Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today is United
Speaker 1: States Congresswoman Katie Porter, a Democrat in her second term.
Speaker 1: Porter represents California's district in Orange County, which is traditionally conservative.
Speaker 1: She's a consumer protection attorney and a law professor. She
Speaker 1: quickly developed a name for herself in her first term
Speaker 1: with tough questioning of people testifying before Congress, often using
Speaker 1: her famous white board to hold CEOs and political appointees accountable.
Speaker 1: Katie Porter grew up on a farm in Iowa. During
Speaker 1: the farmer crisis of the nineteen eighties. She broke with
Speaker 1: family tradition of attending state school to go to Yale
Speaker 1: and went on to Harvard Law School. She decided to
Speaker 1: run for office after Trump's win in two thousand sixteen,
Speaker 1: and became the first Democrat elected in her district. Katie
Speaker 1: Porter is comfortable being a fish out of water. I
Speaker 1: like to be challenged. UM. I like to learn, and
Speaker 1: I think that was a huge part of, you know,
Speaker 1: why I chose to to go, you know, off to
Speaker 1: college far away from Iowa to kind of stretch myself. Um.
Speaker 1: I loved being a professor. I was a professor here
Speaker 1: at the University of California, Irvine, teaching business law horses,
Speaker 1: and then really stretched myself when I ran for Congress.
Speaker 1: And one of the great things about being in Congress
Speaker 1: that I never hear anyone talking about, which makes me
Speaker 1: kind of skeptical, frankly, is that the great thing about
Speaker 1: this job is every minute you should be learning something,
Speaker 1: whether that's listening to your constituents, whether that's a briefing
Speaker 1: from about national security, you know, whether that's you know,
Speaker 1: having a meeting with your staff. There's just so much
Speaker 1: to learn to be able to do this job effectively.
Speaker 1: And I like that. So in some ways it's very
Speaker 1: much like being a professor. My job is to learn
Speaker 1: stuff and then to help teach, and so in this case,
Speaker 1: instead of teaching a classroom, I think about teaching the
Speaker 1: American people. You graduated Harvard Law School one year two one,
Speaker 1: So when you left there, where did you go from there?
Speaker 1: Where did you first go out of school? So I
Speaker 1: went to clerk for a federal judge in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Speaker 1: He was a wonderful judge. And this won't surprise people,
Speaker 1: there weren't a lot of other law clerks who wanted
Speaker 1: to work on the bankruptcy cases. Um and so literally
Speaker 1: I think I got to work on every single bankruptcy
Speaker 1: opinion the entire Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which stretches
Speaker 1: from North Dakota down to Arkansas, worked on that year. Um.
Speaker 1: And then I went off and I practiced. I took
Speaker 1: the bar exam, and I practiced law in Portland, Oregon
Speaker 1: for a couple of years. What led you to Portland
Speaker 1: from Little Rock? My now ex husband is from their family. Yeah, family,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was a good place to practice there.
Speaker 1: And then decided that I wanted to become a law professor.
Speaker 1: And I hadn't really gone to law school thinking maybe
Speaker 1: I want to be a professor. I had thought about
Speaker 1: getting a PhD. Um And at the time, the idea
Speaker 1: of writing a book seemed really long to me, which
Speaker 1: is funny because I've now written two law textbooks that
Speaker 1: are like a thousand pages each. Um. But when I
Speaker 1: got to law school, I was I really liked it.
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure what I wanted to teach, what did
Speaker 1: I love? Where did I wanted to spend my whole
Speaker 1: career studying and then I took Elizabeth Warren's bankruptcy class,
Speaker 1: and that was it. That was what I wanted to
Speaker 1: spend my life working on. This is why you were
Speaker 1: in law school. This is when I went to law school.
Speaker 1: My third year in law school. Tell the story if
Speaker 1: you would have you approached Warren after she was less
Speaker 1: than cuddly towards you in class. Yeah. Yeah, So Elizabeth
Speaker 1: was a really great professor. She called on students um,
Speaker 1: and you had to have your homework done. You had
Speaker 1: to be prepared if you showed up. And so I
Speaker 1: was a rule follower. I did my homework. I sat
Speaker 1: in the front row, which I thought would help her
Speaker 1: overlook me, but it didn't really work out that way.
Speaker 1: And so you know, one of the solutions to not
Speaker 1: being called on is to raise your hand um. And
Speaker 1: so she was asking a question and I raised my
Speaker 1: end and I gave what I thought was a pretty
Speaker 1: good answer, and I remember her turning to me, I'll
Speaker 1: never forget I mean the hand yester, I can do
Speaker 1: it today. She said, thank, miss Porter, thank And I
Speaker 1: remember just wilting inside because I was thinking. I was
Speaker 1: thinking so hard and I was coming up short um,
Speaker 1: and I went to see her after that, and I said,
Speaker 1: don't give up on me. I've never taken a course
Speaker 1: like this before. I didn't take some of the there's
Speaker 1: a couple kind of courses you often take, their introductory
Speaker 1: to bankruptcy, and I just jumped into the deep end.
Speaker 1: I was like, don't give up on me. I really
Speaker 1: care about this stuff. And the reason I cared so
Speaker 1: much about bankruptcy was growing up in Iowa in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties during farm made and the tractor motorcades, and
Speaker 1: watching the farming community where I grew up really struggle economically.
