Elizabeth Warren has spoken out yet again, claiming that she is not and never has considered running for president in 2016. Despite this, however, Warren’s backers view her as a more progressive alternative to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and therefore a promising candidate.
The Massachusetts senator was asked on Monday about progressive groups that have continued to encourage her to make a bid for the Oval Office. Warren made her view on the matter very clear: “I’m not running for president,” she said.
“That’s not what we’re doing. We had a really important fight in the United States Congress just this past week,” Warren responded. “And I’m putting all my energy into that fight and to see what happens after this.”
When questioned yet again, Warren repeated that she was very firm on the decision. “I am not running for president. You want me to put an exclamation point on the end?”
A group of more than 300 former Obama staffers organized by the super PAC Ready For Warren recently wrote an open letter urging the Democrat to make a bid for the 2016 race. The freshman senator made a name for herself as a pugilistic populist unafraid of battering Wall Street with progressive rhetoric.
Warren has also spoken out against Obama’s nomination of Antonio Weiss as an undersecretary for the Treasury Department, insisting that Weiss, currently the head of global investment banking at Lazard, is too deeply entrenched with Wall Street.
Despite Warren taking issue with both the spending bill and the Weiss nomination, the White House insisted on Friday that Warren and the president have a good relationship. “I continue to believe that Sen. Warren and the president have the same kinds of goal and priorities,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Friday, adding he thinks “those shared values will be on display over the next couple of years as well.”
