Former Obama Admin Officials Unleash on Elizabeth Warren: 'Condescending Narcissist' - Report
Lingering bad blood between the Obama administration and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts flows freely in a new report that delves into the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the lingering shadows the process is casting on the 2020 race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The CFPB was founded in 2011 as part of the Obama administration’s effort to avert any repetition of the 2008 recession by creating an office to oversee the lending practices and related activities of financial institutions.
Politico Magazine’s report includes some less-than-flattering summaries of Warren’s character from what Politico says are anonymous former administration officials.
The report said that “former White House and Treasury officials say they consider Warren a self-serving grandstander who cast them as villains while they were trying to save the global economy from catastrophe.”
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Obama camp on Elizabeth Warren:
A “professional critic”
“Sanctimonious”
A “condescending narcissist”
“She loved herself and some of her staff had a God view of her” https://t.co/DbViL8OcAe
— Elizabeth Harrington (@LizRNC) September 12, 2019
Some Obama-era officials have suggested a bit of gratitude might be nice to see on Warren’s part.
“Elizabeth Warren would be a beloved Harvard Law Professor not a presidential candidate if @barackobama and @JoeBiden had not worked with her to make her idea to form a consumer financial protection bureau law,” former White House communications director Jen Psaki tweeted in April.
Elizabeth Warren would be a beloved Harvard Law Professor not a presidential candidate if @barackobama and @JoeBiden had not worked with her to make her idea to form a consumer financial protection bureau law
— Jen Psaki (@jrpsaki) April 26, 2019
But the Politico report does not list gratitude as among the characteristics former Obama officials called Warren, who wanted to be appointed the head of the CFPB. Instead, they called her, a “professional critic,” “sanctimonious” and a “condescending narcissist,” according to the report.
“She loved herself, and some of her staff had a God view of her, and that’s not aligned with government and bureaucrats, which require teamwork,” one former administration Politico did not name said.
“The Treasury crew especially thought they were the smartest guys in the room, and the attitude was, ‘We’re saving the world, what the f— do you want with us?’” one unnamed source is quoted as saying, highlighting Warren’s contention that the recovery would protect banks at the expense of consumers.
White House insider David Axelrod told Politico that when Warren wanted to make public waves to get the post, former President Barack Obama intervened.
“Tell her to keep her mouth shut. She may well be the choice, but we can’t surface that now,” Obama reportedly said, according to Axelrod.
Warren is quoted in the report as saying that she would have nothing to do with posts she felt were beneath her. Eventually, the White House dangled the allure of a U.S. Senate seat before her, leading to her election in 2012.
Obama tried to get her to sign on to lead the CFPB as a part of the Treasury Department
“I was not going to set that agency up asking [former Treasury Secretary] Tim Geithner every day, ‘Mother may I?’ It just wasn’t going to work,” Warren said.
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