YouSaid · the spoken record

Ellen Weintraub

lines on the record: 123
first: 2019-10-04
most recent: 2019-10-04
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, as I said, I think the law needs to be strengthened. The Honest Ads Act, for example, which would explain that for people who don't know what it is. Well, I mean, the basic premise is you take the rules that apply to broadcast ads and you make sure that the same rules apply to online advertising, which has certain common sense value to it. And many of the platforms, in fact, have endorsed that. They seem to be on board with it. It's got bipartisan support, but it can't seem to get a vote in the Senate.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well let me just say that anyone who spends money to influence an election, if they do that in a way that violates the law, somebody can file a complaint and I can't comment on anything that may come before the commission in the form of a complaint.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, it's interesting. I think the platforms have tried to take some positive steps forward. They have adopted some affirmative steps of their own, even in the absence of regulation. But what I have heard from them is that they actually would like some regulation because they're seeing that it's actually quite difficult to decide what is a political ad and what isn't a political ad and where do you need that extra bit of information, that extra disclosure. And I think they would like some guidance from the government, if only to kind of get themselves off the hook for having to make those decisions. Right.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Platform now. It wouldn't be necessarily the companies themselves traditionally what we look to are who's spending the money. So they're not actually spending the money. They are receiving the money. But we usually look to the folks who are placing the ads, who are spending the money, and those are the ones who usually have the disclosure obligations.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. So I think we are long overdue for doing another rulemaking that might look at how is money actually being used on the internet and are we capturing what we need to capture in order to make sure that the American people are informed about who is exercising influence”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Make something out there, promoting virality, and getting a message out there that could have a huge impact on the election. A lot of money spent. And we wouldn't be capturing that right now. And back then, it made sense to focus on paid advertising because we were working off of the old traditional broadcast model where you couldn't get your message out without paying somebody to run the ad.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, as I said, we were working on even improving just making sure that that disclaimer information is appropriate and is being carried out properly because It's not clear that everybody acknowledges their obligation to put the information on their advertising, right? And there's this whole new area of, and it's not new anymore, but when we did our rulemaking, YouTube was in its infancy and the notion of a free platform where people wouldn't have to pay for advertising, but they could, in fact, spend a lot of money.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right now, it just says that if there is paid advertising on another person's website on the internet, it has to be disclosed. You have to carry the disclaimer information. But there's not a lot more to it than that.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“New York. And we don't want to regulate too strenuously because we don't want to throttle the baby in its crib. And now, of course, you know, here we are in 2019. We haven't updated our regulations in a dozen years. What is the regulation?”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Things change, yes. And in the landscape of the internet and the power of the internet, I mean, back then we had a really interesting rulemaking and a lot of people came in and they said, oh, we've got this new thing, politics on the internet, and we have to be very careful how we regulate this because it's like a little baby and we have to let it grow. And the giant babies that ate.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's an interesting question. We have the potential to regulate them, but our regulations on the internet are pretty mild. They're not non-existent, but they're pretty mild. What are they? They were put into effect back in 2007, I believe. And obviously there's been a great deal of change in the”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, as I said, sometimes you have to trace it back through several levels to try and find out where the money's actually coming from. So that's a big problem, making sure that some of these organizations are not hiding foreign money. That's a big problem that I'm worried about a great deal these days.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's a good thing when more people are participating in the political process, whether they're doing it by donation and or, hopefully, by voting.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You monitor. The idea is this is a good thing because small donors can get things in, although sometimes it can be obviously manipulated. Someone was saying that Republicans were trying to get several people on the debate stage. It doesn't really matter if it's small amounts of money, correct? They were trying to get, they were trying to manipulate, you know, because a lot of the getting on the Democratic debate stage matters of how many donors you have and things like that. But in general, you think that's a good thing that more people can use online services.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, yes. All the money that goes in and goes out to political committees and to candidates, we're on top of that. We don't get the details on contributions of less than $200.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Enormous amounts of money. Enormous amounts of money online, and people can arrange to donate on a regular basis. But you monitor it.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just tracking the money because a lot of now there are positive attributes to the digital revolution because it makes it really easy for small donors to participate. You know, back in the old days where everybody had to write a check, people might not bother. They might not think it was worth the trouble to write a check for $2. Sure. And a lot of the candidates.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, because he claimed he was doing issue advertising. Right, I see. Okay. So this is a whole different issue from the online issue. This is an issue online.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If he was running a TV ad, he'd have to say he paid for it by Carolina Rising, but then the next question is, okay, so who's Carolina Rising? Who's behind that organization? And that information was not made available to them.