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Speaker 1: Part of the reason the CFPB has been targeted is
Speaker 1: because you have big tech conglomerates that are looking to
Speaker 1: get into banking, lending and payments, and they don't even
Speaker 1: want a minor speed bump in that process. Mister musk
Speaker 1: Elon Musk he has stated they want twitter x to
Speaker 1: become a bank, the ability to move and track payments
Speaker 1: across its platforms, and I think that it's reasonable for
Speaker 1: Americans to wonder why is he targeting this little agency.
Speaker 4: Today's guest is from One Angle, a hero to millions
Speaker 4: of people for returning billions of dollars to consumers as
Speaker 4: the director former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Speaker 4: To Jamie Diamond, he's an arrogant, out of touch soob
Speaker 4: to billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Mark Andresen.
Speaker 5: He's a vile threat to the American Republic.
Speaker 4: He is Roehit Chopra, former head of the CFP, former
Speaker 4: FTC commissioner, pushed out recently by Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: Welcome rowhead, great to be with you. So let's start.
Speaker 4: We have a lot to get through, because there has
Speaker 4: been a lot thrown your way in at the way
Speaker 4: of the CFPB. But let's start with Jamie Diamond, who,
Speaker 4: as we just put up there during a town hall
Speaker 4: with his own banking employees, just utterly unleashed on you.
Speaker 5: Again, out of touch son of a gun.
Speaker 4: Except he didn't say gun the family program, So we'll
Speaker 4: stick with gun. Why why is Jamie Diamond so angry
Speaker 4: at you?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know exactly. I probably have some Well
Speaker 1: I get it. This is an extremely emotional time for
Speaker 1: him and others. One of President Trump's first set of
Speaker 1: remarks at Davos, actually he called out Jamie Diamond and
Speaker 1: Brian moynihan, the CEO of Bank of America by name.
Speaker 1: The issue of de banking, deplatforming is one that has
Speaker 1: really cut across lines. And also there's some real questions about,
Speaker 1: you know, the lawsuit that we brought against JP, Morgan
Speaker 1: Chase and other banks for allowing fraud to fester on Zell.
Speaker 1: I think that lawsuit will We'll let it work through
Speaker 1: the courts. But there's some questions about whether the new
Speaker 1: CFPB will simply defund all of its investigations against big
Speaker 1: banks and big tech companies. And that's really an open
Speaker 1: one for all of us.
Speaker 4: There was also something about Jamie Diamond didn't like something
Speaker 4: you guys were pushing about letting people move their money
Speaker 4: from one bank to another.
Speaker 5: What was that one?
Speaker 1: Yes, some of the largest banks, and I know he
Speaker 1: was personally very upset the idea of giving consumers the
Speaker 1: ability to switch their accounts more seamlessly. You might remember Ryan.
Speaker 5: To move your money movement.
Speaker 1: Well, remember when you actually couldn't change your phone carrier's
Speaker 1: right unless you switched to your phone number. And the
Speaker 1: FCC issued an order saying, no, let's give consumers a
Speaker 1: little bit more power to vote with their feet. That's
Speaker 1: exactly one of the laws that had been on the books.
Speaker 1: It sat dormant, but during my time there, we wanted
Speaker 1: to make that a reality because we saw the billions
Speaker 1: of dollars that large banks credit card companies were able
Speaker 1: to harvest because they create an obstacle course to switching accounts.
Speaker 4: Ye, so you brought up de banking, So let's let's
Speaker 4: move to that one, which is not the one I
Speaker 4: have in here.
Speaker 1: H one.
Speaker 5: But let's let's start with h H two.
Speaker 4: This is Mark Zuckerberg appearing on Joe Rogan's podcast, and
Speaker 4: I want people to notice that when he's about to
Speaker 4: say the word consumer, he pretends to forget the name
Speaker 4: of the agency because it isn't helpful to him. I
Speaker 4: think to call it the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau because
Speaker 4: you're starting on your back foot when you're a company
Speaker 4: that says you're against that. So let's roll H two here,
Speaker 4: and then I want to get you to respond to
Speaker 4: this Zuckerberg allegation.
Speaker 6: And we had organizations that were looking into us that
Speaker 6: were like not really involved with social media, like the CFPB,
Speaker 6: like this financial I don't even know what it stands for.
Speaker 6: It's the it's the financial organization that Elizabeth Warren had
Speaker 6: set up. Oh great, And it's basically it's like, we're
Speaker 6: not a bank.
Speaker 7: The bank.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so we're not a bank, right, It's like like
Speaker 6: what what does meta have to do with this? But
Speaker 6: they kind of found some theory that they wanted to investigate,
Speaker 6: and it's like, okay, clearly they were trying really hard,
Speaker 6: right to like find find some theory. But it like,
Speaker 6: I don't know, it just it kind of like throughout
Speaker 6: the the the the the party and the government, there's
Speaker 6: just sort of I don't know if it's I don't
Speaker 6: know how this stuff works. I mean, I've never been
Speaker 6: in government. I don't know if it's like a directive
Speaker 6: or it's just like a quiet consensus that like, we
Speaker 6: don't like these guys. They're not doing what we want.
Speaker 5: We're gonna punish them.
Speaker 6: But but it's uh, it's uh, it's tough to be
Speaker 6: at the other end of that. What was it like, Well,
Speaker 6: it's not good. I think the thing that I think
Speaker 6: is actually the toughest is it's it's global right. So,
Speaker 6: and really, when you think about it, the US government
Speaker 6: should be defending its companies right, not be the tip
Speaker 6: of the spirit attacking its companies.
Speaker 4: All right, so Zackerbarg who later kind of implies there's
Speaker 4: previous in this clip, he had said that because they
Speaker 4: were getting pressure to uh censor COVID content.
Speaker 5: Well, then all of a sudden, the CFPB comes after.
Speaker 4: Them over, you know, which he implies as part of
Speaker 4: this kind of pressure campaign against Facebook. So what was
Speaker 4: CFPB's role in going after Facebook.
Speaker 1: Well, it's actually funny in some ways because this is
Speaker 1: a company that just about five years ago launched a
Speaker 1: big ploy to start its own currency, to start its
Speaker 1: own way.
Speaker 5: What were they going to call it?
Speaker 1: Called Libra, And what you saw was an attempt. It
Speaker 1: was a surveillance program essentially that if they could embed
Speaker 1: payments throughout their whole empire of digital properties, they would
Speaker 1: be able to track payments across the board.
Speaker 5: You're like cookies to the next degree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in some ways that is really what many
Speaker 1: say is a goal to ultimately move toward personalized pricing.
