MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Elizabeth Warren

Interview

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O`DONNELL: Leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. She is now the chair of the Subcommittee on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth in the Senate Finance Committee.

Her new book, released today, is called "Persist."

Senator Warren, thank you very much for joining us tonight. It is a real pleasure to have you here.

WARREN: Oh, thank you for having me. I`m just delighted to be with you this evening.

O`DONNELL: You know, that opening image that we just saw of you in the Finance Committee hearing room sitting in what has always been the chairman`s chair is very special to me, because -- I think you will like this -- the very first woman -- when I was at the Senate Finance Committee, there were no women members of the committee.

And the very first woman I ever saw sit in the chairman`s chair, what was then Chairman Daniel Patrick Moynihan`s chair, was my daughter Elizabeth when she was less than a year old.

(LAUGHTER)

O`DONNELL: And that was the only female presence that I ever saw in that chair.

And so it -- and that -- and, by the way, seeing your -- a woman behind you there on that chair that I always used to sit on, the staff chair right to the right of the chairman, is always -- it always takes me back.

But what is it like for you to be on the committee where you could actually basically have the pen in hand marking up and writing possibly a wealth tax, and that`s the committee where it would have to be written?

WARREN: I love it. I mean, I truly love it.

You know, I think of it this way, Lawrence. Change is hard. It is hard to get change in Congress. You know this as well as anyone, that you get the little nibbles around the edge, you can fix something that comes up, maybe, in an emergency, do something.

But when a big crisis hits, that`s -- that`s when the time for change comes. We saw that in 2008 with the big financial crash. And we got Dodd- Frank out of that.

Think about what has happened in the last year, a global pandemic, a racial reckoning, an armed insurrection, a new president who ran on a very progressive agenda, ultimately, and won by more than seven million votes. And we have already passed an historic rescue package.

That means we are now a nation with our toes right on the line to make change, not nibble changes, but to make big structural change. And one big part of that is the revenue part.

It`s time for a wealth tax in America. It`s time for a tax on real corporate profits. And it`s time to enforce the tax laws against the millionaires and billionaires who have been evading their fair share of taxes for too long.

O`DONNELL: There`s another room that you have access to that, to me, is one of the most fascinating meeting rooms in Washington now.

And it`s Chuck Schumer`s conference room, where he gathers a group of Democratic senators in his leadership circle, which include, in a weekly meeting, with Chuck Schumer kind of at the head of the table, but letting you all go, you`re in that room. Bernie Sanders is in that room. Joe Manchin is in that room, along with several other senators.

And I`m always wanting to imagine what the conversation is like between you and Joe Manchin in that room.

WARREN: I will tell no tales.

(LAUGHTER)

WARREN: I just...

O`DONNELL: Well, for example -- for example, Senator Manchin, we know, has publicly said he`s reluctant to go as high as Joe Biden wants to go on, for example, the corporate tax rate.

When that kind of thing gets discussed in that room, it would seem to me that`s the opportunity for the friendliest version of the disagreement.

WARREN: Yes. And that is true.

There is considerable disagreement in that room. It is almost never heated. And I`m talking now generically, not about any one person. But it is intense, because these differences are real. And the urgency of getting this right is upon us.

Look, the debate, yes, it is important, but it is important because, as Democrats, we need to deliver. We made promises in `18. We made promises in `20. We said, you put us in control in the Senate, you put us in control in the House, you give us the White House, and we`re going to produce for the American people.

Well, it is time for us to do that. And we make that point more than any other point in that room. So, every difference we have got, we need to hammer it out, because, at the end of the day, we need to deliver on our promises.

O`DONNELL: In the 50/50 Senate, every one of you -- every one of you Democratic senators, in effect, has a veto over anything that the majority leader, Chuck Schumer, wants to do.

Joe Manchin is in a more prominent position of that power, because it more frequently comes up that he has some dissenting thoughts about what`s going on. But each one of you have that power.

And I`m wondering how you think about that power that you have, now that each individual Democratic senator is absolutely necessary to passing whatever Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden want to pass.

WARREN: Look, I think of this in two ways.

And the specific way you identify it is to say, I get it. On any given bill, I`m not going to get everything I want, so I better figure out what things are most important to me and what things I can say, until the day. We will come back to them, because it`s going to take 50 of us that somehow have worked out in a bill that this is enough for us to be on, and that every one of us feels like we can vote for it.

