March 26, 2025 • 29 mins
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, talks to Bloomberg's David Gura about a journalist being added to a Signal app chat with top US leaders, DOGE and Elon Musk, President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission and the top priorities for Democrats. They speak in Washington.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I wanted to ask you, first of all about what
we've been learning about. The editor of The Atlantic found
himself in a chat with some of the most senior
members of President Trump's administration national security staff, and by
virtue of that was privy to plans for an attack
in great detail.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Your reaction to it. You sitt on the Senate Armed
Services Committee.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So let me just start with if Pete Hegseth had
a shred of self respect and decency, he would resign.
That's what leadership is about. And instead Pete Hegseth thinks
it's all about I'll point at somebody else and minimize
the problem and sweep it under the rug and deflect.
(00:49):
You know, I want to be a leader of the
finest armed forces in the world and step up and
take some responsibility.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Should he be fired, you talk about it. If you
won't quit, then he.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Should be fired because he has put our national security
at risk. That's part one. Part two is you realize
a bunch of this is potentially certainly breaking the law. So,
for example, because of the Freedom of Information Act, there
are laws that require that people in the administration all
(01:23):
of them have to preserve the records of their texting
back and forth. I know this from the days when
I served in the administration and we were carefully cautioned
about the importance of preserving records. Signal, as you know,
disappears those records. And I will say on this when
I read how casually they just formed this chat. Notice
(01:48):
that's how you refer to it to discuss the national
security issues and the bombing of another country. How many
other times so are they using signal and what are
they using it for? So this is a moment. We
need some of those congressional investigations. We need a hearing
(02:11):
in the Senate, we need a hearing in the House.
I remember all of the hearings before when there was
a question about Hillary Clinton's emails. I want to run
the tape on how many Republicans talked about the importance
of accountability and getting to the bottom of this. Where
are they right now? I'm ready for those hearings, and
(02:32):
the FBI needs to step up.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
This was a chat that was organized by Mike Waltz,
the president national security advisor, and he addressed this in
an interview on Fox News.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Here's what he said. We made a mistake. We're moving forward.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I noted that Biden large the response for the administration
has been there wasn't classified information here, And as a
result of that, the Atlantic release screenshots of a lot
of these conversations. We learned that there was information about
planes timing of this attack. You talk about the need
for hearings. Are you optimistic that that's going to happen
and that you're going to.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Get to the bottom of what was in fact discussed
on that chat.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
So I think this is a question fundamentally about where
is power in this country. I get it elections, we
pick a president. President picks a team, and that's where
power resigns in terms of the execution day to day
of various policies. But ultimately it's people across this country.
(03:25):
And when people across this country said, wait a minute,
the Secretary of Defense, I mean this is this is
not some random guy off the streets who stumbled across
some secret information and kind of didn't know how to
handle it. This is the Secretary of Defense. And the
Secretary of Defense went right along with exchanging this information
(03:46):
in a place that is not secure. Again, I just
got to stress over here, we want to look at
any secret information, any confidential and information, any classified information,
you got to go do onto a secure location to
do it. You physically have to go, and you have
to hand over your phone. By the way, somebody stands
(04:07):
at the door and says, do you have any electronic
devices on? And you've got to say no, I don't
before you're allowed to go. Pencil and paper. Is how
high tech they get because of the importance of protecting
candid conversations that need to occur, and those candid conversations
need to be shielded from the rest of the world.
(04:33):
When the White House wants to say nothing to see here,
just flip it the other direction and ask yourself if
the Atlantic had called the White House and said, let
me show you what we've got in advance of the bombing,
you guys, okay, if we put it up on our website,
how many heart attacks would there have been over at
(04:56):
the White House saying no, no, no, no, no, you
can't do that. Well, if it wouldn't have been okay
for the Atlantic to publish all of that in advance,
you gotta worry it's not published on a website. But
I don't know who's listening on signal, the Chinese, the
North Koreans, the Russians, some other bad actors out there.
(05:19):
It is important that we follow through as a nation
and say, look, you put our whole country at risk,
our allies. I'm getting asked in the hallways by foreign reporters,
can we actually trust the United States of America if
we tell secrets and they're going to end up on
some signal chat with the Secretary of Defense. So there
(05:40):
needs to be an investigation, but there needs to be
some accountability, and the accountability should start right now. Hegsas
should resign, and if you won't do that, then Trump
should fire them. He knows how to say you're fired.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I want to ask you at the moment that we're in,
this is your part of that moment. We're two months
into this administration's tenure. How are you thinking about the
role of the Democratic Party in this moment?
Speaker 3 (06:01):
And just it's gravity overall for the country itself.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
So let's set the table for this moment. Donald Trump
ran for office saying over and over and over and
over and over, I will lower costs on day one.
Those are his words, not mine. I have a lower
costs on day one. He said that to millions and
millions of people, and right after he got elected, he
was interviewed his very first interview, he said that's how
(06:26):
I got elected, was saying I'm going to lower costs
Onnday one. So here we are two months in. He
has done nothing to lower costs. I mean no, all
that's happening is we're watching places where costs are going up, up, up.
But he and his co president Elon Musk, have been
(06:47):
out there with a chainsaw moving through government, trying to
fire the financial cops, for example, by trying to shut
down the Consumer Financial protect Bureau, laying off tens of
thousands of federal workers who kind of do the job
(07:07):
of Social Security making sure people get their Social Security
checks each month, ending contracts for medical research. So there's this,
and playing red light green light with tariffs, right, yes
there's a tariff, No, there's not a tariff, right, playing
that game. So it's important to remember we're in a
(07:29):
system right now that is deeply chaotic. I think of
that like a sand storm. You know, the sand is
blowing everywhere. I have. The job at the Democratic Party
right now is to say there's a lot going on.
We are in the fight. We are in the fight
to save social security. We are in these fights, but
(07:49):
to pull back and to look at the bigger picture.
The media will do the day by day fights, but
our job is to pull back and the bigger picture
is that other promise that Donald Trump made when he
was running for president. Remember to millions of people, he said,
I will cut your costs. On day one. To a
handful of what he called his richest held donors, he said,
(08:13):
I'm going to give you tax breaks like you've never
seen before. So right now, Trump, the Republicans, and the
billionaires are working together to move forward on a tax
giveaway of about four point seven billion dollars, mostly sucked
(08:34):
up by billionaires billionaire corporations and then paid for on
the backs of elderly people in nursing homes who will
lose federal support. Your neighbor down the street who has
a disability and needs a home health aid paid for
by the federal government. Kids in public school who need help,
(08:57):
and those public schools need help cutting scientific research and
medical research. And that sets up what this fight is
all about. Are we going to be a nation that
hands over four point seven trillion dollars in giveaways to
a handful of billionaires and makes everybody else pay for it.
(09:19):
Are we going to be a nation that says no
to tax cuts for those guys and says we're going
to invest in America where everybody gets an opportunity.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
The leader of Democrats and the Senate, Chuck Schumer, has
a book out, so he's been talking a lot in
Something he's brought up over and over again is he
doesn't think that we're at a constitutional crisis yet. I
wonder if you agree with him in that regard, and
if so, what is the threshold when we would be
phasing one?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
So I have to say, before we got here in
the last two months, I would have described a constitutional
crisis is like a light switch. You're not in one,
you're not in one, You're not in one of them,
all of a sudden you are in one. I've come
to think of that that differently. When you've got a
president just right out of the chalks says, yeah, I
(10:05):
know the Constitution says earthright citizenship, but constitutions constitution, I
don't have to pay attention to that. When you've got
a president that has a co president who poses with
a chainsaw and has a job in government, doesn't have
a job in government, fires people illegally, tries to shut
(10:27):
down agencies, illegally, cuts off contracts illegally. In other words,
shows a hostility to the law. That's deeply worrisome. So
I worry that we move increasingly toward an administration that's
(10:50):
not just saying I'm going to be a more robust president.
And I get it. Presidents look at this differently, some
a little stronger, some a little weaker. But a president
that says there are no constraints on me, and that
takes me back to constitutional law one oh one. Legislature
writes those laws. That's our part. Congress, the administration, President
(11:13):
and those who work in the administration administer those laws.
And the courts have the responsibility if the administration steps
out of line to say you violated the law. We
keep all three parts in balance. And I'm watching Donald
Trump and Elon Musk say no, there are not three
(11:36):
equal branches of government. It's just one that smells a
lot like a constitutional crisis.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
We've just been through a moment when Republicans wrote a
continuing resolution and Chuck Schumer said the Democrats had supported
he did. You did not, I should say, you did
a town hall in Lowell, Massachusetts. WBR was there and
recorded it, and I got tape of what you said.
I think Chuck Schumer is wrong. You didn't linger on that,
and I wonder if you might hear, just for a moment,
(12:07):
was he wrong about the political calculation? Spell out for
me what you disagreed about that he did.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
In particular, I.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Think there's a moment when his stand and fight, and
for me, that moment came with a continuing resolution.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
It was a squaded opportunity to do so.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
It's more than that. Understand, Let's go back to what
we're talking. What is the big fight right now? The
big fight is going to be whether or not the
billionaires and Donald Trump and Elon Musk are just going
to take over our country and run it to suit themselves,
make everybody else pay for it. That's what the budget
is all about. We do a lot of other things
(12:42):
in Washington, but you want to know our values. Take
a look at the budget, and so the question becomes,
in this fight, we got to stop and draw the
line and say it's time. It's time for us to
fight back. It's time to call on people of the
United States, because that whole constitutional structure that I was
(13:03):
talking about, the three parts of government, all rest ultimately
on the people, and it is time to have that fight.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Did it cause you to reevaluate your faith and confidence
in Senator Schumer is a leader of Democrats in the Senate.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I want to be clear, we are heading into a
fight where we need every single Democrat pointed the same way.
We may still be bumping around on exactly what the
timing is going to be on that fight, exactly where
the trigger point is going to be, but there is
no doubt in the United States Senate, the forty seven
(13:40):
of us are locked arms and moving in the same direction.
And the same is true over in the House. This
fight is on top of us. We cannot avoid this
fight because Donald Trump and Elon Musk, truly they want
to take this country over for just a handful of people,
(14:00):
and they want even more wealth and more power to
go to them. Well, everybody else has to pay for it.
That is the fight.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Last question on this subject, sure, what is your role
as you see it in that fight? You write a
lot of letters to administration officials, you speak out quite
a bit, You are somebod I think identifiable with this
oversight fight and struggle with the administration. How do you
see your role in the Democratic Party broadly today?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
But I look at what are the tools in my toolbox.
I'll use every one of them that I possibly can.
Oversight is a big part. This is part of your
job when you're a senator, and that is to look
at the agencies, to ask questions of these nominees, to
get them on the record, to press them, to ask
(14:47):
for investigations. This is why we need inspectors General. This
is why we need an active GAO. This is why
we need an FBI that is still functional. It's partly
just to say we already have laws, and for the
damn laws, make sure that people are doing that. That's
part of my job. Part of my job is to
be in the fight to give it everything I've got because,
(15:09):
as I said, ultimately it's going to be about people
across this country saying, look, I don't want in America
where it's all about a handful of billionaires. I want
in America where we actually do invest in medical research.
I want in America where actually every kid has an
opportunity to go to public school, even kids who have
(15:32):
special need to hear me talking as a special needs teacher.
I want in America where we're making investments in our
best resource, and that is our people.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Talking to a former law professor. So Article two, Section two,
Power of advice and consent. By virtue of the committees
that you sit on Armed Services, Finance, Banking, you have
had the ability to question a lot of these higher
profile nominees. Coming up is the presence picked ahead the
securious Exchange Commissions. And you've written a memo thirty four
pages in length. It starts with the congressions.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
That average for me.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
You say, he has extensive experience in financial services and
capital markets.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
But I have concerns.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
About your record if you tick through what he's done
as an SEC staffer and commissioner, and the work that
he's done since in the private sector as a consultant.
He did work on behalf of FTX, the fraudulent and
failed crypto conglomerate that Sam Bankman freed started. You point
out things he said about crypto and climate regulations. Given
all of that, is there anything that he could say
(16:32):
to earn your vote and committee?
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So let me back up just a little bit. Think
about the job that he's being interned top cop on
Wall Street, top cop on Wall Street, and cop in
two meanings of that word. One is you've got to
catch the fraudsters. You've got to make sure everybody's dotting
their eyes and crossing their teas, because there's a lot
of value in having that stock market be an honest
(16:57):
and level playing field. The other way in which top cop,
it's to watch for risk building up in the system.
It's to make sure that the regulations that are in
place are appropriately calibrated to deal with those risks and
beat those risks out of the system. Paul Atkins actually
(17:18):
has a track record on exactly that issue because he
served as a commissioner in the SEC from two thousand
and one to two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
You remember what you actual crisis.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yes, so here we are in lead up to the
financial crisis, and over and over again, what does Paul
Atkins vote for loosen the regulations?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
What does his nomination say to you about the regulatory
framework this administration?
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Once, oh, I think this is entirely in keeping with
what Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to see us do,
and that is loosen regulations. Loosen regulations. Loosen regulations, that
is what Paul Atkins did. They also said repeatedly that
no regulations just get in the way. Everybody needs to
do whatever they want. Those big Wall Street giants. We
(18:08):
saw the crash in two thousand and eight, and here's
what happens next. After the crash, he has the chance
to have a little twenty twenty hindsight. He has twenty
zero hindsight. He looks back and says, no problem with
having let those giant Wall Street banks run wild, and
the fact that the American taxpayer had to bail them
(18:29):
out not a problem. That's my concern. If someone has
demonstrated such poor judgment, you've got to be really worried
about putting them in a job where the failure to
have good judgment could be like it was back then. Remember,
ten million families lost their homes, millions more people lost
(18:53):
their jobs. We watched Wall Street do a real tank then.
And here's the thing about Paul Atkins. We have both
his demonstrated experience, but also look at his experience overall.
So his time in government is a real problem. But
now he's someone who has built a very lucrative business
(19:18):
with Potomac Partners. He charges evidently upwards of twelve hundred
dollars an hour to give advice, and he says, well,
I'm going to divest this interest, but he doesn't want
to tell us who he's divesting too, who's buying, and
for what purposes? And what are the long term plans?
(19:41):
Because here's the deal. SEC chairmanship doesn't last forever, right,
two years, four years, maybe longer? My concern is, And
so what happens on the other end. Does he just
come right back out and instead of charging twelve hundred
dollars now it's now twenty four hundred dollars an hour?
(20:03):
But it's who do you work for? And why that
matters is it has an effect on the time you
sit as chairman of the SEC. So there he is
making decisions, and I look at someone like Paul Atkins.
How much time has he spent with families that are
(20:23):
working three jobs to try to make it to the
end of the month. How much time has he spent
with any of those ten million people who lost their
homes in the last crash? And how much time has
he spent with this handful of billionaires who really, at
least in the short run love these deregulated markets and
taxpayer bailouts, and how much when he makes a decision
(20:46):
is he thinking about the guy working three jobs? And
how much is he thinking about his future clients whom
he could please? Wileys of the SEC. So those are
the problems for me.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Something about which I know you're passionate is the independence
of these regulatory Oh yes, you look at the SEC today.
There are two Republicans on that commission, one Democrat whose
term will be up soon. There's been no indication the
present's going to put forward another Democratic nominee. I look
at the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, and the two
Democratic members were removed by this administration.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
They're fighting to get back in those positions.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
What is the practical implication of that, not having five
members in place, not having the kind of imagine ideological
political diversity you would have under normal circumstances.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Right. I'm glad you asked that, because it's a reminder
that when those agencies were designed FTC, of course the oldest,
the SEC, during the Great Depression, they were made bipartisan
from the beginning, in an understanding that, yeah, it's going
to move a little there's going to be a little shift,
(21:53):
but we need buy in across the political spectrum, and
we need the stability all the way through the entire system.
I think of it this way, even for companies that
are saying, let's de regulate, you know, turn us loose,
let us do whatever we want. At the end of
the day, yeah, let me feel good. In the short term,
(22:14):
you may be able to figure out how to cut
a corner here and make a little more money. But understand,
the reason our stock market is so valuable is in
part because it has level, transparent rules that are strictly enforced.
And you start to weaken that and in the short
(22:36):
run you may make a profit and that guy over there,
but how many other people say, you know what, I
don't think that's where I want to invest my money.
I think I'm just going to slow down on how
much of my wealth, my energy, my time, my talent
I put in there. We have built a legal structure
(22:57):
that in many ways is the envy of the world.
There's a reason investment comes into the United States, and
it's because you count on those structures independent of where
they've got a Democrat or a Republican in the White House,
the structures work when Donald Trump and Elon Musk come
in and don't just say, you know, let's give a
(23:19):
little different emphasis. But they want a chainsaw. They want
to just get rid of everyone who doesn't follow their
deregulatory agenda. They're boost the billionaire agenda. That's going to
cost everybody in this country.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Want to stick with the FTC and what happened there,
because we've heard from the FED chairman with whom you've
had your sheriff disagreements, I should say over policy and
I ticket hearings.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
He's not over his independence, not over.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
His independence, and that's where I want to go.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Should he be worried as he watches what happened at
the FTC about his and his colleagues ability to keep
their positions in the Federal Reserve?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I want to say, no, he shouldn't be worried because
I stand staunchly behind the independence of the FED, But
damn I stand staunchly behind the independence of the FTC
and behind the independence of the SEC within their statutory neighborhoods.
But that's the question. If Donald Trump can just start
(24:17):
getting rid of everyone who disagrees with him anywhere in government,
for me, it started actually with the inspectors General. If
he can just fire those inspectors General, even though the
statutes say that they have job protection and can only
be fired for cause, If he can just mow through
every civil servant, if he can just mow through the
(24:40):
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, it's a form of lawlessness and
all the power belongs to the king that it suggests
nobody is safe, not even the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I want to guess that the person you'd most like
to have in a seat in front of you in
a hearing room is Elon Musk, of course, not a
cabinet appointee.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
In fact, what is he? Can you just tell me?
I recurt here it documents, and I hear that he's nothing.
He's just the guy who stands her in the White House.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
But it gets to this issue of who does hold
him to account? And in your capacity as senior center
from Massachusetts, ranking member of the banking how do you
get answers from somebody who again has no official position,
traditional official position, but is doing so much to reshape
the bureaucratic landscape, the regulatory landscape, in fact, the whole government.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, so let me do two parts here. The first
one is, I want to remind you after Donald Trump
was elected, one of the very first letters I wrote
was to Elon Musk and I said, I've read the declaration.
You want to cut two trillion dollars from the budget,
which he then trimmed down to a trillion, which he
(25:52):
then trimmed down to half trillion. I said, don't give up,
don't give up. You can cut two trillion dollars in
waste and fat out of the And here's a list
of thirty things that I've been working on for a
long time here in Congress that I've seen kind of
an insider's view on some of this, places where we
could make cuts that would make our government actually more efficient,
(26:15):
that would make our government work better. You want to
go to work, I'm ready. I'm ready. And you don't
have to promise to do all thirty just pick any
of them. This is a menu, Just take whatever you
like on this no answer. And instead he goes out
and just starts firing people. And now this moves into
the second part of the answer. He does things that
(26:36):
are illegal, and there's just not much doubt about this.
He fires people who under law have certain job protections,
can only be fired in certain ways. He goes out
there and cancels contracts government contracts that can only be
canceled by a federal contracting official. I mean, look at
the laws, just boring old laws about this stuff. So
(27:00):
what we have is a lawlessness that has been set
through our entire government. And this is a threat to democracy.
It is also a threat to our economy. You can't
build a strong and stable economy in the middle of this.
(27:23):
It is also a threat, damn it, to good government.
I go back to my list. There are things I
really wanted to cut toa something else I want to do.
I think we ought to have simpler regulations. I'm not
a no regulations gal, but I am definitely there are
a lot of places we should simplify our regulations, make
them clearer, easier to understand. There are things we could
(27:46):
do to run this government better. And in that sense,
I want to cheer when someone says I want to
be a reformer, but you got to be a reformer
within the law that is possible. Right now, Republicans are
inc of the House, the Senate, of the White House.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
You guys want to.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Do reform pass some damn laws, but do not set
Elon Musk to take a chainsaw of cancer research in
America and put old people out of the nursing homes
that they're in. That is not how America builds a future,
and frankly, that is not the kind of people we
(28:23):
want to be.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Last question here, we've talked about the three branches of government.
Let me ask you about the judicial one in particular,
drawing from your experience again as a professor of law,
are you confident that the courts will be able to
keep up with all of the challenges that we've seen here?
There has been this flurry, the sandstorm, as you described it.
Can the courts keep up?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
It's tough. Look, we're at over one hundred lawsuits. I
no longer can keep the number in my head because
it keeps shifting up. But the judges by and large
have stepped up. Courts are designed to go slowly right,
and Elon Musk is fast. Right. You can break laws
(29:02):
a lot faster than you can actually hold people accountable
for that. But at the end of the day, the
three parts of government. Congress writes those laws, the administration
administers those laws. We count on the courts to hold
the first two to their roles. I think the judges
(29:24):
are stepping up, so I say this half out of
hope but half out of conviction. I still believe in
the Constitution of the United States. I think most judges do,
and I think they're going to hold
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Speaker 2 (00:07):
I wanted to ask you, first of all about what
we've been learning about. The editor of The Atlantic found
himself in a chat with some of the most senior
members of President Trump's administration national security staff, and by
virtue of that was privy to plans for an attack
in great detail.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Your reaction to it. You sitt on the Senate Armed
Services Committee.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So let me just start with if Pete Hegseth had
a shred of self respect and decency, he would resign.
That's what leadership is about. And instead Pete Hegseth thinks
it's all about I'll point at somebody else and minimize
the problem and sweep it under the rug and deflect.
(00:49):
You know, I want to be a leader of the
finest armed forces in the world and step up and
take some responsibility.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Should he be fired, you talk about it. If you
won't quit, then he.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Should be fired because he has put our national security
at risk. That's part one. Part two is you realize
a bunch of this is potentially certainly breaking the law. So,
for example, because of the Freedom of Information Act, there
are laws that require that people in the administration all
(01:23):
of them have to preserve the records of their texting
back and forth. I know this from the days when
I served in the administration and we were carefully cautioned
about the importance of preserving records. Signal, as you know,
disappears those records. And I will say on this when
I read how casually they just formed this chat. Notice
(01:48):
that's how you refer to it to discuss the national
security issues and the bombing of another country. How many
other times so are they using signal and what are
they using it for? So this is a moment. We
need some of those congressional investigations. We need a hearing
(02:11):
in the Senate, we need a hearing in the House.
I remember all of the hearings before when there was
a question about Hillary Clinton's emails. I want to run
the tape on how many Republicans talked about the importance
of accountability and getting to the bottom of this. Where
are they right now? I'm ready for those hearings, and
(02:32):
the FBI needs to step up.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
This was a chat that was organized by Mike Waltz,
the president national security advisor, and he addressed this in
an interview on Fox News.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Here's what he said. We made a mistake. We're moving forward.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I noted that Biden large the response for the administration
has been there wasn't classified information here, And as a
result of that, the Atlantic release screenshots of a lot
of these conversations. We learned that there was information about
planes timing of this attack. You talk about the need
for hearings. Are you optimistic that that's going to happen
and that you're going to.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Get to the bottom of what was in fact discussed
on that chat.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
So I think this is a question fundamentally about where
is power in this country. I get it elections, we
pick a president. President picks a team, and that's where
power resigns in terms of the execution day to day
of various policies. But ultimately it's people across this country.
(03:25):
And when people across this country said, wait a minute,
the Secretary of Defense, I mean this is this is
not some random guy off the streets who stumbled across
some secret information and kind of didn't know how to
handle it. This is the Secretary of Defense. And the
Secretary of Defense went right along with exchanging this information
(03:46):
in a place that is not secure. Again, I just
got to stress over here, we want to look at
any secret information, any confidential and information, any classified information,
you got to go do onto a secure location to
do it. You physically have to go, and you have
to hand over your phone. By the way, somebody stands
(04:07):
at the door and says, do you have any electronic
devices on? And you've got to say no, I don't
before you're allowed to go. Pencil and paper. Is how
high tech they get because of the importance of protecting
candid conversations that need to occur, and those candid conversations
need to be shielded from the rest of the world.
(04:33):
When the White House wants to say nothing to see here,
just flip it the other direction and ask yourself if
the Atlantic had called the White House and said, let
me show you what we've got in advance of the bombing,
you guys, okay, if we put it up on our website,
how many heart attacks would there have been over at
(04:56):
the White House saying no, no, no, no, no, you
can't do that. Well, if it wouldn't have been okay
for the Atlantic to publish all of that in advance,
you gotta worry it's not published on a website. But
I don't know who's listening on signal, the Chinese, the
North Koreans, the Russians, some other bad actors out there.
(05:19):
It is important that we follow through as a nation
and say, look, you put our whole country at risk,
our allies. I'm getting asked in the hallways by foreign reporters,
can we actually trust the United States of America if
we tell secrets and they're going to end up on
some signal chat with the Secretary of Defense. So there
(05:40):
needs to be an investigation, but there needs to be
some accountability, and the accountability should start right now. Hegsas
should resign, and if you won't do that, then Trump
should fire them. He knows how to say you're fired.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I want to ask you at the moment that we're in,
this is your part of that moment. We're two months
into this administration's tenure. How are you thinking about the
role of the Democratic Party in this moment?
Speaker 3 (06:01):
And just it's gravity overall for the country itself.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
So let's set the table for this moment. Donald Trump
ran for office saying over and over and over and
over and over, I will lower costs on day one.
Those are his words, not mine. I have a lower
costs on day one. He said that to millions and
millions of people, and right after he got elected, he
was interviewed his very first interview, he said that's how
(06:26):
I got elected, was saying I'm going to lower costs
Onnday one. So here we are two months in. He
has done nothing to lower costs. I mean no, all
that's happening is we're watching places where costs are going up, up, up.
But he and his co president Elon Musk, have been
(06:47):
out there with a chainsaw moving through government, trying to
fire the financial cops, for example, by trying to shut
down the Consumer Financial protect Bureau, laying off tens of
thousands of federal workers who kind of do the job
(07:07):
of Social Security making sure people get their Social Security
checks each month, ending contracts for medical research. So there's this,
and playing red light green light with tariffs, right, yes
there's a tariff, No, there's not a tariff, right, playing
that game. So it's important to remember we're in a
(07:29):
system right now that is deeply chaotic. I think of
that like a sand storm. You know, the sand is
blowing everywhere. I have. The job at the Democratic Party
right now is to say there's a lot going on.
We are in the fight. We are in the fight
to save social security. We are in these fights, but
(07:49):
to pull back and to look at the bigger picture.
The media will do the day by day fights, but
our job is to pull back and the bigger picture
is that other promise that Donald Trump made when he
was running for president. Remember to millions of people, he said,
I will cut your costs. On day one. To a
handful of what he called his richest held donors, he said,
(08:13):
I'm going to give you tax breaks like you've never
seen before. So right now, Trump, the Republicans, and the
billionaires are working together to move forward on a tax
giveaway of about four point seven billion dollars, mostly sucked
(08:34):
up by billionaires billionaire corporations and then paid for on
the backs of elderly people in nursing homes who will
lose federal support. Your neighbor down the street who has
a disability and needs a home health aid paid for
by the federal government. Kids in public school who need help,
(08:57):
and those public schools need help cutting scientific research and
medical research. And that sets up what this fight is
all about. Are we going to be a nation that
hands over four point seven trillion dollars in giveaways to
a handful of billionaires and makes everybody else pay for it.
(09:19):
Are we going to be a nation that says no
to tax cuts for those guys and says we're going
to invest in America where everybody gets an opportunity.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
The leader of Democrats and the Senate, Chuck Schumer, has
a book out, so he's been talking a lot in
Something he's brought up over and over again is he
doesn't think that we're at a constitutional crisis yet. I
wonder if you agree with him in that regard, and
if so, what is the threshold when we would be
phasing one?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
So I have to say, before we got here in
the last two months, I would have described a constitutional
crisis is like a light switch. You're not in one,
you're not in one, You're not in one of them,
all of a sudden you are in one. I've come
to think of that that differently. When you've got a
president just right out of the chalks says, yeah, I
(10:05):
know the Constitution says earthright citizenship, but constitutions constitution, I
don't have to pay attention to that. When you've got
a president that has a co president who poses with
a chainsaw and has a job in government, doesn't have
a job in government, fires people illegally, tries to shut
(10:27):
down agencies, illegally, cuts off contracts illegally. In other words,
shows a hostility to the law. That's deeply worrisome. So
I worry that we move increasingly toward an administration that's
(10:50):
not just saying I'm going to be a more robust president.
And I get it. Presidents look at this differently, some
a little stronger, some a little weaker. But a president
that says there are no constraints on me, and that
takes me back to constitutional law one oh one. Legislature
writes those laws. That's our part. Congress, the administration, President
(11:13):
and those who work in the administration administer those laws.
And the courts have the responsibility if the administration steps
out of line to say you violated the law. We
keep all three parts in balance. And I'm watching Donald
Trump and Elon Musk say no, there are not three
(11:36):
equal branches of government. It's just one that smells a
lot like a constitutional crisis.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
We've just been through a moment when Republicans wrote a
continuing resolution and Chuck Schumer said the Democrats had supported
he did. You did not, I should say, you did
a town hall in Lowell, Massachusetts. WBR was there and
recorded it, and I got tape of what you said.
I think Chuck Schumer is wrong. You didn't linger on that,
and I wonder if you might hear, just for a moment,
(12:07):
was he wrong about the political calculation? Spell out for
me what you disagreed about that he did.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
In particular, I.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Think there's a moment when his stand and fight, and
for me, that moment came with a continuing resolution.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
It was a squaded opportunity to do so.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
It's more than that. Understand, Let's go back to what
we're talking. What is the big fight right now? The
big fight is going to be whether or not the
billionaires and Donald Trump and Elon Musk are just going
to take over our country and run it to suit themselves,
make everybody else pay for it. That's what the budget
is all about. We do a lot of other things
(12:42):
in Washington, but you want to know our values. Take
a look at the budget, and so the question becomes,
in this fight, we got to stop and draw the
line and say it's time. It's time for us to
fight back. It's time to call on people of the
United States, because that whole constitutional structure that I was
(13:03):
talking about, the three parts of government, all rest ultimately
on the people, and it is time to have that fight.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Did it cause you to reevaluate your faith and confidence
in Senator Schumer is a leader of Democrats in the Senate.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I want to be clear, we are heading into a
fight where we need every single Democrat pointed the same way.
We may still be bumping around on exactly what the
timing is going to be on that fight, exactly where
the trigger point is going to be, but there is
no doubt in the United States Senate, the forty seven
(13:40):
of us are locked arms and moving in the same direction.
And the same is true over in the House. This
fight is on top of us. We cannot avoid this
fight because Donald Trump and Elon Musk, truly they want
to take this country over for just a handful of people,
(14:00):
and they want even more wealth and more power to
go to them. Well, everybody else has to pay for it.
That is the fight.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Last question on this subject, sure, what is your role
as you see it in that fight? You write a
lot of letters to administration officials, you speak out quite
a bit, You are somebod I think identifiable with this
oversight fight and struggle with the administration. How do you
see your role in the Democratic Party broadly today?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
But I look at what are the tools in my toolbox.
I'll use every one of them that I possibly can.
Oversight is a big part. This is part of your
job when you're a senator, and that is to look
at the agencies, to ask questions of these nominees, to
get them on the record, to press them, to ask
(14:47):
for investigations. This is why we need inspectors General. This
is why we need an active GAO. This is why
we need an FBI that is still functional. It's partly
just to say we already have laws, and for the
damn laws, make sure that people are doing that. That's
part of my job. Part of my job is to
be in the fight to give it everything I've got because,
(15:09):
as I said, ultimately it's going to be about people
across this country saying, look, I don't want in America
where it's all about a handful of billionaires. I want
in America where we actually do invest in medical research.
I want in America where actually every kid has an
opportunity to go to public school, even kids who have
(15:32):
special need to hear me talking as a special needs teacher.
I want in America where we're making investments in our
best resource, and that is our people.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Talking to a former law professor. So Article two, Section two,
Power of advice and consent. By virtue of the committees
that you sit on Armed Services, Finance, Banking, you have
had the ability to question a lot of these higher
profile nominees. Coming up is the presence picked ahead the
securious Exchange Commissions. And you've written a memo thirty four
pages in length. It starts with the congressions.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
That average for me.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
You say, he has extensive experience in financial services and
capital markets.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
But I have concerns.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
About your record if you tick through what he's done
as an SEC staffer and commissioner, and the work that
he's done since in the private sector as a consultant.
He did work on behalf of FTX, the fraudulent and
failed crypto conglomerate that Sam Bankman freed started. You point
out things he said about crypto and climate regulations. Given
all of that, is there anything that he could say
(16:32):
to earn your vote and committee?
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So let me back up just a little bit. Think
about the job that he's being interned top cop on
Wall Street, top cop on Wall Street, and cop in
two meanings of that word. One is you've got to
catch the fraudsters. You've got to make sure everybody's dotting
their eyes and crossing their teas, because there's a lot
of value in having that stock market be an honest
(16:57):
and level playing field. The other way in which top cop,
it's to watch for risk building up in the system.
It's to make sure that the regulations that are in
place are appropriately calibrated to deal with those risks and
beat those risks out of the system. Paul Atkins actually
(17:18):
has a track record on exactly that issue because he
served as a commissioner in the SEC from two thousand
and one to two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
You remember what you actual crisis.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yes, so here we are in lead up to the
financial crisis, and over and over again, what does Paul
Atkins vote for loosen the regulations?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
What does his nomination say to you about the regulatory
framework this administration?
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Once, oh, I think this is entirely in keeping with
what Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to see us do,
and that is loosen regulations. Loosen regulations. Loosen regulations, that
is what Paul Atkins did. They also said repeatedly that
no regulations just get in the way. Everybody needs to
do whatever they want. Those big Wall Street giants. We
(18:08):
saw the crash in two thousand and eight, and here's
what happens next. After the crash, he has the chance
to have a little twenty twenty hindsight. He has twenty
zero hindsight. He looks back and says, no problem with
having let those giant Wall Street banks run wild, and
the fact that the American taxpayer had to bail them
(18:29):
out not a problem. That's my concern. If someone has
demonstrated such poor judgment, you've got to be really worried
about putting them in a job where the failure to
have good judgment could be like it was back then. Remember,
ten million families lost their homes, millions more people lost
(18:53):
their jobs. We watched Wall Street do a real tank then.
And here's the thing about Paul Atkins. We have both
his demonstrated experience, but also look at his experience overall.
So his time in government is a real problem. But
now he's someone who has built a very lucrative business
(19:18):
with Potomac Partners. He charges evidently upwards of twelve hundred
dollars an hour to give advice, and he says, well,
I'm going to divest this interest, but he doesn't want
to tell us who he's divesting too, who's buying, and
for what purposes? And what are the long term plans?
(19:41):
Because here's the deal. SEC chairmanship doesn't last forever, right,
two years, four years, maybe longer? My concern is, And
so what happens on the other end. Does he just
come right back out and instead of charging twelve hundred
dollars now it's now twenty four hundred dollars an hour?
(20:03):
But it's who do you work for? And why that
matters is it has an effect on the time you
sit as chairman of the SEC. So there he is
making decisions, and I look at someone like Paul Atkins.
How much time has he spent with families that are
(20:23):
working three jobs to try to make it to the
end of the month. How much time has he spent
with any of those ten million people who lost their
homes in the last crash? And how much time has
he spent with this handful of billionaires who really, at
least in the short run love these deregulated markets and
taxpayer bailouts, and how much when he makes a decision
(20:46):
is he thinking about the guy working three jobs? And
how much is he thinking about his future clients whom
he could please? Wileys of the SEC. So those are
the problems for me.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Something about which I know you're passionate is the independence
of these regulatory Oh yes, you look at the SEC today.
There are two Republicans on that commission, one Democrat whose
term will be up soon. There's been no indication the
present's going to put forward another Democratic nominee. I look
at the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, and the two
Democratic members were removed by this administration.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
They're fighting to get back in those positions.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
What is the practical implication of that, not having five
members in place, not having the kind of imagine ideological
political diversity you would have under normal circumstances.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Right. I'm glad you asked that, because it's a reminder
that when those agencies were designed FTC, of course the oldest,
the SEC, during the Great Depression, they were made bipartisan
from the beginning, in an understanding that, yeah, it's going
to move a little there's going to be a little shift,
(21:53):
but we need buy in across the political spectrum, and
we need the stability all the way through the entire system.
I think of it this way, even for companies that
are saying, let's de regulate, you know, turn us loose,
let us do whatever we want. At the end of
the day, yeah, let me feel good. In the short term,
(22:14):
you may be able to figure out how to cut
a corner here and make a little more money. But understand,
the reason our stock market is so valuable is in
part because it has level, transparent rules that are strictly enforced.
And you start to weaken that and in the short
(22:36):
run you may make a profit and that guy over there,
but how many other people say, you know what, I
don't think that's where I want to invest my money.
I think I'm just going to slow down on how
much of my wealth, my energy, my time, my talent
I put in there. We have built a legal structure
(22:57):
that in many ways is the envy of the world.
There's a reason investment comes into the United States, and
it's because you count on those structures independent of where
they've got a Democrat or a Republican in the White House,
the structures work when Donald Trump and Elon Musk come
in and don't just say, you know, let's give a
(23:19):
little different emphasis. But they want a chainsaw. They want
to just get rid of everyone who doesn't follow their
deregulatory agenda. They're boost the billionaire agenda. That's going to
cost everybody in this country.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Want to stick with the FTC and what happened there,
because we've heard from the FED chairman with whom you've
had your sheriff disagreements, I should say over policy and
I ticket hearings.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
He's not over his independence, not over.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
His independence, and that's where I want to go.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Should he be worried as he watches what happened at
the FTC about his and his colleagues ability to keep
their positions in the Federal Reserve?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I want to say, no, he shouldn't be worried because
I stand staunchly behind the independence of the FED, But
damn I stand staunchly behind the independence of the FTC
and behind the independence of the SEC within their statutory neighborhoods.
But that's the question. If Donald Trump can just start
(24:17):
getting rid of everyone who disagrees with him anywhere in government,
for me, it started actually with the inspectors General. If
he can just fire those inspectors General, even though the
statutes say that they have job protection and can only
be fired for cause, If he can just mow through
every civil servant, if he can just mow through the
(24:40):
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, it's a form of lawlessness and
all the power belongs to the king that it suggests
nobody is safe, not even the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I want to guess that the person you'd most like
to have in a seat in front of you in
a hearing room is Elon Musk, of course, not a
cabinet appointee.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
In fact, what is he? Can you just tell me?
I recurt here it documents, and I hear that he's nothing.
He's just the guy who stands her in the White House.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
But it gets to this issue of who does hold
him to account? And in your capacity as senior center
from Massachusetts, ranking member of the banking how do you
get answers from somebody who again has no official position,
traditional official position, but is doing so much to reshape
the bureaucratic landscape, the regulatory landscape, in fact, the whole government.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, so let me do two parts here. The first
one is, I want to remind you after Donald Trump
was elected, one of the very first letters I wrote
was to Elon Musk and I said, I've read the declaration.
You want to cut two trillion dollars from the budget,
which he then trimmed down to a trillion, which he
(25:52):
then trimmed down to half trillion. I said, don't give up,
don't give up. You can cut two trillion dollars in
waste and fat out of the And here's a list
of thirty things that I've been working on for a
long time here in Congress that I've seen kind of
an insider's view on some of this, places where we
could make cuts that would make our government actually more efficient,
(26:15):
that would make our government work better. You want to
go to work, I'm ready. I'm ready. And you don't
have to promise to do all thirty just pick any
of them. This is a menu, Just take whatever you
like on this no answer. And instead he goes out
and just starts firing people. And now this moves into
the second part of the answer. He does things that
(26:36):
are illegal, and there's just not much doubt about this.
He fires people who under law have certain job protections,
can only be fired in certain ways. He goes out
there and cancels contracts government contracts that can only be
canceled by a federal contracting official. I mean, look at
the laws, just boring old laws about this stuff. So
(27:00):
what we have is a lawlessness that has been set
through our entire government. And this is a threat to democracy.
It is also a threat to our economy. You can't
build a strong and stable economy in the middle of this.
(27:23):
It is also a threat, damn it, to good government.
I go back to my list. There are things I
really wanted to cut toa something else I want to do.
I think we ought to have simpler regulations. I'm not
a no regulations gal, but I am definitely there are
a lot of places we should simplify our regulations, make
them clearer, easier to understand. There are things we could
(27:46):
do to run this government better. And in that sense,
I want to cheer when someone says I want to
be a reformer, but you got to be a reformer
within the law that is possible. Right now, Republicans are
inc of the House, the Senate, of the White House.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
You guys want to.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Do reform pass some damn laws, but do not set
Elon Musk to take a chainsaw of cancer research in
America and put old people out of the nursing homes
that they're in. That is not how America builds a future,
and frankly, that is not the kind of people we
(28:23):
want to be.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Last question here, we've talked about the three branches of government.
Let me ask you about the judicial one in particular,
drawing from your experience again as a professor of law,
are you confident that the courts will be able to
keep up with all of the challenges that we've seen here?
There has been this flurry, the sandstorm, as you described it.
Can the courts keep up?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
It's tough. Look, we're at over one hundred lawsuits. I
no longer can keep the number in my head because
it keeps shifting up. But the judges by and large
have stepped up. Courts are designed to go slowly right,
and Elon Musk is fast. Right. You can break laws
(29:02):
a lot faster than you can actually hold people accountable
for that. But at the end of the day, the
three parts of government. Congress writes those laws, the administration
administers those laws. We count on the courts to hold
the first two to their roles. I think the judges
(29:24):
are stepping up, so I say this half out of
hope but half out of conviction. I still believe in
the Constitution of the United States. I think most judges do,
and I think they're going to hold
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