Speaker 1: And look, the truth is, if you call companies, some
Speaker 1: of these big tech companies, we are a social media company, please,
Speaker 1: we know that their tentacles are all over and many
Speaker 1: have significant aspirations in banking, lending and payments. We have
Speaker 1: seen that with Google, we have seen that with Apple,
Speaker 1: and there are laws on the books Ryan that are
Speaker 1: financial privacy laws. There are laws about how you can
Speaker 1: traffic credit information like the credit bureaus do. So I'm
Speaker 1: not going to comment on the investigation they disclosed it
Speaker 1: to their investors the nature of it, but to suggest
Speaker 1: that some of these companies are not engaging in some
Speaker 1: of the same exact practices as big financial conglomerates, I
Speaker 1: mean as laughable, I'll tell you that. This is also
Speaker 1: I think part of the reason the CFPB has been
Speaker 1: targeted is because you have big tech conglomerates that are
Speaker 1: looking to get into banking, lending and payments and they
Speaker 1: don't even want a minor speed bump in that process.
Speaker 1: They don't even want, i think, to be held to
Speaker 1: the same standards that when consumers are defrauded, or if
Speaker 1: there's errors in their accounts, or if their information is
Speaker 1: being harvested and trafficked to those overseas. I don't think
Speaker 1: they want to even touch that. And the truth is
Speaker 1: there's laws on the books and the job of the
Speaker 1: CFB was to enforce it.
Speaker 4: So this appearance came after Mark Andresen. Venture Capitalist was
Speaker 4: also on Joe Rogan. Uh, let's let's move to uh
Speaker 4: to Mark Andreas and one I think that's h h one.
Speaker 8: Here we have this thing called independent federal agencies Sully
Speaker 8: for example, with this thing called the Consumer Finance Protection
Speaker 8: Bureau CFPB, which was the it's sort of Elizabeth Warren's
Speaker 8: personal agency that she gets to control. And it's an
Speaker 8: independent agency that just gets to run and do whatever
Speaker 8: it wants. Right, And if you read the constitution, like
Speaker 8: there is no such thing as an independent agency, and
Speaker 8: yet there it is.
Speaker 1: What does her agency do?
Speaker 8: Whatever she wants?
Speaker 1: What does it do though?
Speaker 8: We basically terrorize financial terrorize financial institutions, prevent crypt fintech,
Speaker 8: prevent new competition, new startups that want to compete with
Speaker 8: a big bankery. Oh yeah, house, just terrorizing anybody who
Speaker 8: tries to do anything new in financial services.
Speaker 1: And can you give me an example, said, you know.
Speaker 8: De banking. This is where a lot of the d
Speaker 8: banking comes from, is these agencies. So d banking is
Speaker 8: when you're you as either a person or your company
Speaker 8: or literally kicked out of the banking system like they
Speaker 8: did to Kanye exactly like they did the Kanye my
Speaker 8: partner band's father has been d banked. Really, we had
Speaker 8: an employee for what for having the wrong politics, for
Speaker 8: saying unacceptable things under current banking regulations under okay, here's
Speaker 8: a great here's a great thing. Under current banking regulations.
Speaker 8: After all the reforms the last twenty years, there's now
Speaker 8: a category called a politically exposed person PEP. And if
Speaker 8: you were a PEP, you were required by financial regulators
Speaker 8: to kick them off of your to kick them out
Speaker 8: of your bank.
Speaker 6: You're not allowed to if you're politically on the left.
Speaker 8: That's fine because they're not politically exposed.
Speaker 6: So no one on the left gets d banked.
Speaker 8: Now, I have not heard of a single instance of it.
Speaker 4: So much to unpack there. Let's start with his PEP claim.
Speaker 4: What is a what is a politically exposed person?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 5: There anything accurate in what he said there?
Speaker 1: There's a lot there. First of all, a politically exposed
Speaker 1: person certainly would be someone who's like a government official,
Speaker 1: who for example, could be subjected to bribery other things.
Speaker 4: But putting all all of the act completely misclassified, well,
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 1: The point though, I would say, there's a place where
Speaker 1: I think is important, which is that when it comes
Speaker 1: to debanking, I don't think people should ever lose their
Speaker 1: account because of their exercising their religion speech. And I'll
Speaker 1: tell you one of the first things I did years
Speaker 1: ago was to put forth a stronger policy that made
Speaker 1: it clear when that type of discrimination or debanking ran
Speaker 1: a foul of the law. Guess who sued to block it.
Speaker 1: It was actually the bank lobby and the Chamber of Commerce.
Speaker 1: Then more recently, you know, we went through some court
Speaker 1: press was there.
Speaker 5: What's their business rationale for wanting to block that?
Speaker 1: I have no idea other than just that they were
Speaker 1: saying that while that only really applies to lending, it
Speaker 1: doesn't apply to banking. And you know, we could go
Speaker 1: through the argument about whether the law prohibits that. So
Speaker 1: I said, Okay, we're going to propose a rule. We're
Speaker 1: going to use a different procedure to make clear that
Speaker 1: you cannot close someone's account or otherwise take a negative
Speaker 1: action like that. Based on some of these core things,
Speaker 1: we did not hear a peep a peep of support
Speaker 1: from the big banks and others. So I think we
Speaker 1: need to start looking at some of the facts here,
Speaker 1: we should not allow deplatforming and debanking unless there is
Speaker 1: some sort of legitimate reason, and I will share with
Speaker 1: you we have heard a lot from the banks and
Speaker 1: others about this, but what we haven't seen is them
Speaker 1: showing their data. And one of the big places that
Speaker 1: they are closing accounts is using algorithms, and sometimes they
Speaker 1: might not even know the answer why they are closing
Speaker 1: those accounts. But the idea that the CFPB was somehow,
Speaker 1: I mean, I know he's conflating a whole set of
Speaker 1: other regulators, and we also know that there are companies
Speaker 1: that he had invested in that were repeat offenders and
Speaker 1: that the CFPP had to take multiple actions against, not
Speaker 1: just by me, but even my predecessor put in place
Speaker 1: by President Trump. So I don't know what that is,
Speaker 1: but I think the idea that somehow, both the banks
Speaker 1: and these fintech companies we were applying and aggressively enforcing
Speaker 1: the law when they were egregiously violating.
Speaker 4: Did you did you run into any progressive opposition, because
Speaker 4: I know sometimes progressive organizations would run campaigns to say,
Speaker 4: you know, if this this person should not actually have
Speaker 4: access to banking services.
Speaker 5: So did you kind of push up against.
Speaker 1: There had been you know, it was not there was definitely.
Speaker 1: For example, I had undertaken an initiative with respect to
Speaker 1: greater accountability for Blackrock. Blackrock is an investment giant. I
Speaker 1: felt that if they were going to be pursuing certain
Speaker 1: policy goals when taking over banks, they should actually, you know,
Speaker 1: go through the process of saying we're taking over a bank,
Speaker 1: rather than relying on some loopholes that say, well, we're
Speaker 1: just passive, we're not doing anything. And yeah, there maybe
Speaker 1: I'm sure there was others who felt, why don't we
Speaker 1: just you know, kind of leave them alone. Maybe they
Speaker 1: agree with the goals they're doing. My point was different,
Speaker 1: is that it's really about power. Who should have the
Speaker 1: power to determine what whether you're getting your account closed
Speaker 1: because of no reason or a questionable reason, or how
Speaker 1: they're saying they're passive but are really exerting a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure on boards and CEOs. So I think we
Speaker 1: got to stick to our principles, which is that the
Speaker 1: laws on the books are supposed to prevent abuse of power.
Speaker 1: And sure, maybe I agree with some of the maybe
Speaker 1: I agree with some of the Blackrock voting policies on.
Speaker 5: Share environmental stuff.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't matter. I mean, they should still have
Speaker 1: to go through the process that we have in place
Speaker 1: in our laws to avoid abuse of that power, and
Speaker 1: especially monopoly power.
Speaker 5: So you passed a rule to bar debanking, and you've got.
Speaker 1: We proposed one and we'll see if it gets finalized.
Speaker 5: Oh that's an interesting point.
Speaker 4: It's all House Republicans are actually moving to repeal it.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you've noticed this with a piece
Speaker 4: of their legislation. So have you been Have you been
Speaker 4: surprised to see one of the number one attacks against
Speaker 4: the COPV being that it was doing the thing that
Speaker 4: actually it's trying to ban.
Speaker 1: Not really, I mean you saw even those on the
Speaker 1: right pushback very hard on whatever that soliloquy was. That
Speaker 1: being said. I think let's put our money where our
Speaker 1: mouth is and say, let's all get on record across
Speaker 1: the ideological spectrum that people should have a right to
Speaker 1: a bank account. And we see so many people pushed
Speaker 1: out of the banking system, and the economic impacts of
Speaker 1: that are real now, of course, if they're engaged in
Speaker 1: money laundering, criminal fraud, others. Sure, I mean I do
Speaker 1: favor some updates that give people the ability to have
Speaker 1: some access to the banking system, and many, for example,
Speaker 1: are kicked out because of overdraft, an overdraft feed churning.
Speaker 1: We got to make sure that people when you're when
Speaker 1: you're kicked out of the banking system, it's almost like
Speaker 1: kicking someone on your screw economy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So when he says that CFPB is terrorizing financial
Speaker 4: companies and blocking FinTechs and other startups from competing with
Speaker 4: big banks, what does he mean by that?
Speaker 1: That's in direct conflict with what you just mentioned was
Speaker 1: JPMorgan Chase's criticism. You know, we actually put into place
Speaker 1: the ability for smaller players to eat the lunch of
Speaker 1: their bigger competitors if they're providing better rates in service.
Speaker 4: That was just because you're setting setting up a pathway
Speaker 4: for people to leave the big.
Speaker 1: Time switch and that was partly strongly supported by those
Speaker 1: new firms that we're trying to do it. And look,
Speaker 1: some of them are doing some great things that allow
Speaker 1: you to get lower interest rates on your loans, higher
Speaker 1: rates on your savings. Look at what some of the
Speaker 1: banks offered. Even as the FED raised rates enormously, people's
Speaker 1: deposit rates barely budged. And we ended up needing to
Speaker 1: investigate some of that, including suing Capital One for cheating
Speaker 1: people out of billions of hours. I think we'll want
Speaker 1: to put more power in the hands of consumers for
Speaker 1: them to fire a company with bad customer service and
Speaker 1: to vote with their feet.
Speaker 4: So some of the companies financed by Andrees in the
Speaker 4: fintech space or the crypto space say that the CFPB
Speaker 4: has prevented them from doing what they want to do?
Speaker 5: What what? What does? What does he mean by that?
Speaker 1: And how you respond to all I know is you
Speaker 1: know right now? In terms of crypto, most of that
Speaker 1: was really a confrontation with other agencies, not with the CFPB.
Speaker 1: The place the CFPB was always looking at his new
Speaker 1: digital payments, digital currencies, so video game platforms, you know,
Speaker 1: things like Facebook's Libra project, where it would be used
Speaker 1: to pay at stores or online. So we were always
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what's the way we can create
Speaker 1: these new digital technologies without being ruined by fraudsters, errors,
Speaker 1: and how do you make sure there's some base level
Speaker 1: of consumer protection that people have had on their debit
Speaker 1: cards and credit cards for decades and on fintech companies.
Speaker 1: I don't know I mean, certainly there have been venture
Speaker 1: capital firms who have been annoyed that the CFPB has
Speaker 1: taken some of their lawbreaking companies to court. And sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, we battle it out in court, but certainly
Speaker 1: we prevailed in many cases. And I'll tell you many
Speaker 1: of them are extremely well financed to fight back very hard.
Speaker 5: Sure they are. So.
Speaker 4: One of the arguments Mark Zuckerberg also rolled out in
Speaker 4: that interview is that from a national security and a
Speaker 4: kind of geopolitical perspective, the Silicon Valley and big tech
Speaker 4: in the United States is, you know, ought to be
Speaker 4: just defended rather than than attacked. Let's play H three here.
Speaker 4: It gets your respond to this other Zuckerberg argument.
Speaker 6: I think the real issue is that when the US
Speaker 6: government does that to its tech industry, it's basically just
Speaker 6: open season around the rest of the world, right. I
Speaker 6: mean the EU, I pull these numbers. The EU has
Speaker 6: fined the tech companies more than thirty billion dollars over
Speaker 6: the last I think it was like ten or twenty years.
Speaker 1: Holy and shit.
Speaker 6: So when you think about it, like okay, there's it's like,
Speaker 6: you know, one hundred million dollars here, a couple of
Speaker 6: billion dollars there. But what I think really adds up
Speaker 6: to is this is sort of like a kind of
Speaker 6: EU wide policy for how they want to deal with
Speaker 6: American tech. It's almost like a tariff, and I think
Speaker 6: the US government basically gets to dec how are they
Speaker 6: going to deal with that? Right because if the US government,
Speaker 6: if some other country was screwing with another industry that
Speaker 6: we cared about, the US government would probably find some
Speaker 6: way to put pressure on them. But I think what
Speaker 6: happened here is actually the complete opposite. The US government
Speaker 6: led the kind of attack against the companies, which then
Speaker 6: just made it like the EU is basically in all
Speaker 6: these other places just free to just go to town on
Speaker 6: all the American companies and do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: What would you say to Zuckerberg there, Well, you know,
Speaker 1: we've all gotten various forms of questions. For example, in
Speaker 1: the past few years, we did a number of enforcement
Speaker 1: actions against certain Japanese automakers whose lending and credit reporting
Speaker 1: was completely botched. Now, the way we do it is
Speaker 1: we look at consumer complaints, we'll look at where there's
Speaker 1: actual harm, and I do think it's important for us
Speaker 1: to prove, you know, where we finding this non compliance
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, this is a strange comment
Speaker 1: in some way he's made because it was actually and
Speaker 1: I was an FTC commissioner at the time. During the
Speaker 1: Trump administration, we had a bipartisan antitrust complaint against Facebook.
Speaker 1: Same thing happened on Google, and those have carried forward
Speaker 1: across administrations. And here's the reason why in the US
Speaker 1: we want our economy progressing, not based on cheating, but
Speaker 1: on competing. And we have found a number of cases
Speaker 1: where big firms, whether they're domestic, whether they're foreign, have
Speaker 1: been cornering the market or monopolizing it. And we have
Speaker 1: laws on the books, and just because they are global conglomerates,
Speaker 1: that does not mean they should not honor our laws.
Speaker 1: I have to tell you, I really don't think that
Speaker 1: all of these firms genuinely think of themselves as American companies.
Speaker 1: I think some of them think of themselves as just
Speaker 1: a multi national investor base. And the north star is
Speaker 1: profit and they if they want to get rid of
Speaker 1: laws in countries across the world, that's what they're going
Speaker 1: to do. But to suggest that, you know, Facebook and
Speaker 1: other big tech companies have been just so squeaky clean
Speaker 1: when it comes to following the laws is frankly.
Speaker 4: A joke, and so speaking of getting getting rid of
Speaker 4: laws or ignoring them. This is Elon Musk's famous tweet
Speaker 4: where he said, delete CFPB, there are too many duplicative
Speaker 4: regulatory agencies. Interestingly, that was a reply to somebody who
Speaker 4: was correcting Mark Andresen and saying, hey, man, you're wrong
Speaker 4: about this. Actually, the CFPB is against dbanking and is
Speaker 4: fighting it, and Musk interestingly comes in and says, basically saying, I.
Speaker 5: Don't care like elete this and then put up H five.
Speaker 4: The White House very quickly put out this statement saying
Speaker 4: CFPB isn't a Wall Street regulator, it's a main street regulator,
Speaker 4: and they are effectively trying to move to shut it down.
Speaker 4: In their list of bill of indictments basically against them,
Speaker 4: they list a bunch of things, and I want to
Speaker 4: run through.
Speaker 5: Some of them since we got you here and got
Speaker 5: some time.
Speaker 4: So the White House says CFPB targeted a Chicago small
Speaker 4: business after it complained about the city's rampant crime.
Speaker 5: That sounds bad. Why did CFPB do that.
Speaker 1: Well, you'd have to ask President Trump CFPB director, because
Speaker 1: she's the one who brought that case. I reviewed that case.
Speaker 1: The case was actually a lending discrimination case or a
Speaker 1: mortgage lender in Chicago essentially was refuse and not offering
Speaker 1: mortgage loans to certain neighborhoods. I think the idea that
Speaker 1: it was something about uh, I don't even know what
Speaker 1: that bullet was saying. But what's funny is that it's
Speaker 1: it's it has nothing to do with that bullet, and
Speaker 1: it was brought under the last trumpet illustration. Another one
Speaker 1: of those bullets I just noticed talks about our victims
Speaker 1: Relief fund. During my time as director, we returned the
Speaker 1: slush fund. And what's funny is that it's a victims
Speaker 1: relief fund. During my time, we collected I think nine
Speaker 1: billion dollars in refunds and penalties. And here's how it works.
Speaker 1: The penalties paid by companies like Apple, Goldman, Sachs, Wells Fargo.
Speaker 1: They go to compensate victims where the defendant may be
Speaker 1: totally bankrupt judgment proof, so we want a judgment. I
Speaker 1: believe it was for two point seven billion dollars against
Speaker 1: a nationwide debt relief scammer. We were able to make
Speaker 1: so many of those victims whole because of that victim's
Speaker 1: Relief fund. So we're talking about something that has really
Speaker 1: put money in the pockets of people across the country,
Speaker 1: and to suggest that it is something that is trying
Speaker 1: to do something outside of its laws. Look, I hate
Speaker 1: to say, you know, mister Musk Elon Musk, he has
Speaker 1: stated they want twitter x to become essentially a bank,
Speaker 1: the ability to move and track payments across its platforms.
Speaker 1: And I think that it's reasonable for Americans to wonder
Speaker 1: why is he targeting this little age. And I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the opposition is coming from tech conglomerates
Speaker 1: because it has been a little bit the agency has
Speaker 1: been a speed bump in their plans to conquer payments
Speaker 1: in banking, and I think that that's Americans deserve to
Speaker 1: have their financial privacy, financial fraud. These are important laws
Speaker 1: on the books that we have to enforce, and we
Speaker 1: shouldn't just be enforcing it against banks.
Speaker 4: So the White House goes on, they say the CFPP
Speaker 4: granted itself broad new powers in the waning hours of
Speaker 4: the lame duck Biden administration, described as classic quote government overreach.
Speaker 4: The agency gave itself the authority to regulate Americans checking
Speaker 4: accounts by dictating government price controls, and unilaterally buried fifty
Speaker 4: billion dollars in medical debt.
Speaker 5: Let's take those one by one.
Speaker 4: So when they say you're dictating government price controls, what
Speaker 4: are they referring to there?
Speaker 1: So what I think is that there had been very
Speaker 1: serious abuses across the marketplace.
Speaker 4: When it can just give you a hint if you
Speaker 4: click their link, its talks about overdraft.
Speaker 1: Yes, we uncovered a number of serious, serious wrongdoing on overdraft,
Speaker 1: including manipulation of payment order and more. So, here's what
Speaker 1: we do.
