-Our first guest, tonight, if she's still here...
[ Laughter ]
...is a United States senator from Massachusetts.
Her children's book, "Pinkie Promises,"
is available now. Please welcome back to the show
Senator Elizabeth Warren, everybody!
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-Welcome, welcome! -Thank you!
-I'm so happy to have you here. -I'm so happy to be here.
I'm so happy to be here! -Yeah.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-I'm just so glad to be with people
who are not the people I'm with in Washington all the time.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
-You -- You know, you did us a favor.
You were our second guest when we went into lockdown, via Zoom.
-Yeah. -And the issue that time was --
-I had a table lamp next to me,
you know, staring into the lights, and, yeah.
-Right. It was the early days,
where none of us knew how to Zoom.
You had a dog that you had --
You had to lock your dog in a bedroom.
-That's right, that's right. -Yeah.
We have scratches on the back of the door that say,
"I could do better on 'Seth Meyers.'"
[ Laughter ] Yeah, I know.
-So, it's nice that we're past that.
And now, obviously, you mentioned Washington.
I do want to get right into it.
Right now, President Biden is trying
to institute the things he ran on.
-Yeah. -Expanding Medicare,
child care, clean energy.
These are things that poll well with the American people.
And yet, it seems like, for those of us that pay attention,
that it's moving very slowly. -Mm-hmm.
-Do you feel like the Democrats are doing a good enough job
telling people what's in this bill?
Because it seems like we all know the number, $3.5 trillion.
It seems like the Republicans, and the opponents of this bill,
have done a good job, and maybe the media has helped them
make that what we think about. -Right.
-But can you talk about what's in this bill
and why it's important? -So, this is not about numbers.
Think -- Think of it this way.
Starting more than a century ago,
America started investing in our country, in ourselves.
So we built roads and bridges,
we built power grids, and sewers and water lines,
we opened up public schools,
and public colleges and universities.
We made those investments, because it was a way to make us
collectively a richer country, and a way to create opportunity,
person by person, throughout this nation.
And then, we kind of went into coasting
about 40 years ago or so.
And we just kind of slowed way down on those investments.
And the world changed around us.
So, now we find ourselves -- here we are in 2021.
We need to make some big changes.
And here's the exciting part.
We've got our toes right on the line
to make big structural change in this nation.
Child care, so that every parent
will have a chance to be able to go to work.
Raise the wages of every child-care worker
and preschool teacher in America.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Home- and community-based care.
Expanding -- Expanding Medicare so people get vision, dental,
and hearing coverage. [ Applause ]
And the really, really big one is not just taking a nibble,
not just a pat, but we've got to take a big, hard swing
at fighting back in the climate crisis.
[ Cheers and applause ] All of that at stake.
-So, again, good news.
That seems great to me, seems great to everybody here,
probably most of the people watching.
I'm afraid Senators Manchin and Sinema
probably aren't watching tonight.
[ Audience groans ] It strikes me that you have
these two people -- right? -- who are --
they have all the power right now.
And -- -No.
No, they don't have it all. [ Laughter, cheers, applause ]
No! -Well, they could stop it.
If they wanted to, they could stop it.
I mean the power that way. And it does seem like --
You know, again, I'm watching from a distance,
but it does seem like they are pretty firm
in their position that they don't want to get this passed.
So what is the way to make them change their mind?
Is it to apply political pressure and try to sell
the American people on why this is a good idea?
-That's a big part of it. Look, this is a democracy.
And part of this is, remember,
everything that we're talking about here
is really, really popular.
The American people get it.
Washington lives in its own bubble --
a bubble, I should say, that is deeply infected
by lobbyists and the folks who are always trying to --
you know, they're there for the billionaires,
they're there for the giant corporations.
But the rest of America --
Democrat, Republican, Independent -- they get it.
These are the investments we need to make
if we are going to be a strong nation going forward.
If we're going to be a country,
that, instead of narrowing opportunity,
actually expands opportunity.
So to the extent that we do something besides
talk about a number, which I say this as a numbers nerd,
makes a lot of people fall asleep or just get aggravated
or watch it like it's some kind of race.
If we actually talk about the things that this is about,
the kinds of changes it will make in people's lives,
the kind of opportunity that we're about to create together,
I think that is how we get it done.
And by the way, we need to do that now.
-So here's the thing. [ Cheers and applause ]
Not only do you have to do it now,
but it also strikes me -- let's say you get it done.
-Say that again. -Let's say you can get it done.
-Okay. I'm liking that. -But, then, how quickly --
-Let's do it. -Because I think that one of
the things that's frustrating --
people are frustrated by both parties --
is the speed in which you actually can show results.
-Yep. -So, if you get it done,
it seems very important that you would be able
to show to the American people,
certainly before the midterm elections,
"Hey, look, we made your lives better.
We controlled government, the Democratic Party,
and we had this two-year period of time
where you gave us the reins."
And, you know, people are gonna go to the polls,
you're gonna have to be able to show them
that you made their lives better.
Can you do this quickly? Can child care be something
that people see before they go back to the polls?
-We have to. And child care, actually,
is the perfect example. We cannot take a sort of
leisurely, "Yes, we're gonna have child care done,"
and tell the mamas of 2-year-olds and 3-year-olds
that we'll have this done by the time your kid is 6 or 7.
You know, we -- we can't do that.
We have to say, "We are going to bust our fannies
to get this stuff and get it delivered
and create the child-care slots,
raise the wages of the child-care workers."
Remember, though, before you giggle about whether or not
we can do this, we did it with vaccinations.
We did it with the child tax credit.
We did it with those $1,200 checks
that we put in people's pockets for relief.
We didn't do it with rental relief.
We handed it out the states, and said, "Hey, take your time.
Work this out." It did not work.
So we better learn a lesson from that, and we better deliver,
deliver big, and deliver now.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Well, I think it would help a lot of families,
and I really do hope you're successful with that.
We'll be right back with more from Senator Elizabeth Warren.