Nothing about, caring for the most fearsome weapons in the United States, the United States nuclear arsenal. And there was that moment in november he could not remember Energy Department as one of the agencies he wanted to eliminate. The third agency of government i would do away with the education, the commerce and, lets see organization, my. I cant. The third one i cant. Sorry. Oops. Kasie hunt is covering Steven Mnuchins and Kelly Odonnell is covering governor perry. Reporter ive been watching governor perrys hearing. As you point out, that memorable moment from the president ial season has come back to at least haunt or perhaps challenge governor perry today. He did acknowledge that that view is no longer what he feels about the department of energy citing he has been briefed about the extensive area of responsibility that the Energy Secretary must fill. And so he is basically falling on his sword saying he was wrong then, saying that it was more than five years ago and that his views have changed. He is also saying that he accepts that Climate Change has a human component. That what the planet is doing in terms of warming and changing is not purely a natural feat but that the u. S. And population of everyone around the world has some kind of contribution to it. He tacked about the need of protecting the nuclear arsenal, which is the biggest part of the budget for the defendant of energy. By the numbers we know that the republicans have the ability to get someone like rick perry through without any huge mistes and docrats are going to put his feet to the fire over these past statements and concerns they have about how ready he is to serve in an area that beyond the texas familiarity of oil and gas, this is new terrain for him. Tamron. Going back to the explanation of rick perry going back five years, some would say thats an explanation, some would say its not. Its a hugely embarrassing moment for him. Some saying he did not grasp the role he would play as Energy Secretary. Reporter i cannot speak to whether theres merit in that because those were not identified sources in that piece. He certainly acknowledged today openly that there was a briefing that has been a part of his transition process in preparing for todays hearing and for the work of the department and that he has learned a lot. Democrats are challenging him on that and find it not sufficient that he has had this switch in view and theyll press him on it. Its something that was embarrassing and something hes got to answer for today and hes trying to do it by just sort of completely falling on the sword and saying he was wrong. What about the concerns regarding his ties to gas and oil and these are part of the industries he lobbied for. Thats a part of the question. Weve seen that with all of these nominees, if they have an area of expertise or a business interest, its part of what has to be looked at as part of this process. Perry would say he can be a great ambassador for that paandt of what the department of energy would require and hes going through that same backandforth process to see if the senate will confirm him. Now for steve mnuchin, california lawmakers wanted to sue his company saying it was in violation of 1,000 laws. This morning the Washington Post also reporting that mnuchin failed to disclose an offshore fund in the Cayman Islands and 100,000. Things have already started, as we expected, as a pretty tough way for mr. Mnuchin to go today. Reporter thats right, tamron. We knew this was going to be one of the more contentious hearings for a donald trump nominee. There are, as you noted, some issues with Steve Mnuchins background and theres been nervousness on the part of the Transition Team about how he was going to perform through this process. You can already tell democrats and republicans very much on edge. Its leading to moments we dont see often on capitol hill where decorum is kind of the height of decency. This happened out of order, the senators werent supposed to be talking to each other but it definitely caused a little flair up. Take a look. Senator wyden, ive got a valium pill here you might want to take before the second round. Just a suggestion, sir. Just another suggestion. Weve got a lot of colleagues waiting. If you could be brief. I hope that that comment about valium doesnt set the tone for 2017 in this committee. I like senator roberts, but i just cant quite believe that he would say that to a distinguished senator i said that to the president of the United States at one perhaps you did. But i would hope that doesnt set the tone for the session. Mr. Chairman, i order, please. The relationship were building is so different from this. This is just outrageous. Im sorry if i have, you know, incurred your rath, sir, so well be all right. Mr. Chairman, we have many colleagues waiting. Fine, ron, im done. We promised at the last hour we would show you the entirety of that exchange. Theyre just arguing over the tone so far of the hearing. Senator pat roberts known for having something of a dry sense of humor. Clearly it was not taken as humor by the democrats who take it seriously. It shows you how on edge people are going into this hearing and a lot of it has to do with the issue of the financial crisis and the housing collapse and Steve Mnuchins involvement, a company he ran called one west financial that was foreclosing on americans and also on elderly people who had taken out what is known as reverse mortgages where the bank agrees to buy the house, let the person continue to live in it. Weve spoken to a couple people today who found out in very difficult circumstances the bank was going to try to force them to move out of their homes. Thats what you can expect the focus to be today over the next couple of hours. Given his role, if he does get confirmed leading treasury, a lot of attention being paid to the markets today as well, kasie, listening to what his policy priorities would be, if hes in line with some of the vision weve heard, even if not specific from the president elect. But also how the markets would react to this. Reporter thats right, tamron. And there are going to be some questions about whether or not hes on the same page with donald trump about tax rates, especially on wealthier americans, whether those would go up or down. Donald trump has in some ways not gone along with republican orthodoxy in every comment hes made about taxes on the wealthy but at the same time, theyre talking about doing a tax cut tax reform up here on capitol hill. Theyve got Big Decisions to make about whether that falls on the shoulders of middle class americans or on wealthier americans. So i think thats something you want to keep an eye on today as they try to sort through those questio questions. The hearing is still ongoing. Appreciate you jumping in front of the camera to give us an update. Right now president elect is heading to washington, d. C. He just arrived at laguardia airport, headed to the capital for official festivities of the inauguration. Just before leaving trump tower, the president elect announced his final cabinet pick naming former georgia governor sonny purdue as his nominee for agriculture secretary. In washington Vice President elect mike pence also just gave an update on the transition saying he is pleased to say the Transition Team is finishing its work under budget and that tomorrow will be, quote, a humbling and moving day. For more, Peter Alexander joins us live now from trump tower. Peter, take us through certainly the next hour and a half for the president , his travels and what we can expect to see throughout the day for him. Tamron, good morning to you. Donald trump alongside his wife, the soon to be first lady of the United States, melania trump, arriving at laguardia where they will fly on board a military plane to joint base andrews. While president elect has been shuttling to d. C. And back over the course of the last several nights, tonight he will stay in washington where tomorrow he will wake up to take the oath of office and move in to the white house after becoming the president of the United States. We heard a short time ago from donald trump who cast the day in his own terms saying getting ready to leave, the journey begins and ill be working hard to make it a great journey for the American People, i have no doubt we will together make America Great again. Ivanka trump, his daughter, who will be arriving in washington, d. C. With her husband, jared kushner, will take on a role as a senior adviser, posted a photograph of what the formal inauguration invitation looks like there with all of its glorious calligraphy and the like. And donald trump showing a picture with wounded warriors. He will become the commander in chief. In terms of this inaugural address, yesterday president elect trump tweeted a video from three weeks ago where he was writing his remarks at the maralago property, which he describes as the winter white house. And his incoming press secretary, sean spicer, gave us a better understanding of what we should expect to hear. Its going to be a very personal and sincere statement about his vision for the country. He will discuss what it means to be an american, the challenges that we face as members of the middle class, hell talk about infrastructure, education, our manufacturing base. It will be less of an agenda, more of a philosophical document, the proper role of government, the role of citizens and where he sees the country. Sean spicer made it clear that in the course of the first several days friday and officially on monday, which the Trump Administration views as day one, there will be a series of executive actions, four, maybe five of them likely to address topics like immigration and the environment. Also worth noting that 50 political appointees of president obama will stay around for continuity, among them a man by the name of brett mcguirk, a special envoy on isis. Hes a critical part of the antiterror efforts, the counterterrorism efforts this country has been employing around the world. Peter alexander, another busy day for you as well, pivoting back and forth. Appreciate it. Youre looking at this live picture from laguardia airport. The president elect will be leaving by military plane with his wife, melania, meeting members of his family in washington, d. C. Around this time tomorrow, we will start to learn perhaps about this inaugural address as all of the festivities around noon eastern time will start up. So we are almost 24hour mark before the beginning of the official peaceful transition of power, where donald trump will become this nations 45th president. Also ahead, the list of democrats boycotting the inauguration continues to grow, at least 65 now say they will not be attending, that includes tennessee congressman steven cohn. He will join me live. And well get a live report from the inaugural parade route. Just steps from the white house, what the inaugural Committee Says they are doing to balance tradition and the needs of the president elect. Nt want to livh the uncertainties of hep c. Or wonder whether i should seek treatment. I am ready. Because today theres harvoni. A revolutionary treatment for the most common type of chronic hepatitis c. Harvoni is proven to cure up to 99 of patients. Whove had no prior treatment. 