Speaker 5: That's when they move the time that they.
Speaker 1: Hit exactly, so instead of one overdraft fee, you might
Speaker 1: get three or four in a day.
Speaker 5: So they're calling that dictating price control.
Speaker 1: Well, here's what we did. We took a look at
Speaker 1: overdraft lending because you essentially it's a loan, and we
Speaker 1: found that even if you were overdrawing thirty five cents,
Speaker 1: you might get hit with a thirty five dollars fee.
Speaker 5: I've been there.
Speaker 1: So the original law says the following you got to
Speaker 1: fully disclose the terms and conditions of loans. And what
Speaker 1: we found is in nineteen sixty nine, the Federal Reserve
Speaker 1: created a carve out for a specific set of circumstances.
Speaker 1: It was when you were mailing paper checks through the
Speaker 1: US Postal Service. Sometimes it was delayed, sometimes your paycheck
Speaker 1: came later. And they said, you know, because you can't
Speaker 1: really predict this the bank, you don't have to give
Speaker 1: all these disclosures. You can just charge a reasonable fee.
Speaker 1: We then looked at today and now overdraft is overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: debit card purchases, and they're small purchases. So here's what
Speaker 1: we said. We said, let's update that exemption and say,
Speaker 1: in general, you got to fess up as to what
Speaker 1: the interest rate you're charging. Fully disclose that interest rate
Speaker 1: on the loans you're extending. But if you don't want
Speaker 1: to do that, just charge a reasonable fee and will publish.
Speaker 1: We'll publish what that average is. So they don't have
Speaker 1: to they don't have to charge five dollars alow. If
Speaker 1: they want to, they want to keep making big money,
Speaker 1: they can disclose the interest rate. We really thought of
Speaker 1: this as modernizing an outdated regulation and making sure that
Speaker 1: people are being upfront and honest about the interest rate
Speaker 1: they're charging on a loan.
Speaker 4: So's that's what the White House called dictating government price controls.
Speaker 4: Then they say unilaterally buried fifty billion.
Speaker 5: Dollars in medical debt. What do they mean by that?
Speaker 1: Here's what I speculate. We did a multi year analysis, and.
Speaker 4: If you hint by clicking of credit reports, midnight rule
Speaker 4: making from Liz Warren's favorite agency spells even more bad
Speaker 4: news for cash strapped Americans, the Daily Caller.
Speaker 1: So in twenty twenty one, we completed a major analysis
Speaker 1: of credit reports. It used to be that your credit report,
Speaker 1: the items that were in debt collection was largely credit cards.
Speaker 1: But something flipped and we found that debt collectors were
Speaker 1: parking meta bills on people's credit report, and there were
Speaker 1: very systemic issues with inaccuracy. Many people already paid it
Speaker 1: or it was supposed to be paid by the insurance company.
Speaker 1: And after we published our analysis, the big credit reporting
Speaker 1: conglomerates immediately said, we're going to really take off most
Speaker 1: of this. We also had evidence that it was not
Speaker 1: even predictive of your repayment on your auto loaner credit card.
Speaker 1: So we didn't want to just take volunteers for this.
Speaker 1: We said, you know what, the law actually prohibits medical
Speaker 1: information from appearing on credit reports. So we updated the
Speaker 1: rule to put serious limitations and essentially forbid the parking
Speaker 1: of these medical bills on the credit reports. It would
Speaker 1: still include, for example, medical bills you paid on a
Speaker 1: credit card, but the actual bills that you were stuck
Speaker 1: in the doom loop doing the insurance company, the hospital,
Speaker 1: and others. We found that that was it was coercive.
Speaker 1: It was a way to coerce people into paying that
Speaker 1: they don't owe. Now, of course, hospitals others, they still
Speaker 1: have many other ways to collect. In some cases they
Speaker 1: sue people. But we thought that that was a very
Speaker 1: reasonable update to stop systemic abuses, and it was broadly supported,
Speaker 1: and we've seen states across the country enact their own
Speaker 1: state laws to prohibit that abuse as well.
Speaker 4: So my co host Emily couldn't be here for this,
Speaker 4: but she wanted me to ask you about something that
Speaker 4: happened at CFPB before you got there, which is what
Speaker 4: and here's how she put it the CFPB. So she
Speaker 4: does roeh agree with this assessment in the Washington Examiner.
Speaker 5: The CFPB did.
Speaker 4: Play a key role, according to a report from the
Speaker 4: Fdiics Inspector General in the Obama era Operation Choke Point
Speaker 4: even more disturbing, For the past few years, the CFPP
Speaker 4: has wielded its enforcement authority over housing discrimination to effectively
Speaker 4: censor speech with which it degrees with which it disagrees.
Speaker 4: Let's take them in two parts. One Operation Choke Point
Speaker 4: that was an effort, as I recall, by the FBI
Speaker 4: to clamp down on gun trafficking by basically I think,
Speaker 4: deed banking a bunch of arms dealers or something, but
Speaker 4: which of course then caught up a lot of people
Speaker 4: by citizens who were involved in selling weapons, which the
Speaker 4: right would say is, look, this is Second Amendment protected activity.
Speaker 4: So what was what's your understanding of what CFPB's role
Speaker 4: was in Operation Chowpoint.
Speaker 1: I don't know, And what I recall was that this
Speaker 1: was a Justice Department operation, but there was really no
Speaker 1: consumer law involved, and the CFPB can only really enforce
Speaker 1: those consumer laws. And I also understand that it was
Speaker 1: a lot of business accounts. So as far as I know,
Speaker 1: the CFPB during that time was also worried about bank
Speaker 1: account access, trying to make sure there is fair access
Speaker 1: to bank accounts. So I don't have all the details,
Speaker 1: but it would surprise me because consumer law is the
Speaker 1: only thing the CFPP can really pursue when it comes
Speaker 1: to savings and checking accounts.
Speaker 4: So what about wielding your enforcement authority over housing discrimination
Speaker 4: to sensor speech.
Speaker 1: I have really no clue where that allegation comes from.
Speaker 1: I think it is possible when there are redlining cases,
Speaker 1: there's data that you take a look at as to
Speaker 1: where are people denying or not offering loans. And redlining
Speaker 1: is the concept where you may not even get an application,
Speaker 1: you just may refuse to even offer services or lending there.
Speaker 1: And it is true that in sometimes the cases do
Speaker 1: uncover documents that where the lender is using a lot
Speaker 1: of charged racial language. But that's not the violation itself.
Speaker 1: The violation is actually the red lining.
Speaker 4: So right, the speech proves that they're actually discriminating against it.
Speaker 1: In some ways, the documents can show where there was
Speaker 1: blatant discrimination.
Speaker 4: Got it, So the CPP might find out that, you know,
Speaker 4: black or Hispanic applicants are rejected at a much higher rate,
Speaker 4: and then find the executives using charge.
Speaker 1: Language about a specific applicant or about a specific neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and so as a bunch of backs together, I see,
Speaker 1: I see. But certainly a person's speech cannot trip thee
Speaker 1: in any way trip that law. What trips the law
Speaker 1: as denying or redlining based on a protected characteristic like
Speaker 1: religion or race.
Speaker 4: Let's talk for a minute about some of the good
Speaker 4: stuff that, from your perspective, Trump has done, because you're
Speaker 4: in an interesting position here in the sense that you
Speaker 4: came in first to the FTC as what I would
Speaker 4: say is one of the first FTC commissioners of this
Speaker 4: new era, really trying to wield the Federal Trade Commissions
Speaker 4: of power on behalf of people against monopolies, against scam artists,
Speaker 4: and since then you were doing it later obviously joined
Speaker 4: by Lena Khan and Andrew Ferguson and other So a
Speaker 4: bipartisan not that they agree on everything, but a bipartisan
Speaker 4: sense that something's wrong here, and the populist wings of
Speaker 4: each party actually have more in common maybe than the
Speaker 4: corporate wings of each party. So let's get together and
Speaker 4: block some of these murders and force some of these actions.
Speaker 5: The FTC is still.
Speaker 4: Going kind of strong in that mode. You then left
Speaker 4: and go over to the CFP B, which is now
Speaker 4: just getting absolutely slaughtered by Trump. So it's this schizophrenic
Speaker 4: approach from the Trump administration, where on the one hand,
Speaker 4: there's good work being done at the FDC, on the
Speaker 4: other hand, they're dismissing all of these obvious good cases
Speaker 4: against scam artists and saying that they're going to try
Speaker 4: to utterly completely eliminate the thing. So let's pick a
Speaker 4: couple things like, so Trump has talked about capping credit
Speaker 4: card interest rates.
Speaker 5: Where do you come down on that?
Speaker 4: And where should the populace right it's come down on this?
Speaker 5: Is this?
Speaker 4: Should they understand the attack on the CFPB? Is that
Speaker 4: the essence of what Trump is doing? Or is there
Speaker 4: upholding of the FTC's populism. Is that kind of who
Speaker 4: they are? What the heck is going on?
Speaker 1: I think that's the jury is really out because on
Speaker 1: one hand, like I mentioned before, you saw President Trump
Speaker 1: call out Jamie Diamond. You saw campaigning on capping credit
Speaker 1: card interest rates. That's totally in conflict with, not with
Speaker 1: defunding the Wall Street Police, And that's really what this
Speaker 1: seems to be happening to the CFPB. Again, the jury
Speaker 1: is out about which way it will turn out, But
Speaker 1: it seems like right now a lot of the big
Speaker 1: tech companies are wielding a lot of control over some
Speaker 1: of these pieces. But then let's see what happens at
Speaker 1: the FTC. I was part of that original bipartisan It
Speaker 1: was a three to two vote, two Democrats and a
Speaker 1: Republican versus two Republicans voting out that big inn I
Speaker 1: trust complaint against Facebook. Lena Khan came to the to
Speaker 1: the FTC really fix the complaint, to continue to prosecute it.
Speaker 1: The trial will occur, Google others will see. I think
Speaker 1: there is a lot of mixed messages across the board,
Speaker 1: and I think, to answer your question, yes, I think
Speaker 1: we are seeing a lot more energy from across the
Speaker 1: ideological spectrum that is questioning abuse of power. Now there's
Speaker 1: also a strong corporate influence across the board. When I
Speaker 1: got to the FTC Ryan in twenty eighteen, I was
Speaker 1: really shocked and to see what I saw, it was
Speaker 1: hard to understand what planet people were that age. It
Speaker 1: was basically a dead fish. There was massive abuses, for
Speaker 1: example in subprime mortgages, where the FTC really took a
Speaker 1: back seat.
Speaker 5: There was still in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: Well, I was saying in the two thousand and eight era,
Speaker 1: then you have opioids where there's enormous enormous abuses by
Speaker 1: a pharmaceutical industry where the FTC is sort of missing
Speaker 1: in action. And the thing that really got me was
Speaker 1: I had discovered that there was a policy, a bipartisan
Speaker 1: consensus over multiple administrations that made in USA fraud should
Speaker 1: not be penalized. So we had cases come in where
Speaker 1: they were ripping off the Maiden China label, ripping off
Speaker 1: the Maid in Mexico label, and putting on a fake
Speaker 1: Maid in USA label, and the FTC's response was catch
Speaker 1: and release. And I thought that that was a serial.
Speaker 1: We changed that policy. We changed the policy toward pharmaceutical mergers,
Speaker 1: which was put on a blind, unfold rubber stamps and
Speaker 1: let them run wild. Obama too, right, I mean multiple administrations.
Speaker 1: So I think that that really was something that it
Speaker 1: needed a massive reboot. But we'll see, we'll really see
Speaker 1: right now if it does continue or not. And I
Speaker 1: think that is what all of us will have to
Speaker 1: keep a close watch on whether the big tech companies
Speaker 1: in big pharma companies will be the ones that call
Speaker 1: the shots or not.
Speaker 4: Emily had also floated this thing that's going around on
Speaker 4: the right. It's this idea that why not just move
Speaker 4: the CFPB under the FTC. FTC is now doing some
Speaker 4: good consumer work. Let's just let's just go with that.
Speaker 1: Well, we tried that and it was a disaster. We
Speaker 1: had for other people say why don't we put it
Speaker 1: under this office called the Office of the Comptroller of the.
Speaker 5: Current Jamie Diamond said that.
Speaker 1: Through the occ we tried that, it was a massive failure.
Speaker 1: So what occurred after the financial crisis. We killed one
Speaker 1: of the agencies that failed, and we also which it
Speaker 1: was called the Office of Thrift Supervision, who was clearly
Speaker 1: at the back end call of big subprime mortgage lenders
Speaker 1: who were paying the bills at the agency. So it
Speaker 1: was in some ways a consolidation, a reorg plan, but
Speaker 1: it was a smart one because what it did is
Speaker 1: it took it stripped away the authorities of some It
Speaker 1: eliminated an agency and eliminated divisions in certain places. But
Speaker 1: it created a huge amount of accountability because now you
Speaker 1: know there's an agency that was responsible. If you just
Speaker 1: park it somewhere else, it will just be a blame
Speaker 1: game of oh, it's someone else's problem. And we saw
Speaker 1: how much it just did not work. So look, I'm
Speaker 1: always open of ways we can make things more effective.
