Biden Hopes to Amplify Contrast With Republicans on Economic Policy
Last month, Senator Elizabeth Warren went after Joe Biden at his own event. And what she said was something that was perhaps a precursor to what she would say now: Joe Biden hasn’t done enough to advance the progressive economic agenda. To make that case, she offered an anecdote.
As you know, her former campaign manager was on hand when Biden gave an interview from the Des Moines Register. That was April 2016.
Elizabeth Warren was then working in the Senate, serving as vice chair of the Senate Banking Committee. The next week, Trump won the Republican nomination. For Warren, that was a real wake-up call.
She said she was at a fundraiser — a big fundraiser — hosted by Vice President Biden. Warren had no idea what she was getting into. But, as her former campaign manager had said when he was working on her campaign, he made it clear to her that he would be with her all the way. She was going to need no help from him.
But, in retrospect, what happened next was just as important.
What President Joe Biden told the Washington Post editorial board that May was a precursor to what he told Elizabeth Warren. He said that he was working with Senator Warren in “a bipartisan way” and that he was “dealing with both sides of the aisle.”
This got Warren’s attention. She took a shot at him in an op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post: “When Joe Biden says he has ‘the greatest relationship in the history of the world’ with the president of the United States, it should be a reason for him to be more forthcoming in describing his own record and explaining how he would approach and solve the challenges he faces as he campaigns for the Democratic nomination. He’d probably be better off if he tried, instead, to tell us how he’ll work with Republicans.”
Now, she added: “This, of course, is not to suggest that any of his dealings with Republicans