tv The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC April 19, 2017 9:00pm-10:01pm PDT
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massachusetts senator elizabeth warren is here tonight for the interview. she will be here live in the studio with me. i'm very much looking forward to that conversation. elizabeth warren tonight for the interview. we start tonight with the founding of the family research council. the family research council was founded as a very conservative hard line religious right activist group in the early 1980s. james dobson has always been the figure head and prime mover of the family research council. its initial founding came in large part from a michigan businessman, a man named edgar prince. he ran a manufacturing company that made auto parts and other stuff through the '60s, '70s and '80s and '90s. what he became famous for was not his business acumen in michigan, what he did with his fortune.
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he put his family fortune into super super right wing social conservative advocacy. ti-gay activis anti-abortion activism. anti-pornography activism, really hard right social conservative stuff. they were one of the rich families in the state of michigan and made a big right wing family impact with that fortune. that became more true when one of his children, his daughter, betsy, married into one of the other richest families in the state of michigan. she married into the family that controlled the am way empire. now, betsy devos represents the unification of the prince family fortune and devos family fortune and all the the crusading activism the multi-conservative billionaire families can muster.
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she is now our secretary of education in the trump administration. but her little brother represents a different marriage of fortunes, her younger brother is erik prince. erik prince represents the marriage of the prince family fortune he was also born into and the kind of fortune that can be made when you privatize war, you contract out the work of the army or the special forces to instead be done by a for profit enterprise. in the case of blackwater, that for profit enterprise just happened to be run by a mega rich super hard line crusading activist who was born a billionaire before he ever got his first no bid contract during the iraq war. ever since blackwater contractors were convicted of killing 17 unarmed iraqi civilians and the name blackwater disappeared and the country reinvented itself
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several times with increasingly hard to google obscure names and since he left the country and moved his family to abu dhabi where he feels, i don't know, saver, freer? his mainstream public profile has dropped in recent years as the controversies of george w. bush's iraq war have started to fade into history. he did not fade entirely out of view everywhere. just before the election, breitbart news run by then trump campaign ceo now presidential advisor, steve bannon, breitbart published a scoop citing well-placed sources in the nypd, erik prince told breitbart before the election hillary clinton was out to be arrested. police were about to make arrests in a money launderinghild sexing that hillary clinton apparently busied herself with when she wasn't running for president or secretary of state.
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according to erik prince and his sources in law enforcement he obama justice department was avidly trying to cover up this scandal. according to him he knew from insiders arrests were imminent. they wouldn't have to wait before hillary got locked up, hillary would get locked up even before the election by the nypd or fbi or academy or blackwater or erik prince himself. i don't know. erik prince reported hillary clinton was frequently known to go to a secret sex island with pedophiles. erik prince reported huma abedin, was a muslim agent with influence. and said the e-mail scandal was a murder scandal and she had murdered people with her e-mails. that's why the e-mails had to be
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on a private server because that is how she did the murdering. erik prince faded from mainstream public view and he remains a big deal in trumpville especially in that breitbart news of trumpland. he's also education secretary betsy devos' brother and given $100,000 to a super pac supporting the trump campaign right before the election. now, bloomberg news reports erik prince played a significant personal role in the trump transition. what bloomberg news reports both before and after the election, erik prince met multiple times with trump staffers including michael flynn who would go on to be national security advisor to the new president before he was fired. he was reportedly tasked by the trump folks approaching people in the private sector about them possibly taking government jobs. he reportedly took multiple trips to the trump tower office
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and according to bloomberg news he used the back door to go in so he wouldn't be seen going in and out and he spoke to someone within earshot of a meeting between erik prince and kellyanne conway and another trump transition figure on the moving train between new york and washington, d.c. the eavesdropper told bloomberg news that three of those people were discussing reorganizing the united states intelligence community. this new reporting from bloomberg about erik prince having a role before the election and since. erik prince is an interesting figure but also because the trump administration has been denying up and down more than a week now erik prince had anything to do with them, that erik prince had anything to do with the campaign or the transition or anyone in the
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administration. they can't deny he's betsy's little brother but they have denied he had any connection act the trump campaign or process of setting up either of those things. the reason those denials have been so urgent, two weeks ago the "washington post" reported nine days before the inauguration january 11th, that erik prince traveled to the seychelles islands, very far away in the indian ocean. to take two days of meetings with a russian emissary from vladamir putin's office. the russian official he supposedly met with has not been named but presented himself as an unofficial envoy for trump when the meeting was set up and the russian envoy was understood to be a representative of vladamir putin.
