January 21, 2021 • 27 mins
Stephanie speaks with Rep. Katie Porter (D - CA) about her efforts to fight corporate greed, hold big business accountable, and investigate fraud within the Payroll Protection Program. And Rep. Porter opens up about her experience on the day of the Capitol riot.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think there's a sense among Democrats that business isn't
producing some of the things that we value, what equal opportunity, right,
like the ability for for all people to prosper. But
the solution to that is it to throw up in
your hands and look the other direction. It's to scare
people who have the ability to change that dead in
(00:21):
the eye and push them to do it. So, if
we think we have a problem with wealth and equality
in this country, then let's ask a ceo, why do
you deserve that paycheck? And I did that with a
pharmacutical ceo, and you know what the answer was, The
other guys get paid a lot too. That is not,
(00:44):
in a capitalist economy, a justification for a particular age.
So we just have to be very very comfortable diving
into these conversations. You have to be. In our country,
capitalism and democracy are hand and glove, and a lot
of what's broken about our democracy is because things are
broken in our capitalist system. Today we're gonna talk about
(01:07):
capitalism and Congress. You know, capitalism has become completely warped
in this country. The concentration of super wealth over the
last twenty years is extraordinary, and we have seen big
money influence bad policy. In the last four years, it
has been absolutely out of control. But we'd be lying
if we said all of that started four years ago,
(01:30):
or eight years ago or ten years ago. We've seen
big money influenced bad policy year after year, and it's
only getting worse. This is one of the reasons so
many people across the country say they don't trust their lawmakers.
I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor, NBC News Senior correspondent, and
this is Modern Rules, a podcast from NBC Think and
(01:51):
I Heart Radio. But there is a member of Congress
who I've gotten to know the last few years, who
is determined to bring us back to the kind of
capitalism or possibly bring us there for the first time
where every American can succeed. We're working mothers can actually
(02:12):
afford to go to work, where people from the poorest
neighborhoods can go to better schools and potentially get really
good jobs. Where we're in a situation where businesses can
thrive but not control our government. That congress person is
Katie Porter of Orange County, California. I'm so honored that
she's here with me today. Congresswoman, I want to start
with how are you. This has been an extraordinary a
(02:34):
few weeks and before you being a member of Congress,
you're a mom. What have the last few weeks been? Like, Yeah,
it's hard to believe it's it's been a week. It's
just been one week. Um, I was thinking about that,
you know that from when this happened, and you know,
at the at the end of the day, we were
part of a workplace shooting. That's really what this was.
(02:54):
This was a violent a talk. During that time, I
was holed up in my office. UM. I was there
with Alexandrio Kazio Cortez, and we barricaded the doors, we
turned the lights off. We had basically no information and
we're in a dark, cold room together for six hours.
And I think, you know a couple of things that
will really stay with me is I texted my middle
(03:16):
son because he's twelve and he was home, so I
knew he would be seeing stuff because he's always glued
to YouTube. I texted Paul and I said, Paul, you
know it's Mom. I'm okay, I'm I'm hiding. You know,
everything's locked. And he said, okay, Mom, because I'm really worried.
And I said, well, you know here I took a
picture of myself just to selfie and said, you know
(03:38):
here I am cm okay And he said, okay, good.
And I just hope you have enough diet Dr Pepper
to get you through this? Did you? I did? But
it's just the sweet moment of under a can't understanding,
like what his mom needs when she's stressed. Um. And
then the other thing that will really stay with me
is you know when when Alexandria Casio Cortes was in
(04:00):
the hallway and she was looking for a place to
go to be safe, right as we evacuated the Cannon building,
and she she asked if she could come in her
office and shelter and I said, of course, um, and
you know, we came in and she just had a
very harrowing experience and she was a little rattled. And
we locked the doors and locked the inner doors and
(04:21):
we were sitting there and I said, is there anything
I can get you? You know, water, Um, I have
left over holiday chocolates that someone gave me. And she
looked kind of whistfully at my shoes and I was
wearing antique sweats there might go to work shoes, and
she said, I just wish i'd warn flats so I
would be better able to run away. And that really
(04:43):
hit me, like, this is what it's coming down to,
Like you dressing for work in a way that you
could run if someone is shooting at you. And so
we went and found her a pair of sneakers, um
that belonged to my staffer, and she put those on,
and she said, I feel so much better now because
I could run. Maybe I'm naive and romantic, but given
(05:05):
the horrific events that took place in the Capitol last week,
do you think that kind of trauma in some way
could bring Congress together to work together? I thought about
this a lot. What does it mean that we went
through that together? Um? I do want to observe one
thing that was that was pretty obvious right there in
the moment. It has become obvious since then. Is people
(05:28):
experienced that day very differently depending on if you were
a man or you were a woman, you had been trained,
you're a veteran of combat or not, you were a
person of color or a white person, And so you know,
the reality is that the two parties are pretty different
in that regard. I think that you know a lot
of white men didn't feel the same level of personalized
(05:52):
threat and fear from that attack as you know, women
or women of color, progressive women, whatever it is. And
so you know we have the same experience. Um, that
doesn't mean we had all the same takeaways from it.
Did any of what happened that day make you think?
Why am I doing this for a living? Yes, it's
(06:13):
a huge honor to be elected a member of Congress.
But you're an extraordinary woman. You're a law professor, you're
a mom, and you just went through a workplace shooting.
And now you've got members of Congress with you who
are queue and on sympathizers who refused to certify a
free and fair election. Is any part of you saying
(06:34):
why do I do this for a living? I think
what I feel is really profound disappointment. I think this
is the most disheartened I've been. You know, And I
ran for Congress, and I ran this district that, like
everybody was like, you can't win there. There hasn't been
a Democrat there since the nineteen forties, and and I
just was like, I'm gonna make it happen. I'll just
try harder, and I'll make it happen. And even when
(06:57):
I was serving and we were dealing with a Senate
that was just broken and a president who was leading
this country if we even use the word lead in
a really wrong direction, I kept kind of believing that
I could do it, that I could make it better.
And they think this is the first time in the
four years, the two years that I was a candidate,
the first two years of my service, where I've I've
(07:19):
really just felt heartbroken. Another member called me this morning
to check in, and I said, well, I do okay
once I get out of bed I just don't want
to get out of bed um right now. But of
course I have to, and I have to vote, and
I have to vote to impeach this president. The work
doesn't stop. If this were any other kind of workplace shooting,
(07:41):
it's hard to imagine that an hour or two after it,
the boss would ask you to go back into the workplace.
And yet that's what we did. We returned to that
building to take those votes at midnight, in the wee
hours of the morning. How hard has this been this
year been for you. You're a single parent and you've
got kids doing remote learning, and you're going back and
(08:02):
forth to Washington. Yeah, I mean today is a really
really special day. This is the first day since mid
March when the school's closed that I have all three
children in school at the same time. And I got
out this morning, I was like, oh my god, where
is somebody? Because there's always somebody who's not in school,
(08:23):
So that has been hard. But look, I am so
fortunate I have in an excellent school system that has
had the resources to do things like hand out pron books. No,
I mean in a neighborhood that's safe, when my kids
can go outside, um and there's a park and they
can go play. This is so hard for so many
people and so many kids, and disproportionately on those who
(08:46):
are an overcrowded houses, on strange school systems, parents who
cannot help their kids. And I just have the tiniest
taste of that, and I think about what it must
be like for parents for whom English is not a
dominant language, to try to help their kids with all
of the whole work, all of the subjects. One of
the big mistakes of this pandemic was back in March
(09:09):
and April, we should have been focusing immediately on how
we were going to safely open schools and putting as
many resources as we needed into providing them with ppe
with extra classroom space. You know, even now teachers and vaccinations, e.
They're supposed to go to a Walgreens, take the mobile
(09:30):
vaccine vehicle, pull up to school and start giving teacher shots.
Let's go, Well, let's talk about what's most important to
you and what you want to get done in this job,
because in the last week we have seen all sorts
of corporations pulled for the time being their donations, whether
it's too strictly Republicans who didn't certify the election, or
(09:50):
to both parties. But as any of this making you think,
because I promise it's making me think, why the hell
do corporations why are they giving so much money? And
way the system just seems so warped. Yeah. No, Look,
corporate paths shouldn't exist, and they say that for a
number of reasons. You know, you don't have an ardent capitalist.
(10:10):
And I've heard all the arguments about how you shareholder primacy.
It's all corporations exist for the purpose of raising money
and making money for their shareholders. Now, I don't believe
that is the correct definition of a corporation. I reject
that idea. But even if you buy into this rather
extreme idea that the only purpose, the only metric that
corporations should have is doesn't benefit shareholders, tell me how
(10:35):
shareholders benefit from giving money to elected officials who are
trying to overthrow our government, which would be the demise
of the very economy that allows these companies to make money.
Here's the stone cold fact. Corporations don't make donations in
January or February of March of the off year. They
(10:55):
make donations when it's closer to election time, so they're
pausing giving them We're never going to do in the
first place. So I am completely unimpressed by these kinds
of shallow gestures. What I would like to see as
corporations make very clear that they will not support people
who spread disinformation, who urged the overturning of this election. Um,
(11:18):
and I would just like to see corporations say, you
know what, We're not gonna last through a path. We're
gonna take that money, give it to our employees in
the form of fire wages, our employees, whatever their political
views might be, to participate in our democracy. We'll be
back after the break then what's a big focus for you?
(11:48):
So here you are Democrats have full control of the
federal government. What is your focus? What do you want
to get done? Because I know how much you care
about getting corruption and green out of the system, how
can you actually take it on. So one of the
answers here is obviously past HR one. Um. This was
the House bill that we introduced and passed the House
(12:09):
last time. UM. That both addresses corruption. Um. It's the
most sweeping anti corruption built since Watergate. Would also strengthen
voting rights, um, you know, and it would help get
a dark money out of politics. Really important that we
passed that again in the House because I now believe
we have the votes in the Senate to actually see
it become law. You know. The other thing I really
(12:30):
focused on right now is, of course, our academy. I'm
interested in thinking about what really is happening to families
right now and how these numbers translate on the ground.
And one of the things that we are seeing that
is just a huge, huge consequence of COVID. It's not
just job loss, but job loss that is concentrated on
(12:52):
brown and black women in particular, And you know that
is a really really potentially enduring consequence of this, and
so it's really important that we think about what's this
mean for our economy, for the global competitiveness of our economy.
That women are stepping out of the workforce, are being
forced out of the workforce because they can't afford or
(13:13):
find childcare, because they're not safe in their workplace. Mackenzie
the consulting company, right, this is about a feminist you know,
leading institution said that did a study recently and found
that one in four women are contemplating leaving the workforce.
So we need to get a handle on this. And
it means understanding the phenomenon. Is it really about um
(13:36):
the wages and the wage gap? People are needing to
pull one parent home, and they're pulling the lower earning person,
and this is just reinforcing the gender pick up. I
don't know, but I intend to find out. And one
of the things I am really excited about with the
Biden administration is the way that they're conceiving of and
talking about child care as infrastructure. It's just really really
(13:58):
important that we start thinking about it that way, that
we start understanding it that way, and we start making
investments not just in help care centers and the people
who do this work. Do you think we've made a
mistake Year after year we're patting ourselves on the back
when we start to address maternity leave, paternity leave, but
that's twelve weeks. We're responsible for our children for eighteen years,
(14:23):
and forget wages while kids are doing remote learning. It's
for so many of us impossible to just leave our
kids to do it on their own. So there's a
lot of parents, specifically moms who because of COVID just
have to go home. Look, I mean I think that
things like paper and to leave. Really, I mean pat
ourselves on the back for getting their thirty forty fifty
(14:44):
years later than a lot of other countries. We need
to think about how to become global leaders in developing
and retaining a top quality workforce. And you are not
going to have a top quality workforce when you exclude women.
You're just not. And there's a lot of research in
virtually every industry, corporations that have women on their boards
(15:06):
of directors take a less risk and then this is
my favorite fact, make more money. So just overall, we
see that in the medicine, women physicians communicate with their
patients differently, they're better listeners that were likely to pick
up on certain kinds of diagnoses. I think women legislators
are are different and how we do our job. So
(15:28):
we just stopped talking about this as just a women's issue,
although the disproportionate harmies on women, and instead say, if
we want to have a strong, stable capitalist economy, we
have to make sure that women and men have equal opportunity,
equal pay, equal support in the workforce. I do want
(15:48):
to ask you about the Cares Act and now the
next stimulus spill. It's not like we haven't spent any money.
We've spent trillions of dollars. Yet the one thing we
keep hearing from government is we need more. Is it
that we need more or do we need to do
a little bit of a better job looking at all
the money we've spent. There is an oversight committee that
(16:10):
I haven't actually heard from them. There is a committee
dedicated to oversight of the CARES funding. But there was
a structural problem right from the start, which is the
the chairperson of that committee, without which they can't hire
staff and they can't really be effective, was to be
a person agreed upon by Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi.
(16:31):
In other words, the chair was supposed to be like
a unicorn, and we're are we gonna find this person.
So the reality is that committee has not been as
effective as it should be because there was a structural
problem in the creation of it. But I also think
that we need to take a hard look. And I've
been pushing on this for a long time. You and
I have a lot of conversations about this, But the
(16:52):
Paycheck Protection Program I think was not optimally designed or
administered from the get go, and there were whole range
of problems, from allowing Congress members to get p p
P loans to the fact that there is a more
effective way to keep people employed, which is an approach
that European countries used that we call paycheck recovery or
(17:15):
paycheck guarantee, which simply provides money to businesses to help
them make payroll. That money would pass directly through the
payroll system into people's pockets. The Paycheck Protection Program was
much too attenuated, and it was too slow to roll out,
and I think it should have been ombious to everybody
that that the Small Business Administration was not going to
(17:37):
be ready to administer this that it was gonna be
a ramp up period. So I do think that we
have a duty to ask what happened to every dollar?
Was it spent effectively? Didn't really help um? And if not,
to rethink these programs, then talk to us about this.
I'm gonna call it third lane that you're in, right
there's a lot of traditional Democrats, there's very progressive Democrats.
(18:01):
Within progressive Democrats, there's the squad anti big business. As
you said earlier, you're a very proud capitalist. Can you
talk about that and your sort of ideology Because the
average person on the street, and if you watched Fox News,
they would tell you, oh, you know, younger lawmakers like you,
you're part of this socialist movement. You're not, but you're
(18:23):
not feeling good about the capitalist society we're in right now?
So can you help us understand? Yeah, a lot of
this is really understanding what is the capitalist economy that
people who are nineteen twenty nine, thirty nine, even me,
I just turned forty seven. What's the coupitalist economy that
(18:44):
we have seen in this country? What if we lived
through We've lived through a lock of enforcement of antitrust laws,
unprecedented consolidation of market power, more and more barriers and
hardships on small businesses being able to compete, regulation of
investor protection laws, the removal of consumer protection laws. People
(19:06):
my age do not have the trust in banks or
businesses that people a generation or two before us did,
and there's no reason for that because those industries have
abused the very capitalist economy, the workers, the consumers that
have allowed them to profit. Younger people are skeptical about
(19:28):
capitalism for good reason, because our capitalist system isn't producing opportunity,
it's producing inequality. Our capitalist system isn't producing price competition,
it's producing monopoly power. So we have to be straight
about what's broken and that it can be fixed. There
(19:49):
are tools that we have to fix it, and that
we're going to fight to use those tools, and we
are not going to blink in the face of corporate
power to do it. And I think that is a
way to acknowledge the skepticism, the heartache, the suffering of
a lot of people in today's capitalist economy without losing
(20:10):
what a different generation. You know, my grandparents generation saw,
which was unbelievable economic growth and opportunity. If I say
this to my grandparents and the last were just guide
for COVID. But I used to say this to my
grandparents all the time. I didn't get what you got.
(20:30):
So my grandparents went to college. They worked in the
summer and earned enough to pay their tuition. That's not
possible now, and it should be. And if it were,
that would be an economy that was really developing the
potential of every worker. That would be a capitalist economy
that's really investing in more marketplaces. From what I've learned
(20:51):
about you over the last few years, everything you are
most interested in is about putting people first. Given the
amount of money and lobby influence in politics, how can
you actually make those changes? We've all seen you ask
the most extraordinary questions to these business guys in these hearings.
(21:12):
We watched them squirm, but then they walk out, get
on their corporate plane and go home to their big, fat,
cushy life. Does change actually occur? And I love when
they come to testify before Well, here's where I think
the change comes. When I had this back and forth
with the president of JP Morgan Chase Jamie Diamond, he's
(21:34):
a very bright man and he's a good business leader
in many many ways. When I had the back and
forth with him about whether his lower wage employees could
make ends meet, and I definitely started to him how
hard it would be, if not impossible, for them. Did
he did? He in the moment, didnt crock and promised
that he would race wages? He did not. Well, I
(21:57):
hope the next time they go to make a decision
about whether to give their employees a wage or not,
I'm on their mind. Unless we actually change the rules.
Do you think businesses are going to operate in a
different way, Because at the end of the day, the
way it is currently structured, right, CEOs need to perform
(22:18):
for their shareholders. The way they're compensated is tied to
this value of the stock of their company. They're not
currently incentivized to put their employees first. And even if
they say all the right things, and even after that exchange,
if Jamie and Diamond thinks a little harder, the next
time he makes a big decision at the end of
the day, is he really going to change his behavior
(22:40):
unless regulation forces him to do so. Watch Much more
importantly than my interaction with him was the fact that
millions and millions of Americans said that's me, this woman
understands what it's like to work all day and come
home and not be able to pay the bills. They
(23:01):
felt heard and seen and recognized by their government, and
as a result of that, they got just a little
bit more engaged. It's not my exchange with the CEL
that matters. It's whether my exchange with the CEO gives
people confidence in government and believe that we can make
this change, because corporations are full time engaged in telling
(23:25):
people that nothing can change. If you could wave of
magic wand and change one thing, one policy, without having
to go through all the rigamarole, what would you do
that you think could really start to change the way
we operate? Change the system I would reach. I would
change the campaign finance system straight up, no corporate paths,
(23:46):
no high dollar contributions. Um. You know, I think that
is the really the most important thing, because I think
it will change how people in my jobs spend their time. Um.
I think the fact that you have to raise so
much money means that you know who mostly runs for
Congress and wins is wealthy people. And so I mean
consider that until this Congress, I was the only single
(24:07):
mother of young children in the Congress, and people kept saying, well,
you know your situation, it's so unique, and I would think, no,
it's unique in Congress, it's not unique in the world, right,
And there are lots and lots, millions and millions of
single parents, So so don't act like my concern about
not having a work calendar for the next day is unusual.
(24:29):
There are tons of workers at retail jobs who don't
know what their schedule is gonna be tomorrow and therefore
can obtain childcare. So real change is gonna come from
us as elected officials explaining to the American people what's
at stake and how they can get involved. That's how
we're going to change the system. It isn't about me.
(24:50):
It's about everybody that I can talk to or listen
to or connect with and engage. That's where the change
is gonna come from. Then I have to ask you
before go. People can tune the news out, they can
take a day off, they can unplug. You are more
motivated and more energized than ever. How is that? I
(25:13):
think this is something that we mean we have in common.
Um you know on your Twitter handle. I think we're
both named maybe like a bad Asses of of Instone magazine,
and you said something like, I never thought I'd naked
past smart ass. That was definitely my childhood experience. Like
she's kind of a smart ass. She has a comeback
for everything. She talks too much in class. I don't
(25:35):
want to give up. I don't think we can give
up when things get hard. We have to think of
what we do about it. And it doesn't mean we
don't pause and take care of ourselves and acknowledge how
hardness is. But you know, I've sort of I meant
one of these kids from childhood were the very best
way to guarantee that I would do something is tell
me that I can. This week, I'm actually taping from
(26:09):
my hotel room in Washington, d C. Where I'm reporting
on the inauguration of President elect Joe Biden. This was
obviously not the first time I interviewed congress and reporter,
but it was the first time I did it for
over an hour. Like Katie, I'm very interested in change,
what motivates people to change, what constitutes change, and what
(26:29):
blocks it from actually occurring. So what does change need
to look like in order to create a fair and
competitive economy that really serves all the American people, to
every child in this country can dream big and pursue
those dreams. I'm Stephanie Rule and you're listening to Modern Rules,
(26:51):
a podcast from NBC Thinks, MSNBC and I Heart Radio.
This podcast is hosted by me Stephanie Rule. Mike Beett
and Katrina Norvell are executive producers. Meredith Bennett Smith is
Senior editor for NBC Think and our editorial lead. The
podcast is engineered and edited by Josh Fisher. Additional production
support provided by Charles Herman, Rachel Rosenbaum, and Lauren Wynn,
(27:15):
and special thanks to Katherine Kim are Global head of
Digital News right here at NBC News and MSNBC. For
more thought provoking analysis, visit NBC news dot com slash
thing
I think there's a sense among Democrats that business isn't
producing some of the things that we value, what equal opportunity, right,
like the ability for for all people to prosper. But
the solution to that is it to throw up in
your hands and look the other direction. It's to scare
people who have the ability to change that dead in
(00:21):
the eye and push them to do it. So, if
we think we have a problem with wealth and equality
in this country, then let's ask a ceo, why do
you deserve that paycheck? And I did that with a
pharmacutical ceo, and you know what the answer was, The
other guys get paid a lot too. That is not,
(00:44):
in a capitalist economy, a justification for a particular age.
So we just have to be very very comfortable diving
into these conversations. You have to be. In our country,
capitalism and democracy are hand and glove, and a lot
of what's broken about our democracy is because things are
broken in our capitalist system. Today we're gonna talk about
(01:07):
capitalism and Congress. You know, capitalism has become completely warped
in this country. The concentration of super wealth over the
last twenty years is extraordinary, and we have seen big
money influence bad policy. In the last four years, it
has been absolutely out of control. But we'd be lying
if we said all of that started four years ago,
(01:30):
or eight years ago or ten years ago. We've seen
big money influenced bad policy year after year, and it's
only getting worse. This is one of the reasons so
many people across the country say they don't trust their lawmakers.
I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor, NBC News Senior correspondent, and
this is Modern Rules, a podcast from NBC Think and
(01:51):
I Heart Radio. But there is a member of Congress
who I've gotten to know the last few years, who
is determined to bring us back to the kind of
capitalism or possibly bring us there for the first time
where every American can succeed. We're working mothers can actually
(02:12):
afford to go to work, where people from the poorest
neighborhoods can go to better schools and potentially get really
good jobs. Where we're in a situation where businesses can
thrive but not control our government. That congress person is
Katie Porter of Orange County, California. I'm so honored that
she's here with me today. Congresswoman, I want to start
with how are you. This has been an extraordinary a
(02:34):
few weeks and before you being a member of Congress,
you're a mom. What have the last few weeks been? Like, Yeah,
it's hard to believe it's it's been a week. It's
just been one week. Um, I was thinking about that,
you know that from when this happened, and you know,
at the at the end of the day, we were
part of a workplace shooting. That's really what this was.
(02:54):
This was a violent a talk. During that time, I
was holed up in my office. UM. I was there
with Alexandrio Kazio Cortez, and we barricaded the doors, we
turned the lights off. We had basically no information and
we're in a dark, cold room together for six hours.
And I think, you know a couple of things that
will really stay with me is I texted my middle
(03:16):
son because he's twelve and he was home, so I
knew he would be seeing stuff because he's always glued
to YouTube. I texted Paul and I said, Paul, you
know it's Mom. I'm okay, I'm I'm hiding. You know,
everything's locked. And he said, okay, Mom, because I'm really worried.
And I said, well, you know here I took a
picture of myself just to selfie and said, you know
(03:38):
here I am cm okay And he said, okay, good.
And I just hope you have enough diet Dr Pepper
to get you through this? Did you? I did? But
it's just the sweet moment of under a can't understanding,
like what his mom needs when she's stressed. Um. And
then the other thing that will really stay with me
is you know when when Alexandria Casio Cortes was in
(04:00):
the hallway and she was looking for a place to
go to be safe, right as we evacuated the Cannon building,
and she she asked if she could come in her
office and shelter and I said, of course, um, and
you know, we came in and she just had a
very harrowing experience and she was a little rattled. And
we locked the doors and locked the inner doors and
(04:21):
we were sitting there and I said, is there anything
I can get you? You know, water, Um, I have
left over holiday chocolates that someone gave me. And she
looked kind of whistfully at my shoes and I was
wearing antique sweats there might go to work shoes, and
she said, I just wish i'd warn flats so I
would be better able to run away. And that really
(04:43):
hit me, like, this is what it's coming down to,
Like you dressing for work in a way that you
could run if someone is shooting at you. And so
we went and found her a pair of sneakers, um
that belonged to my staffer, and she put those on,
and she said, I feel so much better now because
I could run. Maybe I'm naive and romantic, but given
(05:05):
the horrific events that took place in the Capitol last week,
do you think that kind of trauma in some way
could bring Congress together to work together? I thought about
this a lot. What does it mean that we went
through that together? Um? I do want to observe one
thing that was that was pretty obvious right there in
the moment. It has become obvious since then. Is people
(05:28):
experienced that day very differently depending on if you were
a man or you were a woman, you had been trained,
you're a veteran of combat or not, you were a
person of color or a white person, And so you know,
the reality is that the two parties are pretty different
in that regard. I think that you know a lot
of white men didn't feel the same level of personalized
(05:52):
threat and fear from that attack as you know, women
or women of color, progressive women, whatever it is. And
so you know we have the same experience. Um, that
doesn't mean we had all the same takeaways from it.
Did any of what happened that day make you think?
Why am I doing this for a living? Yes, it's
(06:13):
a huge honor to be elected a member of Congress.
But you're an extraordinary woman. You're a law professor, you're
a mom, and you just went through a workplace shooting.
And now you've got members of Congress with you who
are queue and on sympathizers who refused to certify a
free and fair election. Is any part of you saying
(06:34):
why do I do this for a living? I think
what I feel is really profound disappointment. I think this
is the most disheartened I've been. You know, And I
ran for Congress, and I ran this district that, like
everybody was like, you can't win there. There hasn't been
a Democrat there since the nineteen forties, and and I
just was like, I'm gonna make it happen. I'll just
try harder, and I'll make it happen. And even when
(06:57):
I was serving and we were dealing with a Senate
that was just broken and a president who was leading
this country if we even use the word lead in
a really wrong direction, I kept kind of believing that
I could do it, that I could make it better.
And they think this is the first time in the
four years, the two years that I was a candidate,
the first two years of my service, where I've I've
(07:19):
really just felt heartbroken. Another member called me this morning
to check in, and I said, well, I do okay
once I get out of bed I just don't want
to get out of bed um right now. But of
course I have to, and I have to vote, and
I have to vote to impeach this president. The work
doesn't stop. If this were any other kind of workplace shooting,
(07:41):
it's hard to imagine that an hour or two after it,
the boss would ask you to go back into the workplace.
And yet that's what we did. We returned to that
building to take those votes at midnight, in the wee
hours of the morning. How hard has this been this
year been for you. You're a single parent and you've
got kids doing remote learning, and you're going back and
(08:02):
forth to Washington. Yeah, I mean today is a really
really special day. This is the first day since mid
March when the school's closed that I have all three
children in school at the same time. And I got
out this morning, I was like, oh my god, where
is somebody? Because there's always somebody who's not in school,
(08:23):
So that has been hard. But look, I am so
fortunate I have in an excellent school system that has
had the resources to do things like hand out pron books. No,
I mean in a neighborhood that's safe, when my kids
can go outside, um and there's a park and they
can go play. This is so hard for so many
people and so many kids, and disproportionately on those who
(08:46):
are an overcrowded houses, on strange school systems, parents who
cannot help their kids. And I just have the tiniest
taste of that, and I think about what it must
be like for parents for whom English is not a
dominant language, to try to help their kids with all
of the whole work, all of the subjects. One of
the big mistakes of this pandemic was back in March
(09:09):
and April, we should have been focusing immediately on how
we were going to safely open schools and putting as
many resources as we needed into providing them with ppe
with extra classroom space. You know, even now teachers and vaccinations, e.
They're supposed to go to a Walgreens, take the mobile
(09:30):
vaccine vehicle, pull up to school and start giving teacher shots.
Let's go, Well, let's talk about what's most important to
you and what you want to get done in this job,
because in the last week we have seen all sorts
of corporations pulled for the time being their donations, whether
it's too strictly Republicans who didn't certify the election, or
(09:50):
to both parties. But as any of this making you think,
because I promise it's making me think, why the hell
do corporations why are they giving so much money? And
way the system just seems so warped. Yeah. No, Look,
corporate paths shouldn't exist, and they say that for a
number of reasons. You know, you don't have an ardent capitalist.
(10:10):
And I've heard all the arguments about how you shareholder primacy.
It's all corporations exist for the purpose of raising money
and making money for their shareholders. Now, I don't believe
that is the correct definition of a corporation. I reject
that idea. But even if you buy into this rather
extreme idea that the only purpose, the only metric that
corporations should have is doesn't benefit shareholders, tell me how
(10:35):
shareholders benefit from giving money to elected officials who are
trying to overthrow our government, which would be the demise
of the very economy that allows these companies to make money.
Here's the stone cold fact. Corporations don't make donations in
January or February of March of the off year. They
(10:55):
make donations when it's closer to election time, so they're
pausing giving them We're never going to do in the
first place. So I am completely unimpressed by these kinds
of shallow gestures. What I would like to see as
corporations make very clear that they will not support people
who spread disinformation, who urged the overturning of this election. Um,
(11:18):
and I would just like to see corporations say, you
know what, We're not gonna last through a path. We're
gonna take that money, give it to our employees in
the form of fire wages, our employees, whatever their political
views might be, to participate in our democracy. We'll be
back after the break then what's a big focus for you?
(11:48):
So here you are Democrats have full control of the
federal government. What is your focus? What do you want
to get done? Because I know how much you care
about getting corruption and green out of the system, how
can you actually take it on. So one of the
answers here is obviously past HR one. Um. This was
the House bill that we introduced and passed the House
(12:09):
last time. UM. That both addresses corruption. Um. It's the
most sweeping anti corruption built since Watergate. Would also strengthen
voting rights, um, you know, and it would help get
a dark money out of politics. Really important that we
passed that again in the House because I now believe
we have the votes in the Senate to actually see
it become law. You know. The other thing I really
(12:30):
focused on right now is, of course, our academy. I'm
interested in thinking about what really is happening to families
right now and how these numbers translate on the ground.
And one of the things that we are seeing that
is just a huge, huge consequence of COVID. It's not
just job loss, but job loss that is concentrated on
(12:52):
brown and black women in particular, And you know that
is a really really potentially enduring consequence of this, and
so it's really important that we think about what's this
mean for our economy, for the global competitiveness of our economy.
That women are stepping out of the workforce, are being
forced out of the workforce because they can't afford or
(13:13):
find childcare, because they're not safe in their workplace. Mackenzie
the consulting company, right, this is about a feminist you know,
leading institution said that did a study recently and found
that one in four women are contemplating leaving the workforce.
So we need to get a handle on this. And
it means understanding the phenomenon. Is it really about um
(13:36):
the wages and the wage gap? People are needing to
pull one parent home, and they're pulling the lower earning person,
and this is just reinforcing the gender pick up. I
don't know, but I intend to find out. And one
of the things I am really excited about with the
Biden administration is the way that they're conceiving of and
talking about child care as infrastructure. It's just really really
(13:58):
important that we start thinking about it that way, that
we start understanding it that way, and we start making
investments not just in help care centers and the people
who do this work. Do you think we've made a
mistake Year after year we're patting ourselves on the back
when we start to address maternity leave, paternity leave, but
that's twelve weeks. We're responsible for our children for eighteen years,
(14:23):
and forget wages while kids are doing remote learning. It's
for so many of us impossible to just leave our
kids to do it on their own. So there's a
lot of parents, specifically moms who because of COVID just
have to go home. Look, I mean I think that
things like paper and to leave. Really, I mean pat
ourselves on the back for getting their thirty forty fifty
(14:44):
years later than a lot of other countries. We need
to think about how to become global leaders in developing
and retaining a top quality workforce. And you are not
going to have a top quality workforce when you exclude women.
You're just not. And there's a lot of research in
virtually every industry, corporations that have women on their boards
(15:06):
of directors take a less risk and then this is
my favorite fact, make more money. So just overall, we
see that in the medicine, women physicians communicate with their
patients differently, they're better listeners that were likely to pick
up on certain kinds of diagnoses. I think women legislators
are are different and how we do our job. So
(15:28):
we just stopped talking about this as just a women's issue,
although the disproportionate harmies on women, and instead say, if
we want to have a strong, stable capitalist economy, we
have to make sure that women and men have equal opportunity,
equal pay, equal support in the workforce. I do want
(15:48):
to ask you about the Cares Act and now the
next stimulus spill. It's not like we haven't spent any money.
We've spent trillions of dollars. Yet the one thing we
keep hearing from government is we need more. Is it
that we need more or do we need to do
a little bit of a better job looking at all
the money we've spent. There is an oversight committee that
(16:10):
I haven't actually heard from them. There is a committee
dedicated to oversight of the CARES funding. But there was
a structural problem right from the start, which is the
the chairperson of that committee, without which they can't hire
staff and they can't really be effective, was to be
a person agreed upon by Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi.
(16:31):
In other words, the chair was supposed to be like
a unicorn, and we're are we gonna find this person.
So the reality is that committee has not been as
effective as it should be because there was a structural
problem in the creation of it. But I also think
that we need to take a hard look. And I've
been pushing on this for a long time. You and
I have a lot of conversations about this, But the
(16:52):
Paycheck Protection Program I think was not optimally designed or
administered from the get go, and there were whole range
of problems, from allowing Congress members to get p p
P loans to the fact that there is a more
effective way to keep people employed, which is an approach
that European countries used that we call paycheck recovery or
(17:15):
paycheck guarantee, which simply provides money to businesses to help
them make payroll. That money would pass directly through the
payroll system into people's pockets. The Paycheck Protection Program was
much too attenuated, and it was too slow to roll out,
and I think it should have been ombious to everybody
that that the Small Business Administration was not going to
(17:37):
be ready to administer this that it was gonna be
a ramp up period. So I do think that we
have a duty to ask what happened to every dollar?
Was it spent effectively? Didn't really help um? And if not,
to rethink these programs, then talk to us about this.
I'm gonna call it third lane that you're in, right
there's a lot of traditional Democrats, there's very progressive Democrats.
(18:01):
Within progressive Democrats, there's the squad anti big business. As
you said earlier, you're a very proud capitalist. Can you
talk about that and your sort of ideology Because the
average person on the street, and if you watched Fox News,
they would tell you, oh, you know, younger lawmakers like you,
you're part of this socialist movement. You're not, but you're
(18:23):
not feeling good about the capitalist society we're in right now?
So can you help us understand? Yeah, a lot of
this is really understanding what is the capitalist economy that
people who are nineteen twenty nine, thirty nine, even me,
I just turned forty seven. What's the coupitalist economy that
(18:44):
we have seen in this country? What if we lived
through We've lived through a lock of enforcement of antitrust laws,
unprecedented consolidation of market power, more and more barriers and
hardships on small businesses being able to compete, regulation of
investor protection laws, the removal of consumer protection laws. People
(19:06):
my age do not have the trust in banks or
businesses that people a generation or two before us did,
and there's no reason for that because those industries have
abused the very capitalist economy, the workers, the consumers that
have allowed them to profit. Younger people are skeptical about
(19:28):
capitalism for good reason, because our capitalist system isn't producing opportunity,
it's producing inequality. Our capitalist system isn't producing price competition,
it's producing monopoly power. So we have to be straight
about what's broken and that it can be fixed. There
(19:49):
are tools that we have to fix it, and that
we're going to fight to use those tools, and we
are not going to blink in the face of corporate
power to do it. And I think that is a
way to acknowledge the skepticism, the heartache, the suffering of
a lot of people in today's capitalist economy without losing
(20:10):
what a different generation. You know, my grandparents generation saw,
which was unbelievable economic growth and opportunity. If I say
this to my grandparents and the last were just guide
for COVID. But I used to say this to my
grandparents all the time. I didn't get what you got.
(20:30):
So my grandparents went to college. They worked in the
summer and earned enough to pay their tuition. That's not
possible now, and it should be. And if it were,
that would be an economy that was really developing the
potential of every worker. That would be a capitalist economy
that's really investing in more marketplaces. From what I've learned
(20:51):
about you over the last few years, everything you are
most interested in is about putting people first. Given the
amount of money and lobby influence in politics, how can
you actually make those changes? We've all seen you ask
the most extraordinary questions to these business guys in these hearings.
(21:12):
We watched them squirm, but then they walk out, get
on their corporate plane and go home to their big, fat,
cushy life. Does change actually occur? And I love when
they come to testify before Well, here's where I think
the change comes. When I had this back and forth
with the president of JP Morgan Chase Jamie Diamond, he's
(21:34):
a very bright man and he's a good business leader
in many many ways. When I had the back and
forth with him about whether his lower wage employees could
make ends meet, and I definitely started to him how
hard it would be, if not impossible, for them. Did
he did? He in the moment, didnt crock and promised
that he would race wages? He did not. Well, I
(21:57):
hope the next time they go to make a decision
about whether to give their employees a wage or not,
I'm on their mind. Unless we actually change the rules.
Do you think businesses are going to operate in a
different way, Because at the end of the day, the
way it is currently structured, right, CEOs need to perform
(22:18):
for their shareholders. The way they're compensated is tied to
this value of the stock of their company. They're not
currently incentivized to put their employees first. And even if
they say all the right things, and even after that exchange,
if Jamie and Diamond thinks a little harder, the next
time he makes a big decision at the end of
the day, is he really going to change his behavior
(22:40):
unless regulation forces him to do so. Watch Much more
importantly than my interaction with him was the fact that
millions and millions of Americans said that's me, this woman
understands what it's like to work all day and come
home and not be able to pay the bills. They
(23:01):
felt heard and seen and recognized by their government, and
as a result of that, they got just a little
bit more engaged. It's not my exchange with the CEL
that matters. It's whether my exchange with the CEO gives
people confidence in government and believe that we can make
this change, because corporations are full time engaged in telling
(23:25):
people that nothing can change. If you could wave of
magic wand and change one thing, one policy, without having
to go through all the rigamarole, what would you do
that you think could really start to change the way
we operate? Change the system I would reach. I would
change the campaign finance system straight up, no corporate paths,
(23:46):
no high dollar contributions. Um. You know, I think that
is the really the most important thing, because I think
it will change how people in my jobs spend their time. Um.
I think the fact that you have to raise so
much money means that you know who mostly runs for
Congress and wins is wealthy people. And so I mean
consider that until this Congress, I was the only single
(24:07):
mother of young children in the Congress, and people kept saying, well,
you know your situation, it's so unique, and I would think, no,
it's unique in Congress, it's not unique in the world, right,
And there are lots and lots, millions and millions of
single parents, So so don't act like my concern about
not having a work calendar for the next day is unusual.
(24:29):
There are tons of workers at retail jobs who don't
know what their schedule is gonna be tomorrow and therefore
can obtain childcare. So real change is gonna come from
us as elected officials explaining to the American people what's
at stake and how they can get involved. That's how
we're going to change the system. It isn't about me.
(24:50):
It's about everybody that I can talk to or listen
to or connect with and engage. That's where the change
is gonna come from. Then I have to ask you
before go. People can tune the news out, they can
take a day off, they can unplug. You are more
motivated and more energized than ever. How is that? I
(25:13):
think this is something that we mean we have in common.
Um you know on your Twitter handle. I think we're
both named maybe like a bad Asses of of Instone magazine,
and you said something like, I never thought I'd naked
past smart ass. That was definitely my childhood experience. Like
she's kind of a smart ass. She has a comeback
for everything. She talks too much in class. I don't
(25:35):
want to give up. I don't think we can give
up when things get hard. We have to think of
what we do about it. And it doesn't mean we
don't pause and take care of ourselves and acknowledge how
hardness is. But you know, I've sort of I meant
one of these kids from childhood were the very best
way to guarantee that I would do something is tell
me that I can. This week, I'm actually taping from
(26:09):
my hotel room in Washington, d C. Where I'm reporting
on the inauguration of President elect Joe Biden. This was
obviously not the first time I interviewed congress and reporter,
but it was the first time I did it for
over an hour. Like Katie, I'm very interested in change,
what motivates people to change, what constitutes change, and what
(26:29):
blocks it from actually occurring. So what does change need
to look like in order to create a fair and
competitive economy that really serves all the American people, to
every child in this country can dream big and pursue
those dreams. I'm Stephanie Rule and you're listening to Modern Rules,
(26:51):
a podcast from NBC Thinks, MSNBC and I Heart Radio.
This podcast is hosted by me Stephanie Rule. Mike Beett
and Katrina Norvell are executive producers. Meredith Bennett Smith is
Senior editor for NBC Think and our editorial lead. The
podcast is engineered and edited by Josh Fisher. Additional production
support provided by Charles Herman, Rachel Rosenbaum, and Lauren Wynn,
(27:15):
and special thanks to Katherine Kim are Global head of
Digital News right here at NBC News and MSNBC. For
more thought provoking analysis, visit NBC news dot com slash
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