From shouting matches with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, to increasing housing affordability, Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are aligned on a host of issues.
Warren joined Tori Dunlap, founder of Her First $100K, for a Q&A on her podcast, Financial Feminist, which was released on Wednesday. Harris has been campaigning constantly in the home stretch leading up to Election Day, and was recently joined by none other than Beyonce Knowles at a rally in Houston. While recent data shows Harris gaining on Republican nominee Donald Trump, the former president has so far dominated in prediction markets.
According to Warren, she and Harris are together on issues such as affordable housing, relief for renters, significantly increasing housing supply, and getting more people access to capital from banks. Warren knocked Trump’s tax policies and said the only wealth they would create would go to helping billionaires become “multi-multi-billionaires.”
“I just don’t think it’s right that Jeff Bezos, one of the richest people in the world, pays at a lower tax rate than a Boston public school teacher,” Warren told Dunlap. “Are you kidding me? So the idea is we increase taxes for those at the top, not crazy. Believe me, they will still be able to buy all the things.”
President Barack Obama tapped Warren to serve as special advisor to the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after the 2008 Financial Crisis. She has continually argued for stricter regulation of Wall Street and stronger consumer protections, plus student loan and debt forgiveness. In 2010, Time Magazine dubbed Warren, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro, and FDIC Chair Sheila Bair as the “New Sheriffs of Wall Street.”
Warren told Dunlap that was the same time period she first encountered the current Democratic Party nominee for President.
“When we came out of the big crash in 2008, let’s face it, 6 million people lost their homes, and not because they made stupid decisions, but because they were in a world where it was possible to cheat them, and then take away their houses,” Warren said during the podcast. “And so for me, I wanted that consumer agency to make sure that never happened again. And by the way, just to make this very contemporaneous, right in that time period is exactly when I met Kamala Harris.”
Harris was the Attorney General in California, and was engaged in a battle of her own with Wall Street. A phone call between Harris and Wall Street titan Dimon evolved into a shouting match, Harris wrote in her 2019 autobiography, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey. “We were like two dogs in a fight,” Harris wrote.
Harris and Dimon were in a spirited debate over a pending settlement among banks with state attorneys general for homeowners who were foreclosed upon during the crisis. Among the banks were JPM, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, and they offered between $2 billion and $4 billion. Harris didn’t like it.
As Fortune reported, “‘You’re trying to steal from my shareholders,’ [Dimon] yelled almost as soon as he heard my voice,” Harris wrote. Harris replied: “‘Your shareholders? My shareholders are the homeowners of California. You come and see them. Talk to them about who got robbed.’”
Dimon told Harris he would talk it over with the JPM board of directors. Two weeks later, according to Harris, the banks came back with a deal for California that would ultimately result in $20 billion in homeowner relief.
“I’ll never know what happened on Dimon’s side,” Harris said. “But I do know two weeks later the banks gave in.”
Warren said she and Harris fought toe-to-toe to help as many people save their homes as possible.
“And that’s when I saw her as a fierce warrior on the side of the people,” said Warren. “But most importantly, somebody with the courage to take on the big banks, and that’s something I respect deeply.”
