Anti-asian hate crimes are 'notoriously underreported': Sen. Tammy Duckworth

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, (D) Illinois, joined Yahoo Finance's Jessica Smith to break down her thoughts on the increase in anti-asian hate crimes, paid family leave and negotiating the corporate tax rate.

Video Transcript

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JESSICA SMITH: Welcome to Yahoo Finance Presents. I'm Jessica Smith. Joining me now is Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. She is also a decorated veteran of the Iraq War and an author of a new book called "Every Day is a Gift." Senator, thanks so much for joining us.

TAMMY DUCKWORTH: It's good to be on. Thank you.

JESSICA SMITH: The book is fascinating. Your story is fascinating. Grew up as a biracial child in Southeast Asia. Your family moved around a lot. Your family struggled with poverty. How did those experiences shape who you are and the policies you advocate for in Washington?

TAMMY DUCKWORTH: You know, before I wrote the book, I hadn't really thought about what that those childhood experiences did to prepare me for my later life. But after writing the book, I realized, in many ways, all those struggles just made me stronger and ready, much more able to face challenges I had in later life. But those childhood struggles with poverty really do inform the work that I do. I do a lot of work on hunger issues and food insecurity. You'd be surprised how much food insecurity there is in this country.

Even when I was in the House of Representatives, where I represented a fairly middle and upper middle class district, there was a lot of food insecurity behind those two-car garages and suburbia where people were just barely living paycheck to paycheck. And so, issues of food insecurity, issues of immigration are things that I work on. Because I watched, as a child, even-- my dad was an American soldier. But I watched the Vietnamese boat people, those refugees, refugees from Cambodia. I watched the Berlin Wall come down and then people fleeing Eastern-- the Soviet Union when I was a young officer in the army. And so all of that informs my positions today as I serve in the Senate.

JESSICA SMITH: You know, another thing that you wrote about is feeling like an outsider, even among your family when you were in Thailand, and then experiencing racism in political campaigns. Over the past year, we have seen such a surge in anti-Asian hate. And I think the problem, as we know, is so underreported. What we hear of isn't even the bulk of it. What needs to happen in order to really fully understand the extent of this problem and fix it?

TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Yeah, so in the book, I talk about what it was like to grow up biracial. And I think a lot of biracial people feel this way, where when I was with the Asian side of my family, I was always treated as not quite fitting in because I was half white. And I was bigger and taller and clumsier and all of that. But then when I'm in the States and I'm here, I'm treated like a lot of AAPIs are. We're the minority group that is often seen as permanently other.

I've had people, Americans, come up to me and ask me where I'm really from, even while I'm wearing the uniform. Even when I was in my army uniform with the American flag on my shoulder, I had Americans come up to me and say, well, yeah, but where are you really from? And I would have to say, well, actually, the Duckworths have been here since before the revolution. And I'm a daughter of the American Revolution. But I shouldn't have to justify that to you, you know? And that's what's happening with hate crimes against Asian-Americans right now.

And what we need to do is report it and be each other's allies and step up. You saw the horrific videos in New York of the Asian woman, an elderly Asian woman being beaten while everybody watched. Come on, we're better than that. Somebody should have stepped forward and done something at that point in time. And so, again, it goes back to, you know, we have to be each other's keepers.

JESSICA SMITH: Is there more that Congress and the White House can do here?

TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Yes, so I have written two letters, one asking our attorney general Merrick Garland, and then the other asking the FBI Director Wray, to do a much deeper dive into the data of crimes that involve Asian-Americans and determine whether they were misclassified. That is, whether they should have been classified as hate crimes, but were not. Because we know that hate crimes against AAPIs are notoriously underreported. And in fact, they're often classified as a mugging or vandalism or arson when an AAPI-owned business is burned down or something like that, but not as a hate crime. So we need to get that data and take a look at it.

That we need to do a lot more training within local communities, not just with the law enforcement officials, but also with the AAPI community as well so that they know how to interact and with folks who might target them as well. So, you know, there's a lot more work that needs to be done. But right now, the data is just simply missing on how much hate crime there is against AAPIs.

JESSICA SMITH: And you have made it very clear that AAPI representation is so important at the highest level of government. In the past couple of weeks, you have really pressured the Biden administration to do more on that front. Can you talk about why that is so important and how you hope others maybe see themselves in your memoir?

TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Yeah, I think representation matters. You know, you need to have a seat at the table. It wasn't until I became a mother and then was in Congress that I realized the issues that working moms who work outside the home have with being able to express breast milk. And so I was able to pass legislation requiring lactation rooms in all airports. That understanding matters. And that would not have happened. It was much less likely to happen had I not been a breastfeeding mom in Congress, and I could write the legislation.

And so, we all bring something to the table that makes this nation more perfect, that makes our union stronger, that makes our government better at serving its people. That's why we need more representation. And that's why I pushed so hard on the Biden administration to address that issue. And I'm very pleased to say that they responded right away. And we're working through trying to get more AAPIs, fully qualified candidates, nominated at the highest levels. But again, we all need a seat at the table. And until our government is as diverse as the American people, we will not be a truly representative form of government.

JESSICA SMITH: You were the first sitting senator to give birth while in office. I remember seeing you with your baby on the Senate floor. What do you want to see in President Biden's next economic package that he says is going to be focused on things like childcare, healthcare, education? What do you think needs to be in there specifically for moms who have been hurt so hard by this pandemic?

TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Right, so the studies are showing that women who traditionally work outside their home are working an additional 16% more, even as they are telecommuting from home. And so the workload for women is at least 16% greater, but a lot more than that in many cases because of the pandemic. I hope that as we work on the nation's infrastructure, which we need to invest in, we also work on the nation's human infrastructure.

