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During an interview with Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Wednesday’s “MSNBC Live,” anchor Stephanie Ruhle asked Warren “you guys were in power for the last eight years. Why is it that it didn’t work for those good Americans you were working for?”
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Warren said, “Our problem is not that Washington doesn’t work well enough for the billionaires and the bankers, it’s working just great for them. Our problem is it’s not working for working families.”
Ruhle then asked, “Why? Why has income inequality failed to get significantly better in the last eight years? Because we look at the last 45 days, President Trump is surrounded by those CEOs, who’ve been complaining the last eight years. Why is it good times for them?
Warren answered, “You know, that’s a big part of what’s going on here, is that, it’s policy set right here in Washington that, over and over and over, help those who can hire armies of lobbyists and those who can hire armies of lawyers. The policies here are for the billionaires. They’re for the bankers. They’re for the giant corporations. They get the tax breaks. They get the regulatory boosts. They get the great deals in Washington. And, regular families, just people who are trying to put it together day by day by day, they’re the ones who get left behind.
Ruhle then pushed back, “But Senator, you guys were in power for the last eight years. Why is it that it didn’t work for those good Americans you were working for?”
Warren responded, “You know, let’s be clear about what it means to be in power. The Republicans had a blocking position. When they didn’t have a blocking position, we got the Affordable Care Act through, and when they didn’t have a blocking position, we got through the Wall Street reforms. But once they had a blocking position in the Senate and then in the House, we couldn’t get the minimum wage increase. We couldn’t get increases into Social Security. We couldn’t get a more progressive tax bill. So, look, I don’t want to try to shovel off all the blame. I think there’s plenty that we can do, we should have done, we must do in the future on our side of the aisle. But let’s be very clear. The Republicans have made their part of the agenda 100% obvious. They are here to make sure that Washington works for those at the very, very top, and they have done a great job of that.”
Ruhle then said, “I understand how frustrating this must be, since Republicans were in a position to block all this time, and the American people haven’t been served, do you think you could work with Republicans?”
Later on, Ruhle added, “This is the first market-moving president we’ve ever had, calling out specific companies, discussing those companies, meeting with them during the transition time. And now we’re in a position where he can use someone like Carl Icahn, one of the biggest, most predatory investors out there to help advise him on regulation and who he’s going to choose to be regulators. How do we address the fact we’ve got a market-moving president? I mean, Martha tSewart went to jail over lying about timing and information that she had. Insider trading is a big, big deal, and we have someone who can send out a tweet, and move a stock in seconds.”
(h/t RCP Video)
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett