Warren says Democratic heavyweights warned her not to say economy was 'rigged' in 2012 DNC speech
Elizabeth Warren recounts pressure from party leaders to remove a line asserting the economy is rigged, a message Trump later popularized in campaigns.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in an interview published Monday that powerful Democrats urged her not to declare that the economy is rigged against everyday Americans in her 2012 Democratic National Convention speech. The remarks were made during her conversation with David Leonhardt, New York Times Opinion editor, on his podcast The Opinions.
During the interview, Warren described the powers that be in the Democratic Party — which Leonhardt interpreted as the Obama White House — advising dropping the line, saying, You cannot say that this economy is rigged. She pressed to include it, noting that People all across this country feel like the game is rigged against them. And they’re right. It is. She said she sent the speech to party leadership for approval, and they warned, but the back and forth over just identifying the problem in 2012 was a huge tug of war. Ultimately, she said, I got to leave it in. It was my speech, and they let me leave it in. And I’m grateful for that.
Four years later, Warren said, Donald Trump ran a campaign that talked about rigged every day, leveraging the idea to appeal to supporters who felt left behind. She quoted Trump as saying that his plan would make life better starting on the first day I got sworn in and that the president aimed to address the problem on Day 1. He kept saying on Day 1, she said, adding that Trump framed the issue as a crisis he would fix immediately.
Warren argued that the Democratic Party needs to focus on addressing Americans’ economic struggles going forward. She cited 2012 remarks that suggested Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. The 2012 DNC speech was delivered months before Obama’s re-election; Warren would go on to unseat Republican Sen. Scott Brown that year and has been re-elected twice since.
The remarks come as Democrats confront persistent concerns about economic anxiety among voters and how best to speak to that concern without compromising broader policy goals. The discussion also underscores the long-running tension within the party over messaging that challenges entrenched interests versus messages of incremental reform.
