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

Interview

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VELSHI:  Senator Elizabeth Warren joins me now. 
 
Senator, good to see you.  Thank you for being with us. 
 
WARREN:  Good to see you.  I`m delighted to be here.
 
VELSHI:  I am always fascinated at the attention bankers get when they say things that most of us can see with our eyes, that we have income inequality and we have a bank -- you know, we have a bifurcated economy. 
 
You have a proposal as to how to deal with that or at least how to take some of that wealth and do things that would make us feel less bifurcated.  Tell us why you think that`s going to work. 
 
WARREN:  So, look, you`ve described the wealth tax.  This is the tax on the top 1/10 of 1 percent.  And here`s what we could actually do with that money.  We could actually invest it in building more opportunity for everyone else. 
 
In fact, I`ll give you an example of this that`s very personal to me.  Years ago, I had a little one at home, not yet 2 years old, and I decided I wanted to go back to school.  And, you know, that`s a good thing, right?  I managed all of it, the tuition, the application, the tests, every part of it. 
 
You know where I nearly stubbed my toe?  I came down to the last weekend before classes started trying to find childcare that was good and affordable.  So, finally, I find it, it all locks into place. 
 
Roll forward just a little bit in time, and I get my first real tenure track teaching job.  Now I`ve got two little ones under foot.  I`m working my heart out.  I`m doing everything I can. 
 
I`m excited.  I love this job.  I work myself into the dirt at night.  What`s the part that nearly knocks me over?  It`s when the babysitter quits. 
 
VELSH:  Yes. 
 
WARREN:  And then we cycle through one after another after another on childcare until finally my Aunt Bea calls me and it`s late at night.  She says, how are you doing, honey?  And I start to cry and say, I`m going to quit because I just can`t do this anymore because I can`t keep the childcare held together. 
 
Here`s the thing that I think about.  Here I am now, I ended up as a college professor, I wrote 11 books, I started an agency, I became a United States senator, and twice I nearly got completely derailed -- 
 
VELSHI:  Uh-huh, because of childcare.
 
WARREN:  -- by childcare.  How many women of my generation just got knocked off the tracks? 
 
VELSHI:  Yes.
 
WARREN:  How many of my daughter`s generation have been knocked off their tracks?  How many mamas and daddies today are getting knocked off the tracks? 
 
Understand this.  The wealthy, they buy top-notch childcare and top-notch early education.  Pre-K and pre-pre-K and play groups for 2-year-olds.  Well, you know, if we did that ultra millionaire`s wealth tax, we could then afford to provide high-quality childcare for every single child in America zero to 5, and the pre-K and the pre-pre-K early childhood education, for all of them, and still have $2 trillion left over to invest in other opportunities. 
 
VELSHI:  And that childcare is something --
 
WARREN:  That`s the real point.  We could do better. 
 
VELSHI:  It`s something that every other developed nation does better than the United States. 
 
WARREN:  Yes. 
 
VELSHI:  I want to talk to you about your plan.  You and I spoke briefly about this the other day on technology. 
 
The aforementioned Jamie Dimon also said today on CNBC that tech giants should gird themselves for the type of regulatory onslaught that the big banks experienced after the financial crisis. 
 
Quote: they haven`t had the benefit of the full monty yet, Dimon said.  If I were them, I`d be getting prepared for it.
 
There are a number of people who`ve said that your proposal for managing the way large tech companies behave is one worthy of description.  You were talking about companies largely that have more than $25 billion in revenue not being both the pipe and the stuff that goes through the pipe.  Not being both the platform and the competitor. 
 
WARREN:  Right.  That`s exactly right. 
 
So think of a company like Amazon.  You know, everybody goes to buy and sell on Amazon.  That`s the platform. 
 
And then Amazon does something really special.  They not only run the platform.  They gather information from every one of those transactions, every buyer, every seller.  And then they discover that, you know, Pete`s pet pillows is making a big profit and Amazon looks at that and says, hmm, we could do that. 
 
So what do they do?  They jump in front of Pete`s pet pillows, move Pete back to page 6 on your search, jump in and take the profits for themselves.  Now, my view on this is, you can be the umpire.  That is, you can run the platform, or you can have a team in the game.  That is, you can be one of the competitors buying and selling on that platform. 
 
But you don`t get to do both at the same time, because if you`re doing both at the same time, that`s not helping competition.  It`s wiping out competition. 
 
It`s why a lot of investors now in tech, the early investors, they refer to the zones around companies like Amazon and Google.  They call it the dead zone because it means somebody starts to grow a business in there, then Amazon, Google, Facebook just reaches out and snatches up the business.  And that`s not -- that doesn`t promote competition. 
 
So I think they ought to be broken apart.  Run that platform.  You can still go online and search for 28 coffeemakers that can be delivered in 24 hours.  But break that up from the part about running a business that competes on that platform. 
 
VELSHI:  I want to ask you about something that`s from your campaign announcement of the break-up bill.  You said: Platform utilities -- let`s call them that -- would be required to meet a standard of fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory dealing with users.  Platform utilities would not be allowed to transfer or share data with third parties.
 
This is the concern that a lot of individuals have, right?  The commoditization and the monetization of your information.  It`s probably a bigger concern -- 
 
WARREN:  Yes.
 
VELSHI:  -- than the privacy concerns we think with, which are very, very serious in and of themselves.  You`re trying to figure out a way that he can better control of or they can have less control of our data. 
 
WARREN:  That`s exactly right.  It`s about data and the uses, the unfair competitive advantage it gives them, and that we don`t want them calling the rest of the shots in the economy. 
 
And, by the way, you know, we have a long history of this in the United States.  Way back when, more than 100 years ago when we said in effect to the railroad companies -- hey, guys, you don`t get to run a railroad company and own the steel business that needs to transship their goods on the railroad.  And also, you don`t get to charge discriminatory prices, that is, prefer one seller over another seller. 
 
When you`re out there running a platform, whether it`s a railroad or it`s an online exchange, you have a duty of fair dealing to everybody who comes to buy and sell on that platform or to move goods along that platform.  The idea is in America if we really want to have markets that work they`ve got to be markets with rules -- markets without rules are theft -- and they`ve got to be markets that help competition get a chance to grow and flourish. 
 
I think of what I`m talking about is for all of the little businesses that want to grow into medium size and big businesses, for all the entrepreneurs that have a great idea and want a chance to get out there and compete.  For all of the people who really believe that markets are places where those who have good ideas get to move forward.  That`s what our antitrust laws are about.  And that`s where we need to update them. 
 
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VELSHI:  OK.  That`s just some of my conversation with Elizabeth Warren from earlier.  What she had to say about socialism, Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez, and the state of the Democratic Party is next.
 
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VELSHI:  We`re back with more of my interview with Democratic Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren where I asked her about her stance on socialism and the Democratic Party`s rising star, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
 
Time Magazine`s got Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the front cover, something that a lot of conservative news channels and websites, they`re sort of targeting the idea that she represents a socialism that they think is embracing the Democratic Party or that the Democratic Party and some candidates are embracing.
 
One of the things, the criticisms that you get is that you`re anti- capitalist.  Where do you position yourself and what do you explain to people?  Because in your years of trying to get a fair treatment of consumers, with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, somehow that put you up against the banks and that caused you to be described as anti- capitalist.
 
WARREN:  You know, it`s wrong.  What I believe is I believe in markets and I believe in what markets can produce if they have rules and a cop on the beat to enforce those rules.  So I`m glad to see people able to go out and get mortgages.
 
But we saw what happened before the crash when there were no rules and there was no cop on the beat to enforce any rules.  And that meant that the giant banks could figure out that they could make a bazillion dollars in profits basically by cheating people.  That`s not going to work.  And that`s capitalism that will destroy itself.
 
What I believe in is I believe in markets.  But you`ve got to have a cop on the beat to make sure everybody`s playing on a level playing field.  That nobody is building a business model around cheating people, around ripping them off, around tricking them, and trapping them.
 
And look, there are some places, markets just don`t work.  Public education.  You know, I`m a former school teacher.  I was a special needs teacher.  We need public education.  It`s not a place for markets.
 
Much of our health care system.  You know, somebody`s having the first signs of a heart attack, they`re not going to make five phone calls to see who can deal most effectively with a heart attack and at what price.  There are places where markets don`t work.
 
And that means we`ve got to step in and find other ways to make sure that people get what it is that they need, an education, health care.  But there are a lot of places where markets can work if they have rules.
 
And here`s the problem.  Big financial institutions, they didn`t like those rules.  They spent more than a million dollars a day lobbying against the consumer agency and other financial regulations.  Well, that`s a problem we`ve got right now.
 
Washington works great for giant companies.  It works great for the rich and the powerful.  It`s just not working for everyone else.
 
So we`ve got to get in there, we`ve got to have a government that helps us level the playing field, make sure everybody`s playing on the straight up.  And when we do that, we create more opportunity for everyone else.
 
Look, the giants may not like it.  They don`t want to turn loose of their power and their extraordinary profits that they keep sucking up.  But this is how we make our government work.  This is how we make our country work.  That`s what I think it should be all about in the U.S.
 
VELSHI:  So what do you say privately, pretend we`re not on T.V., about people who worry about the direction in which the Democratic Party may be going?  Some of the party wants candidates to be more liberal and others want the candidates to be more moderate.  What`s your take on that?
 
WARREN:  Let me give you a different way to look at it.  I want our party to be more grassroots.  I want our party to be more connected to people all across this country.
 
And I`ll tell you how I look at that.  I look at that in terms of money.  So for example, I don`t take PAC money of any kind.  I don`t take Washington lobbyist money of any kind.  And I`ve made the decision that I`m going to spend my time with grassroots all around this country trying to build a movement.
 
Now, that`s a different way to try to power a political campaign, to try to power a presidential campaign.  It means that I need help.  I`ve got to reach out to a lot of people and say please join me, come to elizabethwarren.com and kick in five bucks if you think that`s how a campaign should work.
 
Because I think as a Democratic Party, we have this extraordinary opportunity during a primary to actually make our case to people at the grassroots to engage them and to revitalize our democracy.  They shouldn`t just be about going to places where we can scoop up lots of money and then run lots of T.V. ads.
 
This should be about building the on-the-ground movement that`s going to help us win in 2020, that`s going to help us win not just the White House but Congress, the State Houses, the governor`s mansions, and that`s going to help us have the power to be able to start making real change in this country come January 2021.
 
VELSHI:  Senator Elizabeth Warren, thank you for your time tonight.
 
WARREN:  Thank you.

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