MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Elizabeth Warren
Interview
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MADDOW: They are traps. This is the -- talk about consistency. This is the message that, for decades, has made Elizabeth Warren a fairly terrifying specter to Wall Street and to the people who benefit from how the system works now and the way the system is stacked against regular meshes. Those attacks sharpened when she decided she herself would jump into politics in 2012 when she unseated one of the coziest and best paid friends of the financial industry, Republican Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts. He was an incumbent Republican senator at the time and she beat him by eight points. Now, she just got re-elected senator in Massachusetts by 24 points and now she`s announced her exploration of a run for the White House.
Joining us now for the interview is Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts.
WARREN: Thank you. It`s good to be here.
MADDOW: Congratulations.
WARREN: Thank you.
MADDOW: Why -- a lot of people are considering running, a few people have already stuck a toe in the water. You are the first household name Democrat, the first heavyweight to announce that you are going to go ahead with this exploratory committee. Why are you going first?
WARREN: Well, look, I want to be in this fight, because this is, in my view, the fundamental question that faces our country. And it`s so -- who does Washington work for? You can see what the trap is. Why does the trap continue year after year after year?
And the answer is, because Washington is working great, fabulously, for the wealthy and the well-connected. They have bought the government they want. They have bought the rules that they want.
I think that Washington ought to work for everybody else. And I think that`s what this fight out to be about. We`re talking about a system that is fundamentally corrupt. That the money that flows through Washington is how it is, that this whole system just stays rigged. And the folks at the top are doing great, and everybody else just sliding further and further.
MADDOW: You -- I live in Massachusetts, I`m one of your constituents.
WARREN: Yes, good.
MADDOW: You were just re-elected.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: You just won in a landslide. I can see a future for you where, if you could live to be 300 years old, Massachusetts would continue electing you until you were 300.
WARREN: Thank you.
MADDOW: I could imagine you, because of what I know about Massachusetts and because of what I know about you as a politician and your beliefs and skills, that you could go back -- you could build a life long rest of your career in the Senate and become the liberal economic populist lion of the Senate, and I can imagine you doing a lot of good in that role. I don`t know if I were you why I would prefer to try to achieve those goals as president rather than trying to continue to achieve them and build on what you`ve already done in the Senate.
WARREN: So, look, this isn`t about me. This is about tens of millions of families across this country who are getting cheated, and they`re getting cheated on financial products, they`re getting cheated on prescription drugs, a Washington that works great for drug companies, not people trying to fill prescriptions.
You can just keep going through the list. It`s working great for oil companies that want to drill everywhere, not for families, who have children that want to breathe the air. This is truly about what kind of country we`re going to be.
And look, I never thought I was going to get in politics. Never in a million years. But I got in this because I believe this is the fight that we must fight. And I can`t tell others to go fight it. I have to be in there right alongside them.
We are building a movement across this country. You saw it. You saw it in 2018. Look at all the people who came off the sidelines. Look at all the people who said -- look at all the women who said, never thought I was going to be called on to do this.
But they stood up and they said, I`m part of this. This is my country, my voice will be heard. And my government will reflect my values. That`s what I believe. And I think the best place to fight that is right there from the presidency of the United States of America.
MADDOW: In terms of the Democratic Party right now, this is going to be a huge year in Democratic politics. I mean, it`s been -- it has been sort of the Trump show--
WARREN: Yes.
MADDOW: -- since the 2016 election, because it`s been honestly a bizarre spectacle to have somebody of this caliber behaving the way that he is in that office. This will be the Democratic Party show this year, and there will be incredible competition to be the candidate to take him on in 2020 and the Democrats get to show what they`re made of in terms of having control of the House.
How do you fit into this year`s Democratic Party? We`ve got this new class of house lawmakers coming in, with outspoken lefties and socialists --
WARREN: I know.
MADDOW: -- and environmentalists and feminists and all sorts of up-enders of the status quo.