Speaker 1: When I got to bankruptcy, I realized there are tools
Speaker 1: in law and policy to help. Right now. When you
Speaker 1: made that request of war, did she granted what she
Speaker 1: were given? Take with you in the classroom? Did she
Speaker 1: be going? I mean no, it actually was the opposite.
Speaker 1: She came back to me even more because she knew
Speaker 1: I really cared, like she knew that it mattered to me.
Speaker 1: My message to her wasn't taken easy on me. It
Speaker 1: was don't give up on me. And a lot of professors,
Speaker 1: I mean I see this in witness rooms actually in hearings,
Speaker 1: and people will ask a witness a question, and the
Speaker 1: witness will stonewall give a nonsense and answer another question,
Speaker 1: answer another question. And what my colleagues will do is
Speaker 1: they'll just give up. They'll move on, they'll start giving
Speaker 1: a speech. But just like in the classroom, when I
Speaker 1: gave a wrong answer, Warren didn't say, oh well, let
Speaker 1: me go find someone more cooperative. She told me think
Speaker 1: she stuck with me as I was learning. So whenever
Speaker 1: I hear someone, you know, they give a nonsense answer,
Speaker 1: I'm not going anywhere. You said something interesting. When people
Speaker 1: don't give a good answer, you know, I myself become
Speaker 1: exhausted by the unwillingness of people to answer the questions
Speaker 1: of the duly elected members of Congress. You are here,
Speaker 1: and Congresswoman, poor order or anybody, you're not doing this
Speaker 1: for your health. You're doing this on behalf of your
Speaker 1: constituency of the American people. You're representing the American people,
Speaker 1: and many of them are so smug and so arrogant
Speaker 1: and won't answer your question. And I was wondering, do
Speaker 1: you find that the authority of the Congress is weakened
Speaker 1: in recent years because people feel like, what does it matter?
Speaker 1: There's no teeth behind this. So I think that some
Speaker 1: of the things that we've been able to do with
Speaker 1: our hearings is actually restore a sense of accountability to this,
Speaker 1: which is if you if I ask you a question
Speaker 1: and you give me a nonsense answer, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to pretend that what you said makes sense. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to accept a wrong answer. If you're dodging, if
Speaker 1: you're stonewalling, I'm going to try to get you to answer,
Speaker 1: so you would think, I mean, it's sort of an
Speaker 1: interesting to mean. I remember, like maybe the second or
Speaker 1: third hearing I was at, I said, well, surely you know,
Speaker 1: now everyone will come really prepared, like I won't stomp
Speaker 1: anybody anymore because they'll know that you have to show
Speaker 1: up and take me seriously. But you know, I've been
Speaker 1: underestimated my whole life. At this point, I kind of
Speaker 1: exploit that. And when does this still show up and
Speaker 1: they're contemptuous or they're unprepared. I mean, the other day
Speaker 1: Steve Minuchin said, well, are you a lawyer? Like, yes,
Speaker 1: I am, Like since you mentioned it, but I think
Speaker 1: that you know the goal is that these shouldn't be
Speaker 1: performance art moments. They should be substantive and so you know.
Speaker 1: The one thing I will say about the white board
Speaker 1: is it's not about trying to go viral um. It's
Speaker 1: not about an antic. It's not an antic. It is
Speaker 1: a tool. And so sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I use other things I don't, you know. I
Speaker 1: think it was maybe one of my staffers m when
Speaker 1: we started. The first time we ever used it was
Speaker 1: with Jamie Diamond. We were trying to go through the
Speaker 1: budget of a worker, what a typical family would spend
Speaker 1: and compare it to the salary and show that even
Speaker 1: though he's paying more than minimum wage, people can't make
Speaker 1: against meat On that she had two thousand, four hundred
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars a month. She rents a one betterm apartment.
Speaker 1: She and her daughters sleep together in the same room
Speaker 1: in Irvine, California. That average one better apartment is going
Speaker 1: to be sixteen hundred dollars. She spends one hundred dollars
Speaker 1: on utilities, take away the seventeen hundred, and she has
Speaker 1: net seven hundred twenty five dollars, four hundred dollars for
Speaker 1: car expenses and gas net three. A low food budget
Speaker 1: is four hundred dollars. That leaves her seventy seven dollars
Speaker 1: in the red. She has a cricket cell phone, the
Speaker 1: cheapest cell phone she can get for forty dollars. She's
Speaker 1: in the red. A hundred seventeen dollars a month. She
Speaker 1: has after school childcare because the bank is open during
Speaker 1: normal business hours. That's for fifty a month. That takes
Speaker 1: her down to negative five hundred and sixty seven dollars
Speaker 1: per month. My question for you, Mr Diamond, is how
Speaker 1: should she manage this budget shortfall while she's working full
Speaker 1: time at your bank. And so the idea of the
Speaker 1: white board was just instead of having all these numbers
Speaker 1: what she spends on rent and food and rattling it
Speaker 1: all off a million miles an hour and then he says,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to repeat that. I mean that is what
Speaker 1: every the first refuge of every unprepared student in every
Speaker 1: classroom in America is to ask the teacher, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: could you repeat the question. That's a courtroom tactic exactly, so,
Speaker 1: especially in Congress, we only have five minutes. So if
Speaker 1: someone says kid, you repeat that, and you've spent a
Speaker 1: minute setting up the question. Your loss. So the idea
Speaker 1: of the white board was to prevent him from being
Speaker 1: able to, you know, sort of dodge and stall. And
Speaker 1: you know, the interesting thing that he said is I'd
Speaker 1: have to think about it. And I asked him, you
Speaker 1: know again, and he said, I have to think about it.
Speaker 1: And I asked him, well, what about this? And he said,
Speaker 1: you have to think about it. And really, I hope
Speaker 1: he is. I hope that moment did prompt him to think.
Speaker 1: When I was doing Saturday Night Live for this long
Speaker 1: run during Trump's thing, and we would be there and
Speaker 1: I would pitch ideas, and I wanted your character to
Speaker 1: have the white board everywhere, like you were with your
Speaker 1: kids at the breakfast table. All right, let me show you,
Speaker 1: and like you have the white board out of your
Speaker 1: drawing everything for your children and and your boyfriend, and
Speaker 1: you're at the gas station and whatever. Everywhere you go,
Speaker 1: someone is handing your whiteboard. But I wonder, is there
Speaker 1: a distinction between when you're questioning people, not only the
Speaker 1: questions you ask, the way you ask them again, you
Speaker 1: only have five minutes, but the way you anticipate they're
Speaker 1: going to respond when their government administrators who are there
Speaker 1: to protect an administration. Do you see there's a difference
Speaker 1: between the two. When someone who is a political appointee
Speaker 1: is before you, are they even worse in terms of
Speaker 1: their caginus? No, not always. I mean I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, it just depends on the witness. We try
Speaker 1: to anticipate what the witness will say. In other words,
Speaker 1: what's the obvious thing they're going to try to dodge with?
Speaker 1: Where are they going to try to misdirect us? If
Speaker 1: we we research the witnesses, sometimes we'll watch video clips
Speaker 1: of them to try to understand kind of what they're like, um,
Speaker 1: whether they get easily frustrated, whether they launch into long,
Speaker 1: boring explanations. So I'm prepared to cut that off. But
Speaker 1: I think one of the great myths is that, you know,
Speaker 1: the Oversight Committee, where I'm so excited to be serving
Speaker 1: again in this Congress, somehow is less important or less
Speaker 1: exciting in a democratic administration, given that I'm a Democrat
Speaker 1: than it was when you know, we were a Trump administration,
Speaker 1: and you know, so opposite. I would just tell you
Speaker 1: that these are both oversight stays important. I mean, once
Speaker 1: we're enacting programs that I have supported and I have
Speaker 1: voted for as a Democrat, I'm even more concerned that
Speaker 1: these programs are working as intended. So the responsibility to
Speaker 1: do good oversight. It's not a partisan thing. It's part
Speaker 1: of effective government. Now, do you go back to your
Speaker 1: office sometimes and watch yourself, watch clips of yourself, and
Speaker 1: review what you've done to see how effective or ineffective
Speaker 1: you think it might have been. Not usually, I mean
Speaker 1: it's interesting after I question, and when I'm questioning, I
Speaker 1: typically have no idea what anybody else around me is
Speaker 1: doing or saying or reacting. It's it's just me and
Speaker 1: that witness, right and just looking at him, you know.
Speaker 1: I like, after I question Postmaster de Joy, oh my god,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I wasn't sure that I made the
Speaker 1: point that I wanted to make. Now it turns out
Speaker 1: I think I did. But when I got off, I
Speaker 1: was just like, I don't think I did it. I
Speaker 1: think I messed it up. So it's often, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's not about how I'm feeling. It's about whether
Speaker 1: it's resonating with the American people. So it often, you know,
Speaker 1: that's about how people react to it. So you can
Speaker 1: make something that you think is great, you know, but
Speaker 1: if other people don't find it moves them, then it
Speaker 1: doesn't really work. What's going to happen with the joy?
Speaker 1: Is it? A civil service thing? In his job is safe,
Speaker 1: he can't be fired. Well, so he was appointed by
Speaker 1: the Postal Board, which oversees the post Office, so they
Speaker 1: can remove him, um, and I hope they do. There's
Speaker 1: also the possibility that he does what so many people
Speaker 1: have done you who came from the Trump administration, which
Speaker 1: is that they quit um, which I certainly hope is
Speaker 1: what happens. If he doesn't quit, then I helped the
Speaker 1: Postal Board holds him accountable because they really a lot
Speaker 1: of the problems that he created, um, you know, he
Speaker 1: has not been able to fix. And the most revealing
Speaker 1: part of that was when I asked him, I said,
Speaker 1: will you keep saying you didn't do all these things?
Speaker 1: Not my fault. Someone else did this. So I'm a
Speaker 1: very last person to question. I think I am the
Speaker 1: forty eight person to ask questions or something crazy like that.
Speaker 1: So I asked him, well, you said you didn't do this,
Speaker 1: who did? I'm with you, which seems like a pretty
Speaker 1: obvious question, right, But nobody had asked something he should know,
Speaker 1: Like all day long, people had just said why did
Speaker 1: you do this, and the answer had been, well, I didn't,
Speaker 1: And I asked him, well, who did it? And he
Speaker 1: said he couldn't tell me, which tells you there was
Speaker 1: an even bigger problem. I'm sorry that you don't have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to remove him yourself, because I mean, he
Speaker 1: basically turned the post office into an office max for
Speaker 1: the Republican Party. But I want to get back to
Speaker 1: something else, and that is so when you're down in
Speaker 1: southern California and you go to Orange County, it was
Speaker 1: primarily to take the teaching gicket. You see Irvine. If
Speaker 1: you see Irvine is a campus inside the red, red
Speaker 1: red part of California there in Orange County. What was
Speaker 1: it like for you down there working there? Was Was
Speaker 1: it a very conservative staff and an administration and faculty? No?
Speaker 1: I mean, look, Irvine has changed a lot, and a
Speaker 1: big part of the reason that Irvine and Orange County
Speaker 1: has changed is in part the presence of the university. UM.
Speaker 1: It's a large employer here. It attracts bright and interesting
Speaker 1: and thoughtful people from all around the country and even
Speaker 1: the world. UM. And so you know, my kids go
Speaker 1: to school, UM in public school here, and they are
Speaker 1: they have some very conservative classmates. I mean one of
Speaker 1: my former cub Scouts. I was his cub Scout dead
Speaker 1: leader for five years. That kid actually made phone calls
Speaker 1: from my Republican opponent in eighteen So I don't know
Speaker 1: what that says about my cub Scout skills. But you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, actually there are a real diversity of opinion here.
Speaker 1: But there are very progressive people here too. There are
Speaker 1: people in the middle, there are Republicans. I like that diversity.
Speaker 1: I represent roughly equal numbers of Republicans, Democrats, and no
Speaker 1: party preference or independent voters. And what that means is,
Speaker 1: on any given topic, I need to know how to
Speaker 1: talk to people who will come at it from a
Speaker 1: lot of different perspectives. And that is an incredible skill
Speaker 1: to have, and I wish all of my colleagues had it. Frankly,
Speaker 1: So when you won in it was it was close.
Speaker 1: It was tight race, correct, very close. I lost. I
Speaker 1: like to say I lost before I won. So on
Speaker 1: election night you typically have three speeches in California, you
Speaker 1: have um I won, I lost, and we don't know
Speaker 1: because it often takes a while to count all the
Speaker 1: mail ballots. And so I gave that I don't know
Speaker 1: speech that we don't know. But everybody was crying and
Speaker 1: telling me, good try. I got all these sympathy calls, UM,
Speaker 1: and sympathy emails. You know, we love you anyway. Nice try, um.
Speaker 1: You know you made a difference, even though you're you're
Speaker 1: not going to make a difference kind of things. And
Speaker 1: then slowly but surely, over the next couple of days,
Speaker 1: took about seven days. I won. That's why would get
Speaker 1: these messages back. Never mind to leave my hero. I
Speaker 1: knew you could do it. Remember more faith than you. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: in the second race, this last election, you won more handily. Correct.
Speaker 1: I won by a couple six percent, I think, um,
Speaker 1: And the first time it was four. So I made
Speaker 1: up I made up a little bit of ground. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Who was your opponent? In opponent was a man named
Speaker 1: Greg Raths who's been on the city Council of Mission
Speaker 1: v A. How here and what did he come after
Speaker 1: you with? What was his pitch? It was just you know,
Speaker 1: she is a Democrat. She's a Democrat, and this is
Speaker 1: Orange County. Yeah, I mean just sort of like like
Speaker 1: you know, I think there is an attitude that you know,
Speaker 1: sort of people are entitled to have Republican representation here,
Speaker 1: but they're entitled to is good representation, right, people who
Speaker 1: listen to them, people who fight for them, people who
Speaker 1: are not corrupt, and that can come in you know,
Speaker 1: democratic or Republican forms. And so the fact that I
Speaker 1: don't take corporate pack money, that I have grassroots funded,
Speaker 1: I think that really helped me reach a lot of
Speaker 1: those independent voters and even Republican voters who are really skeptical, um,
Speaker 1: including younger Democratic voters who are really skeptical about whether
Speaker 1: and people in Washington really worked for them. Congressperson Katie Porter,
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to here's the thing
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio. If you like conversations about politics,
Speaker 1: go to our archives from my live show with Nixon,
Speaker 1: White House and Watergate figure John dene It's after listening
Speaker 1: to that conversation, I let my fingers do the walking
Speaker 1: in the criminal code to figure out what in the
Speaker 1: world are we doing. And I discovered the obstruction statute,
Speaker 1: and I discovered the conspiracy statute, and I realized we're
Speaker 1: in a whole lot of trouble. Now. You might have
Speaker 1: thought that for reaction would be to run for the Hills.
Speaker 1: I mean, I had exactly the opposite reaction. That's when
Speaker 1: I doubled down. That's when I try to make the
Speaker 1: cover up work. Here more of my conversation with John
Speaker 1: Deane in our archives at Here's the Thing dot org.
Speaker 1: After the break, I talked to Katie Porter about what
Speaker 1: surprised her when she got to Washington in early two
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen. I'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing. I wanted to know how Katie Porter
Speaker 1: won her seat. People people send me money, How much
Speaker 1: do you spend? I spent six million dollars to raise
Speaker 1: six million from individual contributory, spent six million UM and
Speaker 1: I spent six million. TV is incredibly expensive here. I
Speaker 1: have to advertise to all of Los Angeles UM and
Speaker 1: all of Orange County UM, even though I just represent
Speaker 1: a little part of a part of Orange County. But
Speaker 1: you know, people will send five dollars, ten dollars, they'll
Speaker 1: send notes with it. When you got there, what did
Speaker 1: you think the job was going to be like? And
Speaker 1: how what did you find out? It was? Really like?