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u.s. officials say the fbi has been scrutinizing the meeting in the seychelles as part of a broader probe of russian interference in the 2016 u.s. election and alleged contacts between associates of putin and trump. a meeting in this incredibly remote location off the eastern coast of africa there, off tanzania and kenya. these two days of meetings took place at an incredibly intense time, nine days before the inauguration, a week before that meeting is when u.s. intelligence community put out its reports saying russia interfered in the election to help donald trump win. a week after that report comes out a guy representing the trump transition meets with a representative from putin for two days of secret meetings. why? michael flynn was the first national security advisor for
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this new administration and initially did not disclose and ultimately lied about his contacts with the russian government. those lies and nature of those contacts were ultimately reported out and became known through journalism and michael flynn was fired. attorney general jeff sessions also did not disclose his contacts with russian officials but ultimately reported out and he had to admit to them and had to come up with some explanation why he never disclosed them in the past and ultimately had to recuse himself from any investigations involving the trump campaign in russia. then jared kushner the president's son-in-law did not disclose contacts with different russian officials including his meeting with the head of a bank linked to russian intelligence himself hand-picked for that banking job by vladamir putin. he did not disclose his meeting with government officials
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either. nevertheless they were reported out and ultimately he never explained to them and ultimately didn't have to recuse himself or get fired from anything. as of today one democratic congressman in virginia saying him not disclosing those meetings should at least cost him his security clearance if not get him prosecuted. now we have this new one previously undisclosed transition of someone associated with the trump transition and russian official. held secretly, subsequently denied and reported out. in this case the initial denial was that guy had nothing to do with the transition. it's now reported he did have quite a lot to do with the transition. the meeting itself, why these contacts with the russians, still not explained. that list sets aside the whole carter page sideshow the trump campaign policy advisor the subject of a fisa warrant to monitor his communications
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because of the fbi's view he was a knowing agents of the russian government as he held multiple meetings not just with officials in the united states and in moscow during the campaign while the russian government was interfering in the election to help donald trump. if you're just stacking up previously undisclosed meetings between trump campaign figures and russians, is this it? how many more new disclosures are there going to be? you guys know by now if you had meetings with russians you should tell people, right? it's going to get reported. anybody else? the erik prince meeting in the seychelles islands is the latest of a long series of previously denied secret russian meetings with trump people, can we get an explanation of what these meetings are about? will we get a unified field
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explanation why there were so many contacts between people associated with donald trump and russian officials during the campaign and during the transition and during the administration, is to? i don't know. this is the kara. see in the right hand corner, it's a far place on earth, further north from there, parts of siberia and russia and further north is the kara sea, the northern most discovery of oil in the world. a government owned company drilled a well up in the kara sea or decided a well should be drilled there. exxon provided the rig, the product of a joint partnership.
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in 2012, exxon ceo hammered out this deal basically the mother of all oil deals. they were in a joint partnership drill to drill the kara sea, elsewhere in the arctic, drill the black sea, drill siberia, that deal exxon tillerson hammered out with russia was said to be the biggest deal ever. likely to be a $500 billion deal. they did that deal in 2012, the following year, 2013, putin bestowed on tillerson a friendship. and victory is the name they gave to the well they drilled in the kara sea, fitting because they hit paydirt. it was capable of producing 750 million barrels of oil, just that one well.
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overall based on their initial exploratory work, they think it holds nearly 90 billion barrels of oil more than saudi arabia's biggest oil fields. that initial oil well was their greatest victory and the end of it all. right after they drilled that well and hit oil, thought they could get 750 million barrels of oil out of that one well, right after they drilled it and right after they made that announcement, boom, sanctions from the u.s. government on russia including rosneft and the guy who runs it and on ukraine and taking crimea. can't do business with those folks in russia anymore. that stopped that giant half trillion exxon oil in its tracks. nobody has drilled in the kara sea since then. you can see the russians are
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getting ancy about it. they issued a tender looking for tugboats and a passenger vessel to put another rig out there to drill for gas even if exxon can't come back out there and drill for more oil. exxon wants to get out there and drill for more oil. we learned exxon is applying to be exempted from the u.s. sanctions on russia specifically so they can restart that oil drilling. only now it's not rex tillerson, exxon ceo doing the asking, it's rex tillerson's successor doing the asking and the person he's asking is rex tillern because rex tillerson is now the u.s. secretary of state. tillerson will have to personally recuse himself from direct say because of his continuing financial ties with exxon. it's an eye popping development, right? not the least the mega amount of money involved here, also the unexplained coincidences and eventualities here. not clear how rex tillerson ended up being secretary of
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state particularly since he and donald trump had never met before the election. all the other people suggested for secretary of state made more sense, former political rivals, mitt romney and people he had seen on tv, john bolton and old friends, rudy guiliani, rex tillerson, who donald trump had never met, never had anything to do with before, never laid eyes on before the election, how did rex tillerson get that job? he must have come very highly recommended by someone. but if they can please start drilling again, if rosneft and exxon can please get excused from the sanctions and particularly great for rosneft, owned by the government of russia.
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as i mentioned at the top of the show, elabeth waen is here for an interview, she has a new book out called "this fight is our fight." she is one of the most high profile democrats in the country one of the most famously pugnatic democrats in the country. it has been an interesting question on politics who will lead on the democratic side. who will have the best instincts and message and best skills? who will have the smartest strategy to lead the democratic party as it transitions from being the democratic party of the obama era to the trump era. it is about the war on the middle class, how much harder it has become to be middle class in this country and policies to help recreate and save the middle class. it is also about why those policies don't exist and what democrats are up against right now in terms of this new
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administration specifically. here's how she describes trump and him setting up his new cabinet. a treasury secretary from wall street who raked in a fortune helping goldman sachs blow up the weapons and homeowners who bore the brunt of the crash. a commerce secretary from wall street whose legendary history of squeezing his companies for every dollar caught up to him when a dozen coal minors were killed in an explosion. and betsy devos contributed millions to private education and crudely explained when she and her family contributed money we expect a return on our investment. secretary of state, rex tillerson, from the sovereign state of big oil, who improved his corporations profits and pumped up his own bonuses by cozying up to vladamir putin. trump and his team collectively control billions of dollars in
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wealth. they have the potential to turn thr billions into tens of billions or hundreds of billions or even more. as for trump himself, why should he wait to cash in? he said the president can't have a conflict of interest so he sees no need to make distinction between the work he does as a public servant and money in his pocket. he again refused to release his taxes. that means the american people will never find out the truth about his financial interests and never know if he is in deep hock in russia or making big bucks in the middle east, things that could profoundly influence the decisions he will make as president. the levers of government. the ability to enforce laws to make rules to award contracts to rattle cages and invade countries and help friends, all those levers are now in the hands of a man who has spent his entire life making the government work for exactly one person, himself. >> the influence of money in the government and other stuff, too.
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if you are a profession democrat, if you're a high profile democrat trying to lead the country in a different direction than this president, trying to oppose this president and his party, how do you balance these two different things we are contending with now as a country? on the other hand there are the betsy devoses of the world using generational family wealth and hard right wing activismnd epic donations to grab yourself a cabinet positions and create qualifications for high public office. the self-dealing and personal enrichment opportunities government provides for the already very rich. that's all part of the progressive diagnosis in terms of what's wrong with republican governments.
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then, there is something else here that is very different. there is also this existential scandal whether this administration didn't just benefit from a foreign intelligence operation, there's the question whether it's part of one. if you are a democrat opposed to the trump administration, if you see it as your life's work to try to bring the country along in a progressive direction, which of those levels of scandal is the titanic and which is the deck chairs? how do you make sense strategically, politically, patriotically, every single day about what to focus on and where to fight? let's ask elizabeth warren. she joins us next. ways been dif. last year, he said he was going to dig a hole to china. at&t is working with farmers to improve irrigation techniques. remote moisture sensors use a reliable network
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joining us now for the interview i'm very happy to say, senator elizabeth warren from massachusetts has a new book out called "this fight is our fight." thank you so much for being here. >> delight to be here with you. >> this is your 11th book. >> it is. >> a bunch of your other books were your pre-electoral politics life. you wrote about bankruptcy the middle class, debt, dual income families. you could see inour earlier writing the way you made the transition from academic to advocate, policy wonk and now elected official. >> that's right. >> why keep writing books because you're aelected politics? >> it's still a tool in the toolbox to get out there and fight. the point about all of this is really, books are identifying
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the same kind of problem that's going on. it's basically, i tell them the long story in this book, how it starts first with what america did right, how we built a great middle class, coming out of the "great depression," 1935, and part of it was about regulating industries too big, giving small businesses a chance and forcing antitrust laws, breaking up the banks so there was where we separated boring banking from high flying banking. at the same time, progressive taxation and taking that money and putting it into opportunity. opportunity for the middle class, working families, for the poor to have a chance, to grow into something. we invested in education, invested in infrastructure and roads and bridges and power in rural areas. we invested in research and a
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pipeline of ideas. from 1935 to 1980 we made those investments and it worked. it worked. we built the strongest greatest middle class the earth had ever seen. the country kept getting richer, and the 90% of america, everybody not in the top 10%, 90%, upper middle class, middle class, working class, the working poor, the poor poor, they got 70% of all the growth and income. african-americans locked solidly at the bottom. but starting in the 1960s, 1970s, the black-white wealth gap began to shrink. we weren't in the right place but on the right path. it was a path about opportunity. government measured everything through the lens of does it help the middle class. g.i. bill, does it help the middle class. highways, do they help the middle class, does it create jobs here in america.
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then we hit 1980, regarding, trickle down -- ronald reagan trickle down economics, deregulate, let the banks run wild and taxation, cut taxes for those at the top and shrink up investment we make in education and infrastructure and research. 1980 to 2016, gdp keeps going up just like it did before. the difference is what happens to the 90%? how much do they get of the new income growth? the answer, none. zero, zip. nearly 100% of the growth in new income goes to the top 10%. the black-white wealth gap triples in this period of time. america's middle class has taken one punch after another.
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now, donald trump is poised to deliver the knockout blow. and so i wrote this book partly to tell the story, partly to tell why it happened, how it happened but partly to say, this is how we get back in the fight because we have to be in this fight. this fight is our ght. it's a fight for what kind of country we are. >> tell me about the relationship between that arc of history you described in electoral politics. ronald reagan legacy, we look back at it now not just artificially burnished legacy and we look at him being phenomenally electorally well. and we look at the people who had the most to lose from him
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strongly voted in his direction. how do you explain the difference between those types of outcomes you're describing how people can intelligently perceive their own self-interests and the way people vote. >> i talked about it in the book. part of it is an ugly stew of racism. part of it is donald trump tapped into anger. he got people are deeply anger. angry their kids can't graduate from school without getting crushed by student loan debt, angry there aren't good jobs creating here. angry after a lifetime of working hard you can't retire with dignity and security. people are right to be angry. donald trump said, it's their fault, the other people, that don't worship like you, don't look like you, aren't the same color as you. that was a big part. he told a story. it's just the wrong story. donald trump promised, he said, you elect me, i'm going to get out there and i'm going to work for you.
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look at what he's done. he turned around and you quoted the part about the team he assembled. he's been in place less than 100 days, go through part of the list. he has already signed off on a law to make it's easier for employers to steal their employees' wages. he's made it's easier for companies that kill and mainstream their employees to hide that information. he's made it's easier for investment advisors to cheat retirees. for me, i got to tell you, the trumpcare was like the whole package wrapped up in one. he embraced this idea the way we're going to move this country forward, the way we will reform healthcare we will knock 24 million people out of healthcare coverage, we will raise the cost of health insurance for a whole lot of middle class families. and why? so they can deliver a task cut
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for a handful of millionaires and billionaires. this isn't about what donald trump says. this is about what donald trump does. and he's delivering one hit after another on working families. >> our guest, senator elizabeth warren, this fight is our fight. i have chained her to the desk. she'll be back in just a moment despite her wishes. okay let's call his agent i'm coming over right now. the newly advanced gle can see in your blind spot. onboard cameras and radar can detect danger all around you. driver assist systems can pull you back into your lane if drifting. bye chief. bye bobby. and will even help you brake, if necessary. it makes driving less of a production. lease the gle350 for $579 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer. mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. you had a long, stressful day, and now you need a little help falling asleep. time for unisom sleepminis.
