Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren now knows her November opponent as she seeks a third six-year term. She’ll face Republican attorney John Deaton in the general election. The former U.S. Marine and cryptocurrency advocate moved to Massachusetts from Rhode Island earlier this year after floating his candidacy on social media in late 2023. He defeated Bob Antonellis and Ian Cain in his party primary Tuesday. He’s described Warren as divisive and characterized her as a “government overreach hack.” The Democrat has fired back by framing Deaton as a tool of powerful figures in the crypto industry. Warren spoke with WAMC Berkshire Bureau Chief Josh Landes about Deaton, Vice President Kamala Harris’s late-game campaign strategy, and how she’s come to embrace her former rival in the 2020 presidential primary.
WARREN: This is really the success of three crypto billionaires who put in several million dollars, a few million dollars, and recruited somebody from Rhode Island to come in because they wanted to make him first the Republican nominee, which they did, and now they're hoping they'll be able to buy a Senate seat, and I get it. You know, what they're hoping is they'll be able to get rid of me, because I might be the person who would block some kind of crypto legislation that they want to get through. But it also means they would put this seat in Republican hands, and the consequence of that is the next one, two, three Supreme Court justices would have to be Republican approved. It would mean that the Republican congressional push for a nationwide abortion ban would receive new life. It would mean that cuts to Medicare and Social Security would be back on the table, and it would mean tax cuts for billionaires paid for by tax increases on working families. So that's what's at stake. We are in a 50-50 Senate, and if we lose a single seat, the Republicans are in control.
WAMC: Deaton has referred to you as the most divisive person in Washington. What are your thoughts on that characterization?
Well, I actually don't know what he's talking about. My hearing aid bill that that broke the hearing aid monopoly and means that now people can save thousands of dollars because they can buy hearing aids over the counter, that's something I did with Republican Chuck Grassley. My work to make sure that airlines have to return, give you a cash refund automatically if they cancel your plane ticket, I did that one with Josh Hawley. My tech bill, that's the big tech bill on how to regulate tech, is done with Lindsey Graham, and of course, my years on the Senate Armed Services Committee doing work for our military to make sure that they have adequate housing and that they don't have traumatic brain injury, all of that work has been on a bipartisan basis. Look, I look for the issues where I can get something done, and where I may not have agreement with a Republican on many, many issues, but where I can find the places we agree, then I'm willing to stay in that fight and agree. But you know, I have to ask this the other way- What do you do when the Republicans won't come along? So, for example, I helped put together the biggest climate package in the history of the world. You're seeing some of the electric school busses out there now and the solar panels, and it's paid for by my 15% minimum tax on these billionaire corporations that were paying little or nothing in taxes, and we couldn't get a single Republican vote on that, but we pushed it through anyway. We did that entirely with Democratic votes, and I think that's the right thing to do. Now, you know, somebody may say we didn't compromise enough, we couldn't get them there, but I think the important thing was to push that across the finish line anyway. So, I'm willing to get out there and fight for working families, and I'm willing to do it alongside Republicans, and I'm willing to do it sometimes without any Republicans at all.
Turning to the national election, you once ran against Vice President Kamala Harris back in the 2020 Democratic primary. Are there still issues that you disagree over?
Gosh, I- What I know right now is that she has a long history of fighting for working families. In fact, you know, I have known Kamala for 14 years. She was attorney general in California after the 2008 financial crash, and I was down in Washington, not as a senator, but setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and we worked together to try to fight back against the big banks that had cheated families and were trying to take away their homes. And by the way, I should say at that same time period that we were working together, Donald Trump was somebody who was trying to figure out how to make money off the crisis, and also with somebody who got sued for discrimination as a landlord. So, I've seen Kamala up close and personal in these fights, and I know that she is out there for working families. She did it as attorney general, she did it when she was in the Senate, she has done it as vice president. Of course, as vice president, she has been our nation's leader on making sure that women have access to abortion and IVF, and that is one of the most hotly contested issues here. And I just want to say this to all of my friends in Massachusetts- Today, 30% of women live in states that effectively ban access to abortion. They are told, if they come into an emergency room in the middle of a miscarriage, a doctor examines them, knows what help they're going to need, but if they're not close enough to death, they're told to go back out to the parking lot and hemorrhage a little longer before they can get the care that they need. If Donald Trump and JD Vance make it to the White House, if Republicans get just one seat in the Senate, then it won’t be 30% of women. It will be 100% of women. They're coming for women everywhere. They're coming for us in red states, in blue states, in purple states, and having Kamala Harris in the White House and defending our 50 Senate seats in the Senate and taking back the majority in the House, that is how we will pass laws to protect access to abortion all across America, and I think that's something that is worth getting out there and fighting for.