Speaker 1: I think one thing that surprised me, and I know
Speaker 1: it's surprised some of my fellow colleagues is how much
Speaker 1: I really loved doing the work in the district with
Speaker 1: my constituents here in my home UM, and how much
Speaker 1: I really didn't like being in Washington. Right. So I
Speaker 1: ran for Congress because I wanted to make policy. I
Speaker 1: wanted to make people's lives better, and I think I
Speaker 1: associated that with things that happened in Washington. But it
Speaker 1: turns out that a lot of the time you spend
Speaker 1: in Washington is just scoring back and forth two votes
Speaker 1: that are sometimes important but sometimes are really like, you know, meaningless,
Speaker 1: frankly or almost meaningless. And be here in the community
Speaker 1: was so rewarding. So you know, behind kind of the
Speaker 1: stucco and the neatly trimmed hedges of Orange County are
Speaker 1: amazing and interesting businesses and nonprofits and community organizations. So
Speaker 1: some of the favorite things I've done are I toured UM,
Speaker 1: a lightweight body armor manufacturer here in Irvine that I
Speaker 1: had driven down that road a million times taking my
Speaker 1: kids to the target and never known that right there
Speaker 1: they are making body armor that keep men and women
Speaker 1: safe UM, and they're working to design actually special armor
Speaker 1: that better fits women's bodies UM. And so you know,
Speaker 1: seeing those little parts and pockets of your community and
Speaker 1: realizing just how amazing things are around you. You really
Speaker 1: learned every nook and cranny of your district and what's
Speaker 1: really going on there. I'm still learning. I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1: And when you went to Washington, and you talk about
Speaker 1: the importance of the work that you do within the district,
Speaker 1: But when you went to Washington, what did you think
Speaker 1: that was going to be like with your colleagues as
Speaker 1: so forre than what did it turn out to be.
Speaker 1: I thought there'd be more substantive policy discussion among regular members.
Speaker 1: House of Representatives is four hundred and thirty plus people,
Speaker 1: so it's big. And so it turns out that a
Speaker 1: lot of things are kind of decided before they get
Speaker 1: to you, that they're decided by leadership, um that you know,
Speaker 1: the relevant committee has kind of figured everything out before
Speaker 1: it comes to you, and you're just in a situation
Speaker 1: of yes or no on the vote. And I think
Speaker 1: that's where I saw hearings as this great opportunity because
Speaker 1: if you're not if you're a newcomer to Congress, you
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of power, especially on the Democratic side.
Speaker 1: But we have a strong seniority system. But one of
Speaker 1: the few equal things about Congress is everybody gets five
Speaker 1: minutes for their questioning. So I decided I was going
Speaker 1: to use my five minutes better than anybody else, or
Speaker 1: as well as I could, to the maximum of kind
Speaker 1: of my ability. Um. And that's where I found the
Speaker 1: greatest reward really in. And the thing that's warning for
Speaker 1: me is it's not the answers that these witnesses give,
Speaker 1: because they're often really bad answers. It's the American people
Speaker 1: watch and they see that that lady is asking what
Speaker 1: I've always wondered, Why do the drugs cost so much? Right?
Speaker 1: Why does the drug keep getting more expensive? Do you
Speaker 1: know what the price of Revelement was? I can look
Speaker 1: it up, but I don't recall. I don't have it
Speaker 1: in front of me. Four hundred and twelve per pile.
Speaker 1: I would say approximately seven pill, but again I don't
Speaker 1: have it in front of me seven nineteen per pill,
Speaker 1: and today Revelement cost seven hundred and sixty three dollars
Speaker 1: per pill. I'm curious did the drug get substantially more
Speaker 1: effective in that time? Did cancer patients need fewer pills?
Speaker 1: She's asking about me, And that's really for me than
Speaker 1: the most rewarding part. You were a single mom where
Speaker 1: you got divorced when you're your kids are how old now?
Speaker 1: They're now fifteen, twelve, and nine. So you were a
Speaker 1: single mom now for almost a decade. And do you
Speaker 1: maintain because I know that we one of the things
Speaker 1: you focus on is about all the women that are
Speaker 1: losing jobs. We're losing a lot of women in the
Speaker 1: workplace because of the COVID correct, absolutely huge issue. What
Speaker 1: are some of the legislation you might or might not
Speaker 1: propose to address that. So when I was elected in
Speaker 1: the last Congress, at that time, I was the only
Speaker 1: single mother of young children to serve. Since then, the
Speaker 1: Republicans have elected one. But you know, this idea of
Speaker 1: the single household, the single parent household, isn't well represented
Speaker 1: in Washington, to put it mildly, So when we talk
Speaker 1: about issues like child poverty, one of the reasons for
Speaker 1: that is women, single women, single mom, single dads trying
Speaker 1: to raise a family on one income. Um. What happens
Speaker 1: financially to families when they get divorced um, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's very difficult. And so when we see right now,
Speaker 1: what we know is about of women have left the
Speaker 1: work or since the pandemic. A lot of those are
Speaker 1: lost jobs. Some of them are women who are leaving
Speaker 1: because they're putting a position to choose between taking care
Speaker 1: of their kids who are out of school, remote learning
Speaker 1: um or you know, having to go to work and
Speaker 1: leave their kids home alone. This has long term implications
Speaker 1: not just for women's economic opportunities and child poverty, but
Speaker 1: also for our economy as a whole. If we're a
Speaker 1: capitalist economy, we need our best and brightest doing the work,
Speaker 1: competing for the jobs, and that means men and women,
Speaker 1: people of different backgrounds, all having an opportunity to be
Speaker 1: in the workplace. And in our country, we're losing a
Speaker 1: lot of women out of the workforce and that's going
Speaker 1: to have big implications for our global competitiveness. It's not
Speaker 1: just a women's issue. We all benefit from a strong,
Speaker 1: healthy economy. One of my favorite phrases, and I use
Speaker 1: it all the time with my staff is by the ticket,
Speaker 1: take the ride right. And this actually applies to capitalism too.
