Transcript: The Rachel Maddow (1-21-10)

"MADDOW: Maybe a shame. It`s a lot of other things besides. Joining us now for his first television interview since withdrawing his name from consideration is the administration`s former nominee to head the TSA, Mr. Erroll Southers."

in reference to:

"MADDOW: The reforms that were on the table before this announcement today were already under assault. I mean, not only by Republicans in Congress and -- but by the financial industry. I mean, tens of millions of dollars spent lobbying against even the existing proposed regulations before this tough new ones announced today. The creation of a consumer protection agency, something you`ve been a key advocate for, has been that particular target. The White House now is saying that agency is now nonnegotiable.How are you feeling about the politics here? Obviously, it seems like you got more support -- overt support from the White House than you had in the past.WARREN: You know, I always say about politics -- remember, I`m a teacher. I`m not a politician and I don`t always understand what goes on in Washington. But I feel better than I`ve felt in a long time because what I heard the president saying on the Consumer Financial Protection Agency is it`s not going down. I`m here. I`m not giving up on it. There is not going to be a compromise to cave in on it.I heard him say we`re going to tax those large financial institutions and we`re going to make them pay back all of the money under TARP.And then today, I heard him say, we`re going to break apart too-big- to-fail and we`re going to have an answer so that every financial institution, if it makes big enough mistakes, if it takes big enough risks and loses, every one of them can, in the end, die.And what I hear in that is that, you know, the financial institutions have pushed him hard. They`ve pushed Congress hard. He`s pushing right back.MADDOW: In terms of those specific changes that you just described -- and we`ve all been reporting on this and hearing about it for so long that I think everybody understands those changes even if we didn`t think of ourselves as financially savvy people a year ago -- how can all of those changes be made? Are those all made through legislation?Do they all get made at once? Does it have to happen piecemeal? Are some regulatory or administrative changes? How fast can this be done?I`m asking because I`m trying to figure out how possible it is in this political environment.WARREN: Right. You know, I -- the way I understand this is, look, it took 30 years to get us into this hole. Think about consumer finance by itself. Basically what happened was that the big banks started in in the early 1980s and they captured the regulatory agencies that were supposed to be the cops on the beat. They then poured money into Washington to make sure that no one put any new cops on the beat.And then they started selling deceptive products all over the country. As we all know, that then brought down a lot of households and ultimately brought down the entire economy. They demanded a bailout and got it. And where we really are, is in the last chapter of that story and basically, the next chapter of our -- the rest of our lives. And that is the banks are really in control here or are we going to be able to do something for the people.And what I see is that the president is now going to go straight to the people and he`s not going to let deals be cut in the backroom. He`s not going, you know, to take people off the hook so there are no hard votes.You know, the time is upon us. Either you vote for the banks and do you it in a big, public way, or you vote for the people. And we`ll have it. We`ll count up at the end of the day where that puts everyone in Washington."
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