Elizabeth Warren would have accepted an offer from Hillary Clinton to become her running mate in 2016, the Massachusetts senator and 2020 White House hopeful said in a report published Thursday.
Warren — who declined to launch her own presidential bid two-and-a-half years ago despite intense efforts by progressives to draft her — even received a “full vetting” for the vice presidential slot by Clinton’s team and was interviewed in August 2015 at the candidate’s Whitehaven mansion in Washington, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.
Clinton “seriously weighed” Warren as a potential running mate, the report states, and top aide Philippe Reines wrote in a memo to his boss following their meeting: “If a crystal ball said she wouldn’t antagonize you for four years, it’s hard to argue she isn’t the most helpful for the next four months to get you elected.
”Asked whether she would have agreed to become Clinton’s No. 2 on the ticket, Warren responded: “Yes.”
During the 2016 campaign, Warren controversially opted not to back Clinton’s chief primary challenger, fellow liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and went on to endorse Clinton in June of that year after the former secretary of State had secured enough delegates to capture her party’s nomination. Clinton ultimately selected Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate.
Warren and Sanders are currently competing in the 2020 Democratic presidential race, battling each other and roughly two dozen more candidates including the frontrunner and former Vice President Joe Biden.
The pair of progressive lawmakers consistently rank within the top five choices of primary voters, along with Biden, California Sen. Kamala Harris and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind. Their fight for voters aligned with the party’s left flank has the potential to dominate the second Democratic debate next week in Detroit, where they will stand beside one another at center stage on night one of the forums.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine