Appearing on the “Special Report” panel Wednesday, columnist Charles Krauthammer said Elizabeth Warren could be pushed into the 2016 presidential race if Hillary Clinton goes along with President Barack Obama’s trade deal.
Krauthammer told host Bret Baier that Warren is the only potential candidate “that can challenge her,” adding that the only thing Clinton wants to do at this point is keep Warren out of the race for that singular reason.
Warren has been a vociferous opponent of the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, which Clinton has been extremely vague about during campaign appearances over the past few days. Obama told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that Warren is “wrong” on the potential deal.
KRAUTHAMMER: Look, I think with a 50 point lead and you can’t take a position on an issue that is so obvious, her husband supported it with NAFTA. She obviously wants to walk it back. She said it was the gold standard. It shows a certain lack of — it’s not exactly profile and courage. Mike Kinsley, the editor of the New Republic once said to me, ‘there’s not a lot of proposition in economics or politics that are mathematically provable to be true.’ Free trade being a net good is one of those few, demonstrated by David Ricardo in 1817. So that’s two centuries and it remains unrefuted.
The problem is there are winners and losers. There is a net benefit, but there are losers and the losers are Democrats, the losers are unions. They are identifiable and they speak out. I think what Hillary is going to do — even though she knows is the right thing to do and this is going to be a really good deal, she will not oppose it in principal. she’ll say, well if it’s worked out, I haven’t seen the details. She’ll delay until it’s published, until it can be read. Then, I think, she will oppose it by saying, well, it’s just the way it’s written. There are things inside of it. If I become president, I’ll try to improve it, and I think she’ll get herself on the correct side for her own left and as a way to prevent Elizabeth Warren. I could see her getting so upset about this and making it her big issue that it could provoke her entry into into the race. And as Steve [Hayes] said, the one thing she wants to do, Hillary, is to keep Warren out of the race because she’s the only one that can challenge her.