With her presidential bubble rapidly expanding, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) isn’t wavering in her insistence that she isn’t running for president — but she also won’t go ahead and say she will not run for president.
Her evasions seem sure to keep the political class yapping.
NPR’s Steve Inskeep had a little fun with the ongoing speculation about Warren’s presidential aspirations in a Monday morning interview with the senator, asking her about the progressive groups that have teamed up to draft her into the 2016 race, presumably against Hillary Clinton.
Warren said, as she and her office always do when these questions get asked, that she isn’t running for president. But when Inskeep observed that she was speaking in the present tense, not exactly a Sherman-esque denial, Warren didn’t budget.
“You’re not putting a ‘never’ on that,” Inskeep noted after pressing her a couple times.
“I am not running for president,” Warren said. “You want me to put an exclamation point at the end?”
The full exchange is below.
Sen. Warren, as you must know, that even as you were fighting over this in the Senate, there was a group called Ready for Warren that wants you to run for president, that released a letter signed by more than 300 people who describe themselves as former Obama campaign workers and staffers and aides. They want you to run. What do you say to them?
I’m, I’m not running for president. That’s not what we’re doing. We had a really important fight in the United States Congress just this past week. And I’m putting all my energy into that fight and to what happens after this.
Would you tell these independent groups, “Give it up!” You’re just never going to run.
I told them, “I’m not running for president.”
You’re putting that in the present tense, though. Are you never going to run?
I am not running for president.
You’re not putting a “never” on that.
I am not running for president. You want me to put an exclamation point at the end?
