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SEN. WARREN’S BOLD PLAN FOR DEMS TO WIN IN 2026 AND 2028  
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Interview by Perry Bacon
January 14, 2026
The New Republic
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_ The Massachusetts senator says the party can learn from its winning
candidates in New York City and New Jersey. _

Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaking in Nashville last year., (Photo: John
Partpilo)

 

PERRY BACON: I’m the host, Perry Bacon. I’m honored to be joined
by one of the guests we’ve been trying to book from the moment we
started doing this show in August. A great politician, a great leader.
I always look forward to hearing what she has to say. So Senator
Warren, welcome. Thanks for joining us.

ELIZABETH WARREN: Thank you. It’s good to be with you.

BACON: I want to start—you gave a big speech yesterday about the
Democratic Party, about where you want it to go, and you used two
terms that I want to define and talk about. The first was, you used
the phrase “big tent.” You defined big tent in a [particular] way;
you want to see the party [as a] big tent, and you defined it in a way
where you were wary of a certain kind of big tent.

So tell people who didn’t see the speech about your two views of a
big tent, and what kind of big tent you want to see for the party.

WARREN: OK, so remember that the underlying thread of this whole
speech is about how we win and about the importance of talking about
where families are economically right now. The economic pressure that
families are under.

So the question is: What does a big tent look like? And there are
folks within the Democratic Party who think that the big tent means
that we put together our economic plans and proposals with a very
careful eye on the billionaires and other wealthy donors.

So yeah, we talk about how it’s tough for working families, but we
put up proposals that nibble around the edges, that are modest, that
are simpatico to keeping the rich rich and everybody else struggling.
In other words, replicating a rigged system.

The alternative vision of the big tent is that we say,
full-throatedly, _We understand the problem. The problem is a rigged
system that keeps flowing more money to the top and less money to
everybody else. We have concrete plans to fix it, and here they are.
_And here comes the best part: _We’re damn well willing to get in
there and fight for them, and we’re willing to fight for them even
if it offends other Democrats and Democratic donors._

Those are two very different visions of the big tent, and my view is:
When the choice is between billionaires and everybody else, we win
when we choose everybody else.

BACON: In other words, Elon Musk can join the big tent if he wants to
pay taxes at a higher rate and not destroy the government, but the
tent is not going to be open to him for us to do what he wants.

WARREN: Let me say what you’re saying, only slightly differently.
[The] big tent is open. We’re just not going to change our message
for somebody who says, _Oh, but I could open my wallet and offer you
millions of dollars_—nope.

Our message is the right message for us, and we are committed to get
in there and fight for it.

BACON: The other term you used was “abundance.” And again, you
gave—there’s a positive view of abundance and a view of abundance
you want to avoid.

So talk about—unpack that term and why it can be useful, but can
obscure bad policies as well.

WARREN: OK, so abundance—what it means, or sometimes means—is just
inefficiency and red tape and _boy, isn’t that stupid?_

And I just want to say on this: The Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau should be the poster child on abundance. Because we took a
bunch of tangled consumer regulations spread across seven different
agencies—nobody was really effectively enforcing them—[and]
brought them all into one place. And here’s the best part: We not
only smoothed it out, we made them work so that families received ...
more than a billion dollars a year, every year, back from the CFPB.
Money the CFPB had collected because people had gotten cheated. So
there it is. The CFPB, it was abundance before abundance was hip.
That’s one way to think about abundance: Get rid of the tangle.

But there’s a second way, and that is to stop and think: Why does
law sometimes stay so tangled up? Why [is] it we can’t seem to do
any better? And now to pay attention to the role of giant corporations
and billionaires—the moneyed interest in perpetuating the
inefficiency.

Quick example on that: In most countries around the world, you can
file your taxes online for free. Duh. I have fought for years to get
free filing here in the United States. Instead, no, no, no. You got to
go drop a few hundred bucks with H&R Block or some other—TurboTax,
one of the tax folks—in order to pay your own taxes to your own
federal government. So I push, I push, I push, and finally, the
IRS—God bless them—they put together Free File and make it
available. It’s limited in its first kind of options when they put
it out there. It is _beloved_. People say, _This is fabulous_, _it
works terrifically_.

So what do the tax companies do? The minute Donald Trump gets elected
to office, they swoop in and get the whole thing wiped out, zeroed
out. Will not be the law.

