenomenon is people who can read and choose not to. "More than half of Americans have not read one book in the last year." They either do not want to read or do not feel comfortable reading, he said. They are on their phones.
Sozzi put in the common defense — that people think reading on a phone or reading an email is the same thing. Rubenstein's answer was that it is different, and the difference is duration: "To read a book, you have to concentrate your brain for quite some time, many, many hours." That sustained concentration is what some people no longer feel able to do.
His own solution is a commitment device rather than willpower: he hosts interview shows, so he has to read the book.
6. His Anti-Alzheimer's Device
Sozzi read the interview habit as a forcing mechanism. Rubenstein said there is a second motive, and it is about aging.
He is in his 70s and said you get nervous as you get older that your brain will deteriorate. At some point it probably will, but the aim is to forestall it.
The standard advice does not fit him. Crossword puzzles — he is not good at them. Learning a foreign language — not good at that either. Learning an instrument — he is tone deaf.
"But what I can do is I read books and interview the authors." Interviewing keeps the brain sharp because you have to spar back and forth with the person opposite you. He called it his anti-Alzheimer's device.
Asked for an author he is enjoying, he named Beverly Gage's biography of J. Edgar Hoover, which he interviewed her about over the weekend. It won the Pulitzer Prize and she is a professor at Yale. "This book took her about 15 years."
His test for a biography is that both halves are rarely present at once: many good books are written well but researched thinly, or researched deeply and written badly. Gage's, he said, does both.
The second was Kai Bird, who won the Pulitzer for his book on Robert Oppenheimer and now has one out on Roy Cohn, who Rubenstein described as a mentor to Donald Trump and his lawyer for a number of years.
7. Who Picks the Librarian
Sozzi asked whether the Library's contents change with the party in power. Rubenstein said he hopes not, then described the appointment fight that is actually underway.
The Librarian of Congress was historically a presidential appointment for life, and some held the post for 10, 20 or 30 years.
Congress changed it when Barack Obama was elected and Republicans controlled Congress; Rubenstein's read is that they did not want him appointing someone for life. The post became a 10-year term, renewable once, with no lifetime tenure.
Obama appointed Carla Hayden, who had been a deputy librarian in the Chicago public library system and then ran Baltimore's — Rubenstein's hometown — and who he said did a wonderful job of opening the Library to everybody rather than only scholars.
"President Trump replaced her or fired her after 9 years, 1 year to go before she finished her term." Robert Newlen is the acting Librarian of Congress, and Rubenstein called him very talented.
Legislation now moving would rewire the appointment entirely: Congress would appoint the Librarian, and the Office of Copyrights and Patents would be moved out of the Library with the President appointing its head. He said it has passed the House and probably will pass the Senate, though that is not certain.
On who wants what, he was blunt about the part he cannot explain. Members of Congress will probably be happier. The administration, he suspects, is very interested in getting control of the Office of Copyrights and Patents — "I don't know for what purpose, but we'll see what happens."
8. Owning More Than the US Does
Asked where his love of American history comes from, Rubenstein started with a self-deprecating answer and ended with a collection.
The origin story is that he was not good at the alternatives: not great at science, not great at math, so he did better in history. Sozzi pushed back — you ran Carlyle, you had to be good at math — and Rubenstein allowed only that he is not a calculus expert.
The real sources are proximity: he worked in the White House for President Carter at 27, and has lived in the Washington area for roughly 50 years. He has chaired the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center and now the Library of Congress support board, and has been involved with the National Archives.
He has paid to restore the physical fabric too. He helped restore the Lincoln Memorial — built over a marsh, with the space underneath never publicly seen until it was opened up with the Park Service — is trying to do something similar at the Jefferson Memorial, and helped restore the Washington Monument after earthquake damage.
The second half of the project is buying documents. He said he owns more copies of the Declaration of Independence than probably any citizen, and more than the US government does. "I bought them over the years, and I put them on display, and I'd lend them out to US government entities." His copies go to the National Archives among others.
For the country's 250th anniversary he has had replicas made and given one to every Major League Baseball owner for their stadium, one to every NBA owner for theirs, one to every governor for the statehouse, and one to every embassy in the country and around the world. Other professional sports leagues are next.
