When I got Elizabeth Warren on the line Thursday morning, I asked how she was doing.
“You know, personally, I’m fine,” the Massachusetts senator replied. “But I worry about the state of our republic.”
Warren—a leading progressive and the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee—has spent her career sounding the alarm about a financial system rigged against everyday Americans. Now the president of the United States seems to be using her warnings as a blueprint—dismantling oversight, empowering industries, and seeking to profit from the chaos. Donald Trump, she said, “is using the presidency to enrich himself, and he’s doing it in plain sight.”
But Warren isn’t despairing: “The billionaires who are running the joint right now hope the rest of us will just give up,” she told me. “But the response is not to get discouraged—it’s to get angry and get back in the fight.”
In a wide-ranging interview, which has been lightly edited for clarity and length, Warren sounded off on Trump’s meddling in the upcoming Paramount merger, his attacks on Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, and the crypto legislation he pushed through last week—with help from members of her own party. “There’s been a long, bipartisan tradition of helping out industry,” Warren said. And “when Washington works for industries like this, a handful of people get really rich, and the American people pay the price.”
Vanity Fair: Just in the last few weeks, we’ve seen Paramount settle with Trump in his 60 Minutes lawsuit. Trump bragged about a side deal with Skydance as part of the looming merger. Stephen Colbert, a critic, had his show canceled—a move that Trump himself seemingly hopes he can take some credit for, based on what he wrote this week. All parties have denied anything untoward. But from the outside, it sure looks like palm-greasing, doesn’t it?
Elizabeth Warren: Yeah, the whole deal smells bad. Was it a coincidence that CBS canceled Colbert just three days after he spoke out? If CBS canceling Colbert’s show was “purely a financial decision,” why did Trump say he [hoped he] played a major part in getting Colbert fired? Since taking office, Trump has exploited the power of the presidency to hand out favors for the right price and to threaten punishment for anyone who pushes back. Trump is the single most corrupt president in American history. And he is using that corruption to try to control anyone who challenges him or disagrees with him, and that’s also true in the media, in universities, and in law firms. It’s all happening where we can see it.
What are some of the implications for the everyday American who might say, What do I care if Paramount sucks up to the president? What do I care if, say, Columbia University pays out $200 million to try to keep from fighting the administration?
Anyone familiar with Russia or China’s state-controlled media sees this as a flashing red light. The president should not influence independent media. Last week Trump also signed a bill that defunded PBS and NPR, and then he sued The Wall Street Journal over an article that exposed details about Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Earlier this year, Trump’s Department of Defense removed NBC, The New York Times, and other independent news organizations from their work spaces in the administration. It matters to everyone in this country, because if Trump can shut down criticism, then our democracy goes up in smoke.