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I argued that that made his group a political committee, and we should have at least investigated whether their purpose was influencing an election. And maybe they should have been disclosing their donors, but we didn't have the votes to go forward on that. And that's just an example of a dark money group. We see groups like this all the time.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where in the campaign hat with the guy's name on it and he was saying we did it, we spent $5 million and we did it. You know, we said to us, oh, we weren't running campaign ads, but there he was at campaign headquarters saying these were ads that were run to influence this election.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And sometimes they will say, well, we're not a political committee. We don't have to do disclosure because, in fact, we're just advocating on issues. So we had a case a few years ago involving a group called Carolina Rising, which said, we're not a political committee. We don't have to disclose to you. But they were running ads. They were running ads about candidates in North Carolina, about a particular Senate race. They were really lovely ads. I mean, I wanted to vote for the guy after I saw those ads. They were so moving and compelling. They were terrific ads. But they said, it's all issue ads. It has nothing to do with advocating for the election. And on election night, the head of that organization was on film, a local reporter caught him on film in election headquarters for that candidate that his organization had been running ads for.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is one of our focuses is paid advertising. But when people are spending money to get their political message out, there is a potential there that they have to be disclosing that money to us, depending on what the message says and who's running it. And as I said, for foreign nationals, they're not supposed to be putting money into our elections in any way, shape, or form. Right, but this is a sneaky way to do it. Yes, it could be a sneaky way to do it. So one issue that is out there is the need to update our regulations to make sure that people are getting good information about where the information is coming from that they're seeing online. There's also chronic problems that are always morphing into new forms of people trying to hide where the money's coming from through various dark money vehicles throughout the money through from one organization to another organization through C4s or LLCs or other groups.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't No, not at all. Right? Although some of it was the content. Like a lot of it was, as we discussed yesterday, I was at an event at the FEC. A lot of it was the content itself, not paid for, but paid advertising is what you'd be concerned with, not the actual content.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was certainly one of the big issues there. And it's really important that people know where the information is coming from, because I don't think anybody wants to get their political information from a Russian troll farm. No, not at all. Right?”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When advertising takes place, within 30 days of a primary. And that goes not to you. Does that go to you? Yes, it does. That goes to you too. 60 days of a general election, and the information comes to us. But only when those ads are run through broadcast media, not if they are run online. So the law needs to be updated so that we can get the information on this online advertising. We were in the process of trying to update our rules on the disclaimers that go along with online advertising. Political advertising has to say where it's coming from, right? And that's really the crux.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, of course, the campaigning is moving to the internet moved. What used to be largely a broadcast advertising venue is now moving more and more to the internet. And the laws haven't really caught up with that. Not at all. So the laws on disclosure, there are certain information that has to be disclosed when it”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, there are constant innovations in how people are running their campaigns, and some of them are good, and some of them expose weaknesses in the system. So we need to be up and running so that we can stay on top of some of those things.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, as I said, it's completely out of my hands. It's whenever the president nominates and the Senate confirms it can happen pretty quickly back in 2008 when they were suddenly motivated to fill the slots, the recently resigned vice chairman was nominated and then confirmed 12 days later.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So if somebody else, my point is that we had four different requests that all had different ways of cyberspace. And we were able to say yes to all four of them. But if somebody else comes up with an innovative idea tomorrow and says, hey, I've got a new great way of doing this, we won't be able to okay it for them and therefore the campaigns probably won't accept it. So I think that is a real weakness that we can 100% especially around.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But we were able to craft a response that was hinged to our responsibility to enforce the ban on foreign national spending and our obligation to protect our elections from foreign interference. And because of that special hook, we were able to Tell them that it would be okay for people to accept these services. And as I said, if we didn't know Kit, they were concerned that the campaigns would not be willing to accept it.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. And it was a tough decision for us because there are limits and there are prohibitions on corporate contributions to campaigns. And this was being organized out of a nonprofit corporation, but still a corporation. So I was very concerned that we not.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I can't approve. And they were also making it available to similar nonprofit organizations. It wasn't just political committees. So the commission said, yes, you can do that. We also had a request from a group called Defending Digital Campaigns. That's right because we thought of it as DDC. So I think I'm getting the initials right, which was a group organized in Cambridge. It had 1D, 1R, and 1 national security specialist. Matt Rhodes from the Romney campaign and Robbie Mook from the Hillary Clinton campaign got together working out of the Belford Center at Harvard with some national security folks. And they said, we want to, as a nonprofit organization, we want to provide cybersecurity services to campaigns. We're very worried about the potential of foreign hacking elections. Rob would know.