Senator Elizabeth Warren gave an interview to People magazine for this week’s issue and was asked for roughly the thousandth time if she planned to run for president. But her answer to this query was different than all the others:
But is the freshman senator from Massachusetts herself on board with a run for the White House? Warren wrinkles her nose.
“I don’t think so,” she tells PEOPLE in an interview conducted at Warren’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, home for this week’s issue. “If there’s any lesson I’ve learned in the last five years, it’s don’t be so sure about what lies ahead. There are amazing doors that could open.”
She just doesn’t see the door of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue being one of them. Not yet, anyway. “Right now,” Warren says, “I’m focused on figuring out what else I can do from this spot” in the U.S. Senate.
As a veteran Warren-watcher, I can say with certainty this is more ambiguous than she’s ever been on the subject. “I don’t think so,” “amazing doors that could open,” and “right now” are the traditional vernacular of a someone flirting with a campaign—-and someone who wants you to know it.
In the past, Warren has been much more unequivocal. (Examples: “I’m not running for president, and I plan to serve out my term,” and “I am not running for president. Do you want to put an exclamation point at the end of that?”)
It is certainly possible Warren just got sloppy during the umpteenth iteration of this question, and used looser language than normal while speaking with a non-political reporter. But it’s also true that she’s been increasingly explicit in her criticisms of the Democratic establishment and its relationship with big banks. She told Salon last week that the Obama administration “protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. And it happened over and over and over.”
Warren’s Senate office did not immediately return a request for comment.
UPDATE, 10/23: Warren’s office responded to our query: “Nothing has changed,” said her press secretary Lacey Rose.
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