Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s ideal running mate is someone who hasn’t been alive for roughly 100 years.
During an appearance Sunday on MSNBC’s “The Beat with Ari Melber,” Warren was asked about her 2020 presidential campaign and whether she had anyone in mind to serve as her vice president if she were to win the Democratic nomination.
Warren gave a surprising answer: Former President Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States who died in 1909.
“He took on the trusts. And he didn’t care how many people were going to be mad about it. And he did it — this is what’s amazing — for the right reasons,” Warren began.
“It wasn’t just that they were big. It wasn’t just that they were dominating an economy. It wasn’t just that they were putting farmers out of business and competitors out of business and small companies out of business,” she added.
The Massachusetts Democrat continued, “It was that they had too much political power. And it was the very fact of that political power that caused Teddy Roosevelt to say I’m going to be a trust buster. Man, I’d like to have that guy at my side.”
Roosevelt was a surprising answer for a number of reasons.
For starters, it’s slightly bizarre that her “ideal” running mate is someone who served in office 100 years ago, when the U.S. and global economy were no where near what they are today.
Roosevelt did leave the Republican Party to form the progressive “Bull Moose Party,” which pushed for a more progressive agenda such as corporate reform efforts.
But Roosevelt probably wasn’t as big of a hypocrite as Warren has proven herself to be when it comes to taking on big corporations.
During an interview late last month on MSNBC’s “All In” with host Chris Hayes, Warren said she will reject political fundraisers with wealthy donors during the Democratic primaries, but not during the general election.
If she wins the Democratic nomination, Warren will abandon her own promise to voters and go back to “traditional” fundraising with the wealthy elites she claims to be against.
Oddly enough, Warren actually admitted in the interview that her stance is hypocritical, but brushed it off because she will need big donations to defeat President Donald Trump if she takes him on in the general election.
Beyond her own hypocrisy, maybe Warren’s answer on her ideal running mate also means she doesn’t have anyone in mind or hasn’t come across someone with enough name recognition to serve in that capacity.
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