And my interview with senator warren on the fast start from the Biden Administration and her push to keep it going when all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Just over an hour ago, the House Of Representatives voted to strip republican congresswoman Marjory Taylor greene of her committee assignments. This is a rare occurrence. It might be unprecedented. We cant tell. It looks like we cant find an actual precedent for this. In all the recent instances when all this has happened, when members were removed from committees by their own parties, it happened because the party removed them instead of the entire house. The threat of removal from the whole house did not stop congresswoman greene from the racist and violent Conspiracy Theories that got her into this situation in the first place. Yesterday, she was throwing around Conspiracy Theories like democratic members marry their own brothers. Today greene came forward to do what i would characterize as the minimal amount of performance necessary to give fellow republicans the excuse to vote on her behalf. She put forth a rambling diatribe of lies and false equivalencies and half truths that included the incredible bit of rhetoric from the well of the house. I quote her, i also want to tell you that 9 11 absolutely happened. Thank you for that, congresswoman. Glad we could confirm that. She lied about the things she said and supported and when she said them. She didnt address or apologize for the most problematic stuff. Her violent rhetoric including saying on video that Speaker Nancy Pelosi could be executed for treason. All but 11 republicans voted to support greene, which is more defections than anyone expected. Still, pretty good example of the one thing that unifies the other 199 members of the House Republican party. All they have is being against the libs. You get past that, there are divisions inside the party as seen by 61 people in a Secret Ballot trying to unseat a member of leadership for the audacity of voting to impeach a president who summoned an Insurrectionist Mob to attack where they all were. In i caucus, where the majority voted to overturn a democratic election. There are divisions in the party with the marjorie Taylor Greene antidemocracy wing. The one thing that could unify them is opposition to liberalism. And the Democratic Party. That is what its all about for them. The problem is, thats all built on a foundation of sand. What does the republican stand for besides making sure the libs dont control things . On the other hand, a few months ago, in the wake of the election, it was the Democratic Party that looked like a fractured coalition. Do you remember that . They were expecting big pickups in the house and they lost a bunch of seats. There were immediate recriminations, internal debates about the source of the losses with front line members in Swing Districts blaming progressive members for defund the police. Rhetoric in the wake of the george floyd protests. There was frustration at some Senate Candidates who raised a on it ton of money did not perform better. Three months later, democrats have a house majority, managed to win the senate with those improbable runoff wins in georgia. They have everyone from the most progressive to most conservative united by the big first item of the biden presidency, a covid Relief Package with a price tag more than twice obamas recovery act and has buyin from everyone, mansion to sanders. Its really quite a turn about from where things looked like they were headed a few months ago. Today, House Democrats spoke out in unity to condemn a woman whose past views are so delusional and so dangerous. I do not hear an apology or denouncement for the claim, the insinuation that political opponents should be violently dealt with. I didnt hear anybody apologize or retract the antisemitic and islamaphobic remarks posted over and over again. In todays Republican Party, marjorie Taylor Greenes world views are violent, antiblack, racism, islamophobic, antisemitic. They are condoned. Every single day that goes by without outright condemnation from every republican colleague without consequences for her extremist views is an outright endorsement of White Supremacy. This is not about one member. This is about who we are as a body and what we are as a democracy. This is about whether it is acceptable to cheer on and encourage an insurrection against our basic democratic process. This is about whether it is okay to demand members swear in on a bible of religion they do not practice. This is about whether it is okay to hold an Assault Rifle next to members heads in a campaign ad and incite Death Threats against them. I cannot sit by and allow White Supremacy and hatred to have decisionmaking power over our students futures. To my republican colleagues, let history remember what you did in this moment. A prerequisite for appointment to these committees and for all that we do must be that you love and represent all people, meaning all people. I stand here to tell you, i will stand up to bullies. Bullies who threaten students and threaten and celebrate the violence towards our speaker and our colleagues. Today and, yes, as a conscience of the congress, it is important that we take this step to affirm that Conspiracy Theories and outrageous lies have no place in the congress. No place in the peoples house. No place, no place. No parent should ever have to invite a member of congress to visit their childs grave or touch the bulletridden clothing that their child wore to prove that their death actually happened. Mr. Speaker, the speaker of this house always tell members to vote our