While Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has repeatedly said she will not run for president in 2016, her fired-up populist speech at the Netroots Nation conference earlier this summer left many of her supporters hoping she might change her mind.
Warren began her speech to the crowd in Detroit explaining how she was able to implement the 3-year-old Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, overcoming major resistance from deep-pocketed lobbyists and America’s biggest banks.
“We won because you and a zillion other people go out there in the fight… You said ‘we the people will have this agency’ and you are the ones who won. You won this fight,” Warren said.
The consumer agency, Warren said, is proof that if the public pushes back against the powers that be in America, they can get what they want. “We will fight and we will win, that’s my message today,” she said to cheers and applause.
She went on to target “sleazy lobbyists” and “powerful corporations” for using their money and connections in Washington to “rig the rules in their favor.”
“A kid gets caught with a few ounces of pot and goes to jail but a big bank launders drug money and no one gets arrested.”
Warren went on to layout a progressive agenda and a vision for America’s future, with a lively audience chanting, “Run Liz Run,” to which she responded “sit down, sit down.”
“We believe that Wall Street needs stronger rules and tougher enforcement and we are willing to fight for it. We are willing to fight for it. We believe in science… and we are willing to fight for it. We believe that the Internet shouldn’t be rigged to benefit big corporations… and we will fight for it. We believe that no one should work fulltime and still live in poverty… and we are willing to fight for it. We will fight for it. Let me add to that we believe that fast food workers deserve a livable wage and when they take to picket lines we are proud to fight along side of them.”
At the event, a group called Ready For Warren began aggressively promoting itself and the senator for president. Since then, Warren has disassociated herself from the campaign through a letter from her election attorney, according to The Boston Globe. Warren has repeatedly said that she hopes Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2016.