One issue that Kamala Harris has changed her position on since the primary five years ago is fracking. In the past, she supported a fracking ban. It seems like she has reversed that take and is now not supporting a fracking ban. You, in the past, have been very outspoken about your support for a fracking ban. What are your thoughts on that somewhat crucial environmental issue that it appears the Vice President has changed her mind on?
Look, I support a fracking ban, but I want to be clear on this- Democrats, and only Democrats, have passed the biggest climate package in the history of the world. Is it enough? No. Do we need to do more? Yes, but not a single Republican would help us. Nonetheless, we made a significant investment in moving away from a carbon-based economy and moving toward more green energy. That's something that the Vice President has fought for, it's something all Democrats have fought for, and I believe that is the future. Kamala Harris understands the threats that we are under if we don't do more on the climate front, and she is determined to do that, and I support her in that.
I wanted to get your thoughts on the amount of money going into political campaigns in 2024. Just looking at New York State, for example, in the battle between Jamaal Bowman and George Latimer, Latimer, who ultimately won, received something like $14.5 million from AIPAC, for example, the pro-Israel lobbying group. What do you think about the role of outside money in American politics in 2024? Because it certainly is getting more and more expensive to run for office on these larger stages.
I think it's obscene, and it undermines our democracy. But remember how this whole problem started- We had actually passed, long before I got there, campaign finance reform, had gotten it through Congress and signed into law. Remember McCain-Feingold? Putting limits on how much these giant corporations or big interest groups could put into campaigns. And then – this is one of the first steps as we watched the Supreme Court become more and more extremist – they turned loose the big corporations and the billionaires to flood our campaigns with money so that billionaires’ voices would be heard louder, so that CEOs voices would be heard louder, so that people with money would be heard louder. And that's not how it's supposed to work in a democracy. One of the things we need to tackle, and I believe we will tackle if we have the trifecta, a Democratic House, a Democratic Congress and a Democrat in the White House, is that we need to tackle campaign finance and we need stronger ethics rules. I have built on both of those, they are deeply intertwined. I also think that senators and representatives should not be trading in stock and have pushed and pushed and pushed on that. There's just so much more we need to do to beat back the influence of big money. And look, it starts right here at home in Massachusetts, when three billionaires can recruit somebody from another state to come into Massachusetts and scoop up the Republican nomination, and then I don't know how much money they will put in in order to try to defeat a senator who's just out there trying to do the work every day on behalf of the people, not on behalf of three billionaires.
Lastly, Senator, I'm interested- With just weeks until the national election, do you have a sense right now of what states or states are going to be the most pivotal for the Democratic Party? If you were in charge of this operation, where would you put your most resources and folks on the ground to try to win over an advantage in this very tight race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump?
So, my understanding is that there are several states in play, and as a result, there are multiple paths to the White House. I have been out to Michigan and to Wisconsin, I'm going to Pennsylvania, North Carolina, all to try to help. Nevada, Arizona also seem to be part of the mix here. And who knows- We have to keep in mind, Florida, for example, I know that it has two Republican senators and a Republican governor, but abortion is on the ballot there, and there are a lot of people who are just rethinking what it means to vote to keep or put Republicans in charge. What they want to do is not what Republicans of decades back want to do. They really want to roll this country in a very different direction and on issues like abortion, this is extremist. Keep in mind, the Speaker of the House, a majority of Republicans, Project 2025 all treat IVF as murder. That's way out there, and yet they continue to cater to their extremist group, and if they get power, nobody's going to be safe. And anybody who thinks, oh, you're just being alarmist, keep in mind how many of those Supreme Court justices held up their hands and said during their confirmation hearings before they were sworn in, oh yeah, settled law, I wouldn't mess with settled law, which was supposed to mean Roe vs. Wade will remain secure. And the minute, the minute they had a chance to throw Roe vs. Wade right out the window, they didn't take a little bite, they didn't give it a shove, they threw it away entirely the first chance they got. And the extremism keeps rolling from there. Multiple ways that Donald Trump and JD Vance can put a nationwide abortion ban in place. Lindsey Graham standing up in the United States Senate saying that if they have a Republican majority, it's going to be a nationwide abortion ban. That's what it means to be an elected Republican today, and I think that's a real threat, a threat for those who lose their constitutional rights, and a threat, ultimately, to our democracy.
Reached for comment, Claire Hardwick of the Deaton campaign responded:
"Elizabeth Warren is the only candidate in this race talking about crypto, because on the issues of the day - the border, inflation, and widespread dysfunction and division in government - her record is abysmal. John Deaton will continue to deliver an uplifting message that contrasts his U.S. Marine Corps service and escape from poverty and violence with Sen. Warren's partisan-driven reelection campaign."