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Earn 1 cash back when you y, and 1 asou pay. Uble means double. Welcome back, everyone. We are awaiting president elect trump to leave new Yorks Laguardia airport, headed for washington, d. C. Were also close li closely monitoring the two big confirmation hearings under way on capitol hill. The one for rick perry set to the Energy Secretary if confirmed and Steven Mnuchin, set to be the commerce secretary if confirmed. President elect trump is now on his way, as we said it again and again, just one day now until he is sworn in at 12 eastern time. Theyre expecting some 800,000 people to attend tomorrows inauguration. Joining me from Lafayette Park with a previous view, nbcs chris jansing. The inaugural address is the major moment here, donald trump setting the tone for the day but it also a curiosity to see the president elect or the then president if hell get out of the vehicle,f hell walk with the first lady. All of those things weve covered now, we been lucky many times. Well, its going to rain. They come down pennsylvania, mostly in the car, usually, though, they walk the last little bit. And then hell go here. Thats the official president ial viewing stand. If you got a seat in there, thats the vvvip area. The military bands, the parade. I talked to the Communications Director for the inaugural, boris epshteyn. How much of this is traditional and how much is donald trump . Its a combination. Were having three balls. He said he wants this shorter. 90 minutes theres not a hard cap. Thats what were looking at. Because . Because its all about getting to work. He got into this race because hes not a politician. He wants to get to work for the American People. Reporter are you planning a little surprise . By definition, if theres a surprise, its a surprise. So you and the viewers at home will have to stay tuned. Reporter no surprise we know how many people are going to be in this parade, 8,000, 40 different organizations. What you have dont see behind me, that viewing stand is blocking the white house. I want to tell you while all this is going on at the capitol, whats going on inside is wild. Its moving day at the white house. They have sometimes less than five hours to get everything obama out and every trump back in, finish packing the obamas, a assume clean, arranging furniture. Its amazing how it happens flawlessly. Most people never see it and the transition thankfully has gone well those times weve covered it many, many times. Thank you, chris. The list of democratic lawmakers boycotting the nomination continues to grow. That number is at 65. Joining me now one of the democrats boycotting, tennessee congressn steve cohen. Thank you so much for your time. Youre welcome, tamron. Explain to me why youre taking this stand. Is it because of the tweets about john lewis from the president elect or is it the information thats been revealed about the investigations of russian interference . Its those things and more. This administration has really depressed a lot of people in my district. My district is the largest africanamerican district in the country. It went about 80 for Hillary Clinton and my people feel theyre not represented in washington. And so many things are going to change in the area of civil rights, the area of health care and opportunities for people that need that, who need snap payments, who need wic payments and it is a disaster. It is the dark ages coming. By not going, i am giving my constituents the idea that theyre representative, and i am, on their side, that i am going to stand up to, which i plan to, these changes and speak out against them, the changes in america that we see coming and give some voice to my representatives by not appearing. Its a grand political event in general, and i would like to be there and watch it, but im not going to do it because i dont approve of president trump, elect president to be trump. He hasnt acted president ial. And until he earns my respect, i will not give it to him. Its not the office but the man. The man has been disparaging of john lewis, of john mccain. I had polio of a child. I wear a brace. Its tough for me to stand even now. To see him make fun of someone with a birth defect hits me at the core. The man is a disgrace. If he reaches out and changes, great. I dont think this man is going to change. He had 70 years. This family has not been a family of civil rights. Its been a family of greed. Theyve tried to fit in every one of the seven deadly sins except for sloth. They dont have time for sloth. But to your point if this is how donald trump has lived much of his adult life, this person that you have described eventual, though, he is going become around this time tomorrow the president of the United States, the gop controls the house, it controls the senate. While that may not be the desire of your consistetituents who 80 supported Hillary Clinton and the popular vote as well while millions went to Hillary Clinton, how does this move the ball forward in accomplishing goals that you might feel beneficial to your constituents and those who supported Hillary Clinton by boycotting . I think it serves a large role. I think the man is very needy. Hes been needy since they dropped him off at the military school when he was 13 years old. Hes been needy all his life. He want the biggest, hugest crowd in history. If 65 democrats boycott his nomination, hell get the idea hes not bigley, hes not loved and we dont think hes making America Great again. Hes making america dark given and thats wrong. His rebuttal has been but i won. I get it. You have democrats say you did not win the popular vote. President obama was asked to weigh in about those boycotting and he did not weigh in. He said he will be there, the first lady will be there and he is hopeful the country will move forward in a positive way. Granted he is the president and will not boycott but his tone of not getting into defeat and fighting so that laws and policies to benefit your constituents can be not ignored by this new president. Im a great supporter and admirer of president obamas. Were going to miss his grace and miss his no drama obama. Lambs sometimes get slaughtered. This is politics and politics in this city is a tough game. If you dont fight back and stand up, youll be eaten alive. Youve got to get the message out there of whats going on there and get ready for 2020. Were going to have a lot of damage in four years. It cant be eight. My job is to be here in 2020 to see a democrat elected president and to turn this country back toward a loving, caring, tolerant diverse country with science at the forefront and justice as a guide and using our brain matter and not our just belicose bullying. Thank you, congressman. I want to take our audience to the confirmation hearing of steve mnuchin. I think we all appreciate the engine of growth is with small and mediumsized businesses. And in my role in working with the different regulators, i would make sure that we did what we could to have proper regulation but eliminate overlap as well as make sure that the banks are lending to small and mediumsized businesses and we dont end up with a world where we only have four big banks in this country. Thank you. You actual lily led right into next question. In a very closely related matter, as you know, as the secretary of treasury, youll have a very Important Role of the chairperson of fsoc. In my view fsoc is very heavily focusing on statuary mandates some statutory mandates and ignoring others. One mandate is to advise congress and make recommendation in such areas that will enhance the integrity, efficiency, competitiveness and stability of u. S. Financial markets. To date, frankly, im not aware of fsoc fulfilling that role. We dont get a lot of advice from fsoc. We get a lot of directive in the country. Will you pledge, as the chairperson of fsoc, that you will ensure that the councils way to make the u. S. Market more efficient and work to advise to achieve those outcom in. I will. Let me just comment on the volcker rule, for example. I do support the volcker rule. I think the concept of p proprietary trading does not belong. But the volcker rule has limited liquidity in many markets and the Federal Reserve is concerned that the interpretation of the volcker rule doesnt allow banks to create new liquidity for customers. So thats something i would absolutely want to look at. And, senator wyden, by the way, i wanted to thank you for im now in great esteem of having the mnuchin rule with the buffer rule and volcker rule. I take that as a great complement. Thank you for putting me in with these other great people. Good morning. I enjoyed our visit yesterday. Were you a director of Dune Capital International limited, a Cayman Islands corporation . I was. That is correct. Did you move a hedge fund Dune Capital Partners llc to anguila . Senator, first let me just comment. When we talk about moving, okay, you know, its not as if i had 50 people sitting in office as we talked about and moving it. I understand. I do want to comment and, yes, so dune capital llc, which was our master fund and not to get into the nuances of this but when one runs an onshore fund and an offshore fund, theres certain efficiencies of keeping the assets in whats called a master fund. And because we set up the master fund in anguila, i was required to change Dune Capital Partners to become a foreign entity. So that was the reason for it. But let me just comment no, im running out of time. Ive got to get to the question. Sorry. The question is both of those were for a tax consequence located in the caymans as well as anguila. So the question is you said you support tax reform. Do you support closing those kind of tax avoidance provisions, the anguila and the Cayman Islands type tax avoidance in the tax code . So let me just comment that when i did move it, i had to apply to the irs and the irs approved it as a foreign eligible entity to be taxed as a u. S. Partnership. So from my standpoint, it made no difference to me whether it was located in delaware thats not my question. Im giving you a slightly longer answer, i apologize. Its a complicated issue. Can you just answer the question . The short answer is yes. As i said before, i think that i would work with the irs and with congress, as ive said. It makes no sense that we have all these requirements to set up these offshore entities, which again didnt benefit me but did benefit certain nonprofits and pensions, and we should address the issues for nonprofits and pensions and understand why they need to invest through these offshore funds. I wouldnt want to do anything thats detrimental to the pension holders or these nonprofits but i would commit to work with your office, senator, and make sure that we fix the system. All right. We talked about indy bank yesterday and becoming one west and you said you bought when you acquired indy bank the portfolio of reverse mortgages. And to your credit you said that once it became one west that you did not sell any more reverse mortgages. And net you as the c yet you s the ceo, i want you to comment on the reverse mortgageshat you acquired from indy bank, some of the folks were not treated very well. I mentioned to you yesterday a 90yearold lakeland woman was foreclosed on because of a 27 cent payment error. I did not mention two others, foreclosing on an 80yearold orange park, florida woman that your bank claimed didnt live in the home when, in fact, she did and she happened to have the foreclosure papers served on her in the home that the bank said she didnt live in. Another example, a married couple in their 50s trying to make the best of everything, they asked for a loan modification of west bank and then which they were eligible for and instead they were foreclosed on. Explain to the committee, if you would, and i think you earnest, wellintentioned person but youre sitting there as this stuff is happening, which is very unfair to little people. Why . Senator, again, thank you for taking the opportunity to meet with me, i appreciated that and the time to speak about these important issues. Let me first say, to the extent we made any errors or ever foreclosed on anybody, i completely understand that the hardship that created. As i mentioned, we did go through an independent foreclosure review and unfortunately there were some issues, very, very low rates relative to everybody else but there were some issues and we paid money to those people to make them whole and i earnestly feel terrible for any mistakes of the bank. Let me comment on also that once a week i chaired an internal committee that dealt with customer complaints. So any complaint that went to our regulators, that went to a senator, went to a member of the house or went to what we called the came through those, we had a special group of people that reviewed every single one of those complaints, responded to all of your offices and responded directly to the borrower. We also routinely had the occ come in and monitor and test us and go through all those complaints. It was a very, very big concern because, as you can imagine, from both the fdic and the occ when we took over indymac, the amounts of complaints spiked dramatically. As i shared with you, the reverse Mortgage Business was not something we wanted to buy, that we agreed to buy that as part of an overall solution, that what we were really trying to do is create a Regional Bank and that business really had no part of it. There were about a balance and a half reverse mortgages that the bank owned. There were over 20 billion of reverse mortgages that we didnt own that we serviced for third parties, and the majority of all those third parties were hudguaranteed mortgages. And as i pointed out, i think theres some very significant issues with the hud program. One, as ive mentioned, is a problem with taxes and insurance, that if theres a shortage on taxes and insurance because somebody outlives their expe expectancy that hud forced us to foreclose. There was another problem if the spouse wasnt on the mortgage, you would have to foreclose on the spouse. I would hope to work with dr. Carson and hope hud can consider looking at these things. Those its not under my responsibilities, i would share my concerns. These are governmentguaranteed programs where we are foreclosing on senior citizens. I can assure you nothing was more painstaking to me in the whole place. I cant talk about specific loans because of privacy, but there are certain things that were in the press and the most troubling loan we had was actually to the octo mom. We worked very, very hard and we worked very, very hard to move her to another home that they could afford. But i can assure you that as chairman of the bank, i took these issues very seriously. Its not to say that we didnt have certain mistakes. There were mistakes, we regret those mistakes. As i mentioned, we had hundreds of thousands of delinquent loans. Just as an aside, when you talk about loan modifications, banks are highly incented to make loan modifications. Anybody who thinks we made more money on a loan is mistaken. We believed in loan modificat n modifications and we were financially incented to grant them when we could. Mr. Chairman, i look forward to a second round. Congratulations on your nomination. I had a different line of questioning. I have to be honest with you, the information that came to us this morning makes me concerned. Youve april dressddressed alls not all of it. You certified it was true, accurate and complete of your questionnaire to nominee. Question 11 asked nominees to list all positions as a officer, trustee, agent, represent it have, consultant of any company, partnership, or other institution. Its almost like an open book test. And yet you did not answer in that questionnaire listing your position as director of a Cayman Islands corporation, as manager, chairman and director of eight additional shell corporations and Holding Companies and nearly 100 million in real estate. That questionnaire was corrected only after the committee staff, having done their due diligence, brought the missing information to your attention. Now, after that you admitted to being the director of the offshore entity Dune Capital International limited, a Cayman Island corporation and admitted to moving your account offshore to anguila, even though all the business was conducted in new york city. I have a ton of other questions on policy, but first and foremost is truth and voracity, what americans need in their treasury, to be asked to do with difficult things. In essence, isnt it true what you did here is take these companies, put them offshore so you could help your clients you were making money from avoid u. S. Taxation . No, thats not true at all. You just described that the purposes of creating these offshore entities were to help pensions and other entities and the only reason to go offshore as senator grassley said when he was i think the chairman of the committee is the difference between investing in the United States and the Cayman Islands is the possibility of avoiding u. S. Taxes. Your clients, youve made it very clear that you paid your taxes, ill accept your word on that. But the entities you were helping and making money from, you were helping them avoid u. S. Taxes, otherwise they could have invested here. Senator, let me answer the first part of your question, which i will tell you and i said this before and i will repeat it again. I assure you these forms are very complicated. I dont have the form in front of me but i believe it said to the best of my knowledge this is true. When i certified those forms, i thought it was correct. Perhaps it was a mistake in giving the Committee Information early and i should have waited until i had finished the 278 and the ethics office. It was not just a function of your office. We were in the process of correcting things. But it doesnt takes a Rocket Scientist to understand the word list all positions. Senator, in all due respect, i had a lot of complicated entities. Youre referring to i didnt list the director. I listed the entity. The fact i didnt list i was a director was not intended to hide anything. As i mentioned, in regards to my 100 million of real estate, my lawyer who is quite sophisticated in this stuff and has done this for many, many nominees before, believed that we filled out the form correctly. Lets get to the heart of my question. The heart of my question is didnt you create these offshore entities that most americans can create or take advantage of in order to help your clients who you were making money from avoid u. S. Taxes . No, not necessarily, okay. First of all, i want to say its important that the committee well, what were you doing it for then . That this was done so that different entities could invest. So sometimes it had nothing to do with taxes, it had to do with what they could invest in and couldnt invest in. And as i said to you, if you want to put me on for the entire hedge fund and pension fund, we should have an irs session to go through these issues and id be more than happy to work with you and your offices to go through. These are very complicated issues. I appreciate that but let me make the complication simple. One does not go and create offshore entities at the end of the day other than to avoid in some form or fashion the tax laws of the United States. Thats pretty simple. And so that may be even legal, in which case we should definitely close it. But you have to question whether or not that is the essence of what we want as leadership and so id like to hear you be more determinative of saying, yes, were going to close all of those down, if i can convince the president elect to do so and congress because what you did may have been legal but it certainly was to help people and entities avoid u. S. Taxes. First of all, im absolutely committed to work with you and your office, as ive said, on tax simplification and to cut down and make sure that we dont let anybody aprvoid taxes. In certain cases it was not a financial to avoid taxes but to create eligible investments for certain nonprofits. I agree with you completely. Im on board with what you said. Whose investments were eligible therefore to avoid some taxes. It may have been an eligibility issue and not a tax issue. I agree with you that this does not make sense and i will work with you and your office, ive committed to do that to make sure that why people need to move entities from anguila to everywhere else. Were not creating jobs there. Its just where these entities are housed. I agree with you. It will create a lot less work for the Tax Department and lawyers and your time is up, senator. Let me just say its ironic and i think a bit hypocritical of my friend on the other side of the aisle to suddenly find religion on offshore account holdings. Evidently memories are short. At least two of president obamas nominees who now serve in his cabinet had Cayman Island holdings. That includes the current treasury secretary, who also ran a Business Unit at citigroup, a bailed out mega bank from which he received close to 1 million in bonuses. That unit has been sanctioned by the sec for selling toxic assets that, quote, harmed investors. Now, let me just say with regard to the nominees disclosures to the committee, as part of the bipartisan vetting process, mr. Mnuchin in good faith submitted answers that were later modified. His file is now complete and to me the demand of some of my democratic colleagues, the disclosures now include Financial Information that is usually kept confidential, such as the value of personal residences. The committee appreciates mr. Mnuchins efforts to work through the laudable and complicated request for information by what is by any reasonable measure an exhausting vetting process, but lets be fair here. Mr. Chairman, just so were clear, the bipartisan staff called out these offshore investments of both democrats and republicans to secretary lew and others. So i want it understood and thats the reason that people even knew that mr. Mnuchin hadnt filled these forms out properly. We did it because the American People deserve to know about mr. Mnuchins offshore investments, even though they hadnt been originally disclosed and disclosed fully but our track record has been bipartisan and weve called out both democrats and republicans, as i mentioned. I think so, thats the purpose of it but lets be fair about it, too. Thank you, mr. Mnuchin for being willing to serve and to go through this process. I want to thank you for meeting with me in my office and go through many of the accounting financials and initiatives that youll be managing. I dont ask those in these kinds of meetings because ive noticed it puts the audience to sleep. But they are very important. I was really impressed with your answers. Im empressimpressed with your sector experience. Ive always said that every business looks really simple unless youre the one who has to make the decisions on it and how far ahead you have to make the decisions and how you find employees, how you train employees and how you meet all of the federal regulations. Well, youve actually worked with those rules. You actually have been forced to learn some things that are going to be essential to your job. And its a pretty unique situation. This is the biggest business in the world and we dont even make decisions timely. Were still working on last october 1sts spending bills. There are a lot of things around here that have to change and some of them youre going to be in a position to do and ive been really impressed with the knowledge that youve already shown with this committee on Different Things that most of us have never had any experience with. Very impressive. Now, ill cover a couple of specific things here because i think the Internal Revenue service has often strayed from its core function of responsible and efficient revenue collection. I hope the new Trump Administration will make sure that the Internal Revenue service stays on track with this purpose while also improving the recent record on how it communicates with taxpayers and practitioners. People havent been able to get answers. But something thats been more disturbing to me to illustrate is that recent years the irs n s has inserted flyers with the tax refund checks. And those flyers, one of them was produced by the Consumer Financial protection bureau, custom is outside of our oversight and solicited cases from the taxpayers about their money. Its not pope for the cfpb, an independent organization, or any other organization to solicit information from taxpayers. Nor is it appropriate for the irs to help facilitate this. As the treasury secretary would you stop this type of activity . Do you believe thats in the role of the irs. Senator, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me and thank you for your Long Standing Service to our country. And yes, i absolutely would work with you on then. I i would want to understand what the reason is but it seems to make no sense to me. And you know, as ive said to you, i think one of the issues is around the irs is technology. The and i would use my expertise in technology if make sure that we bring the irs up to date. And thats a function of you know, i understand old email systems, old privacy systems. We absolutely need to make sure in this world of Cyber Security and being such a big issue, we need to protect american taxpayers information. And there should be simple way has the irs can interact with the american taxpayers. If you can get good service in the retail online business, there is no reason why we cant use that same type of technology for taxpayers to communicate and get their information securely with the irs. So i look forward to working with you and your office on that. Thank you. Senator, if i could interject. You mean you are going to help us modernize the irs . It would be one of my great priorities, absolutely, mr. Chairman. My gosh. Well, that would be a wonderf thing. I hope thats at least a bipartisan issue that we can all agree on. Since the chairman used part of my time id like to get this question here. In 2012, i introduced the United States job creation and International Tax reform act that would help fix our tax code and promote u. S. Economic and job growth. And that bill would help to right the ship we have been listening to some of the confirmation hearing for Steven Mnuchin trumps pick for secretary treasury. I have with me stephanie rule who is in washington, d. C. Stephanie is not there. Guess who i do have, someone equally amazing. Shes here in spirit. We heard an off the cuff comment from mr. Mnuchin saying he would like to reform the irs. The meat of what we are hearing are questions over his assistance in aiding people to not pay taxes here in this country. Accounts offshore. Some of these problems. Do you see any of this affecting his confirmation . Its not a contentious hearing. Its been bouncing around three or four places. First of all the issue of reforming the irs. What they are talking about is reforming the irs itself as opposed to the tax code. They will get to the taxes and that stuff later. They are talking about the irs being unwieldy. And thats largely bipartisan. Then came into issue the Cayman Islands. He is not giving a straight answer towards that. The Democratic Senators asking will you work toward avidding tax havens . He says he will work towards making the tax system more efficient. And the third area of interest here is about his personal wealth. There was a form apparently that he was on which he was supposed to put some stuff about his real estate and it wasnt filled out. It was 100 million worth of real estate. Yes. I i dont know how many other