district. Today, i vote as an act of conscience in defense of my district. I vote for the babies who left for school eight years ago and never returned home and the teachers who died trying to protect them. House majority leader hoyer closed with a passionate speech about decency. The conduct we are judging today continued to occur even after representative greene became a candidate and even after she was elected. Mr. Speaker, i urge my colleagues to look at this image. They are not the squad. Theyre ilhan. They are alexandria. They are rashida. They are people. They are our colleagues. The squads worst nightmare. Yes, some people are having nightmares. And fear. And some people, who wanted to give other people nightmares, committed sedition. And broke into the House Of Representatives and tried to stop us electing a president of the united states. That woman there holding the gun is the woman 199 House Republicans voted to support in the unified Democratic Party along with 11 republicans stripped her of her power. Im joined by one of the democrats you heard on the floor, Congresswoman Hayes of connecticut who is on the House Education Labor Committee and represented the New Town Community where the Sandy Hook Elementary SchoolMass Shooting took place. Congresswoman, it seemed extremely emotionally fraught and intense today. What was it like in there . It was incredibly emotional for me. I was thinking about my constituents and the people back at home, because as you can imagine, this is deeply personal for the people in connecticut, for the people in new town. Just to hear my republican colleagues come up with a string of what aboutisms and excuses for why, never saying she should be placed on a committee, but deflecting to so many different arguments was incredibly emotional on the floor today. You know, it struck me as i watched this today that part of what was happening i would like to hear your response to this is that the house hasnt grappled with what happened on january 6th in any formal way. The fact that a majority of republicans voted to overturn a democratic election, the fact that a mob of Violent Insurrectionists invaded the place that you work, threatening the lives of people that you work with. There hasnt been any institutional processing of that. It felt like this vote on marjorie Taylor Greene was standing in as a proxy for that. I would say i agree with you. You are absolutely right. I myself am still processing the events of january 6th. This wound is reopened over and over and over again. I heard people talk about the merits of the election or the events of january 6th, the fact that violent words incited the actions of january 6th, all of this really is playing in the back of members minds as we attempt to legislate. And you saw rightfully so the impacts of that play out on the floor. I do not know if the turnout today would have been different had members not had in their recent memory just the final result of inciteful words. Final question for you is the precedent this sets. Its true that this is we dont know if its been done before. As far as we can tell, this is new and unprecedented. Its true that when republicans say, you know, you are setting a precedent here and watch out in the future, what is your response . I think its a more dangerous precedent to let members violent rhetoric and hateful words go unchecked. Thats the dangerous precedent set. I dont think this happened before. But i led a letter, and within a couple hours, i had 130 of my colleagues who signed on to say that she should not be seated on committees. I think the fact that the republican leader placed her on the committee of education and labor was just an insult to many of my colleagues. I can tell you, there were democrats who had issue with this, who struggled, who did not want to disrupt proper procedure or protocol. But for the fact that the republicans refused to act and placed her on the committee of education and labor, every parent, every teacher, every community member, every person who is still reeling from the fact that we have a problem with Mass Shootings in our country, specifically on school grounds, and we need to address those problems, i think was the impetus that led many of my colleagues, both republican and democrat, to say, enough. Congresswoman ja haun that hayes, representative from connecticut. Thank you so much for your time tonight. Thanks so much, chris. For more on the state of the gop, i want to bring in the chief strategist for the bush cheney president ial campaign of 2004. Matthew, i think my over under was probably five. I was surprised that there were 11 votes. What was your reaction . I wasnt that surprised. I thought it would be in the neighborhood of 7 to 10. It ended up at 11. Obviously, the story isnt the 11 that stood for principle, its the 199 that didnt and who welcomed a 21st century political typhoid mary into their midst, spreading being a carrier of disease thats infected the entire Republican Party for a lengthy period of time. Its not just one of the things, chris, we dont focus on enough is whats behind all this. What is the original sin of all of this that has led us here . Its not a denial of the school shootings. Its not a denial that joe biden won. Its not a denial that 9 11 happened. Its a denial of words in our original document that selfevident truth that all men are created equal. Thats whats led us here. We never dealt with that disease in our country. There was a vote today that was a public vote in which you have 199 members of the Republican Party voting to keep marjorie Taylor Greene on her committees. 11 dissents. Yesterday, you had another vote about exile. It was about liz cheney, who is number three in leadership, whether she be kicked off leadership. It was a Secret Ballot. 61 republicans that wanted to kick her off for the sin of voting to impeach the president. What i found striking is, so much of the interpretation of House Republicans and republicans in general is about the political calculations they are making. They dont want to cross with donald trump. This was a Secret Ballot. People need to take seriously the real believes of the members of the Republican Party and caucus as driving some of this. This is not about donald trump. So many people talk about the fear of donald trump. The Republican Leaders and elected officials arent donald trump is a proxy. Dont trump is a proxy for the 80 or 85 of the Republican Party that believe by and large what marjorie Taylor Greene believes. They believe that. The fear is a republican primary voter who is much more aligned with marjorie Taylor Greene than liz cheney, thats the fear. I think thats the problem in america. We have a major party supported by millions of americans, millions of americans, not a majority but millions of americans who have the same set of beliefs. You can get rid of donald trump, cast him out as a pariah, put him in florida. It doesnt solve the fundamental problem in america today. A smarter, more competent version of donald trump will arise and be more dangerous. Thats hard to believe be more dangerous to the country. I guess what the question is, what does solve it . Some kind of gatekeeping, some kind of have the fight out, have it out is the only solution, i think. Im looking at this as an outsider. Thats what it looks like to me. I mean, i think theres many small things we can do. I think ultimately we have to deal with whats really behind this. Which is we never held the people who wanted slavery accountable and responsible. We never told the truth in the aftermath. When reconstruction failed, by and large because lincoln was killed, when reconstruction failed, it led to more than 100 years where we finally got to civil rights and voting act. You can draw a Straight Line as i said before, you can draw a line between the failure of reconstruction and the inability to tell the truth about our country through, All The Way Up Emmit Till And Med Ger Evers and Martin Luther king, all the way up to heather heyer. Thats the truth americans have to face. Thats going to resolve our problems when we face the truth. Theres a segment of the population that does not believe all Men And Women In America are created equal. Thats the fundamental problem. Matthew dowd, speaking my language with the reconstruction riff. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. You are welcome. Impeachment managers publically call their first witness, donald j. Trump. Will we see the impeached former president testify at his own trial . Thats next. Do you have a Life Insurance policy you no longer need . Now you can sell your policy, even a term policy, for an immediate cash payment. Call Coventry Direct to learn more. We thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. But we quickly realized that we needed a way to supplement our income. Our friends sold their policy to help pay for their medical bills and that got me thinking. Maybe selling our policy could help with our retirement. Im skeptical, so i did some research and called Coventry Direct. They explained Life Insurance is a valuable asset that can be sold. We learned that we can sell all of our policy or keep part of it with no future payments, who knew . We sold our policy. Now we can relax and enjoy our retirement as we had planned. 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He is not complying. Earlier today, lead impeachment manager raskin sent trump a letter. Formally requesting his testimony. Two days ago you denied many factual allegations set forth in the article of impeachment. You have attempted to put critical facts at issue notwithstanding the evidence of your constitutional offense. In light of your disputing these allegations, i write to invite you to provide testimony under oath before or during the Senate Impeachment trial concerning your conduct. January 6th, 2021. Trump denied he lied when he repeatedly attacked the legitimacy of the election and asserted he didnt attempt to subvert the certification of the election results. The house did not call any witnesses when it quickly impeached trump for inspiring the insurrection. But the managers do want the defendant to testify in the trial. Hours after they made the request, trumps lawyer bruce castor said he would not testify and called the request a publicity stunt. Im joined by dan goldman who was counsel into the first inquiry into trump. Whats your reaction . I think its a very smart, strategic move by the house managers. I will tell you why. I dont think donald trump will be subpoenaed. He would not have been subpoenaed at all. No president has ever been subpoenaed while acting as president. I think the same issues, the separation of powers issues would probably still apply to someone who was so recently in office. I dont think that that would happen. I think it also would be litigated forever. I do not believe the managers of the senate will vote to subpoena donald trump. What this does is it gives him an opportunity to say his side of the story under oath as any witness would. The Biggest Issue is for the defense and for trump is its going to hamstring his lawyers from arguing what trumps State Of Mind was, what his intent was, what he knew about, because trump himself was given the opportunity to testify and he did not take it. His lawyers can then not just cherry pick whatever they want to say about what trump felt at the time. Thats the ultimate hearsay. Its not permissible in any court in any land. Its a smart, strategic move given i dont think they will subpoena him. Ultimately, he wont testify. This is really to hem in the Trump Lawyers, and what their arguments can be. I hadnt thought of that. Thats a great point. So much of this will revolve around theres the president s actions and then there are words and then theres some of the State Of Mind. When he is sitting there at the tv watching an unprecedented assault by americans on their seat of government to violently prevent the transfer of power and he is desperately being reached out to by republican and democrats alike to call it off, whats going through your head, dude . You like it . You watching it . Thats very much at issue with respect to the article of impeachment, right . Yeah. The better example would be for his lawyers to get up and say, donald trump had no idea that this violent attack was planned. He never expected it. When he said peacefully, thats what he thought was going to happen. He had no idea. Thats not permissible for a lawyer to just argue about their client. Thats not evidence. The evidence would have to come from the client. So by giving him the opportunity to do that, they cant argue as they would be able to, well, you didnt give us a chance to make a presentation in the house before you impeached, unlike every other former president , and then you didnt give us a chance here, so this is the only way we have to do it. Trumps lawyer said that the president wont testify, that the focus will be on the claim that the trial itself is unconstitutional. It will be a constitutional argument that you cant do this. They are not going to litigate the election fraud. Been reporting earlier that trump wanted that. What do you think about the broader issue of witnesses and the duration of this undertaking . I have been saying that i think even though, in the ordinary circumstance, the house Impeachment Managers would want witnesses, the democrat senators would want witnesses, i think under the circumstances where donald trump is not in office and there are many, many things that President Biden wants to do, witnesses would significantly prolong this trial. You have a lot of compelling evidence from the public record, from video of the scene itself, of the rally, of social media, parler videos of the protesters marching. In many respects, you dont really need witnesses. I was struck by the reporting by nbc news tonight at how unprepared donald Trump Lawyers seem to be. The only defense they have is the one that the republican senators have already teed up for them with the 5545 vote last week. There seems to be no other substantive defense. They dont know who is making presentations. Someone is gathering a list of potential witnesses together. Apparently. They have a brief in response to the houses 80page brief due monday. They are then going to have to make a presentation. They dont seem well prepared to me. But they are smart in the sense they are picking up on where the republican senators were, and they will try to ride that i think incorrect legal argument all the way to an acquittal. Yeah. Dan goldman, its the old joke about, supreme court, can you count to five . Can they count enough republican no votes . Probably can, though well see. Dan goldman, thanks for being with me tonight. Thank you. Coming up, a Congresswoman Elisa slot kin on what she learned in the first hearing about domestic terrorism since the attack on the capitol. She joins me next. Some news today that far right Extremist Groups are joining forces. Atlanta journal constitution reports that the leader of a private Paramilitary Group formed alliances with other far right groups to push for georgias cessation. Department of justice seemed to underscore the danger these Extremist Groups pose when they indicted two members of the proud boys on conspiracy charges, interesting, conspiracy to obstruct congress on january 6th because they travelled to washington, quote, in order to stop, delay and hinder the certification of joe bidens election. Theres discussion how to respond to this kind of violence. Many groups from across the spectrum have warned against importing the framework of counterterrorism to these challenges. In a house hearing today, Congresswoman Slotkin talked about shifting our mental model to confront the threat of domestic violence, extremist and insurrection. For me as someone who worked on preventing Terrorist Attacks on the united states, i believe the post 9 11 era is over. January 6 is the cap of one of era and the beginning of another, that makes clear that the most dangerous threat right now to us as americans, physical, is the division between us and the way that some are exploiting those divisions. Democrat of michigan, chair of the house intelligence and counterterrorism subcommittee joins me now. I want you to explore further a little bit of what you said in that statement there. I have to say that as someone who reported on the War On Terror and counterterrorism and what came out of 9 11, there was a lot that was bad in terms of civil liberty, foreign policy, the people still sitting in guantanamo 20 years later, still without trial. I see a lot of people im one of them. The hair on their neck stands up when we think about 9 11 and what came after. I want to how you think through these threats and what we are confronting now. Sure. I think its a really important point. When we talk about domestic terrorism, its foundational. Its about our fellow americans. For someone like me who lives in michigan, its my neighbors, people in my town, its my community. Its very important we dont just overlay, particularly some of the worst lessons from the War On Terror, on our fellow americans. There are things that Lessons Learned we should bring forward. As you said, we shouldnt overreact. January 6 was a monumental event t was symbolic event, it was generational event. After 9 11, we did a lot of things out of emotion. We moved very quickly. We allowed certain things that we normally wouldnt. Its important we dont overreact. I think its important we also realize just similarly to 9 11, we dont have the Intelligence Community appropriately looking at the threat. January 6th was an Intelligence Failure of some kind. Either we knew about it and we didnt prepare enough or we werent paying attention enough to the threat of violence. I think we need to get our Intelligence Community and our authorities aligned. That doesnt mean necessarily that we do it without an eye toward Civil Liberties and civil rights. Its making sure we learn the right lessons and dont just overlay that on counterterrorism, foreign sort of overlay on to americans in our communities. Two thoughts come to mind. One is that there were americans also who were caught up in the first in post 9 11 era, often unfairly. Second of all, when you talk about the tools available, i think about what happened in your state of michigan. You had individuals plotting to kidnap and possibly execute the governor of your state. Essentially Good Police Work by the fbi in accordance with the constitution, pursuant to warrants before judges was able to find them, and apprehend them and charge them before they could do it. That seems like the sort of thing we want to see happen here. Yeah. I think we did excellent work in that. That was a lot of those raids took place in my district. It also is very clear that some of the laws that are on the books arent being used. I think 29 states, we have antimilitia laws. Most Attorneys General havent been exercising that authority for many years. We have a whole network of laws and authorities that we just arent exercising. Some of this may just be a clear voice from the department of justice, from the fbi that we will focus on threats appropriately. Its clear today in our hearing that theres going to be this debate about whether we need a domestic Terrorism Law. Its going to be a sporty debate. Where are you leaning . I mean, for me ive been doing learning and briefing about this. As you said, it does seem there are a lot of overlapping authorities. Even today, we heard people thinking about using rico, the stuff that we helped sort of exploit and use to get at the mob. Theres lots of different ways we can skin this cat. For me, a new domestic Terrorism Law should be an item of last resort. If we can use top down guidance, i would prefer that. Im curious about this is like in your district. When you talk about, you are in a swing district, some of the raids happened in your district. You are now chairing this subcommittee. This notion among some people its being cultivated i think of you are trying to essentially use the state against my politics because you dont like them. Yeah. I mean, listen, we have been dealing with this thing for almost a year in michigan. We had armed protesters push their way into our capitol in april. What we saw on the 6th was not new, certainly in mid michigan in my district, in the state. I think we have to be careful. I think theres a lot of groups who will say both on the right and left that we dont want to use the new authorities or look at new authorities if its going to mean targeting our fellow americans. I have heard from a lot of Civil Liberties groups who say you are going after one group. Its a hop, skip and jump until you come for me. We have to be thoughtful about how we do this, which is i think more than what we did in the very beginning on the war or on terror. We have to be more thoughtful. Congresswoman, who was in the hearing today, thank you for making time tonight. Thank you. Dont go anywhere. My interview with senator Elizabeth Warren on some of the most progressive pushes in the new Biden Administration. We will talk taxing the rich ahead. At jackson hewitt, we offer safe and easy ways to file with a skilled tax pro. Securely drop off your documents, have them picked up, or upload them, and work with a tax pro online from home. Safe and easy ways to file that work around you. In the post trump era, the Republican Party is trying to find itself, even redefine itself. One outfit is being the party of the Working Class. Substantively, this is ludicrous on its face. Republicans supported the enormous trump tax cut for billionaires and big businesses. Theyre arguing against more Unemployment Benefits and higher stimulus checks. Its true, the Republican Partys voters are more Working Class than they once were. So get this onslaught, we get Working Class hero dressup. Jim jordan of ohio tweeted this yesterday. The Republican Party is no longer the wine and cheese party, its the beer and blue jeans party. Missouri senator josh hawley argued just before the election, republicans should continue the work of donald trump in transforming the party for the Working Class. The president tried to make the Republican Party a Working Class party, the party of normal, everyday voters, those who dont have a job on wall street, those who dont want to go start a tech company, maybe those who dont have a Fouryear College degree, which is 70 of americans. We have a battle to make this a part of