So I want to see things like paid family leave so people can take time off and take care of themselves and their family members. I want to see universal pre-K. We know that how well a child does in the fourth grade with literacy depends on whether or not they actually attend a headstart program or a pre-K program. And by the way, high school graduation rates are affected by the literacy rates in the fourth grade.

I want to see some sort of help with childcare. I don't think a family should spend more than 30% of its income on childcare. We should not be forcing families to choose between do I work, or do I stay home-- do I work outside the home and make more income, or do I stay home because it's a wash because childcare is so expensive? So we need that human infrastructure put into place that will support our families, but also our economy the way there's a human infrastructure in place in other developed nations like Germany and Sweden and places like that.

JESSICA SMITH: What do you say to people on the other side of the aisle, in particular, who say those issue should not be included in this piece of legislation? That should be separate from the infrastructure that we're working on now. What do you say to those arguments?

TAMMY DUCKWORTH: I'm happy to talk with them. I'm happy to find a compromise. Whatever we can do to bring Republican votes to the table, I am fully supportive of compromise and working together. My issue is that they have been as a bloc voting to stop things from happening. Under Mitch McConnell, they were the party of no under Barack Obama. And they did not bring anything to the floor that Democrats really wanted to-- they didn't negotiate with us during President Trump.

And now, I mean, not a single Republican senator voted for the American Rescue Plan. I don't understand how you can vote against sending $1,400 to families that are struggling during this pandemic to pay rent or put food on the table. How do you vote against more money for public schools so that we can go back to in-person education? They even voted against small businesses and state governments that were trying to solve problems. They voted against more money for vaccines, you know.

So, as long as you're willing to come to the table and negotiate and actually stop being the party of no, I'm happy to negotiate and talk about, OK, make this multiple packages if we need to. But let's do something for the American people and move the ball forward, instead of just being obstructionists.

JESSICA SMITH: If you are able to use the reconciliation process more times than you originally anticipated, does that change your approach in how you go about trying to get these priorities passed?

TAMMY DUCKWORTH: I think so. You know, I just passed the water infrastructure bill out of the-- out of committee unanimously, as a matter of fact, just two weeks ago. I'm the lead on the water bill. And that's over $500 million. So that's money to fix our water infrastructure, get the lead out of water supply and the like. And my partners in that, Senator Lummus of Wyoming, she was right there with me and supported it. And then, with the larger committee, Tom Carper, the Democrat, and Senator Capito from West Virginia, were there.

So I know that we can move the ball forward. And if we can pass it in portions, I would consider that. I just want to make sure we actually have a legitimate effort at passing this legislation. And I don't want it to be like, OK, we just want to pass this piece, but we're going to block everything else. If that's the case, then I wouldn't-- I would not support breaking it up.

JESSICA SMITH: What about the corporate tax rate? We've heard from Senator Joe Manchin, who thinks 25% is more appropriate. Are you willing to negotiate on that point? Or do you think that corporate rate needs to stay at 28%?

TAMMY DUCKWORTH: I'm willing to negotiate on anything. I was willing to negotiate on lowering the corporate tax rate on repatriated dollars to a lower level. I just wanted all that money, once it came back into the US from offshore, that trillion plus dollars, I wanted that money to go into an infrastructure bill. But instead, they gave it to large corporations and millionaires, you know, people who had more than $4 million in income.

And so that money didn't go into the economy at all. It went to stock buyback. I mean, you saw a spree of stock buybacks by corporations as a result of the tax giveaways to large corporations and millionaires and billionaires. So, I'm willing to negotiate. I just want to make sure that when we do that, if there's repatriated dollars or anything like that, that we take care of the American people first. And corporations and billionaires, they can wait in line for a change.

JESSICA SMITH: Switching gears just a bit, you have asked the Pentagon to investigate the allegations of members of the military and veterans being a part of the attack on the Capitol on January 6. I'm wondering if you have heard any updates on that. What have you heard from the Pentagon on that front?

TAMMY DUCKWORTH: So I do talk with the Department of Defense on a regular basis on this with different folks there. And I will tell you that they are addressing it. It is an issue of real grave concern, starting with Secretary Austin. He talks about this. And some of the things that we've discussed is social media consumption. I'll give you as an example, in the early '90s, there was a white supremacist cell that occurred with the 82nd Airborne Division. And that was dealt with.

But how our troops were targeted by these white supremacists or these extremist organizations for recruitment and how they consumed media in the early '90s is very different from how our young troops consume media today. And so I asked the Pentagon to take a look at that as well and under-- and see what we can do to make sure that our troops are consuming factual information, as opposed to being recruited by these conspiracy theories and the like. But this is a long process. And the DOD has only just started looking into it. And I'm looking forward to hearing what the report will say.

JESSICA SMITH: Last question really quickly, your book details the incredible life that you lived so far. What's next for you? I know that you were on the short list for President Biden's vice president pick. What would you want to do next?

TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Become in the US-- get reelected to the United States Senate. I love my job. And if you read the book, you'll see that I talk about what it's been like to be in the Senate, what it's been like to work with some really great people, Dick Durbin and working on veterans' issues, working on infrastructure issues. And, you know, the book is really a love letter to my country to say that America is worth it. So, America is worth the struggle. Our democracy is worth the fight. And I hope that I can do that in the Senate.

JESSICA SMITH: OK, thank you. Senator Tammy Duckworth, author of the new book, "Every Day is a Gift," we really appreciate your time.

TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Thank you so much.