Unilateral Disarmament: Warren Says She Won’t Hold Big-Dollar Fundraisers No Matter How Much Trump Raises

Tommy ChristopherOct 9th, 2019, 4:17 pm
 

Massachusetts Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren now says she won’t hold any high-dollar fundraisers during the general election if she becomes the nominee, after saying in February that such a move amounted to “unilateral disarmament.”

During an interview with CBS News’ Zak Hudak, Warren was asked “Do you wonder if perhaps you would pivot to having big-dollar fundraisers in the general election, or be forced to do that, can you continue doing what you are doing?”

“No, I will not be forced to make changes in how I raise money,” Warren said, adding “Look, for me this is pretty straightforward. Either you think democracy works and electing a president is all about going behind closed doors with bazillionaires and corporate executives and lobbyists and scooping up as much money as possible. Or you think it’s about a grass-roots, let’s build this from the ground up.”

Zad then asked Warren the fairly ironclad follow-up “Can you guarantee your supporters that under no circumstances, no matter how much money Donald Trump is raising, you will not take big dollar..”

“Yeah, I’m not going to go do the big-dollar fundraisers, I’m just not going to do it,” Warren said.

This marks a change for Warren since MSNBC’s Chris Hayes asked her the same question in February. During their interview, Hayes asked Warren to defend her past use of high-dollar donations, and asked whether she’d do so in a general election.

Hayes said “you`ve done calls to wealthy donors, you`ve done big ticket fundraisers, you`ve put together a pretty good war chest, I think about $11 million that you had amassed,” and asked “What does that say about what you were doing before? This is the right way to do it now, why now and why not before?”

“So look, I`ve never actually been in a deeply competitive primary, I get it. Republicans come to the table armed to the teeth. They`ve got all of their donors, their wealthy, wealthy donors. They`ve got their super PACs, they`ve got their dart money, they got everything going for them. And I`m just going to be blunt, I do not believe in unilateral disarmament. We`ve got to go into these fights and we got to be willing to win these fights.”

“So this just applies to the primary, like were to get the nomination or anyone else who gets the nomination like just raise all the money you can however you can,” Hayes said.

“Yes,” Warren said, and went on to explain, at length, why the Democratic nominee would need to raise as much money as possible for field work.

Update: Warren’s campaign clarified that when Warren said “I’m not going to go do the big-dollar fundraisers, I’m just not going to do it,” she meant that she will do high-dollar fundraisers for the party and other Democrats, just not her own campaign.

Watch both clips above, via CBS and MSNBC.

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