people you know who might forget to put 100 million down it does seem like it was probably an honest error because he filled of the out in another form. But he said he will divest himself. These are the areas of discussion. Where its going to get interesting is when they Start Talking to him about how Donald Trumps policies are going to affect the economy. Exactly. Thats what most people are going to be interested in. We dont have a clear idea of what those policies are, so how can he answer the impact, these are unknown variables. Donald trump has said if he is president not only is he going to create jobs, but he is going to have Economic Growth in the 5 or 6 range. We are in 2, maybe you can get to 3. Thats going to be amazing. Even mnuchin has said if we end up at 3 that would be wonderful. Donald trump said we can build it up this big this fast, is that true. There was a lot about foreclosure and how he ran his company, appearing to paint him as a heartless person running his company. Octomom was referenced. She was one of the people who had a mortgage with his bank. But he said they saved her and help her get into a more affordable home. Right. What is this about. This is about did he make money to have financial crisis. We have the president elect on tape saying and senator warren tried to make that point, it was uneffective clearly because he was elected that he saw the housing crisis and said thats what people like me do, we capitalize on it. Thats the disconnect. What Democratic Senators are trying to paint is a guy who took Legal Advantage of the system but made money off of it. Hes trying to paint it as a picture of him trying as hard as he could not to foreclose on people. I will say no disrespect to them it doesnt come off as all that sincere. But they didnt do anything illegal. Tax code, he said he is going to give a break to middle class amans says dald trump. Wille learn more about where mr. Mnuchin thinks about that . Everything else is noise. Americans want to hear what is happening to their taxes. This president said they are going to be going down. What we are going to be listening for is are wealthy peoples taxes going on as a result of these proposals. Remember, some of this stuff can happen quickly. He is probably better briefed than a lot of the candidate because he has been in the world. Does it surprise you that its not contentious . Its not particularly contentious. Does that surprise you . Its targeted. The democrats are achieving what they want. They are not fighting. Thats all. We appreciate you joining us. At the top of the hour we watched as the president elect left La Guardia Airport in new york headed to washington, d. C. He should be landing really soon. Stephanie rule is in washington, d. C. Where i will be joining you in a couple of hours. Here we are shy of noon eastern time stephanie this time tomorrow we should be witnessing the swearing in or the beginning of the swearing in of donald trump. Reporter we should. Think about this. This is a whole new world what we are about to experience tomorrow. But today look how contentious things are. We talked so much about draining the swamp. When you look at the hearings today, what betsy devos went through, tom price, so much was about draining the swamp and how about transparency. So to watch Steven Mnuchin and say he simply didnt fill out this form right. A lot of people are saying give me a break. You have got to get your forms filled out correctly. Its tough for people to appreciate to hear people say well i got into the business, i bought indy mack because i was helping the American People. Now Steven Mnuchin buying indy mack, maybe there were people there were people that through loan modification were able to keep their homes but at the end of the day donald trump has chosen extraordinarily successful Business People who might be extraordinarily successful in his cabinet but its hard to make the argument they were doing those jobs for the American People. Thats just not the case. Its one of the reasons thing are so contentious today. When people are saying give me a break. There is a divide what we now refer to as the bubble that the media can give in and people in wall street who get this lingo versus the people who ultimately elected donald trump. They are still waiting to hear what he has to say and may not be as in the weeds as we are as to some of the things we are hearing from the treasury secretary. They want to know what is going to happen to my taxes . I think a fear for a lot of people could be that rich people who didnt vote for donald trump will end up benefitting with donald trump as president. And some of the people who dont have high income, dont have those benefits who voted for donald trump because they want change arent going to get those changes. People are anxious. They are nervous. Well see if hes going to deliver. Stephanie ill see new couple of hours there. Thank you for watching this hour of msnbc live. Im headed to washington right now. Lets turn it over to hallee jackson. She is picking up the msnbc coverage with Andrea Mitchell reports. Im hallee jackson in for Andrea Mitchell. Right now on a special edition of Andrea Mitchell reports live from capitol hill n the red. The man donald trump wants to run the u. S. Treasury now defending his record when it comes to the subprime mortgage market. There is the texas two step, president elects pick to head the department of Energy Rick Perry who once forget he wanted to eliminate that same department. Well he has a much different take today. My past statements made over