Working Class america. The next day hawley, prep school grad, decided the battle was over declaring, we are a Working Class party. Thats the future. Then theres ted cruz, trying to realign his party with working people and also a dual ivy graduate, by arguing that democrats dont care about that. The first week in office, what does joe biden do . He signed an Executive Order ending the keystone pipeline, destroying 11,000 jobs, 8,000 union jobs with the stroke of a pen. The democratic elites have decided that blue collar workers, that union members, men and women with calluses on their hands, they have made the wrong choices in john kerrys words. If you are a Working Person in this country, if you are a union member, if you are blue collar, if you have calluses on your hands, a cop or a firefighter or a waiter or waitress or construction worker, this Democratic Party doesnt care about you. I will note that ted cruzs blue collar shtick is the funniest of the three. His support for unions seems to depend whether its politically good for him. He is less happy with the union bosses exploiting the pandemic and barring students from attending public schools. Ted cruz, josh hawley, marco rubio maybe, if they really do care about working people and they hate big, bad corporate america, particularly big tech, here is a great test. There is a Unionization Drive happening right now at amazon. Just about the epitome of big business in america, big tech, corporate power. Workers at a warehouse in alabama are doing something incredible and brave and difficult. They will begin voting next week on whether to join the Retail Wholesale and Department Store union. It will be the first Union Election at an Amazon Warehouse since 2014. Here is a question. Do cruz, hawley and jordan support those Working Americans . If the Republican Party really wants to be the party of the Working Class and unions, thats great. It has to mean something. Here is a simple test, gentlemen. Go on the record with your support for the workers fighting for their rights against amazon right now. Otherwise, we will go back to assuming this is all an insulting act. Dont go anywhere, my interview with senator Elizabeth Warren with her fight to help Working Americans after this. Hey, i just got a text from my sister. You remember rick, her neighbor . Sure, hes the 76yearold guy who still runs marathons, right . Sadly, not anymore. Wow. So sudden. Um, were not about to have the we need Life Insurance conversation again, are we . No, were having the were getting coverage so we dont have to worry about it conversation. So youre calling about the 9. 95 a month plan from Colonial Penn . I am. We put it off long enough. We are getting that 9. 95 plan, today. jonathan is it time for you to call about the 9. 95 plan . Im jonathan from Colonial PennLife Insurance company. Sometimes we just need a reminder not to take today for granted. 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Just over two weeks into his presidency, bidens president ial approach thus far already shows just how much the ideological center of the Democratic Coalition has shifted. Bidens kept his promise on things like rejoining the paris climate accords, canceling the keystone pipeline. Hes gone out of his way to making prolabor staffing changes at the nlrb and ordered partial deportation moratorium. Just today comes news the administration is ending support for the disastrous and cruel saudiled war in yemen and theyll be increasing the number of refugees the u. S. Takes up to 125,000. And on the biggest legislative push, covid relief, bidens approach has been bigger and less constrained by selfimposed concerns about austerity and debt than the obama Biden Administration was just 12 years earlier. While President Biden talks very much like a centrist, his actions so far reflect a new emerging consensus within Democratic Party politics. Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren of massachusetts, one of the most significant progressive voices in congress, now has a seat on the Senate Finance committee and she joins me now. And senator, first, id like to get your grade, your assessment and reaction to these first few weeks of the biden presidency. Well, keep in mind, joe biden ran on the most Progressive Agenda ever. And now he is meeting the moment and we need to continue to hold everyone accountable to the promises that have been made. Its a good time. Youre on the finance committee. And my understanding is that its new and youre very excited about that. For people that are not familiar with the terrain of senate committees, what is the why did you want to be on that committee . Wealth tax. Social security. The money that we need in order to have childcare. Medicare. Its all right there in the finance committee. You know, we talk a lot in this country, we talk a lot on your program, about inequality in our nation. And much of that inequality has gone forward through things that come through the finance Committee Like the huge tax cuts that went through at the beginning of the Trump Administration. But also much of how we combat inequality goes through that committee as well. Medicare. The Affordable Care act. As i said, social security. So, i just think its an important cross roads of how we build a future. You know, for me, taxes are ultimately about our values. Its about who we say in this country needs to pay to help us build a future. And what that looks like. And finance committee, good place to do that. Im happy. So i have a question about that on the wealth tax. So, i think theres a lot of really interesting literature behind the wealth tax, the one that you proposed during the primary. Youve talked about introducing it as legislation. Heres my question for you. Do you think of it as a means of Raising Revenue or a means of attacking inequality and getting rid of certain perverse incentives which is to say the following, if the deficit were totally balanced, if the government didnt need any more revenue or if taxes werent even necessary to fund the government in some alternate universe, would you still want the wealth tax . Yes. And let me explain why. The wealth tax is important in both parts. Its critical for Raising Revenue and that revenue is critical for raising opportunity because thats what this is really about. Right now, we live in an america that is so tilted toward the rich and the powerful. The top. 1 of 1 are paying last year about 3. 2 of their total wealth in taxes. The 99 paid about 7. 2 of their total wealth. In other words, more than half. And when the top is not paying a fair share, thats how we end up as a nation thats not making an investment in universal childcare and universal prek, an america thats not making an investment in our young people who are trying to get an education, k12, and posthigh school in Technical School and twoyear college and Fouryear College. Its about making sure that were a country that doesnt just work for a tiny little thin slice at the top but a country that genuinely is investing in opportunity so that all of our kids have a chance to build a strong future. Thats what its about. One of the other big issues during the primary was Student Loan Debt and both sort of prospeculatively and retroactively. So creating conditions under which people can go to college and not pay through the nose and not be in sort of debt servitude, but also canceling debt that is weighing people down. I know youve been advocating for that and think that theres the Legal MechanismSenate Majority leader Chuck Schumer as well to cancel a large amount of student debt through executive action. The arguments against it are legal and political. So ill give them to you both and you can respond. One, that this would be an overstep of Executive Power and that secondly, would just create a kind of classbased backlash, right, that would enshrine the Democratic Party as people that care most about folks with College Degrees at the expense of everyone else. What are your responses to those two arguments . Lets do the legal argument first. Keep in mind that the Obama Administration canceled Student Loan Debt. The Trump Administration canceled Student Loan Debt. And nobody said they dont have the power to do that. Right. All Leader Schumer and i are asking for is now lets have the Biden Administration step up and we think they should cancel more but he clearly has the Legal Authority to do this. Now, you want to talk about whos going to get helped, keep in mind 40 of the people who are dealing right now with Student Loan Debt do not have a college diploma. These are people who did what we wanted them to do. They tried. But for one reason or another, they couldnt make it. Maybe because they were working three jobs. Maybe because another baby was born. But for whatever reason, they didnt make it all the way through to their diploma and that means these are people right now who are earning what a High School Grad can earn but who are struggling right. With Student Loan Debt. We cancel 50,000 worth of Student Loan Debt and what that will mean is that 85 of those who are struggling with Student Loan Debt right now, about 40 million people, will see their Student Loan Debt completely wiped out. And the rest will see a big hunk of it cut away. And heres the thing. Thats not only good for the people who have Student Loan Debt. In fact, its life transformative for them. But its good for Everybody Else who doesnt have Student Loan Debt. Yep. And the reason for that is it helps boost the whole economy. We get more people buying homes. We get more people starting small businesses. That Student Loan Debt is holding back our economy. This was true long before the pandemic came along. We get people shaken free from that Student Loan Debt. And we have an economy that is stronger, more robust. Number one thing that President Biden can do right now for this economy, cancel 50,000 worth of Student Loan Debt. The number one thing he could do for young people, cancel Student Loan Debt. The number one thing he can do to help close the black white wealth gap, is cancel 50,000 worth of Student Loan Debt. It would be transformative for families and transformative for this nation. Senator Elizabeth Warren of the state of massachusetts, thank you so much for making time tonight. Ah, thank you for having me. That is all in on this thursday night. The Rachel Maddow show begins right now. Good evening, rachel. Good evening, chris, thanks, my friend. Much appreciated. Appreciated. And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Some very exciting news today. The former Vice President has a job not the formerformer Vice President whos now president. No, i mean the immediate former Vice President , mike pence. Heritage foundation has announced that former Vice President mike pence is going to go work there. He said today, quote, the Heritage Foundation announced today that former Vice President mike pence will join the organization as a distinguished visiting fellow. What exactly is that job . What exactly is he going to do there . Thats kind of beside the point. But heritage is very excited to have him. Working together with the former Vice President , heritage will continue to support and defend these Policy Accomplishments while also fighting