Skip to content

Elizabeth Warren is Everywhere

Campaigning for Hillary Clinton, on TV and in the Capitol, her message is clear

Tuesday's Senate Banking Committee hearing was one of many stops for Sen. Elizabeth Warren. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
Tuesday's Senate Banking Committee hearing was one of many stops for Sen. Elizabeth Warren. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren might be even busier and more vocal than if she had run for president.

Wednesday afternoon, the Massachusetts Democrat was headlining a Center for American Progress Action Fund event highlighting the progressive planks of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s agenda while bashing GOP standard bearer Donald Trump.

“This is a guy who cheered on the 2008 housing crash because he could scoop up more real estate on the cheap,” she said of Trump. ” A guy who set up a fake university so he could bleed students dry and turn a profit for himself. A guy who hired workers to do the hard labor for his businesses, and then wouldn’t pay them what he promised.”

She praised Clinton as an “anti-bully.”

“Sometimes you don’t notice the girl with glasses and the backpack sitting quietly in the back. After all, she doesn’t poison all the air in the room. She doesn’t brag about how great she is, or how good at words she is, or how little she reads, or how everything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault,” Warren said.

But Warren also fired a warning shot for corporate interests who might want to wield influence in a potential Clinton administration.

“Let me be clear – when we talk about personnel, we don’t mean advisers who just pay lip service to Hillary’s bold agenda, coupled with a sigh, a knowing glance, and a twiddling of thumbs until it’s time for the next swing through the revolving door, serving government then going back to the very same industries they regulate,” Warren said. “We don’t mean Citigroup or Morgan Stanley or Blackrock getting to choose who runs the economy in this country so they can capture our government.”

Warren has been a tireless advocate for Clinton. She barnstormed Ohio this past weekend with former Gov. Ted Strickland, the Democratic nominee for Senate, and is set to swing north to New Hampshire to join Gov. Maggie Hassan as she campaigns for Senate against incumbent Republican Kelly Ayotte.

There’s also an evening address to students at American University in Washington, D.C., and a number of national media interviews in connection with the scandal that has enveloped Wells Fargo’s sales practices.

A Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday where Wells Fargo Chairman and CEO John Stumpf drew bipartisan scorn was an ideal setting for Warren, since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau she envisioned fined the bank $100 million.

And Wednesday, Warren joined Katie McGinty, the Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania on a press call to blast incumbent Republican Patrick J. Toomey’s opposition to the establishment of the consumer agency. Warren has already campaigned in the Keystone State.

“Senate Republicans are acting tough with Wells Fargo because it is politically convenient,” Warren said on that call.

There’s been a longstanding push by Republicans to require the financial protection bureau be funded through the regular appropriations process. Advocates of the change say it would increase congressional oversight since the current structure providing funds from the Federal Reserve inoculates the agency from regular budget battles.

Contact Lesniewski at NielsLesniewski@cqrollcall.com and follow him on Twitter @nielslesniewski.

Recent Stories

Judge blocks latest attempt to slash CFPB

Supreme Court to hear arguments over preventive care task force

Trump puts Italy’s Meloni in high-pressure role as bridge to EU on tariffs

Supreme Court to review Trump birthright citizenship order

At the Races: Only the young

California sues to stop tariffs levied under economic emergency