Warren pivots on Medicare for All in bid to become Biden's VP - POLITICO

She's pitching herself as a governing partner to Biden, despite their past clashes over policy.

In the thick of primary season, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden brawled over Medicare for All: He called her approach “angry,” “elitist,” “condescending”; she shot back anyone who defends the health care status quo with industry talking points is “running in the wrong presidential primary.”.

"I think right now people want to see improvements in our health care system, and that means strengthening the Affordable Care Act," she told students at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics this week, while adding that she still wants to get to single payer eventually.

The shift is the latest public signal Warren has sent Biden's way in recent weeks that she wants the job of vice president — and wants Biden to see her as a loyal governing partner despite their past clashes, which go back decades.

She and Biden co-wrote an op-ed focused on oversight of coronavirus relief, and one of her top policy aides recently was appointed to serve on the congressional panel charged with that work.

Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren shake hands during the October Democratic primary debate.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a top Warren booster, has been muted on the idea of her being chosen as vice president, instead trying to draw attention to her legislative and policy work surrounding the coronavirus.

"The challenges of governing now seem just as large as 2009 when Joe Biden entered the administration with President Obama.".

Alternatively, some Democrats such as Sara Nelson, president of the flight attendants union, have argued that the politics for Warren are actually good.

Still, Warren’s governing-partner pitch is complicated by her differences on policy with Biden over the years, particularly on domestic economic issues.

Biden and his campaign have also shown a new openness to big, progressive proposals to revive the economy.

People close to Biden say that politics and governing will both be factors in his VP decision but that the media coverage over-analyzes how a pick might affect the outcome in one swing state or another, as opposed to his own priorities.

“This is a guy who has been preparing to be president nearly his entire adult life and knows the job of VP better than anyone who’s made this decision in a generation or maybe ever," said one Democrat close to the Biden team.

Gene Sperling, the director of the National Economic Council in the Obama and Clinton administrations who has worked closely with Biden and many of the potential vice presidential picks including Warren, made a similar point

“I never had as many [contributors] until she endorsed me,” Biden said in a joint donor call with Warren that the campaign posted online Sunday

"But a President Biden will.”