Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has yet to issue an endorsement in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination — something she was largely expected to do upon dropping out of the race herself — and she says that’s because she’s been far too busy saving the United States from the effects of coronavirus.
Appearing remotely on the The View on Thursday, Warren said she’s just “too focused” on the coronavirus crisis to think deeply about the two men still in the running for the nod.
“So, actually, I have been focused on this crisis,” Warren said. “You know, I think Bernie needs space to decide what he wants to do next, and he should be given the space to do that. Right now, I’m focused on what we’re going to do next in this crisis around the coronavirus. We talked in the last segment a lot about the health parts of it. But we also — it’s not too early to start talking about the economic impact of this.”
“What it means that so many small businesses have now shut down, what it means that big businesses are shuttering their doors, how many people are unemployed, how many people are going to get one more paycheck or two more paychecks and that’s going to be it for a while,” Warren went on. “And how as a country we’re going to weather not just the storm directly from the virus, the physical health, but our economic health as well. So that’s where I’m really keeping my attention right now and I hope we can talk about the details of that.”
Warren has been pressing the economic platform from her presidential campaign as a solution to the economic repercussions of a nationwide coronavirus-related shutdown, and has said that no relief package will be complete unless it includes protections for those paying off student loans. Ideally, Warren says, she’d like a complete student loan bailout, alongside bailouts of the airline and entertainment industries.
“Warren said for now she wants to raise Social Security and disability payments as well as forgive student loans to alleviate the financial burden on people affected by the coronavirus,” USA Today reports.
That said, Warren is now weeks out of her departure from the presidential race and, unlike many of her former competitors, has resisted issuing an endorsement, despite clear evidence that former Vice President Joe Biden is the likely nominee. Although Warren agrees more forcefully with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on a number of policy issues, the vast majority of Democratic bigwigs are throwing their support behind what is, arguably, the “consensus” pick for the nomination.
Warren may be waiting out the possibility of being offered the “vice president” slot on the ticket — Joe Biden is now famously locked into selecting a female running mate, thanks to a pledge made on the fly in the last presidential debate — or she may be looking to peddle her position for influence within the party (though she has only a handful of delegates and did not win a single primary contest).