Sen. Elizabeth Warren argued Thursday that President-elect Trump can’t be trusted to “drain the swamp” in Washington because he’s using lobbyists to fill his transition team.
Speaking on the Senate floor, Warren listed off all the current or former lobbyists and East Coast insiders currently working on Trump’s transition team, and said it took less than a week for Trump to break one of his final campaign promises to voters.
“He talked a good game during the campaign and he promised to end corruption, he promised to drain the swamp and after one week we’ve seen what Donald Trump’s promise means: Nothing,” Warren said. “His word, his promise to the American people, means nothing.”
Trump’s transition team has been criticized for the amount of establishment figures being considered for Cabinet positions after Trump promised to do away with lobbyist influence on the government.
Part of Trump’s big appeal to voters was his promise that no one owned him and he wouldn’t owe anyone anything when he came into office. Warren said the fact that he’s put lobbyists in charge of important areas of the transition shows that was all bluster.
“Trump’s very first decision is to hand over the keys of government to the worst kind of D.C. insiders,” she said. “All those promises to stand up for working people were just a giant con.”
Warren chided the various reports coming from the Trump camp that all the lobbyists on the transition team were being fired or that the president-elect would require administration hires to promise not to enter a lobbying firm after leaving their jobs. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” she said.
The junior senator from Massachusetts said it’s not like Trump doesn’t have other options. She said there are plenty of Americans outside of Washington, D.C., with the expertise and knowledge to help Trump transition into the White House, people who are not a part of the system he wants to tear down.
However, his decision to take people inside the Beltway and bring them with him to the White House shows his true colors, Warren said. She promised to work against him at every step of the way when she feels he’s out of line.
“I am ready to fight on behalf of the millions of Americans you have lied to,” she said. “That includes the millions who voted for you and the millions who didn’t.”
