and at abacus there was some truth to that, too. it's clearly not a big bank, and clearly it's not representative of the entire financial community, but i think the principle was the same. >> reporter: vance prosecuted abacus even though it had one of the lowest default rates in the country. only nine of three-thousand loans abacus granted were not paid back during the five-year period covered by the film. >> cyrus vance just felt this is easier to attack, especially it's a family bank. but he doesn't realize that tom is not easy to be pushed around. and my girls, they're tough, smart capable women. so courageous. >> reporter: central to the film is the city's chinese-american community that was the bank's customer base. as jill sung explains. >> we serve people who have never even dealt with the banking system before and you try to bring them into the banking system. an example of that is the safe deposit boxes. >> there are 8,000 plus boxes in this vault. 8,000. the chinese people, particularly the immigrants, they rent houses in

federal savings. >> host: there is a movie called abacus, small enough to jail, an incredible story because it is a family-owned chinese immigrant bank, two noodle shops and the only bank in the financial crisis and they were invited because of a series of small improprieties they reported to the authorities. they were eventually prosecuted for defrauding fannie mae but fannie mae never suffered loss in any of those transactions. what i was trying to show, you have a tiny regional banks surrounded by behemoth financial institutions the later settled from billions of dollars committing crimes on massive scales beyond what abacus did but none were federally prosecuted and that was because we have a new doctrine which is too big to failing too big to jail. we openly said people like for me -- former attorney general eric holder said they were reluctant to prosecute certain companies because they were worried about the, quote, collateral consequences to the larger economy. and if we are afraid to prosecute a big bank, you have to be small enough to prosecute. that happened in the face o

. >> a really big abacus. >> 9,999,000 oh.or us today? >> a little song for you called -- we're going to do "how you remind me," at some point in time, just to go back to the original handshake. and we're going to play a new one for you guys called "song of fire." >> thanks, guys. ♪ ♪ the first words that come out and i can see this song ♪ ♪ will be about you i can't believe that i can ♪ ♪ breathe without you that all i need to do ♪ ♪ is carry on ♪ the next line i write down there's a tear that falls between the pages ♪ ♪ i know the pain's supposed to heal in stages ♪ ♪ but it depends which one i'm standing on ♪ ♪ i write lines down then rip them up ♪ ♪ describing love can't be this tough ♪ ♪ i could set this song on fire send it up in smoke ♪ ♪ i could throw it in the river watch it sink in slowly ♪ ♪ tie the pages to a plane and send it to the moon ♪ ♪ play it for the world but it won't mean much ♪ ♪ unless i sing this song to you ♪ ♪ sing this song to you ♪ i'm dying to show you this could end up happily ever after ♪ ♪ it d

that happened in the case of abacus. they found a bank that was small enough to prosecutor. so they indicted them but very recently they were all found not guilty, and so it's an amazing story. highly recommend everybody watch the movie. >> host: july 9, 2013, you were in the courtroom when cyrus vans junior was the prosecutor and these people were marched through in chains. >> guest: yeah. some of them had already been arraigned and they brought them back a second time for a photo op. not one of the major bankers, who got no trouble or accused of wrong-doing after 2008 -- none of them had to so much as appear in a courtroom. all of these big deals between the settlements between companies like jpmorgan-chase or goldman sachs all done in back rooms and just an exchange of money. nobody had to sit the dock or being publicly humiliated but when you have this small immigrant bank, they needed a photo opportunity so they indicted a bunch 0 people and literally got enemy in a chain gang and dragged them into the courtroom and they excuse -- the excuse the prosecutor gates that wa

. >> with an abacus. >> at least someone is. >> is it a good or bad situation if you take the popularity of the bill and add it to the president's approval rating and you're still under 50. >> that's not good. >> that's not good, right? that's not a good combo. i'm not good at math but that's not a good situation. >> and maybe perhaps they don't trust you. a slew of new devastating polls show the republicans' effort to replace obamacare effort struggling. four polls yesterday show how deeply they unapprove of their plan. people doesn't like it. they find it to be insulting. >> look at those numbers right there. and you know, willie, you can always tell when somebody's doing something they don't really believe in or that their heart's just not in. and these republicans have specifically said from the beginning, told me off the record on both sides of pennsylvania avenue, hey, you are we have to do it first, we don't want to do it first but we have to do it first because we got to cut enough from health care so we can do our tax bill and not go through reconciliation. >> and up get tyou ge