In the thick of primary season, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden brawled over “Medicare for All”: He called her approach “angry,” “elitist,” “condescending”; she shot back, anyone who defends the health care status quo with industry talking points is “running in the wrong presidential primary.”
Six months later, with Biden the presumptive Democratic nominee and Warren in the running for VP, she is striking a more harmonious chord.
“I think right now people want to see improvements in our health care system, and that means strengthening the Affordable Care Act,” she told students at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics this week, while adding that she still wants to get to single payer eventually.
The shift is the latest public signal Warren has sent Biden’s way in recent weeks that she wants the job of vice president — and wants Biden to see her as a loyal governing partner despite their past clashes, which go back decades.
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Warren’s policy-centered, team-player pitch is counting on Biden caring more about Jan. 20 than Nov. 3, when he makes his vice presidential pick. In other words, that the current crisis has elevated governing concerns above political ones — and that the times call for someone with her policy chops and, yes, plans.
The Massachusetts senator has fired off a barrage of proposals as well as more than 80 Covid-19 oversight letters since January. She drew praise from Biden himself for her questioning of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin at a Senate hearing this week. She and Biden co-wrote an op-ed focused on oversight of coronavirus relief, and one of her top policy aides recently was appointed to serve on the congressional panel charged with that work.
Warren and Biden’s policy teams have also been working closely together particularly on economic policy, according to sources in both camps. Her team has distinguished itself among his advisers on that front.
Source: Warren pivots on ‘Medicare for All’ in bid to become Biden’s VP