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They need cyber security, they need it. So we've had a couple of requests that involve ultimately organizations that were providing those services in the ordinary course of business. They were giving it on the same terms as they were giving it to other clients. They were protecting their own business interests. Microsoft submitted a request saying, we're going to look really bad if somebody gets hacked because of some deficiency in our system. So we want to make sure for our own business purposes that we are providing the best suite of cybersecurity to our political clients.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are we doing it right? Can we pursue this plan consistent with the law? And there are times when, particularly if it involves somebody providing something of value to a campaign, such as cybersecurity services, that they want to get sign-off from the Federal Election Commission because campaigns won't accept it otherwise. They'll be afraid. They don't want to come back.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, like I said, not a lot of campaigns are taking the public funds, but I do think the transparency function and the enforcement function are really important. There's another thing that we can't do, and that is write new regulations or give advice. We have in the last year gotten four advisory opinion requests around the issue of cybersecurity.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But so you can't do anything yourself except be chairman. Okay. This is just asked, but I cannot require. Do you have any conclusions on what that says about what's happening in Washington now? I think I have a conclusion that they just can't. This is an important function of democracy to have transparency and money giving to campaigns.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, yes. It's a five-year statute of limitations. So if somebody violates the law this year and I would recommend that they not, somebody's going to file a complaint, our lawyers will look at it. It will be sitting there waiting for commissioners. And sooner or later they're going to appoint commissioners. Are they, Alan? I believe they are.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. That's run pretty much at the staff level. Fortunately, we have a, as I said, we've got about 315 terrific staff people who continue to come to work every day. And yes, we do have the lights on, and they're doing their jobs. And one of their jobs is to make sure that we get this information and we put it up on the web, and it's available to the public. And that is really the core of our mission. It's really important that people have access to that information.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A goodie that you get from the federal government. They can put strings on it. But those spending limits haven't really kept pace with The way campaigns have been running and how much money people can raise and spend in this day and age. They are taking public funding. So the candidates, serious candidates are not taking public funding because they can raise so much more money if they don't take the public funding and then they've got more money to spend.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, the public funding system comes with spending limits. If you accept money from the public, from the public funds, then you have to accept the spending limits. And the Supreme Court has upheld that. It's the only way that spending limits have been upheld when they're tied to.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's a matching grant system for the primaries and a grant that can be made for the general election from the period between the convention and the election. Really since 2000, the system has been declining and at this point they don't”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is true, but unlikely to have much of an impact this time, since so few candidates are still taking public funding at this point.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And they had to leave. And then we were down to two commissioners. And that situation went on for about six months And then that was in 2008 So was an election year. And John McCain at that point was, this was in the quaint old days when people still got public funding, at least some people still did. John McCain wanted to get some public funding. And we couldn't authorize it because there were only two of them.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That time, one of the nominees could not get confirmed. And then each side was waiting for the other side to blink, thinking, well, okay, we're going to just hold on to our nominee. And eventually you on the other side will have to accept that person and confirm them because you want your nominees to get confirmed. And the other side thought, no, no, you're going to have to pull your guy because he's unacceptable to us. And so they played this game of chicken and it went down to the wire. And then December 31st rolled around in their recess appointments expired.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In 2007, this was back in the day when we had recess appointees. So back in 2007, we had two commissioners who had been confirmed and three commissioners who were sitting in recess appointments awaiting confirmation. Now they're allowed to serve for a certain period of time, a limited period of time, while they're awaiting their confirmation. But one of those nominees, one of those three was toxic and could not get confirmed. And usually these things just kind of go through because there's at least one from one side and one from the other side. And everybody agrees to accept the other guy because they want their own guy or woman. I mean guy in the completely non-sexist sense.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, I am very nervous. No, I'm cheesing that. I have stated publicly and emphatically that I believe that we should have a full complement of six commissioners and that nomination should be made and that Senate should hold hearings and confirm nominees if appropriate”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When is that? The nomination was made. The president nominated a Republican lawyer to fill one of the seats a couple of years ago. And there were never any hearings. And that person is still, I think he's living in Texas, waiting.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, generally, although there have been instances where the president refused to take the suggestion and they had to come back with more names. So there's been one nominee pending for about two years now, a Republican nominee, and we are... Waiting to see what will happen next.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Very not good. Also completely out of my control. The way commissioners get nominated is the president has to nominate and the Senate has to confirm. And traditionally, the president nominates, uses the people of his or her own party, and the satellite leaders in the opposition party will recommend the folks they would like to have nominated. And the president generally just sends them.”
2019-10-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT