Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), widely viewed as a leading progressive voice in Congress, criticized President Barack Obama and his administration for too often siding with Wall Street.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) addresses a rally in support of Social Security and Medicare on Capitol Hill September 18, 2014 in Washington, DC. The rally was organized by American United for Change, a liberal advocacy group founded to fight the privitization of Social Security. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“[The president] picked his economic team and when the going got tough, his economic team picked Wall Street,” Warren told Salon in an interview published Sunday. "They protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. Not young people who were struggling to get an education. And it happened over and over and over.”
Some on the left hope that Warren, elected to the Senate in 2012, will consider challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. Warren has denied she is running, positioning herself even to the left of Obama could appeal to the Democratic base.
Warren did have kind words to say about Obama for signing the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
“If Barack Obama had not been president of the United States, we would not have a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, period. I’m completely convinced of that,” Warren said. “He was the one who refused to throw the agency under the bus and made sure that his team kept the agency alive and on the table.”
(H/T: Washington Post)