Speaker 1: If we want to say, and you hear these people
Speaker 1: who are uber capitalists, they're they're anti government, they're worried
Speaker 1: about this they're they're throwing up this ridiculous specter of socialism. Well,
Speaker 1: guess what inherent in capitalism is equal opportunity to compete.
Speaker 1: And that's true about antitrust enforcement, but it also has
Speaker 1: to be true about social mobility. It has to be
Speaker 1: that that you're not allowing things like race discrimination to
Speaker 1: taint who you promote in the marketplace. You're paying people
Speaker 1: not because of the color of their skin, but because
Speaker 1: of how good they are at their jobs. All these
Speaker 1: things are perversions of capitalism, and we ought to be
Speaker 1: standing up for them on that basis, as well as
Speaker 1: the fact that they're morally apprehensible. Now, obviously, we have
Speaker 1: a graduated income tax in this country. The more money
Speaker 1: you make, the more you pay in taxes. Why isn't
Speaker 1: the same principle applied to these trillion dollar COVID relief bills,
Speaker 1: Meaning why are we giving a single penny to a
Speaker 1: family that's making over two ud? Okay, great question. So
Speaker 1: I want to push back on a couple of things.
Speaker 1: One is you said we have a graduated income tax.
Speaker 1: I want to push back on that and say, we
Speaker 1: theoretically have a graduated income tax. Okay, that's what it
Speaker 1: says on paper when you look it up in the
Speaker 1: little back of the I R S booklet. If you
Speaker 1: still do your taxes on paper, but in actuality, people
Speaker 1: who earn a lot often pay a lower effective tax
Speaker 1: rate because we have loopholes. We have problems in our
Speaker 1: tax system, and so we need to close that gap
Speaker 1: because a lot of people who are running around talking
Speaker 1: about how they're in the highest tax bracket aren't paying
Speaker 1: taxes in that higher bracket because of capital gains, because
Speaker 1: of all kinds of other things. The other issue with
Speaker 1: regard to COVID relief is, look, we definitely want to
Speaker 1: focus the help where it is needed, but we also
Speaker 1: cannot be so focused on making sure that nobody gets
Speaker 1: any help that they don't need that we slowed the
Speaker 1: whole thing down, and we ultimately allow people to die
Speaker 1: and to suffer while we're waiting around, and there are
Speaker 1: people in the very expensive areas where they were spending
Speaker 1: all of their money need to make ends meet. Now
Speaker 1: boom childcare, you have kids childcare. For my daughter Betsy,
Speaker 1: when she went to the University of California Irvine, childcare
Speaker 1: cost more than it would have for her to have
Speaker 1: been an undergraduate at u c I childcare. One year
Speaker 1: preschool was more than it would have been for her
Speaker 1: to be an undergraduate. So, all of a sudden, when
Speaker 1: you have all these kids out of school, people's expenses
Speaker 1: are going up, even if their income may be stable.
Speaker 1: So we have to think about the entire the entire
Speaker 1: effect here. And here's the main thing I have to
Speaker 1: say to people. COVID relief is the financially and fiscally
Speaker 1: responsible thing to do. If we get this wrong, it
Speaker 1: will set our economy back for a decade or more.
Speaker 1: Little bit of depressure. Howard Dean was on the show
Speaker 1: the other day and said the same thing. I said,
Speaker 1: do you think we're running a risk by printing trillions
Speaker 1: of dollars? He said, the problem will be if we
Speaker 1: don't spend that money. Absolutely, we have to invest it wisely.
Speaker 1: We have to make sure we're putting it into programs
Speaker 1: that are working. We have to root out fraud, waste,
Speaker 1: and abuse. Um. You know. So, I think it's ridiculous,
Speaker 1: for example, that we passed a paycheck protection program, a
Speaker 1: p p P program for small businesses that allowed Congress
Speaker 1: members to get loans. That's nuts. That's a mistake in
Speaker 1: the program, But our biggest risk here is not doing
Speaker 1: enough and leaving people mired a long term poverty and hardship,
Speaker 1: out of the workplace with atrophying skills, when other countries
Speaker 1: are not making that same mistake. So obviously the current
Speaker 1: senator there Padilla is an appointee interim because Harris and
Speaker 1: other vice president. Do you think that that's his seat
Speaker 1: to hold onto or does the congresswoman have other ideas
Speaker 1: about her future in California politics. I'm really excited about
Speaker 1: Alex Padilla representing me and my family UM in the Senate,
Speaker 1: and I've contributed to his reelection campaign already. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: I think he's gonna be a wonderful partner and a
Speaker 1: really important voice for California. UM. He has an amazing
Speaker 1: life story, he went to m I t he's incredibly smart.
Speaker 1: So I think you can safely paint me as a
Speaker 1: fan of Alex Pidia and somebody who's really excited about
Speaker 1: working with him. He just got added to the Senate
Speaker 1: Banking Committee, UM yesterday, so I told my staff, like,
Speaker 1: call him up, let's start working on bills together. Do
Speaker 1: you think that you have what it takes to serve
Speaker 1: in the Senate. What do you think you're better off
Speaker 1: where you are in the Congress. Oh, look, wherever you
Speaker 1: put me, I'm gonna fight for the American people. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I mean, this is when I as a professor.
Speaker 1: I became a professor to understand what was wrong with
Speaker 1: our laws and how we could make it better. When
Speaker 1: I'm in the House, that's what I'm thinking about, what's wrong,
Speaker 1: how can we make it better. It's gonna be the
Speaker 1: same thing whether I would be in the administration, Um,
Speaker 1: whatever I go on to do after this, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: these are the fundamental questions. The fundamental question that has
Speaker 1: motivated my life is how do we achieve economic prosperity
Speaker 1: for all Americans? And I'm going to keep asking that
Speaker 1: question whatever job I'm in. H And you know, I
Speaker 1: kind of mean, Look, the house is fun, it's scrappy. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit chaotic, you're right, Um, But you know,
Speaker 1: whenever I've gone I've always tried to make the most
Speaker 1: of what I've gotten. Um. And so you know, whatever
Speaker 1: the future holds, I'm pretty sure I'm going to still
Speaker 1: be asking tough questions. The Honorable Katie Porter, if you're
Speaker 1: enjoying this conversation, be sure to subscribe to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, please leave
Speaker 1: us a review. I really appreciate it. When we come back,
Speaker 1: Katie Porter talks about why Trump must be convicted by
Speaker 1: the Senate. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from my Heart Radio. When protesters stormed the US
Speaker 1: Capitol building on January six, Katie Porter wasn't far from
Speaker 1: the insurrection. I was on the capital grounds. Um, in
Speaker 1: my office, which is not in the Capital. Which house
Speaker 1: building are you in? Long Worth? In Long Worth and
Speaker 1: more as AOC has now memorialized it, the dunkin Donuts building,
Speaker 1: which was actually a factor and why I picked that. Um,
Speaker 1: it's very handy to be able to go get coffee
Speaker 1: in the morning. But um, I was in my office
Speaker 1: and Alexander Kasier Cortez. I passed her in the hallway
Speaker 1: as I went into my office, and you know, she
Speaker 1: kind of you know, she waved, and a few seconds
Speaker 1: later she came back and knocked on the door and
Speaker 1: said can I come in? And I said, of course,
Speaker 1: And you know, she came inside, she was obviously very rattled.
Speaker 1: There had been a bomb threat in her building. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that at the time, UM. And so we
Speaker 1: sheltered together, along with a couple of staffers for about
Speaker 1: four or five hours, six hours in my office, barricaded
Speaker 1: the doors, turned the lights off, pulled the windows, silenced
Speaker 1: the phones, just in the cold, um and the dark,
Speaker 1: you know, worried that what was going on at the
Speaker 1: Capitol where there were cameras watching. What you can't see
Speaker 1: is that there are underground tunnels connecting the Capital to
Speaker 1: our office buildings. If the attackers had come down those tunnels,
Speaker 1: we would not have known they were coming. Um. And
Speaker 1: so we just stayed barricaded in there for hours and
Speaker 1: didn't know what was happening. And when you look back
Speaker 1: on it, now, what do you think should happen? Oh,
Speaker 1: to protect us? I mean, look, we have to. We
Speaker 1: have a real problem in this country with misinformation, with
Speaker 1: with violence. UM. You know, our democracy is strong, but
Speaker 1: it is not unshakable, UM. And this was this was
Speaker 1: a powerful kind of I think earthquake a powerful shake,
Speaker 1: um to our democratic principles. So I think we have
Speaker 1: to reaffirm that it's okay to disagree, so okay to
Speaker 1: have different ideas. I represent Range County. I represent a
Speaker 1: lot of constituents that I disagree with. Um, that's okay,
Speaker 1: that's healthy. But violence in a democracy is never okay.
Speaker 1: You voted to impeach Trump, I did twice, and the
Speaker 1: Senate is not going to convict you know, I think
Speaker 1: they should convict him. I think that this is and
Speaker 1: I think too many people are thinking about this just
Speaker 1: from the native angle about Trump. But we have a
Speaker 1: rule of law in this country, and part of that
Speaker 1: rule of law is precedent. So what we are doing
Speaker 1: here is saying this conduct was not acceptable and if
Speaker 1: anyone and it's not who we are. So if you're
Speaker 1: wondering future president whether you can act like President Trump did,
Speaker 1: the answer is no, you will be impeached. This is illegal.
Speaker 1: So we need to set that precedent and establish that boundary.
Speaker 1: I would have bet you everything I own at the
Speaker 1: onset of Trump's administration that it never would have ended
Speaker 1: this way. I mean, it ends. His political legacy ends
Speaker 1: on this note, one of destruction and hate and lawlessness
Speaker 1: and stuff with which which defines you know, I've always
Speaker 1: said that the government's purposes to do the greatest amount
Speaker 1: of good for the greatest number of people. This is
Speaker 1: not some concierge service to help wealthy Americans. And I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: what's the change you'd like to see in the campaign
Speaker 1: finance laws that will help clean that up. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: corporate pack money is a huge part of it. Citizens
Speaker 1: United saying companies are are people, right, So, you know,
Speaker 1: reversing Citizens United, stopping corporate pack contributions or at least
Speaker 1: forcing corporations to disclose them to shareholders and justify how
Speaker 1: this actually provides any value to the corporation. Um. I
Speaker 1: think that's really important. I think campaign finance generally, you know,
Speaker 1: I think small dollar contributions are great because you know,
Speaker 1: five dollars a dollar, you know, volunteering your time, people
Speaker 1: can feel themselves part of democracy, part of the process. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, until we clean that up, until we
Speaker 1: clean up some of the corruption, it's going to be
Speaker 1: really hard. I think it's the source of all of
Speaker 1: the problems to this country, source of all of the problems.
Speaker 1: Which committee do you want to You're on one exclusive committee.
Speaker 1: I was at an exclusive committee lust Congress, which is
Speaker 1: financial Services you're not there anymore. I'm not there anymore.
Speaker 1: And now I'm on. I was on Financial services, and
Speaker 1: then later in the year I got added to oversight
Speaker 1: when they were openings. So now I'm on I could
Speaker 1: doing on the Oversight Committee. I'm really excited about that.
Speaker 1: I love that oversight UM and I like doing it
Speaker 1: for all different kinds of areas, everything from you know,
Speaker 1: Pentagon spending two pharmaceuticals to car seats UM, to civil
Speaker 1: liberties UM. And then I'm now joined the Natural Resources Committee,
Speaker 1: which has jurisdiction over public lands, over tribal lands, all
Speaker 1: the drilling on public lands, UM, oceans and wildlife. So
Speaker 1: you know, I said the other day, polluters, I have questions, UM.
Speaker 1: So I'm really excited about that, and it's incredibly important
Speaker 1: issue in California. It's important to our global competitiveness in
Speaker 1: the future. The company, the economy, the nation that has
Speaker 1: manufacturing jobs in the next decade will be the country
Speaker 1: that figures out how to manufacture in a green way.
Speaker 1: We need that to be us. Bobby Kennedy Jr. Used
Speaker 1: to say, let's force them to bring their products to
Speaker 1: market at their actual cost. What are the American people
Speaker 1: really paying for a gallon of gas. You throw the
Speaker 1: PCBs in the Hudson River and we have to clean
Speaker 1: it up. That be a part of the cost of
Speaker 1: your thing. The woman who studied bankruptcy law at Harvard
Speaker 1: with Elizabeth Warrener, you saw you out of the Finance
Speaker 1: committe anymore? Sure, I'm definitely sorry. I mean I asked
Speaker 1: to serve because I wanted to. Um. I want to
Speaker 1: continue working on those issues, and I hope there'll be
Speaker 1: an opportunity for me to fill a vacancy in the future.
Speaker 1: UM to get back to that committee. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to be on the Economic and Consumer Protection
Speaker 1: Subcommittee of Oversight. UM. I'm gonna keep doing a lot
Speaker 1: of work on financial services issues from that. So absolutely
Speaker 1: wish I were on. What happened? You know, they just
Speaker 1: they had so many spots, they voted people on and off.
Speaker 1: I was one of two people who didn't get it. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, eight or ten people did get it. Other
Speaker 1: people were chosen, other people were chosen. But you know what, like,
Speaker 1: remember what I said about I've been underestimated a lot
Speaker 1: when I went on. Now people are like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: she can't go off financial services. Financial services where all
Speaker 1: the hot committee action is. Trust me, when I went
Speaker 1: on financial Services, everyone was like, oh my god, that's
Speaker 1: the most boring committee. No one's gonna pay attention to you.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Duncan Donut. Right. So wherever I go,
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to engage the American people. And
Speaker 1: I don't think there is a bad committee in Congress.
Speaker 1: These are all important. Well let me just say, I
Speaker 1: really mean this. People who really are so disheartened. I
Speaker 1: mean they're crushed and demoralized by the inefficiency of the
Speaker 1: American government. They've lost faith. And then along you come,
Speaker 1: and all my friends who see you, you know what
Speaker 1: they are. They're proud of you. They're so proud of
Speaker 1: you because they get when you're there. You're not there
Speaker 1: for the self aggrandizing. You're doing this because you care
Speaker 1: and you take the job seriously and you and you're
Speaker 1: finding and honing a way to use the job the
Speaker 1: office as a tool. You're honing a tool to do
Speaker 1: the work you want to do on behalf of the
Speaker 1: American people. So thank you so much, thank you, oh absolutely,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me us representative Katie Porter.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing is brought to you
Speaker 1: by by Heart Radio. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Carrie
Speaker 1: donohue and Zach McNeice. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.