Asked what the baseball owners said, he described asking what they were doing for the anniversary, explaining why the Declaration matters, and telling them a copy was coming. Many have already put theirs on display.
His argument for originals over reproductions is attention: people pay more attention to a historic document than to a reproduction of one.
9. A Bomb-Proof Magna Carta
Sozzi asked what it is like to own a document of that weight, and whether he worries about where it is.
"Well, I'm just a temporary custodian." Everything he owns will eventually go to a historic entity or a museum; he holds it meanwhile so it can be somewhere the public sees it.
"There's only one copy in private hands of the Magna Carta, and I own it" — and it is on permanent loan to the National Archives, where anyone can see it.
The reason he does not lie awake is that he is not the one guarding it. "If I bought the Magna Carta and put it in my house, I'd worry about it." At the National Archives there are police and guards all over the building.
The case was built by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and paid for by Rubenstein. He said it is "atomic bomb proof," so the document cannot really be destroyed. At 800 years old it is fragile, but he called it in reasonably good shape.
10. Five Gettysburg Copies
Asked which document he would still like to own, Rubenstein named the one that is not available.
He called the Gettysburg Address the greatest speech ever given in the United States — two minutes long, and the best statement of what the country is about.
The supply is fixed and he counted it out. Lincoln made two copies himself, one in the White House and one later, then wrote three souvenir copies after delivering the speech. "There's sort of 5 of them, but they're never going to be any more than them."
One is in the White House. "Two of them are at the Library of Congress, and they're going to be there forever." One is at Cornell University and the last is at the Lincoln Library in Springfield. None is likely to come up for sale, so owning one is not realistic.
What he does own is an Emancipation Proclamation, which he called one of the most important documents the country has ever issued. "Lincoln signed 47 souvenir copies, but only 6 of them sold."
"Nobody wanted them at the time, but eventually a couple of them became more available, and I've bought a number of them." He has lent them to the National Museum of African American History and Culture and elsewhere.
11. Monuments and a Ballroom
Sozzi asked about the state of Washington's monuments, and then about the changes being made to the White House itself.
The monuments are reasonably fine but always decaying. The Lincoln Memorial opened more than 100 years ago and had little work done since; the Jefferson Memorial opened in 1943 and needs some. Rubenstein has put up money alongside Congress and the National Park Service.
The black staining on the Jefferson Memorial's roof, he said, is air pollution, and it has to be cleaned off periodically. The same is true at the Lincoln Memorial.
On the new helipad and the coming ballroom, he answered as someone who has been to state dinners rather than as a critic of the architecture. A state dinner holds roughly 230 people. "A president can spend time saying hello to everybody who goes to the state dinner, because 230 is not that many."
"You can do a receiving line, you'd get it done in about 45 minutes, and everybody gets their picture of the president."
The building's pull is that people lived in it: Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, John Kennedy. "So it has a sense of history to it." That, he said, is what gets lost in a room holding 1,000 people. There may be compensating factors; the current president takes a different view, and it looks as though it will get built.
Asked whether a later administration would undo it, he did not think so. "I would be surprised if any president came in and wanted to turn, tear it down." A future president might repurpose it — as a conference center rather than a ballroom — but not demolish it.
12. Interest Beats Defense Now
With a few minutes left Sozzi turned to markets and the Treasury Secretary's bond buying: is it a big deal, and will it work?
Rubenstein's read was that it has not landed. "It hasn't had the effect that people wanted or that the Secretary wanted." As a citizen he is hopeful rates can come down; so far it has not worked, and the Treasury may do more to make it work.
He flagged Stan Druckenmiller's article out that day, critical of the policy, and noted the relationship: Druckenmiller was Scott Bessent's boss when the two worked together for George Soros. "He knows much more about it than I do."
The reason the effort matters is the debt: as everybody now knows, $40 trillion of it.
His historical test is the one the country has already failed. "Whenever a country paid more interest on its debt than it did for its national security, that's a sign of weakness in the country."
"Right now, we've crossed that threshold. We're now paying more in interest every year than we are paying on our national defense, and we're paying $1 trillion in interest, a little bit more than that now, but we pay about $1 trillion in national defense."
The mechanism he laid out is a squeeze rather than an event: as interest goes up, the money available for defense goes down, and that weakens national security.
