Key Takeaways
- Politics comes up in nearly every client meeting now, according to Jeff Bush, Principal of The Washington Update.
- Acknowledge where a client’s political concern comes from before responding, without agreeing or disagreeing with the politics itself.
- Read red, blue, and neutral versions of a story before forming an opinion; advisors short on time can lean on a curated, nonpartisan source instead.
- Redirect from the tactical political question to the strategic financial plan.
Jeff Bush, Principal of The Washington Update, has a line he uses to pitch new speaking clients: “When was the last time you met with a client or prospect and politics didn’t come up?” It’s the same dynamic host Sean Walters described to Bush on The Exceptional Advisor Podcast: clients come in “so amped up all the time now” that meetings keep getting pulled into the noise.
Having a personal opinion about any of it is easy. Having a nonpartisan one that actually helps the client is harder.
Why Clients Keep Bringing Politics Into the Room
Bush finds that clients read the news, see what’s happening in Washington, and assume it has “some strategic impact on their financial plan and their investments.” That assumption is the starting point for the conversation, even when it isn't true.
“I really do believe the financial advisor’s job is to keep the client focused on the strategic goal. Don’t get caught in the tactics; focus on the strategy,” Bush says. The client’s question is tactical: a bill, an executive order, an election outcome. The advisor’s answer needs to land on strategy—the long-term financial plan and the portfolio designed to support it.
How to Respond to a Client’s Political Question Without Taking a Side
Bush’s approach starts with tracing where the client’s position comes from before responding to it: “A strategy I tend to use is to acknowledge the person’s position, but—importantly—you have to understand where that position comes from.” He points to the client's news algorithm for that narrow starting point.
From there, Bush’s own method is to line up more than one version of the story: “Here’s the topic, here’s the red version, here’s the blue version, here’s a more neutral version. If you take the time to read all three of those versions, you end up with a pretty well-balanced perspective.”
This can take time, but Bush’s fix is to lean on a source that’s already done the red-blue-neutral read, so the advisor walks into the conversation with more than one news feed’s worth of information.
How to Move the Conversation from Politics to the Financial Plan
Redirecting the conversation to the plan is the skill that matters. The advisor can “answer the tactical concern the client has, but then transition into what that means strategically, and put it in context,” Bush says. This only works if the advisor has already read enough to have an informed opinion
Do Advisors Need to Pick a Side to Compete?
Some do, and Bush doesn’t see a problem with it: “I definitely see some red advisors, I definitely see some blue advisors, and they tend to attract those kinds of clients—that’s target marketing, nothing wrong with that.” But he thinks a partisan book of business doesn’t excuse an advisor from strategic thinking because neither side gets everything it wants over time. In his experience, “the lion’s share of advisors I still see try to play a neutral role with the client.”
Jeff Bush covers this in more depth on The Exceptional Advisor Podcast, along with his call on the 2026 midterms and what a divided Congress means for tax and regulations.
