Prof. Elizabeth Warren, the top challenger to Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., attacked General Electric while assuring Morning Joe interviewers that she could criticize Democrats. She then opted to defend President Obama when asked about his decision not to place her at the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Warren justified her candidacy by saying that she’s one of the “people who are really going to push back against lobbyists.” When Joe Scarborough asked if “the president push[ed] back against lobbyists,” Warren maintained that “he stood strong for the part of [the law] that I understand.”
But then when asked if she could criticize Democrats effectively, Warren dismissed the question. “I don’t think anyone has to ask the question about whether I’m willing to criticize anyone,” Warren said. “I think my reputation precedes me.”
As part of her campaign against lobbyists, Warren repeatedly cited General Electric as an example of “one of the big corporations that can hire an army of lobbyists and an army of lawyers” – a curious choice, in light of her defense of Obama, given that President Obama chose Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, as his jobs czar. But Warren criticized the idea that GE should be able to “get an army of lobbyists, to get a complicated tax code that has just those little special openings for it.”
Asked about how she’d handle a hypothetical request from GE, Warren offered a criticism of corporate welfare:
Which raises once again Joe Scarborough’s first question: Does the President push back enough against lobbyists? Obama’s jobs czar, Immelt, runs a company in General Electric that spent $39 million on lobbying last year. And Solyndra, the solar energy company that declared bankruptcy despite a $535 million loan from the Department of Energy and a personal visit from President Obama, assembled an “impressive lineup” of lobbyists in their heyday to which they are still adding in order to handle the fallout from their bankruptcy.
It’s great to hear a Democrat talk reforming the tax code in order to prevent corporate welfare, but for that to pass, Warren will have to be a lot more consistent in her criticism than she was in this interview. She might have to criticize President Obama, not just the people he appoints to help run the economy.
Here’s the video of Warren going after GE. You can watch the full interview here.