Asked what it means for the average person, he said their attention is on day-to-day purchases, and the transmission runs through rates. Higher interest rates make housing more expensive, borrowing more expensive and credit cards more expensive. The reason the President wants lower rates is that people are happier with them and the economy grows better on them — and they are hard to get right now.
On the Fed itself he made a plain statement of fact and left it there: the Federal Reserve has not yet lowered interest rates under the new chair. It may, but it has not.
13. Powell Spoke Plain English
Sozzi's last question was about Kevin Warsh communicating less to markets than his predecessors, and how that compares to the Fed chairs Rubenstein has watched.
He declared his bias first: Jay Powell was at Carlyle for many years, he thinks eight.
What he credits Powell for is the absence of surprise — he would say what the Fed was going to do, then it would do it, and he explained it in detail and in English.
The counter-example is Alan Greenspan, who Rubenstein also called a terrific Fed chair. He started his own career with Greenspan in the job: "I really didn't know what he was talking about." Greenspan talked in Fed speak and, Rubenstein said, was fairly intentional about not wanting people to know exactly what he thought.
"Jay Powell, by contrast, was very open. He wasn't a PhD in economics. He was a lawyer."
On Warsh he was complimentary and non-committal in the same breath. "Now, Kevin Warsh is a very smart person." He has talked to him, and — "I think he's really well qualified for the job, maybe as qualified as anybody ever got the job." "He has a different approach and we'll see whether it works."
Asked whether Warsh will have to bend, Rubenstein would not say what he will have to do, only that the market obviously likes more information. Warsh may be able to do what he wants; it is too early to say. He said the President picked a good person.
Bonus Insights
Asked where he finds the time for Carlyle, the documents and the interviews, Rubenstein's first answer was that he is a triplet with two brothers, and his second was "I don't sleep." He said that is probably not a good thing, but that he does not do anything he does not like.
Sozzi thanked him for squeezing the interview in and noted that Rubenstein always makes time; Rubenstein closed by saying he was having fun.
He does not know whether members of Congress pay late fines on the books they check out, but said they should return them.
The cold open of the episode is cut from three moments in the interview: the debt and interest line, the White House remodeling exchange, and the 19% illiteracy figure.
Rubenstein's bottom line is that the country has already crossed the historical line where interest costs exceed defense spending, which he reads as a sign of national weakness — and that the deeper deficit in the conversation was a reading one, with a fifth of adults unable to read past a fourth-grade level and more than half choosing not to read a book at all.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
The Carlyle Group (The firm Rubenstein co-founded, and where Jay Powell worked for what he believes were eight years before the Fed)
Library of Congress (He chairs its support board; created in 1800 for $5,000, now three buildings, and the holder of two of the five Gettysburg Address copies)
National Archives (Where his Magna Carta sits on permanent loan, in a bomb-resistant case he paid for)
National Book Festival (Laura Bush's creation, now in its 26th year, drawing 100,000 people to meet authors)
National Institute of Standards and Technology (Built the display case for the Magna Carta)
National Park Service (Partner on the Lincoln Memorial restoration, which opened the never-seen space beneath it)
Smithsonian Institution and the Kennedy Center (Two of the institutions he has chaired, offered as the reason he has a sense of history)
National Museum of African American History and Culture (One of the places he lends his Emancipation Proclamation copies)
Major League Baseball and the NBA (Every owner in both leagues received a replica Declaration of Independence to display in their stadium or arena)
Books & Resources Mentioned
G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century – Beverly Gage (The Hoover biography he interviewed her about this weekend: fifteen years of work, a Pulitzer, and his example of a book both written well and researched deeply)
American Scoundrel – Kai Bird (The new book on Roy Cohn by the author who won the Pulitzer for his Robert Oppenheimer biography; Rubenstein interviewed him about it this weekend)
The Gettysburg Address (Two Lincoln copies and three souvenir copies, which he counts as five and none of them buyable)
The Emancipation Proclamation (Lincoln signed 47 souvenir copies and only six sold; Rubenstein has bought a number of them)
Magna Carta (The 800-year-old document he owns — the only copy in private hands)
Declaration of Independence (He says he owns more copies than the US government, and has had replicas made for owners, governors and embassies)
If this was worth your time, send it to someone who has to have a view on this.
Get the latest market chatter as it happens: