MSNBC "The Beat" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Elizabeth Warren

Interview

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O`DONNELL:  Thank you, Rachel. 
 
Well, America got the bill for the government shut down today, $11 billion.  The Congressional Budget Office estimates that that is how much the economy lost during the longest shut down in history.  The person who caused the shut down told "The Wall Street Journal" today he just might do it again.  President Trump told "The Wall Street Journal" there was what he called a 50/50 chance that he would shut down the government again on February 15th, when the government funding, the current government funding runs out. 
 
Now that the shut down is at least temporarily over, speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi invited President Trump to deliver the State of the Union Address next Tuesday evening, and the presidential campaign was officially joined this weekend by another campaigner, California Senator Kamala Harris, made it official yesterday before a crowd of over 20,000 in Oakland, California. 
 
We are joined tonight by presidential candidate and Massachusetts senator, senior senator, Elizabeth Warren. 
 
Senator, thank you very much for joining us. 
 
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS:  Thank you.  I`m delighted to be here.
 
O`DONNELL:  So, Tuesday night at 9:00 p.m., there`s a speech going on on the capitol.  Will you be there? 
 
WARREN:  You bet.  I`m going to hear it.  I think that`s my responsibility is to be there, to see it in person, straight back at that guy. 
 
O`DONNELL:  What should -- after the longest shut down in history, what should the president of the United States have to say about that in his State of the Union Address? 
 
WARREN:  Look, what he should have to say is that he`s sorry but the chances of that happening are somewhere south of zero.  I spent today with federal workers who were a combination of delighted to be back at work and really angry about how they have been treated.  I talked to one worker who said she opened up her e-mail and she had 1,200 unread e-mails.  She said I won`t be able to get all my e-mails caught up in three weeks. 
 
I talked to another federal worker who is the primary bred winner for her family.  She has three little kids, and she talked about what it meant not to get her paychecks that her work colleagues who were out of work were actually calling her and sending money over.  That she couldn`t make her rent and as she put it, her landlord was saying, look, what am I going to do?  I got to make payments on the building. 
 
It was just one tale after another of harm, and for what?  So that the president could have a big national tantrum?  This is not how we should treat federal workers and they should not be a bargaining chip in a Republican political game. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Well, he seems to have introduced the possibility that they will be a bargaining chip again on February 15th when this funding runs out.  But there were reports over the weekend that your Republican Senate colleagues sent the message to the White House.  There will be over 70 votes the next time Chuck Schumer tries to bring up that bill that Nancy Pelosi sent over.  The Republicans apparently were going to stampede in favor of it.  They were going to reopen the government if the president didn`t. 
 
WARREN:  Well, all I can say is I sure hope so, because that is our responsibility is to keep the government open and functioning, keep people who are working, paid for their work, and to keep people able to do their jobs and getting paid for that as well.  And the same for federal contractors and the same for all the people who, you know, run the food trucks and the restaurants outside where federal work is going on. 
 
It really is the case.  This is an injury.  This is -- you know, it`s the classic shooting yourself in the foot, and part of the cost, yes, it`s economic, yes, it`s what it does to federal workers, it`s also what it does to faith in government, both here at home and around the world. 
 
The whole rest of the world watched and said you can`t keep your act together any better than that, to the president of the United States of America, you can`t even keep the wheels on enough to keep this thing moving forward?  So I really hope that it`s just more bluster when he says that he may shut it down again in three weeks.  I don`t know.  But I know this, the American people, Democrats, Republicans, and independents do not want our federal workers shut out of their jobs, and they do not want to force them to show up to work and not get paid. 
 
O`DONNELL:  How much Trump wall funding are you willing to vote for in the next budget bill that comes through the Senate? 
 
WARREN:  Look, none. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Zero? 
 
WARREN:  Yes.
 
O`DONNELL:  OK.
 
WARREN:  Look, I just think the wall makes no sense at all.  It is not about border security.  I`m in favor of border security.  We can negotiate about border security. 
 
The wall is a monument to hate and division.  That`s what it`s about.  It`s a symbol.  It`s a way of trying to divide people, turn people against each other, and that`s not who we are as a country. 
 
We want security.  We can have that conversation, but not just ugliness. 
 
O`DONNELL:  The acting attorney general, Whitaker, said that the Mueller report, he used language that it could be ready soon that the investigation could be over soon.  You have a bipartisan bill now developing in the Senate with Chuck Grassley, and I think it`s Senator Blumenthal to basically make sure that the Mueller report is public. 
 
WARREN:  Yes. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Do you support that?  Do you believe that`s going to have majority support? 
 
WARREN:  Yes, look, I support it whether it has majority support, I`m not sure yet, and of course the problem always is if Mitch McConnell won`t bring it up for a vote, we can`t get it voted on.  I believe we have to protect Mueller.  I still think we should be protecting Mueller, but I absolutely think that report has got to be made public.  That`s how we`ll know what the right next steps are. 
 
O`DONNELL:  There`s an old Governor Mario Cuomo saying that you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose.  You seem to be governing or campaigning in prose also.  What Cuomo meant was the campaign is filled with general good sounding lines but not that much specific, not that much policy. 
 
You seem to be coming in policy first, front loading this campaign with policy, you were frontloading before you announced in the last six months, the latest of the Warren proposal of trying to tax wealth, not just wealth, but what we call super wealth, wealth accumulation above $50 million.  This has gotten more attention than any policy yet announced by anyone in this campaign, and a lot of it is some pretty heavy attacks on you. 
 
WARREN:  Yes. 
 
O`DONNELL:  But what is your case for this wealth tax, which is not a form of taxation the federal government has tried before. 
 
WARREN:  That`s right.  It is new, except, do keep in mind, let`s just talk a little fairness here.  Middle class America has been paying a wealth tax forever.  It`s called a property tax on their principle accumulation of wealth, which is their home. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Yes, state taxation.  They absolutely do tax wealthy. 
 
WARREN:  And all this one says is let`s do it at the federal level, and how about we`ll also tax your diamonds and your yachts and your art collection and all of those other ways that people accumulate wealth because for me, there`s a fundamental fairness question here. 
 
Think of two people, one of them inherited just gobs of everything, and enjoys it all.  The second one is a public schoolteacher, doesn`t have a penny in the bank, who`s just made it through college.  Let`s just say both of them earn $50,000 a year in their respective work.  They would pay exactly the same in taxes even though their economic circumstances are widely different. 
 
And in fact, the fact that we don`t tax wealth is one more way in which the system has been rigged by the rich and powerful for the rich and powerful, so here`s what we know projected this year is the tippy top, the 1/10 of 1 percent will pay in total taxes about 3.2 percent of their total wealth.  That`s the whole thing all in.  The 99 percent will pay more than double that, about 7.2 percent of their total wealth. 
 
So part of what this is about is just to say the playing field looks like this.  Could we just make it look a little bit more like this?  Could we just level the playing field a little bit and then here`s the key part.  This would produce revenue about 2 ¾ trillion dollars over the next ten years. 
 
How about we invest that in child care so that hardworking families get some relief?  How about we invest that in reducing the student loan debt burden so young people who are trying to get a start in life, who want to do start-ups and want to try to buy homes and can`t do it because of student loans get some relief?  How about we invest that in a green new deal, to help protect this planet?  How about we invest it in the things that help us build a future?
 
That`s good for our economy, and that`s what the wealth tax is all about. 
 
O`DONNELL:  It`s being challenged on enforceability which I have to say when I was staff director of the Senate Finance Committee, that`s one of the first ways I looked at tax policy, can you enforce, whether you think it`s a good idea or not. 
 
So, you mentioned someone`s collection of diamonds or art or other things that can be worth we know hundreds of millions of dollars.  What would you
* what would you propose as an enforceability for putting a value on someone`s art collection or whatever it is that you subject this tax to? 
 
WARREN:  So do keep in mind, we do this anyway when the ultra wealthy die, so it`s not like we don`t know how to value this stuff.  We value this stuff all the time.  And frankly, they value it for purposes of insurance, sometimes using it as collateral, people do valuations, the key parts to this proposal says no matter where the property is held, so moving it to Switzerland is not going to change whether or not you`re subject to. 
 
And in fact, that`s an interesting part of how the law is changing around the world, so we`re getting many more reciprocal tax agreements where wealth is located and reports so it`s much more visible.  The second part about the proposal is built right into the proposal, is much higher auditing so that the ultra wealthy. 
 
O`DONNELL:  You need more IRS personnel. 
 
WARREN:  That`s right.  W need them generally, but the ultra wealthy on this tax, remember, this is the 75,000 richest families in America, for those folks, there`s going to be a stepped up audit procedure.  You keep checking it on a regular basis.  You have this much last year and you don`t have this much this year.  What happened?  But remember on this, yes, it`s going to take a little paperwork, it`s going to take getting people to do the valuations. 
 
But at the end of the day, it`s about saying we`ve got to be more equitable in the distribution of what it takes to run this country and how this country builds opportunity and I`ll throw in one more, about how we think about democracy.  You know, part of what I keep talking about a lot is Washington works great if you`re rich.  Look at the tax code.  Washington works great if you already can hire an army of lobbyists and an army of lawyers and an army of bought and paid for experts, it`s just not working for anyone else.  We can`t give up on that. 
 
We`ve got to say we`re willing to say that those who have the most got to pay, 2 percent a year more so that we can take some of that wealth and build opportunity for the rest of our kids.  You said, I talk a lot as a wonk, and you`re right.  I totally get it.  But understand, this is about big structural change and it comes out of an understanding. 
 
My daddy ended up as a janitor, but his daughter got a chance to become a public schoolteacher, a college professor and a United States senator.  Because of investments that taxpayers made.  I got to go to a college that cost $50 a semester because of the investments that taxpayers made.  That`s what created opportunity in this country. 
 
Today, those opportunities are shrinking up.  The road is getting rockier for hard working families and, for people of color, the road is rockier than ever.  That`s not -- it`s not right, and it`s not sustainable, but here`s the best part, in a democracy, we build a movement, we make the change.  We`re the ones who can make this government work again for the people. 
 
O`DONNELL:  There`s a lot of criticism of this coming from the right and coming from Rupert Murdoch`s own "Wall Street Journal."  That`s respectable and we`re going to have plenty of time to discuss that.  That`s going to follow you throughout the campaign. 
 
The first criticism I would like you to consider is coming from a synthetic critic who appreciates what you`re after, a "Washington Post" editorial saying why not tax the income on the wealth, which is something we already know how to do, why not tax the income on the wealth and make it a higher tax, whatever that is, instead of trying to go into this evaluation game on the wealth which we`re not sure we know how to do? 
 
WARREN:  Because then you just get people to distort over to things that don`t produce income.  Diamonds don`t produce income.  Art work doesn`t produce.  A yacht with an IMAX theater does not produce income. 
 
And the distortions are not what we`re looking for.  Tax planning is not what we`re looking for.  And besides, this really is about rigging the game.  This really is about the fact that wealth has so, so shifted in this country.  That top 1/10 of 1 percent that would be subject to this tax, they now own about the same wealth as 90 percent of America. 
 
And the way that happened is not just they worked harder or they got luckier, it`s that they kept for 30 years now going to Washington saying could you just change the rules just a little bit for us, just give it a little, and they come back the next year and say couldn`t you just, right over here, could you just, and then maybe just a little bit more and a little bit more.  Until the wealth just kept flowing in their direction. 
 
A wealth tax stops and acknowledges that, and says you guys scooped up all the wealth and scooped up all the opportunity.  You got to put a little bit back in the kitty for everybody else so that their kids get a chance too. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Senator Elizabeth Warren, I could go on and on.  This is the Senate Finance Committee hearing that I always wanted to have and we never did.  Thank you for starting this debate.  We`re going to be covering it for quite a while and please come back and join us again.  We appreciate it. 
 
WARREN:  I will.  Thank you so much for having me. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Really appreciate it. 

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