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we're back with senator elizabeth warren who has a new book out called "this fight is our fight." i opened at the top with latest revelations around the trump-russia issue, not the only issue in the world when it comes to the trump administration but it is a different kind of issue. >> it is. >> i wonder, as you think about the opposition to the trump agenda, you think about your role in the democratic party, how do you weigh that very different kind of story, that different kind of scandal and question against the more sort of typical republican rich guy politics stuff you rail about in your book but also so effectively in general? >> look, what the book is about, what i think a big debate in washington is about is who government is going to work for. is it going to work for the rich guys at the top or is it actually going to work for the rest of america. i think that's a huge debate a critical one we have to have. republicans made it clear, they've thrown in with the rich guys and some democrats threw in with them, too.
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the russia thing i put in a totally different category and i'm trying to make a totally different argument about it. that's the one that should not be partisan. i don't care if you're a democrat, republican, independent, libertari, i don't care. you should care whether or not russia finagled our election or otherwise is calling any other shots in washington. everybody should care. let's start with what we know absolutely for sure. we know that the intelligence community of the united states of america said russia hacked in to american systems in order to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. pow. we know for sure that the fbi has an active and ongoing
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investigation about the ties between russia, the trump campaign and donald trump. wow. and we know for sure that top trump aides, you have just talked about, have been fired because of their ties, their undisclosed ties and connections with russia. for me, that is enough to say we have to have an investigation. we need a special prosecutor with strong subpoena powers and we need an independent commission. all of us should want that. this is not about partisanship, this is about patriotism. we make sure that our leaders and our elections are worried about nothing but the american people. that's our job. i think we put that one in a separate category but we have to turn the heat up. we have to make sure we get that special prosecutor and get to
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the bottom of this. holding hearings behind closed doors, i think that has already been demonstrated not to be very effective when we've got folks leaking out information. we need it out in public, special prosecutor, completely independent special commission. that's what i will push for and i think a lot of folks are starting to push for. the question really is back to the republicans and house and the senate, why wouldn't you want that? if you're confident your guys innocent, make it independent, nonpartisan, not bipartisan, nonpartisan. get a special prosecutor out there and get to the bottom of it and everyone in america will know what the answer is. >> one of the things you write about in the book in personal terms is your reaction, your feelings about seeing the big protest movements that have emerged since the election. >> yes. >> do you feel like on that russia issue, the issue of needing a special prosecutor or
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independent investigation, as you say, on some of the other policy issues you talked about here tonight, do you feel like the people power we have seen in the streets, the new civic engagement for people in the center and left people opposed to this president, do you feel that is the most effective lever to getting those things moved? >> absolutely. >> more so than your colleagues in the senate advocating? >> more is more. are you kidding? i'll be out there, i'll shout at the top of my lungs on this. i will encourage every one of my colleagues to do it. my colleagues are getting stronger on all of these issues. the key, i talk about it in the book as we get to the end. i talk about going to the inauguration, seeing donald trump with my own eyes. i wanted to think about it. every moment when i wake up, everyday when i wake up. the next day, going to the women's march at boston common
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and so i'm thinking just completely into this on this saturday morning. it's cold out in boston and i'm thinking how are we going to fight back against trump? at this point i know we have to have an army. we have to have an army. it's the only way we can do this. we don't have the votes in the house. we don't have the votes in the senate. we have to have an army. i'm thinking how do you raise an army? where does it come from? what does it look like in a case like this. as we're rounding the corner into boston common i see all these people in the common, the women in pink hats and men pushing strollers and on bicycles. i look over. a man with a little girl on his shoulders and she's holding up a sign hand lettered carefully done says, i fight like a girl. i thought, me, too, sweetie.
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that for me was the moment. i said this is our army. it did change from that moment, rachel. keep in mind, we have to remember the house of representatives voted 60 plus times to repeal obamacare. you remeer this. >> they were rehearsing. >> rehearsing over and over. the senate is like, yeah, let's do this. donald trump said how many times during the campaign, on day one i will get rid of obamacare, we will repeal it on day one. so donald trump wins the election and people start talking about obamacare. they start talking about healthcare in america and people start pushing back. we have one narrative, the one line was you cannot repeal and run, you have to repeal and replace. a lot of people said, yeah, that sounds right to me. we have to replace it. we know what happened next on replace it, all of a sudden the republicans have to put out this really ugly plan.
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when they do, folks realize they will be touched, how their neighbors will be touched. it's more even of the personal, a sense of the collective. if your personal health insurance will be secure. wait a minute. we have the richest country on earth? healthcare should be a basic human right. the more people that attended protests and made phone calls. those phone calls freaked people out, in terms of senators saying, holy -- what just happened here, right? those phone calls, e-mail, the people who showed up, who made their voices clear, i want to be
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clear, they weren't all democrats. there were a lot of independents in there and trump voters in there saying, whoa whoa whoa, that's not what we had in mind for hethcare reform. we have to do this differential. then it becomes crucial. by the time they get ready to vote, i get it, there were republicans who said, this bill that you put forward is not brutal enough. it does not cause enough pain. those guys are like over the edge. the rest of the republicans wouldn't go there with them. that's how this thing broke apart. why would the rest of the republicans not go there with them? because of the voices heard across this country. democracy has changed in this country over the past few months. democracy has changed. it's democracy when we get engaged we get out there and when we get in this fight, which is what i talk about here, when
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we do that, we will make our voices heard and we will return this government to one that works for the people. >> senator elizabeth warren is our guest. i have one last question for you. will you stay there and wait for it? >> i will. >> thank you very much. we will be back with senator elizabeth warren. brian, i just need to know if the customer app will be live monday. can we at least analyze customer traffic? can we push the offer online? brian, i just had a quick question. brian? brian... legacy technology can handcuff any company.
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liver problems can occur with entyvio. if your uc or crohn's medication isn't working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio. entyvio. relief and remission within reach. we're back with senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts who has a new book out called "this fight is our fight." senator, if you were running for president in 2020 you would not want to talk about it now with me or anybody else, is that true?
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>> that is true. but let me be clear, i am not running for president in 2020. what i am doing is i am running for the united states senate in 2018 from massachusetts. >> i heard of it. >> you heard of it. can i make another point on this? i think it's actually really important. we were talking just before the break about democracy changing. we can't make democracy a once every four year horse race we pay a whole lot of attention, who will run for president and spend a lot of time and the horses are getting ready. we can't do that. democracy has truly changed. it can't be a spectator sport. it can't be a four year off -- >> you're talking about it being about policy not just candidates moving people in office now regardless what of who is running. >> that's what we have to do. that means donald trump pose as a danger not just in four years.
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he is still in his first 100 days. i'm worried about what donald trump is going to do this evening. i'm worried about what he is going to do when he wakes up at three income the morning and hits twitter. i'm worried about what he will do tomorrow and the next day and the next day. i got to tell you. we got to be strong. we've got to be focused. we've got to be in this fight. not later onbut right now. >> what do you think the democratic party needs to do differently between now and the mid terms to avoid what has typically been democratic underperformance in the mid terms? obviously the democrats think they'll pick up some seats. >> right. >> because the republicans hold the white house and that's sort of the trend there. but democrats don't do as well in mid year election. >> not usually. >> what should they do this year in order to fix that? >> look, the short version. the first one is we've got to be in the fight. really. we cannot lay down and die. we have to show we're willing to fight, even when we lose. you lose you get back up and fight again. yeah, we lost on betsy devos. she is in there. but by golly, we made the fight. and there are a lot of people paying attention to what's going on. being in the fight changes things. it's energizes things. it keeps people connected to
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each other. second one, we cannot shoot at everything that moves. we just can't. we just have to let some of donald trump's craziness go. because this is no longer about what he says. this is no longer about how crazy his hair look, whatever. it's really about the things he is doing. because the things he is doing to take the legs out from underneath america's middle class, to line his own pockets instead of working for the american people, those are the things for which he will be held responsible. and the third thing we've got to do is we've got to talk about our values. we've got to talk what we get up in the morning for and why we fight all day long. a big part of what try to do in this book is i tell a lot of stories. stories about people who worked hard, who played by the rules. gina who did it all. gets a college diploma. it all looks like it works. she is 50 years old now. she works at walmart. her husband is a roofer.
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his knees are starting to go. they have two grandsons they couldn't afford to send to college. and where does she stand right now when i ask her are you still middle class? she says there is no middle class. because if there was a middle class, i wouldn't have to go to a food pantry. it's what's happening in america. it's the people who give voice to this. our only chance is not to rely on just the democrats in the house or the democrats in the senate. our chance is to throw in with each other. and this is our test. what kind of a people are we and what kind of a country are we going to build? it's up to us. >> senator elizabeth warren, democrat of massachusetts, new book is called "this fight is our fight: the battle to save america's middle class." thank you for spending so much time with us. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. the road can change in an instant.
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barack obama's inauguration 2009, by all accounts was the largest, most attended inauguration in history. set an attendance record for an inauguration. i remember being there. it was overwhelming just in terms of the scale of the event. it was actually too big for individual human being to be comfortable at. at least a human being like me. that inauguration in 2009 is set an attendance record for not just an inauguration, but for any event in the history of washington, d.c. huge.
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that inauguration also set a record for raising money. more than $53 million raised to fund the cost of that inauguration. that was more than any other inauguration in history. and inaugurations are big splashy deals. every four years an inauguration committee for whoever the president is raises millions of dollars to pay for the inauguration. they're a big deal. a lot of people come. this year was a little bit different, though. this year i have to say the trump inauguration did not quite manage to eclipse president obama's inauguration as the largest in d.c. history. wasn't quite as big. they fell just short. so close. basically, a tie. but it did manage to double the amount of money that obama's 2009 inauguration raised, which is interesting, right? significantly smaller than the obama administration, but they raised twice the money. they raised $107 million. there were 45 separate donations of a million dollars or more. including $5 million frocasino
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mogul and conservative republican atm sheldon adelson. now there is no scandal in, that right? we're not trying to sound the alarm about that. i'm just saying that's a ton of money. and there's an additional question. given that it was a small inauguration and they didn't really have any big entertainment acts, and not that many people went, it just wasn't that big an affair, what happens to all the money? because they raised double the amount of money that obama raised for his gigantic inauguration. what are they going to do with whatever is left over? the huge amount that they raised for an event that was not that huge has been this sort of strange financial story in the middle of a lot of other strange stories about the trump administration. we know that they got for the inauguration, for example, huge chunks of money from a couple of nfl owners, from dow chemical, from robert mercer, from bank of america, from at&t, from boeing.
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we've heard a little bit of reporting about what those donor mace have gotten for their money. we've heard a little bit about special access, privileges and invitations to meetings and things. we don't have an answer to this yet, but this is worth noting. now at some point we will figure this out. why did they raise so much extra money? this is a strange thing. $107 million. now in all likelihood they're sits on tens of millions of dollars from something left over that wasn't that big and that expensive. what are they going to do with it? all we have is this vague statement from the inaugural coittee that we will identify and evaluate charities that will receive contribution left from the excess moneys that were raised. they've had this money for months. they couldn't find anybody yet? so there is a slush fund in the middle of the trump administration left over from
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the inauguration. it's sitting around. historically speaking, unearmarked funds for nothing from corporations and friends that presidents get to control however they like generally speaking that's not a good thing for any government. what has happened to the trump slush fund from the inauguration? when do we get an explanation for it, and how big is it? in the meantime, we're taking bets how this particular fund is being used internally. if anybody wins the bet, i'll share it with you on the air. that's it for tonight. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." >> there you go giving trump ideas. he might not have known he had this slush fund. now look what you have done. >> anybody in government who is sitting on tens of millions of dollars that isn't earmarked for anything that they don't have to answer for but that they can control without anybody knowing? that's always the first chapter of a book that ends with something very bad. >> well, and you have written
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