Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who helped rally Democratic opposition to a trillion-dollar spending bill that passed over the weekend, provided an opportunity for fresh 2016 political tea-leaf reading in an interview for NPR’s “Morning Edition.”
Ms. Warren had objected to changes inserted into the spending measure to a provision in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill intended to keep banks’ federally insured money separate from certain trading funds.
“Whichever way you think is the right answer here, I know for sure that this shouldn’t be slipped into an omnibus spending bill — a bill that must pass in order to keep the government open,” she said. “And what it means, if this works, is they can just kinda keep slipping grenades and attach them to, you know, must-pass spending bills and pretty soon we have no financial regulations at all.”
Later in the interview, she said multiple times that she’s not “running” for president, as liberal groups try to push her into the 2016 race as an alternative to the presumed Democratic frontrunner, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Here is some of that exchange with NPR’s Steve Inskeep:
S.I.: Would you tell these independent groups, “Give it up!” — you’re just never going to run.
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E.W.: I told them, I’m not running for president.
S.I.: You’re putting that in the present tense, though. Are you never going to run?
E.W.: I am not running for president.
S.I.: You’re not putting a “never” on that.
E.W.: I am not running for president. You want me to put an exclamation point at the end?
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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