Politics

The First Question Of The Democratic Debate Was A Softball From Rachel Maddow

Elizabeth Warren stands at a podium. By Tim Pierce from Berlin, MA, USA (Elizabeth Warren) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow started off Wednesday night’s Democratic debate by lobbing a softball question to Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

“Sen. Warren, you have said already that you’ve seen enough to convict the president and remove him from office. You and four of your colleagues on this stage tonight who are also U.S. senators may soon have to take that vote. Will you try to convince your Republican colleagues in the Senate to vote the same way? And if so, how?” Maddow asked Warren.

“Of course I will. And the obvious answer is to say first, read the Mueller report — all 442 pages of it that showed how the president tried to obstruct justice. And when Congress failed to act at that moment, and that the president felt free to break the law again and again and again. And that’s what’s happened with Ukraine. We have to establish the principle no one is above the law. We have a constitutional responsibility, and we need to meet it,” Warren answered.

The Democratic senator went on to criticize the long-standing practice of awarding ambassadorships to political donors, while taking a shot at her fellow candidates.

“Anyone who wants to give me a big donation, don’t ask to be an ambassador because I’m not going to have that happen. I asked everyone who’s running for president to join me in that. And not a single person has so far,” Warren said. “I hope what we saw today during the testimony means lots of people will sign-on and say we are not going to give away the Ambassador posts to the highest bidder.”