Elizabeth Warren interview: ‘We can’t have a president do that.’

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren was in Rock Hill on Saturday to talk with voters at Clinton College, a historically black college.

Before the event, the Massachusetts senator talked with The Herald about Democrats’ impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump after a whistleblower complaint.

We’ve had nine Democratic candidates now come through Rock Hill. What makes this area such a hot spot for candidates to visit?

For me, it’s about the chance to build a grassroots movement. When I made the decision to run for president, I knew who I’d be fighting for, the issues I’d be fighting on about college and child care and the wealth tax and housing — the things that matter to hard-working people. But it was also how I’d be running.

I decided I was not going to spend my time behind closed doors with bazillionaires and corporate executives, and that meant I would get a lot more time to do town halls.

Today, I think, will be my 137th town hall. I’ve taken thousands of unfiltered questions. We’re well over 60,000 selfies now. I’ve been to 27 states and Puerto Rico. I know what’s broken. I know how to fix it. And together, we’re building a grassroots movement to get it done.

What are your thoughts on the recent events with the whistleblower complaint and impeachment inquiry?

Donald Trump has made it clear that he puts his own interests ahead of the interests of the United States of America.

He clearly invited the leader of a foreign country to interfere in the 2020 election. And it appears that he was dangling money, and a chance to visit Washington and get your picture taken with the president — which is a big deal for a lot of world leaders — in return for something private to Donald Trump: Trying to make sure that he moved up in the presidential election of 2020.

It’s not right and it’s illegal. It falls to Congress to enforce the laws on this, and that means holding him accountable through impeachment.

Do you think impeachment is an all-or-nothing gamble for the Democratic Party?

I don’t. I actually don’t see this as political. Every single person in Congress took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution and the whole principle of the Constitution is no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States.

And that means it falls to Congress, in this case, to do our duty without regard to politics (or) who belongs to what political party.

When the Mueller report came out, I had never expected in my presidential race to get involved in impeachment. But that report showed that a foreign government had interfered in our 2016 election for the purpose of helping Donald Trump. It showed that then-candidate Donald Trump welcomed that help and it showed that as president, Donald Trump tried to obstruct any inquiry or investigation into what kind of help Russia had given him.

I said that we have to hold this president accountable. And he just proved a few months later that when Congress didn’t hold him accountable, he was perfectly willing to break the law, to hold out the dangle of taxpayer money, all for the purposes of helping himself rather than our country. We just can’t have a president do that. It’s not just this president. It’s the president after this, and the one after that, and the one after that. There’s balance in our system and this is a critical part.

You have been shown as the front-runner in some recent polls. What has your campaign done in the past month to make that happen?

I don’t do polls. It’s still more than four months away from the first primaries.

I just feel so deeply grateful to have had the chance to build a campaign based on grassroots donors, people who’ve pitched in five bucks or 25 bucks, people who’ve donated an hour every Tuesday morning to be the heart and soul of this campaign, to get out there and fight to end the corruption in Washington, to make this government work — not just for a handful at the top. Make it work for everyone.

I think we’ve got a real chance to do that. I’m just glad to be able to get out and talk to lots and lots of people about it.

Do you ever get tired of constantly being on display, of being criticized? How do you unwind?

My husband’s here with me, which is great. And we have a golden retriever, who’s big and floppy and young. I think of him as a teenager golden retriever. He’s about 15 months old now and thinks that everyone on Earth is put here to pet him. We walk our dog a lot. I comb him a lot, which is very calming for me.

I just gave him a bath the night before last, so that I could take him out yesterday and he could go do a little campaigning with me. But it really is being around Bailey, our dog, the three of us, my husband, our dog and me. That kind of brings things back down to earth.

This story was originally published September 29, 2019 at 1:22 PM with the headline "Elizabeth Warren interview: ‘We can’t have a president do that.’."