The day after President Barack Obama said Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren was “wrong” to oppose an international trade deal quickly making its way through Congress, the freshman Massachusetts lawmaker is hitting back.
Using her social media accounts Wednesday to link to a blog post titled “You can’t read this,” Warren stood by her allegations that the process to fast-track the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership deal through Congress has been secretive, and said the deal would be bad for working-class Americans.
“The administration says I’m wrong — that there’s nothing to worry about,” Warren writes in the post, which carries her byline. “They say the deal is nearly done, and they are making a lot of promises about how the deal will affect workers, the environment, and human rights. Promises — but people like you can’t see the actual deal.”
She continued later, “When giant corporations get to see the details and the American people don’t, we all lose. Let’s level the playing field: No vote on fast-tracking trade until the public can read the TPP deal.”
In an MSNBC interview that aired Tuesday night, Obama defended the proposal, a 12-country Asia-Pacific pact which has bipartisan support but has divided Democrats, and he referenced the senator by name.
“I love Elizabeth. We’re allies on a whole host of issues. But she’s wrong on this,” Obama told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, adding later, “I would not be doing this trade deal if I did not think it was good for the middle class. And when you hear folks make a lot of suggestions about how bad this trade deal is, when you dig into the facts they are wrong.”
Warren and Obama aren’t the only Democrats fighting about the proposal, as Democratic challengers to the party’s 2016 front-runner Hillary Clinton have been pushing the former secretary of state to oppose the deal. Though she has not commented on the most recent developments, Clinton praised the proposal while secretary of state.