Tom Steyer in Interviews during 2018-2020
On Corporations:
Big-money interests are committed to stopping progress
Steyer said, "I think eighty-two thousand people died last year of drug overdoses. If you think about the drug companies, the banks screwing people on their mortgages-it's thousands of people doing what they're paid to do.
Almost every single major intractable problem, at the back of it you see a big-money interest for whom stopping progress, stopping justice, is really important to their bottom line."
Source: The New Yorker magazine on 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 14, 2019
On Crime:
Regrets Farallon's $34M investment in corporate prisons
A key liability [in Steyer's portfolio history] is Farallon's 2005 investment of $34 million in Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), which runs migrant detention centers on the US-Mexico border for ICE. Many of the roughly two dozen Democrats in the
presidential race have denounced profits from incarceration as immoral. "I deeply regret that Farallon made that investment, and I personally ordered the investment in CCA to be sold because it did not accord with my values then or now," Steyer said.
Source: Los Angeles Times on 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 14, 2019
On Energy & Oil:
Departed from Farallon in part due to fossil fuel holdings
More troublesome for Steyer's public image is [his investment] fund's history of investing in fossil fuel projects, including a giant coal mine in Australia that generates vast quantities of carbon emissions. Steyer's critics have long seen his
past personal stake in coal mining as hypocritical. Steyer said he left Farallon in part because of its holdings in fossil fuels. "I wish I'd made the move away from fossil fuels sooner," he said.
Source: Los Angeles Times on 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 14, 2019
On Energy & Oil:
When I realized the threat of fossil fuels, I divested
Billionaire activist and 2020 presidential candidate Tom Steyer on Sunday defended his past investments in fossil fuels. Steyer was asked on ABC's "This Week" about the investments his hedge fund had made in fossil fuels, though he has more recently
spent millions of dollars to fight climate change. "In our business, we invested in every part of the economy, including fossil fuels," he said. "When I realized what a threat this was, I changed. I divested from all that stuff."
Source: The Hill magazine on 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 14, 2019
On Abortion:
Pro-choice, & only work for pro-choice candidates
Social issues: Protect a woman's right to abortion, and enact gun control legislation. Steyer is pro-choice, and made a point of saying so at the
Netroots Nation conference in 2017, when he vowed his NextGen America group would not "work for a single candidate who is not pro-choice."
Source: PBS News Hour 2019 coverage of 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 10, 2019
On Corporations:
Take the corporate control out of politics
Economy: Limit the influence of corporations in politics and raise the minimum wage.
In his campaign announcement, Steyer said he wanted to "take the corporate control out of politics," adding that if corporations have an "unlimited ability to participate in politics, it will skew everything because they only care about profits."
Source: PBS News Hour 2019 coverage of 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 10, 2019
On Corporations:
AdWatch: put people before corporations
Few of the other Democratic presidential candidates have hit the television airwaves, and none have committed the amount of money in one buy that Steyer has with his first TV ad buy [which totals] $1.4 million dollars in spending.
In one ad, Steyer focused on his pledge to limit the influence of corporations in politics, an early theme of his candidacy. He has leaned into his outsider status in the starting moments of his campaign.
"We're a get-out-to-the-people, directly-address-the-people organization,'' Steyer told POLITICO. "I've been an outsider this whole time in Democratic politics."
"Tom is running for president because he sees how the broken political system in
Washington has failed the American people and has a plan to change it," Steyer's campaign manager said in a statement. "Our campaign is focused on exactly that--creating a United States that puts its people before corporations."
Source: Politico.com AdWatch: 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 10, 2019
On Energy & Oil:
AdWatch: I left my business to combat climate change
[The Steyer campaign's first] pair of ads are backed up by $1.4 million dollars in spending. They will run nationally on CNN and MSNBC and locally in the four early states--Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada--for two weeks, from
July 10 to July 23."I left my business to combat climate change, fix our democracy, and hold President Trump accountable,"
Steyer said in one of his new ads. "Last year, we ran the largest youth voter registration in history, helping double turnout and win back the House."
The $1.4 million buy represents a small chunk of what
Steyer has committed to spending on his presidential bid. A Steyer spokesperson said that the billionaire former hedge fund manager will spend "at least $100 million" on the race.
Source: Politico.com AdWatch: 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 10, 2019
On Gun Control:
Register young voters to push for gun reform now
On gun violence, NextGen America partnered with Everytown For Gun Safety to organize a voter drive for high school students following the 2018 shooting that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in
Florida. "If [Trump] won't enact the kind of reform necessary to protect our children, that's just another reason he's got to go," Steyer said in a Facebook announcement at the time, calling for young voters to push for "gun reform now."
Source: PBS News Hour 2019 coverage of 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 10, 2019
On Health Care:
Open Medicare to all who want it
Health care: Pursue a single-payer health care plan, and crack down on pharmaceutical companies. In a 2018 speech, Steyer said he supported "opening Medicare to all who want it." Steyer said in 2017 that he was in favor of a single-payer health care
system. Steyer also criticized pharmaceutical companies for profiting off of drug sales and spurning the deadly opioid crisis. In 2017, he supported a California bill that would require drug manufacturers to provide notification of price increases.
Source: PBS News Hour 2019 coverage of 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 10, 2019
On Immigration:
Fight deportation and expand services for immigrants
As the migrant crisis at the southern border ramped up last year, Steyer donated $1 million to legal aid groups working to assist immigrants facing deportation. He said it was vital that legal services for immigrants seeking assistance "be expanded and
strengthened" until the U.S. was able to address the issue in "a comprehensive and humane way." On its website, NextGen America states that a system that profits off of immigrants' labor without offering them a path to citizenship is "inherently unjust."
Source: PBS News Hour 2019 coverage of 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 10, 2019
On Jobs:
Supports right to a living wage
Steyer supports raising the minimum wage, and lists "the right to a living wage" as one of the "5 Rights" all Americans should have. He previously put money toward a carbon tax proposal in the state of
Oregon, but has said that talking about "jobs and health" is a more effective way of getting voters to take interest in climate issues.
Source: PBS News Hour 2019 coverage of 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 10, 2019
On Energy & Oil:
Donated $41m for sustainable energy center
In 2008, Steyer and his wife gave $41 million to establish the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy at Stanford University,
a program which specializes on the development of affordable renewable energy technologies and promotion of public policies to that end.
Source: Townhall.com on 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 9, 2019
On Government Reform:
Opposes Citizens United decision
In a November 2014 interview, Steyer said that he opposes Citizens United vs. FEC,
a 2010 Supreme Court decision which allows unlimited corporate donations to super PACs.
Source: Townhall.com on 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 9, 2019
On Health Care:
Keep private health insurance; but add public option
On one of the most important issues in the primary, Steyer said he does not support eliminating private health insurance to replace it with a government-run single-payer system."I am not in favor of telling 150 million Americans who get their health
care through their employment, including a bunch of union workers, that by fiat they can't do that any longer," he said. "I believe the way that we should end employment-based health care is providing a public option that is so much cheaper and better."
Source: NBC News on 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 9, 2019
On Tax Reform:
Upper income people have done disproportionally well
Steyer is in favor of raising taxes. In 2017, Steyer said that upper-income individuals have done "disproportionately well" at the expense of working-class people.
His campaign website states that Steyer "backed an initiative that closed corporate tax loopholes, generating at least $1.7 billion for public schools."
Source: Townhall.com on 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 9, 2019
On Civil Rights:
Mike Pence alienates LGBT Americans
Tom Steyer harshly criticized Donald Trump's selection of Mike Pence as his running mate, saying the move is alienating to LGBT Americans. "I thought it was classic that Trump chose someone who had vilified another part of our community--the
LGBT part of our community," Steyer said, while moderating a panel at the Netroots Nation conference. "[Trump] went out of his way to get a vice presidential running mate who had actually gone after part of
America that he hadn't personally gone after yet."Though he's raised money for Clinton in the past, Steyer only endorsed the presumptive
Democratic nominee last month after the primary process had wrapped up.
Steyer noted that Pence was the first governor to sign a bill specifically discriminating against homosexuals. "Indiana was the first state," he said. "I think that's unconscionabl
Source: Benjamin Oreskes, Politico.com, on 2020 Democratic primary
Jul 15, 2016
On Energy & Oil:
2015: Next president must have plan for climate change
The real test for our next president will be to make sure America avoids the worst consequences of climate change and to put us on a path to achieving more than 50% clean energy by 2030. Clean energy is the ultimate growth strategy for our economy--one
that would add millions more good-paying jobs in the United States. Our next president will be responsible for setting our economic agenda and protecting American families, and that must include a real plan for addressing climate change.
Source: Medium.com on 2020 Democratic primary
Oct 28, 2015
On Tax Reform:
OpEd: Steyer's tax proposal would hit poor hardest
Tom Steyer wants to bail out California's troubled university system with a 10% oil extraction tax. It would generate about $2 billion annually. Steyer suggests his tax would make little difference at the pump because energy is a global market.
But the costs either would be passed along to consumers, which would hit the poor and various government budgets hardest, or it would be absorbed by the oil companies, which would mean less investment, fewer jobs, less tax revenue.
Source: Human Events magazine on 2020 Democratic primary
May 26, 2015
Page last updated: Dec 01, 2021