MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript Interview with Julián Castro

Interview

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And, again, it sounds partisan to say it, but here`s the fact, there is

just one party calling for extended relief to try and fix this right now:

the Democratic Party, which has an agenda around this and increasingly a

unified agenda around another rescue package. One of the loudest voices on

this particular issue is former Obama Housing and Urban Development

secretary and former candidate for president, Julian Castro.

It`s great to have you here tonight, there`s a lot to get to. I want to

start first just by saying that your brother tweeted about your

stepmother`s passing away due to COVID, and I just wanted to offer my

condolences on that. It must be very difficult and ask if you wanted to

offer a remembrance of who she was.

JULIAN CASTRO, FORMER HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT SECRETARY: Thank you

very much, Chris, for that. Yes, we lost our stepmother, Alice. My father

and my stepmother Alice were married for 31 years. She was a wonderful

woman, always very warm and loving, wonderful mother, a wonderful wife. You

know, words can`t express the sorrow that you feel, especially under the

circumstances because she passed away from COVID-19 by herself, alone,

without my father, without her family. Right now, you know, my father

himself has COVID-19, and so he`s not able to be around other people as he

grieves the loss of his wife, and as we grieve for him.

So you just basically, you know, we got a very personal look at the tragedy

of this disease. And my heart goes out to her children and the rest of her

family, and also to all of those families who have lost loved ones by this

illness.

Take it seriously. This is something that people should take very, very

seriously.

HAYES: I didn`t know about your father. And of course I really hope he gets

better.

You have been very focused on the peril that so many are facing on the

housing front. You, of course, were secretary of HUD, and we look like

we`re heading towards what could be a cataclysm for housing in America

between the data we have on missed mortgage payments and missed rental

payments. We have just never seen anything like it.

What has to be done, in your mind, to avoid that cataclysm?

CASTRO: Look, there is a lot. Just very quickly taking a step back, we knew

that before this pandemic we were facing an affordability crisis out there,

by some estimates up to 40 percent of the 44 million renters in America

were already cost burdened. In other words, they were spending more than a

third of their income every month on rent, sometimes 50, 60, 70 percent.

That`s before all of this. Now, by one estimate, as you mentioned, more

than 20 million people in the next eight weeks could face eviction, so this

is a full blown crisis.

What has to happen is immediately Mitch McConnell and his Republican

buddies need to at least pass the Heroes Act which has $100 billion of

direct rental assistance, and also expand eviction some moratoriums and

mortgage protections so that people don`t get thrown out on the street.

In the longer term, though, you know, Vice President Biden has come up with

a great plan of how we could address this affordability issue, making sure

that we address supply. He`s called for spending $640 billion over the next

10 years in creating more housing supply out there.

Also demand, one of the great things he`s called for is make the Housing

Choice Voucher program universal so that you would be able, if you make

less than a certain percentage of the area median income where you live,

you would be able to go out with a Housing Choice Voucher and get a place

to live.

And here is the state, Chris, just in case people are wondering, OK, you

know, we hear a lot about we got to spend money on this, we got to do this

-- look, study after study tells us that having a safe, decent place to

live is the most stabilizing force in somebody`s life. Your prospects for a

good education, your prospects for a good job, for your health, all of

those things are influenced by whether you have a stable place to live. So,

you know, there is concrete things that we can do right now to avert a

disaster like we have never seen in this country that is going to make this

pandemic even worse for so many families.

HAYES: You know, you were just referencing Vice President Biden`s housing

agenda, which is quite ambitious, and was quite ambitious even during the

primary, particularly making Section Eight sort of a universal and not

capped program, right, if people qualify.

It is interesting, you and Senator Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have

all been on the show this week. You were all participants in that rigorous,

long and crowded Democratic primary field. And, you know, I have to say,

obviously, I think it is not surprising for Democrats to rally around the

nominee. But it does strike me that the stakes in this moment -- I mean, as

I talk to you tonight with Texas breaking records, the president pardoning

his long-time associate, that there is just a palpable sense from the

Democrats I talk to of just how important this is, how important this is,

how life or death it seems to them. Do you feel that way?

CASTRO: Oh, absolutely. And because they`re hearing it from their

constituents. And to those Republicans that, you know, are sitting on their

hands not doing anything, I tell you, look, when I was HUD secretary, I

traveled to a hundred different communities in 39 states, big cities, small

towns. It doesn`t matter whether somebody is Republican or Democrat,

conservative or liberal, this affordable housing crisis, and the evictions

crisis that`s looming, affects everybody, of every different stripe, you

know, in small towns, in big cities, in congressional districts across the

country.

So, every single representative and every single senator, if they start

talking to people out there, you know, they will get a fire lit under them,

I think, to do something about this, or at least they should. But the

Republican Party has gotten so far divorced from, you know, the concerns of

every day people in this country that, you know, I don`t have much

confidence in that these days.

HAYES: Well, I have been talking about your home state senators about one

of them, Ted Cruz, and also John Cornyn to a certain extent, where it just

seems so striking to me. I mean, when the pandemic was hitting the New York

metro area, it was just -- Republican, Democrat, wherever people were

ideologically, it was obviously the central point of focus. It was an all

hands on deck emergency, encountered as such.

And to watch Ted Cruz tweeting about the Goya guy and whether people are

boycotting Goya, I`m just struck by the disconnect. I mean, you just lost

your stepmother today. Your father has it. Like Texas is setting records.

It seems like the political leadership of this state should be a little

more urgent and on the ball about this right now.

CASTRO: I mean, yes. They have taken this embrace of right wing ideology

over science and the public health, and they have this see no evil, speak

no evil, hear no evil approach to everything these days.

And that`s why I think in places like Texas, look, I mean, you know, this

is a public health emergency that needs to be dealt with. And whoever is

willing to deal with it, you know, we need to be willing to work with them,

right?

At the same time, I think the political repercussions for this party, for

the Republican Party, especially in places like Texas, Florida, Arizona

where Abbott, DeSantis and Ducey have all done the same thing with this

Trump playbook of pretend it`s not really happening when we know, people

know in their own family that it is, I can`t tell you except to say that I

think that they are going to pay a real price for this in November and for

very good reason, because they have failed to serve the constituents that

they are supposed to serve.

HAYES: Julian Castro, thank you so much for your time tonight. Again, my

condolences for your stepmother, and best wishes for your father, and

hopefully we can come back soon and tell us about his recovery. Please do

come back, OK?

CASTRO: Thanks, Chris. Thank you.

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