But I also think of it this way right now, Lawrence. And it goes -- it goes to the point about persistence. It goes to the point of what this book is about. It`s about the big pieces and what we`re trying to move. It`s about the rescue package in part, the fact that we said we`re going to put money in for people`s health, for people`s housing, for childcare.

Now it`s time to take the next step and to say, as a nation, yes, we want people to be able to go to work. We want businesses to be able to prosper. And we know what that takes. Roads and bridges, you bet. Communications, broadband, yes, and childcare. Childcare is part of that.

You want parents to be able to go to work, you want mamas to be able to get back into the work force, then, as a nation, we need to have affordable, high-quality, available childcare. It`s an issue of opportunity for every American, particularly the women who`ve been knocked out of the work force during the pandemic.

And it is also an issue of growth in our economy, productivity. We need childcare. It`s part of the structure of what makes America prosperous going forward and gives everyone a chance to build a real future for themselves.

O`DONNELL: We are now into another version of a pattern that we have now seen.

I have been watching it closely since the early 1990s. And that is, a Democratic president comes in, in this case, having defeated an incumbent Republican, President Bill Clinton comes in, and one of the first things he does is propose a tax increase. And the Republicans say, Newt Gingrich says, you`re going to destroy jobs, you`re going to destroy the economy.

The tax increase passes only with Democratic votes, the economy soars. Then we get a Republican president who then cuts taxes, and then the next Democratic president who comes in, Barack Obama, then has to raise taxes again for fiscal sanity. The economy continues to increase after the -- after the Obama tax increases.

And here we are again, and the Republicans are saying, if you and Joe Biden get your way, and you get these corporate tax increases, you`re going to destroy the economy.

The argument has been wrong every single time they have launched it, but they haven`t given up on it.

WARREN: That`s right. They haven`t.

But here`s what`s started to change. And that is, it used to be the case that the Republicans could say, they`re going to raise taxes, and it would cause this ripple of anxiety all across Washington and throughout much of the nation.

Not anymore. But, today, the wealth tax, a tax on families that have more than $50 million in wealth, I have proposed a 2 cent tax on their wealth, a little bit more than that if they have billions in assets. That tax is popular across this country, popular with Democrats, popular with Republicans, popular with independents.

Americans look around and they say, wait a minute, the 99 percent in this country, they paid last year about 3.2 percent of their total -- 7.2 percent of their total wealth in taxes. But that top one-tenth of 1 percent, they paid only 3.2 percent of their total wealth, less than half as much.

I think Americans have had it with the Republicans on taxes, the tax cuts that went to the billionaires, and now just understanding this system is not working. It`s a rigged system that works for those at the top.

And I think people are really ready for change. I wrote this book "Persist" because I believe it is time for change. It`s personal, but it is also about policy, about making the changes that are going to last for decades to come.

O`DONNELL: Senator Warren, there`s so much more in this book I`d like to get to, if you can stay with us over the commercial break.

WARREN: Sure.

O`DONNELL: I`d like to get into some of the more personal elements of the book.

You lost more than an election. You lost your brother to COVID. There`s a lot of personal material in this book that I`d like to turn to after this break.

We will be right back with Senator Elizabeth Warren.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I`m going to endorse -- I have endorsed Elizabeth Warren`s bankruptcy proposal, which, in fact, goes further, allows for student debt to be relieved in bankruptcy, provides for a whole range of other issues that allows us to, in fact, impact on how people are dealing with their circumstances.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: And Senator Elizabeth Warren is back with us.

Senator Warren, that was about a week after I had interviewed Joe Biden in Michigan, and he wasn`t at that point. And you tell the story in your book about getting that call from Joe Biden where he says: Hey, I want to talk to you about your bankruptcy plan.

You said, I really -- he called. He said: "I really like the bankruptcy plan. Are you OK if I pick it up?"

And so that`s one of the stories of losing in campaigns. You don`t lose everything in campaigns. Your ideas might survive.

WARREN: Right. That`s exactly right.

You know, one of the very best parts about running for president that I talk about in this is, I got to get up every day and talk about plans. I got to talk about ideas, about things I really believe in. I got to give town hall after town hall after town hall, where I started out talking about being a mother and talked about the importance of childcare in families and in our economy.

I got to talk about canceling student loan debt. And I got to talk about the wealth tax. And I got, ultimately, to put out 81 glorious, juicy, fabulous, detailed plans.

And the neat thing about plans is, they are enough detail that you can be held accountable for them. You can be told there are more that you need over here or this part over there isn`t going to work.

But one other part, they can live even after you`re not in the race. They make their way on out into the world, that another candidate can pick them up. Look, I picked up good plans from Julian Castro, asked him if I could, and he said yes.

The idea is, we can use those plans to get better, to build something. Joe Biden was willing to do that. And, as I say in the book, when he called and asked if I could do that, would I be all right, all right? I said, I`d be over the moon. Take it, use it, and let`s make it law.

O`DONNELL: You suffered a bigger loss than the campaign loss last year, when you lost your brother, your oldest brother, to COVID-19.

You talk about that in the book; 582,553 COVID deaths as of tonight in this country. And your family suffered one of those.

I want to read from this passage and the way you described something that so many people in America have gone through, that news you`re getting with the relative in the hospital who has COVID.

This is on page 89 of Elizabeth Warren`s book "Persist": "Now the news came in sharp bursts from an overworked nurse to a frightened wife to me. `He`s in trouble. He won`t make it through the night. He`s better. He ate a little bit. He`s sitting up. He`s a charmer. He`s going to pull through. He`s failing again. His fever is worse. He`s gone. Don Reed died alone, no wife, no sons, no grandchildren or brothers or sister."

Senator Warren, you shared that experience now with over a half-a-million Americans who have -- over more than half-a-million Americans have died. That leaves millions upon millions upon millions of Americans who had that experience that you had.

What does that do to you as you approach the -- as you were approaching last year watching the Trump administration handling this COVID crisis, and now seeing the Biden administration take over?

WARREN: It broke my heart, and it made me deep-down furious.

As the book also mentions, on the day my brother died, Donald Trump was talking about the inconvenience of COVID and that he couldn`t play golf, and that it was all magically somehow going to disappear, magically. He didn`t need a plan. He didn`t have to have a strategy to deal with this. He didn`t have to have an immediate urgent response while people we loved were dying.

And it made me more determined than ever, not only to see Donald Trump defeated, but also to hammer home the importance of having a government that is competent, and a government that is on the side of the people, a government that doesn`t look the other way when the people we love are in need and when they`re dying.

That`s what -- that`s what being in the Senate is about for me. But I think it`s about what -- what all of us feel. We need to take better care of each other. We need a government on our side.

And now we have got Joe Biden. And he is -- that is the difference.

He called me when my brother died. He is a man who cares and a man who is determined to run a competent government. And I am grateful for that. And I want to help him succeed.

O`DONNELL: You make it very clear what a hero your brother was to you throughout your life. And he was a career Air Force officer, pilot, and also a Republican, a FOX-watching Republican.

(LAUGHTER)

O`DONNELL: Didn`t like what he heard on there about his little sister.

But I love reading your dialogues with him in this book, because it shows us how this conversation can be had and how you personally have the conversation with a Republican who you love very dearly and disagree with.

WARREN: Yes.

O`DONNELL: If your brother were still with you, what would he -- what do you think he`d be telling you today about the way he sees Joe Biden working as president?

WARREN: He would be probably giving me most of the FOX News talking points about taxes, about spending too much money.

And then I would be saying back to him, well, but, you know, think what it`s like -- and I would name someone in our own family. Do you think she ought to be able to finish school? And how is she going to do that if she can`t get childcare? Do you think that she ought to be able to go back to work? This young couple really needs -- needs that extra paycheck.

"Well, yeah, I think it`s fine."

I know exactly how this conversation would go. It would be a mix of FOX News and reality on the ground for our family, for all the things that have happened in the past and all the things we hope for in the future.

We would still be bumping into each other. And we would still end every conversation the same way: "Love you, sis."

"Love you, too, brother."

O`DONNELL: Elizabeth Warren, the new book is "Persist." And you can read many of those kinds of conversations that she had with her big brother in this beautiful and important new book. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. We really appreciate it.

WARREN: Thank you.

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