On Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) claimed to be “the only one running for president whose actually been on the executive side.” This is clearly false given that former Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE) was . . . well, vice president. Not to mention that Michael Bloomberg (D-NY), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Pete Buttigieg (D-IN) are all former mayors.
And of course President Trump is running for president, but presumably she meant among her Democrat rivals. Or maybe she just meant in that room at that moment? If so, she still would have been wrong.
The Washington Examiner reports:
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she was the only White House hopeful who has spent any time in the executive branch on government at an Iowa rally, seemingly forgetting about a number of her rivals.The remarks came after an audience member asked her when she plans on using presidential authority for some of her policy agenda instead of relying on Congress.”That’s a really good question. Let me remind you, I think, I’m the only one running for president whose actually been on the executive side,” Warren said Friday evening. “Remember, after the consumer agency was passed into law, Barack Obama, President Obama, asked me to set it up. So I set up a federal agency. We effectively went from two employees the day I walked in the door to about 1000 and spent a year getting it up and operational.”. . . . Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, former mayors Pete Buttigieg of South Bend and Michael Bloomberg of New York may also have a bone to pick with Warren’s comments. Before Sanders served in the House and later the Senate, he was the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, from 1981 to 1989. Buttigieg, who just left office this month, has also claimed that his role as mayor of South Bend has given him the necessary experience to jump to the White House. Similarly, Bloomberg has pointed to his record as mayor of the nation’s largest city as evidence he’s up for the job of president.
As Jazz Shaw points out over at Hot Air, “executive experience” in most people’s understanding of the term in its political usage means running a city or a state (i.e. a mayor or a governor). Warren, of course, has done neither.
It’s hard to know where to even begin with this one. First of all, “executive experience,” as typically understood in American politics, applies to a lot more than just the White House. (Otherwise, former presidents and vice presidents would be the only ones who have it.) The term applies to working in the executive branch of whichever level of government we’re discussing, as opposed to the legislative and judicial branches. It applies to Governors, city mayors, county executives and the like.With that in mind, Sanders, Buttigieg and Bloomberg all have direct executive experience. And Biden was literally second in command at the federal level. Heck, even Amy Klobuchar was elected County Attorney back home (twice!) which is technically part of the county executive branch. But what about Warren herself? She’s won precisely two elections in her life, both of them for the Senate seat she currently holds, putting her firmly in the legislative branch. Her comments were obviously in reference to the CFPB, but that’s not really applicable. Keep in mind that President Obama tasked her with setting up the bureau, but he appointed her as an Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury.Hers was more of a hired gun, contracting position, responsible for building the infrastructure. But at no time did she actually run the bureau or take responsibility for its operation. That job went to Richard Cordray because it had become obvious to everyone (including Barack Obama) that Warren could never be confirmed.
As if that weren’t problematic enough, on Sunday she suggested that Americans don’t want a liar for president. As is often the case with Warren, I just don’t get it. What on earth is she thinking?
At the Elizabeth Warren wiki and throughout the pages of LI, we have documented Warren’s many distortions, half-truths, dissembling, and outright lies.
Of course her decades-long false claim to be a Native American is the most well-known, but there are many more. Here are just a few:
Needless to say, people have thoughts:
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