Elizabeth Warren Came Awfully Close to Endorsing Bernie Sanders
Photo by AFGE on Flickr/Creative Commons
Remember when the possibility of an Elizabeth Warren bid for the 2016 Democratic nomination was the biggest story of what projected to be a ho-hum election cycle? Back before the failed vodka salesman started doing his best impression of the third act of Pink Floyd’s The Wall? Since those simpler times, the biggest question for Sen. Warren isn’t if she will run, but who she’ll endorse.
Warren took to Twitter Wednesday morning to talk about something very near and dear her: the regulation of the banking industry. The same day, Sen. Bernie Sanders delivered a searing critique of Wall Street greed at New York’s Town Hall, calling for the nation’s biggest banks to be broken up and the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act.
“The greed of Wall Street and corporate America is destroying the very fabric of our nation,” Sanders said. “And here is a New Year’s resolution that I will keep if elected president, and that is, if Wall Street does not end its greed, we will end it for them.”
This, predictably, was music to the Massachusetts senator’s ears.
11 big banks are still so risky that if any one started to fail, they'd need a gov bailout or risk taking down the economy – again.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 6, 2016
But the 2016 Republicans claim they'll repeal all the new financial regulations – hoping to be chosen as Wall Street's favorite candidate.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 6, 2016
I'm glad @BernieSanders is out there fighting to hold big banks accountable, make our economy safer, & stop the GOP from rigging the system.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 6, 2016
We need to level the playing field and end too big to fail.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 6, 2016
Whoa! That sure does sound like an endorsement. Admittedly not explicit, but Warren hasn’t exactly showered party frontrunner Hillary Clinton with the same sort of praise. Sanders even offered a few barbs for the former Secretary of State in his New York speech.
“My opponent says that, as a senator, she told bankers to ‘cut it out’ and end their destructive behavior. But in my view, establishment politicians are the ones that need to cut it out,” Sanders said.
Warren was the only other Democratic politician Sanders mentioned at his Boston rally back in October. “As your senator Elizabeth Warren reminds us, this is a rigged economy: heads they win, tails you lose,” he said to thunderous applause. Both Warren and Sanders appeared in Michael Moore’s 2009 documentary Capitalism: A Love Story, talking about—you guessed it—the regulation of the banking industry.
But not long after the apparent endorsement, Warren widened its scope to include all members of the 2016 Democratic field—even Martin O’Malley, currently polling at 3 percent.
I'm glad that ALL the Dem candidates for president – @HillaryClinton, @BernieSanders & @MartinOMalley – are fighting for Wall St reform.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 6, 2016
Nice save, Senator. It rings hollow, however, given Warren’s 2004 interview with Bill Moyers, in which the Harvard Law School professor recounted the time she met Clinton in the twilight of her husband’s administration. Warren had penned an op-ed in the New York Times slamming a piece of bankruptcy legislation. Clinton met with Warren, who provided an overview of the bill’s shortcomings. The meeting reversed the administration’s position, and President Bill Clinton ultimately vetoed the bill when it arrived on his desk.
Once Hillary Clinton becomes a New York senator, the bill came before the Senate once again. This time, Clinton voted in favor.
“It’s a well-financed industry. You know a lot of people don’t realize that the industry that gave the most money to Washington over the past few years was not the oil industry, was not pharmaceuticals. It was consumer credit products. Those are the people. The credit card companies have been giving money, and they have influence,” Warren said. She has taken money from the groups, and more to the point, she worries about them as a constituency.”
Warren has yet to formally endorse a candidate, but perhaps Wednesday’s tweet tipped her hand.