Speaker 1: One way to make a lot of things more effective
Speaker 1: is to make sure that our states can also enforce
Speaker 1: these laws. That's a place where people across the board agree.
Speaker 1: But I don't think hiding the function in an agency
Speaker 1: that has other responsibilities. Maybe that can work, but also
Speaker 1: it can really dilute accountability for that leadership. The Federal
Speaker 1: Reserve Board, they were responsible for regulating a lot of
Speaker 1: the rules around mortgages. I think everyone saw that the Fed,
Speaker 1: they were paying attention and prioritizing other things, and that's
Speaker 1: why it needed to be stripped away.
Speaker 4: Now, what we're discovering is that it turns out that
Speaker 4: the market actually does want some rules. So if you
Speaker 4: can put up a seven here. This is a post
Speaker 4: by Dave Dan referencing an article that he had written
Speaker 4: in the American Prospect.
Speaker 5: He says, new from me.
Speaker 4: Russ Vote, whose is the OMB director, was on the
Speaker 4: verge of breaking the mortgage market by shutting down a
Speaker 4: core function provided by CFPB. But he blinked and in
Speaker 4: so doing revealed that regulation is actually pretty important. So
Speaker 4: what happened here CFPB eliminated all effectively eliminated all rules,
Speaker 4: and it wasn't the consumers that rebelled, it was the
Speaker 4: mortgage lender.
Speaker 5: So what happened here, Well.
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure what is going on over there,
Speaker 1: other than to say that we actually usually had all
Speaker 1: of these regulated companies wanting us. They were the ones
Speaker 1: coming to us go after these companies that are clearly
Speaker 1: breaking the law. How are we supposed to compete if
Speaker 1: there is agregious lawbreaking. But there was also other pieces,
Speaker 1: which is, in some cases there are laws on the books,
Speaker 1: and the CFPB will publish data or other pieces of
Speaker 1: information that helps the whole market comply and make sure
Speaker 1: they're on the right side of the law. And I
Speaker 1: think what you saw there was just one example where
Speaker 1: the mortgage lenders want to know the key pieces of
Speaker 1: data they keep them on the right side of the law.
Speaker 1: One of the things I was proud of when I
Speaker 1: was at the agency is instead of forcing a lot
Speaker 1: of these companies, especially small companies, to hire all sorts
Speaker 1: of lawyers about novel situations, new types of products, we
Speaker 1: just published the legal opinion and basically allowed any company
Speaker 1: to just rely on that and if they didn't agree
Speaker 1: with that, sure they could they could choose their own
Speaker 1: way of doing it, and maybe they'll take that risk,
Speaker 1: but we really reduce the need to hire a lot
Speaker 1: of high priced lawyers. And I think that's actually what
Speaker 1: government should do. Government shouldn't be serving the interests of
Speaker 1: the biggest companies. It should be providing information and in
Speaker 1: many cases, bright line rules whenever it can, because that's
Speaker 1: what's simpler for the new folks who want to challenge
Speaker 1: the corporate royalty.
Speaker 4: So after Trump's election, but I think before his inauguration, correctly,
Speaker 4: How'm wrong in the dates you spoke to the Federalist
Speaker 4: Society about the overlap between a kind of progressive consumer
Speaker 4: protection philosophy and a conservative consumer protection philosophy. Would you
Speaker 4: have stayed on in a Trump administration if that had
Speaker 4: been a possibility, and did you think that it was
Speaker 4: within the realm of possibility.
Speaker 1: Well, as you remember, a lot of the big tech
Speaker 1: companies in the banks were saying, he'll be out in
Speaker 1: minute one. I actually stayed a few more weeks, and
Speaker 1: it was not because they forgot about me. I think
Speaker 1: I swore an oath to a five year term, and
Speaker 1: I share that I'll keep serving until replaced, and I
Speaker 1: completely respect that in this agency, the president has the
Speaker 1: right to choose now. I think this is a big
Speaker 1: open question right now, is that is this agency going
Speaker 1: to be a tool of how the most powerful actors
Speaker 1: keep their power, or is it going to continue on
Speaker 1: some of the things we did to make sure that
Speaker 1: consumers have the ability to fire companies with bad customer
Speaker 1: service and take their business elsewhere, that they can capture
Speaker 1: interest rates on their deposit accounts, lower rates on their loans,
Speaker 1: and that there is not a crime ridden marketplace, that
Speaker 1: there is law and order, or is it just all
Speaker 1: going to be completely lawless, that.
Speaker 5: They defund the police.
Speaker 1: Well, in some ways that is what is happening. I
Speaker 1: think defunding and firing the investigators. Right now we're hearing
Speaker 1: that all of the investigations against big companies for some
Speaker 1: serious wrongdoing are just being paused and they're being told
Speaker 1: don't do any work. Who is that helping? I think
Speaker 1: it is only helping the law breaking companies.
Speaker 4: Also makes it hard for you to write your email
Speaker 4: of what you did the last week if if you're
Speaker 4: told not to do anything.
Speaker 5: I wanted to ask you about one of these though.
Speaker 4: Russ Vote posted on x just the other day, the
Speaker 4: announcement of basically the pulling back of an enforcement said
Speaker 4: over the last four years, many working class Americans would
Speaker 4: limited means, faced unexpected medical bills, auto repairs, and higher
Speaker 4: grocery bills. This is Russ Fode, who's OWNB director and
Speaker 4: also appointed as the new head of the CFPB. One
Speaker 4: company set up an innovative solution by creating a platform
Speaker 4: to allow borrowers and lenders to connect for loans at
Speaker 4: no interest, with borrowers able to tip the lender and
Speaker 4: also donate to keep the platform going. Shockingly, the CFPB
Speaker 4: tried to destroy this company, which incurred solo, which incurred
Speaker 4: millions in legal fees, and had to lay off thirty
Speaker 4: percent of its workforce. It was wrong and we dismissed
Speaker 4: the case. More to come, but the weaponization of consumer
Speaker 4: protection must end.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: If people go to this x post, they can see
Speaker 4: that there's a community note on it that has survived
Speaker 4: attempts to try to strip it. But why would the
Speaker 4: CPB try to destroy this company which is just trying
Speaker 4: to for free connect people with lenders, connect struggling people
Speaker 4: with willingness to lend.
Speaker 1: Well, as you mentioned, I believe there were as a
Speaker 1: community note because this is a company that had been
Speaker 1: repeatedly sanctioned by multiple state regulators and attorneys general, I believe,
Speaker 1: and in those cases, many of those states come to
Speaker 1: the CFPB and say, you have to solve this issue nationally.
Speaker 5: We can't do that.
Speaker 1: It can't just be a game of whack a mole.
Speaker 1: And I believe that law enforcement action was actually to
Speaker 1: address a sophisticated what's known as a dark pattern, a
Speaker 1: digital design device that forces you into something you don't want.
Speaker 1: And you can take a look at the complaint. They
Speaker 1: make it seem like, oh, you can just tip, But
Speaker 1: what if the tip is forced? What if the tip
Speaker 1: is actually just a disguised way to charge an exploitative
Speaker 1: interest rate in violation of state law. So I think
Speaker 1: that that's a a lot of people are going to
Speaker 1: look at this potential dismissal of where might there be
Speaker 1: some foul play because this is something that almost seemed
Speaker 1: like a bread and butter case to many people.
Speaker 5: Right like that, this is what the CFOB is set
Speaker 5: up to do.
Speaker 4: It is a company says it's doing one thing allegation
Speaker 4: or is doing something different walking away with all the money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're saying something is a no interest loan.
Speaker 1: But you're just disguising the interest charge, the triple digit
Speaker 1: interest charge as a by another name. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: really what it's kind of again, it's it's bread and
Speaker 1: butter type fraud that the agency is supposed to go after.
Speaker 4: And I know there was some hope among the banks
Speaker 4: and major corporations that and M and A firms that
Speaker 4: this would usher in an era Trump would usher in
Speaker 4: an era of new mergers. Capital Want and Discover are
Speaker 4: attempting to pull themselves together.
Speaker 5: You critical of that? Do you think this will get stopped?
Speaker 4: And why should any why should people watching this, you know,
Speaker 4: give a rip if Capital Want and Discover merge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, look right now, we have a situation where
Speaker 1: we remember inflation. Everyone was saying, well, inflation is going down,
Speaker 1: inflation is going down. But the truth is is for
Speaker 1: many people's monthly budgets, they felt that they were more
Speaker 1: and more stressed. And something that inflation often doesn't measure
Speaker 1: is interest rate costs, the costs that you have to
Speaker 1: pay on your credit card, your auto loan, and your
Speaker 1: mortgage and more. And we have a situation in credit
Speaker 1: cards where there is a small almost click of credit
Speaker 1: card companies that dominate the market. I mean, the top
Speaker 1: six have a huge market share. And we saw interest
Speaker 1: rates on credit cards surge way beyond what the FED
Speaker 1: raised rates and people are paying I think something like
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty billion dollars in interest and fees
Speaker 1: on their credit cards. If we had a competitive interest
Speaker 1: rate n a credit card market where people were getting
Speaker 1: a rate that was really tailored to them, this could
Speaker 1: be something that could save people, you know, hundreds of
Speaker 1: dollars and for some people thousands of dollars per year.
Speaker 1: And some of these companies focus on subprime borrowers where
Speaker 1: the highest rates are. So if you have a couple
Speaker 1: of players consolidate down, the people who will pay the
Speaker 1: price are those families. And I think that this is
Speaker 1: not some academic question. It is really about are you
Speaker 1: going to be put on a treadmill of debt or
Speaker 1: are you going to get to benefit from a competitive marketplace.
Speaker 1: And we'll see what happens, but certainly we know the president,
Speaker 1: there's people from all across the political spectrum who feel
Speaker 1: that the credit card companies need to really be rained in.
Speaker 1: But again the jury is out.
Speaker 4: I guess my last question for you then would be.
Speaker 4: There's this famous clip of FDR at one of his
Speaker 4: I'm sure you know there's one of one of the
Speaker 4: Democratic conventions where he says something like, you know, the
Speaker 4: bank the bankers have decided that they hate me and
Speaker 4: I and I welcome there their hatred. You seem like
Speaker 4: the bankers and the big tech companies have decided they
Speaker 4: hate you. Do you welcome it or where do you
Speaker 4: come down on the I welcome there.
Speaker 1: I don't take it personally, I feel like I get it.
Speaker 1: There is there are folks that feel that law enforcement
Speaker 1: and regulators shouldn't be a watchdog, they should be a
Speaker 1: lap dog. They should be someone who bats their eyelashes
Speaker 1: to meet with famous CEOs. And the truth is that's
Speaker 1: not what we swear our oath to when we take
Speaker 1: these jobs. It's very clear equal justice under the law
Speaker 1: that has got to mean something, And it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how powerful or connected you are. We're supposed to have
Speaker 1: laws that afford rights to our people, and it is
Speaker 1: up to those who sit in those offices to vindicate them.
Speaker 1: And even if that means you will be subject to threats, harassment,
Speaker 1: people following you, it stinks, but you just got to
Speaker 1: do it because that's what that's what I think the
Speaker 1: constitution and our laws want to see. And we see
Speaker 1: we've seen when law enforcement and regulators do the bidding
Speaker 1: of the powerful or those who break the law, none
Speaker 1: of us really benefit from that.
Speaker 4: Last last question, do you see hope in this moment?
Speaker 4: And if so, where.
Speaker 1: You know? I think that we are starting to see
Speaker 1: places where there is a desire to hold powerful people accountable.
Speaker 1: But we also see situations where the police and law
Speaker 1: enforcement and regulators are being muzzled and censored and not
Speaker 1: being able to do their jobs. So it's a jump
Speaker 1: ball right now.
Speaker 4: Maybe we can finish with a we can play that
Speaker 4: clip of FDR at the DNC. But Roht, thank thank
Speaker 4: you so much for coming by the studio. Appreciate it,
Speaker 4: Thanks so much.
Speaker 7: And we know now that government by organized money is
Speaker 7: just as dangerous as government by organized mob.
Speaker 6: No, I'm before in all our.
Speaker 7: History have these papies being so united against one candidate
Speaker 7: as they stand today. They are unanimous in the hate
Speaker 7: for me, and I welcome their hatred.
Speaker 9: I should like to have it said of my first
Speaker 9: administration that in it the pauses of pupiousness and the
Speaker 9: love for.
Speaker 7: Power Meta Matt, I should like to have it said,
Speaker 7: Wait a minute, I should like to have it said
Speaker 7: of my second administration that in it these offices mess
Speaker 7: their master