Outgoing Rep. Jim Moran ripped into Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Saturday, accusing her of grandstanding on a nearly derailed spending bill simply to build her political brand.
“I think there are a lot of people who do not want to be on the right of Elizabeth Warren,” the Virginia Democrat said on of the Massachusetts Democrat on MSNBC’s “Up with Steve Kornacki.” “They want her to represent liberal views. They know she has a grandstand. They know that their constituents are listening to her. They know they can’t explain the issue.”
“This should not have been a poison pill,” Moran added.
Warren led the charge against a $1.1 trillion bill that narrowly passed the House, raising objections to provisions that would tinker with the Dodd-Frank Act and chip away at campaign finance laws. The Senate is taking up the bill now in a rare weekend session.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., echoed Warren’s concerns, creating a rare split between the progressive wing of the party and the Obama White House. Ultimately, the White House twisted enough arms to get the bill through the lower chamber, but progressives have emerged more emboldened from the spat.
For his part, Moran said Warren and other critics were misleading the public about how the legislation affects Wall Street reform.
“She’s demagoguing an issue that she knows the public doesn’t understand,” he said. “With this provision in the bill, banks still can’t put any taxpayers’ money at risk. There will never be another bank bailout. Banks can’t use depositors’ money for risky investment. They can’t engage in credit default swaps.”
