Massachusetts senator releases video announcing run
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Senator
Elizabeth Warren jumped into the race for president on Monday, announcing she is forming an exploratory committee for 2020.
The Massachusetts Democrat, known for her critiques of big banks and corporations, became the first major candidate to declare her intentions with a video posted online on New Year’s Eve.
“America’s middle class is under attack,” she said. “How did we get here? Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie and they enlisted politicians to cut them a fatter slice.”
Warren, 69, is entering what is likely to be a crowded Democratic primary field seeking to take on
Donald Trump. Those considering bids include a slew of fellow senators such as Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand and Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, the former vice-president, and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.
In her announcement video, Warren stressed the economic populist message that has brought her to national prominence.
She mixed old family photos with charts showing the declining middle-class share of income and the gap between black and white household wealth, and discussed her upbringing in Oklahoma and her family’s struggle to make ends meet after her father had a heart attack that left him unable to work.
“Working families today face a lot tougher path than my family did,” she said. “Our government’s supposed to work for all of us, but instead it has become a tool for the wealthy and well connected.”
Warren did not mention Trump by name in the video, but it showed images of him along with Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon and Fox News personalities Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. The video says: “The whole scam is propped up by an echo chamber of fear and hate designed to distract and divide us – people who will do or say anything to hang on to power.”
Warren, a former law professor, gained prominence for her critique of Wall Street after the 2008 financial crash, and proposed what became the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
As a senator, she has proposed legislation to overhaul the way corporations operate, requiring them to obtain government charters to operate and consider their public’s interests rather than just those of their shareholders. She gained fans for standing up to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor, turning his admonishment of her –“Nevertheless, she persisted” – into a slogan.
But Warren has suffered significant missteps as well, and become a favorite target for conservative critics who paint her as the the epitome of the east coast, academic liberal elite they often disparage.
She drew criticism for the release of a DNA test intended to prove her Native American heritage, which offended some Native American groups and led to doubts about her political acumen. Trump gleefully attacked her on the issue.
Warren is a polarizing figure even in her heavily Democratic home state. The editorial board of the Boston Globe, noting that she won re-election with fewer votes that Republican Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker, encouraged her not to run for president.
“Those are warning signs from the voters who know her best,” the paper wrote. “While Warren is an effective and impactful senator with an important voice nationally, she has become a divisive figure. A unifying voice is what the country needs now after the polarizing politics of Donald Trump.”