WARREN: Yes.
MADDOW: I know that you`re a progressive. You voted 13 percent of the time with Donald Trump, which is one of the lowest percentages of anybody in the Senate. How do you fit in with the Democratic Party? And where do you see your party right now?
WARREN: Look, I don`t think of this so much in terms of party. I think of this as people who want to see change. And the kind of change they want to see.
This is going to be the fish or cut bait year for the Democrats. And it`s going to be how do we think government should work and who do we think government should work for?
In fact, let me give you an example of that. Just think about this upcoming Democratic primary. Is this going to be a Democratic primary that truly is a grassroots movement that is funded by the grassroots, that`s done with grassroots volunteers, or is this going to be something that`s just one more play thing that billionaires can buy?
So I think this is a moment for all of the Democratic nominees, as they come into the race, to say, in a Democratic primary, we are going to link arms, and we`re going to say grassroots funding, no to the billionaires. No to the billionaires, whether they are self-funding or whether they`re funding PACs. We are the Democratic Party, and that`s the party of the people.
That`s how we not only win elections, that`s how we build movements that make real change. And that`s what we`ve got to do. We`ve got to win, but we`ve got to produce. And that`s only going to happen if we`ve got a whole movement underway.
MADDOW: When you talk about billionaires and the Democratic primary, Tom Steyer is considering running. Michael Bloomberg is apparently considering running. Do you specifically mean that anybody who`s a billionaire should be precluded from running? Or --
WARREN: Of course not. I just mean people should not be self-funding. And they should not be funded from PACs from other billionaires. That a primary is an opportunity to hear from the grassroots, to see what you can build, to see what kind of energy is out there.
Get out there, trust your message, trust what it is that you`re fighting for. And if someone else wants to fight for something different, trust them to get out there and fight it.
And then let`s see where grassroots America is. Let`s see where people across this country say, you know what? I want to be part of this. I am in this fight all the way.
MADDOW: Senator Elizabeth Warren is our guest.
Senator, I`m not going to let you leave a good long time. Stay right there.
We`ll be right back with Senator Elizabeth Warren.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: We`re back now live with Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has announced the formation of an exploratory committee to run for president.
Senator, thank you again for being here.
WARREN: It`s good to be here.
MADDOW: In June 2016, when it was reported that you were being considered as a potential rubbing mate for Hillary Clinton --
WARREN: Uh-huh.
MADDOW: -- I asked you in an interview what I thought was the most important question for potential V.P., I asked you if you believed you were ready to be president right then, right now if it came to that. You looked me right in the eye and said one-word answer, you said "yes", without equivocation.
It made me wonder, thinking back on that today, if you`ve been planning on running yourself ever since, or if you knew then that actually you could have run in 2016, that maybe you were ready for this all along.
WARREN: Yes, it`s not a question of are you ready, it`s a question of what the country needs. At that moment, we were already down to the wire, we knew who our candidates were, and we were in the fight.
And now, we`re in a very different place. We`ve lived through two years of Donald Trump as president. And we`re to the point, we have lived through two years of one scammer and grifter after another, running federal agencies, running our federal government.
And we have lived through two more years of giant tax giveaways to the billionaires, to big corporations. And a harder and harder squeeze on working families. Student loan debt is up another $100 billion since over just the last year.
You know, it`s like the thing is tilted badly in favor of the rich and the powerful, and against everyone else. And the tilt is getting steeper and steeper, and that`s why we have to be in this fight.
MADDOW: I highlighted when I brought you on before the break, I highlighted the consistency of your message and how you were an academic expert before you were efficient a political figure. You were a policy person in Washington on that issue before you were ever an elected official campaigning on those issues.
WARREN: Long before.
MADDOW: Long before. This has been your life`s work, to undo the tilt of the system.
And yet, when people go to the ballot box, vote for the Democratic primary in 2020 and for the general election in 2020, there will be one very big thing different that was not true when you were doing that previous work, which is Donald Trump.
WARREN: Yes.
MADDOW: And is Donald Trump a qualitatively different thing that either changes your analysis or that has made you feel more urgent about these issues that you worked on? Is he just a continuation of what the other Republicans have done (ph)?
WARREN: Donald Trump is an accelerant. He takes a problem that has been growing and growing and growing, and he just sets it off and makes it worse than ever.
MADDOW: Because of corruption?
WARREN: Yes.
MADDOW: OK.
WARREN: Because of corruption. Just look at it that way. That`s what this is about. He takes this government, and he`s pretty damned open about it, and says this government works for the rich.
What was the first order of business? What did it take? First, they tried to take away health care from tens of millions of Americans, came within one vote of doing it. In fact, when it passed the House, what did they all do? They all went off and celebrated, high-fived over taking away health care.
MADDOW: Any Republican president would have done that.
WARREN: Hold them together and what was the next thing to do? And the big one that they held every single Republican together for, so it`s Republicans, was give a tax break to the rich. Give $1.5 trillion giveaway to billionaires and giant corporations.
And notice what Republicans have said, as long as he can keep delivering on those tax breaks. Yes, he kind of says some things that make us a little uncomfortable and he`s a little louder and don`t like the tweet thing and the whole foreign policy seems to be a disaster. But hey, the rich folks got $1.5 trillion.
And who is supposed to pay for that? People who get Social Security, our students who have to pay the interest rate on student loans and can`t refinance those loans. Every part of this is angled over and over to pay off the big donors, make sure they get their part, and leave everybody else behind. That`s what this is about.
MADDOW: When I look at those things, those specific things you just mentioned, repealing health care, the tax cuts, and I would also include in there, the choice of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court.
WARREN: Oh, yes.
MADDOW: Those are all things I can imagine a President Romney doing or a President Paul Ryan or a President Mitch McConnell or a President --
WARREN: In fact, didn`t soon-to-be Senator Romney just say that in an op- ed today? He said, I don`t like how he behaves, but look at all those great things he`s done.
(CROSSTALK)
WARREN: Love those taxes, love those judges.
MADDOW: But for a lot of Americans, both -- I think conservative Americans and liberal Americans, and people who don`t like to align themselves with politics at all but are worried right now, Donald Trump is not just the next Republican president, he`s a special kind of crisis. He`s a special kind of departure from what even had been Republican politics in the past.
Do you see that or do you see him just the next Republican?
WARREN: I see him as what happens when corruption invades a system, that it gets a little bit corrupt and it gets a little more corrupt and it gets a little more corrupt, and then it gets bigger and they get bolder and bolder. And then you end up with someone like Donald Trump, somebody who isn`t even coy about it.
MADDOW: OK.
WARREN: Someone whose cabinet appointees don`t know about whatever is the subject area that they`re supposed to be in charge of. Cabinet officials that get caught for just -- for trading in stocks in the areas that they are supposed to oversee. Cabinet officials who don`t even pay their taxes.
And no shame, just keep it up, because now they`re wallowing in the corruption. But the problem is a long, systemic problem.
You know, you described this as my life`s work, but it truly is my whole life`s work. I`m a kid who had a dream when I was a little tiny girl. I wanted to be a public schoolteacher. All three of my old brothers went off. They joined the military.
I just wanted to teach school. But that meant I needed a college diploma. By the time I graduated from school, no chance for something like that. My folks didn`t have the money for that.
And so, I ended up, it`s a bumpy path. I drop out of school at 19, I got married. I found a commuter college, $50 a semester. And I got a four- year diploma that I could go become a public schoolteacher on a price that I could pay for on a part-time waitressing job.
That`s how you build a middle class. That catapulted me into the middle class. I am the daughter of a man who ended up as a janitor. And I got a chance to be a public schoolteacher, a college professor, and ultimately, a senator, because America made an investment in a kid like me.
My life`s work is for every kid to have an opportunity, every kid. Right now, those opportunities are shrinking. And they`re shrinking even harder for people of color, people who have just always caught the wrong end of the stick in this country.
And this is a democracy. There`s more of us than there is of them. We get organized and we put it together and we can make real change. And for me, that`s what this is all about.
People told me we couldn`t build a consumer agency. We got organized and we made it happen. People told me I couldn`t beat a popular Republican incumbent, but we got organized and made it happen.
Shoot, people told me you couldn`t get any accountability after Wells Fargo ended up cheating millions of their own customers. But I said in an open hearing that I thought the CEO of Wells Fargo ought to lose his job, and a few weeks later, that`s what happened. You get into these fights and that`s how your win them.
MADDOW: Senator Elizabeth Warren is our guest. Stay right there. We`ll be right back with her. She`s just announced her exploratory committee for her presidential bid. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: Joining us once again is Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democratic of Massachusetts.
Senator Warren, thank you again for being here.
WARREN: Thank you.
MADDOW: Really appreciate it.
You were on the Armed Services Committee.
WARREN: Yes, I am.
MADDOW: And you are best known as somebody -- you have a very clear policy platform. You have been fighting as we`ve been talking about your whole life, your whole career for people who are regular folks who are getting screwed by the financial system.
WARREN: Yes.
MADDOW: But if you are going to be president, you`re going to be in charge of all of it. And I realized, even though I`ve interviewed you a bunch of times, I don`t know a lot about your foreign policy positions. I know that you have traveled to Afghanistan. I know that you`ve done your work as an Armed Services Committee member.
WARREN: Uh-huh.
MADDOW: I wanted to ask you about the president`s recent decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria. I know you voted against supporting Syrian rebels with arms and training.
WARREN: Yes.
MADDOW: And now that the president made this decision the way he made it, do you agree with him?
WARREN: So, I think it is right to get our troops out of Syria and let me add, I think it`s right to get our troops out of Afghanistan. I think that everybody who keeps saying, no, no, no, we can`t do that in defense establishment needs to explain what they think winning in those wars look like and where the metrics are.
We`re now 17 years in Afghanistan, and we control, what is it -- that the government controls less than 60 percent of the all the land. It doesn`t have the support of the people. The heroin trafficking is up. There are multiple groups that are terrorist groups throughout Afghanistan.
Lots of different problems in Afghanistan. And what seems to be the answer from the foreign policy establishment -- stay forever.
That is not a policy. We can`t do that.
Now, having said that, we can withdraw, you`ve got to withdraw as part of the plan. You`ve got to know what you`re trying to accomplish throughout the Middle East, and the pieces need to be coordinated. And they need to be coordinated not just in our activities, but this is why we need allies. This is why we build alliances.
MADDOW: Are you troubled by the nature of the president`s process around the Syria (ph) --
(CROSSTALK)
WARREN: Are you asking me whether or not I think foreign policy ought to be conducted by tweet? The answer is no. It should not. We actually need to plan this out and talk about it with our allies, how we ensure more safety and stability in the region.
But the idea that the way we`re going to do that is just to continue to keep troops and more troops forever and ever and ever in that part of the world is not -- it is not working. And pretending that somehow in the future it is going to work by some unmeasured version of it, it`s a form fantasy that we simply can`t afford to continue to engage in.
MADDOW: Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, as I mentioned member of the Armed Services Committee, first household name Democrat to announce that you are forming an exploratory committee for president. I think that your campaign is going to be formidable, from what we have seen already. I hope throughout the process, you will keep us apprised and keep coming back.
WARREN: Look, just go to elizabethwarren.com, and you`ll find out all about it.
MADDOW: See, I told you you`re going to be good at this.
WARREN: It`s so good to see.
MADDOW: Thank you, Senator. Thanks.
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