So there’s an example of, yes, we are quite inefficient as a country
in terms of how ordinary folks file their taxes. But the reason for
that inefficiency is it’s corporations who figured out that those
inefficiencies keep costs high for consumers and keep profits even
higher for the corporations.

So my pitch here is if we want to talk about abundance and talk about
where the wheels have come off and we need to make things work a
little more smoothly, sure. But come on. Let’s take a look at how
corporations, billionaires have used abundance as a screen to say,
_Oh, government is just too inefficient_, _you guys shouldn’t be
regulating_, _you shouldn’t be trying to build anything_. _You
shouldn’t be investing anything_. In other words, to promote their
own economic agenda behind the screen of abundance, wearing the
abundance T-shirt.

BACON: You gave us the policy ideas that I want to—that I think a
lot of people agree with. A lot of them came from your campaign, that
was so excellent, of course. But I want to ask about two things other
Democrats are doing, just to get a sense of it.

One—and I’ll ask both of them at the same time—what can we
learn—we probably aren’t going to have a national free bus system,
or maybe we should, but we’re probably not going to—so what should
we learn from the Mamdani campaign? What should we take nationally
from what he ran [on]?

And then two, the governor of California came out today and said
he’s fiercely opposed and going to try to kill the proposed wealth
tax that is happening there, and I’d be curious what your response
is to what he said.

WARREN: Sure. So let’s do Mamdani first. I think what we can learn
from Mamdani is that you can come basically from nowhere—not a lot
of people knew who he was—and take down a political dynasty if you
listen to people about their economic lives. If you listen to them
about how expensive—in this case—it is to live in your city, how
expensive it is to be able to raise kids, to be able to pay your rent,
to be able to pay your groceries, and then come up with just a
few—don’t do them all at once—but a few concrete, measurable
proposals that people can—I always think of it like trying on shoes.
They can try that on in their minds and say, _Huh, that would be
really helpful to me._ Think of Zohran’s free buses, universal
childcare, and some access to public grocery stores in places where
there aren’t any groceries.

BACON: And the rent freeze, of course.

WARREN: There you go. That’s right. And rent freeze, you’re
exactly right, on the places that are eligible for that. You got four
things there. They’re not complicated. Every consumer can say, _I
see how that would affect my life_.

And that was enough. I really want to make a point here. That was not
only enough to get him across the finish line to win—it was enough
to bring out tens of thousands of people to knock on doors for him, to
show up at rallies for him, to talk to their neighbors about him. In
other words, it’s one thing to say, _Well, you had a lot of ads._

No. He had to build that thing from scratch. He got enough people
sharing the vision. And by the way, when people roll their eyes and
say, _Oh, that’s New York City, it’s very different _… Mikie
Sherrill did the same thing in New Jersey.

And remember her two big things. She said, _We’re going to do
childcare_. And on day one—she had the most radical proposal of
anybody—she said, _I’m going to put a price cap on day one on
utilities_. _Nobody’s going to pay more on their utilities_. She
wins by 14 points. I think that’s crucial. My views on wealth tax
are obviously well known since I was the one who started this. But the
question really becomes, why not? Come on. Most Americans get this—

BACON: Well, to be fair—he’s a Democrat. He’s making this sort
of technocratic argument that we’ll lose more money than we’ll
make, because billionaires will move. I want to make sure—he’s a
fellow Democrat, so he says some things I agree with often. So, is he
wrong for this? Does he see this wrong, still?

WARREN: Look, I always want to make the pitch here: The best way to do
a wealth tax is to do a national wealth tax. And this is one of the
pitches I made when I ran for president. We should be doing this
nationally so that deciding to jump across the state border doesn’t
change your tax status or how much you’re going to have to pay in
taxes.

In order to avoid it at a national level, you actually have to give up
your U.S. citizenship, and forfeit your passport. And so I want to be
fair about differences that one can talk about where you’re trying
to bring policies in.

But the part I want to underscore 10 times over is we cannot back up
from proposals like the wealth tax or like universal childcare because
it would mean an increase in taxes for the richest among us, just
because the donors don’t like it. And people will always find
another way to describe it.

Nobody will ever say, _Hey, look, I’m doing this because I took a
lot of money from the industry and that’s what they want_. Nobody
ever says that, but it really is important for Democrats to say: Are
we going to trim down our ambitions because we want to be really
friendly to the people who are going to pitch nickels into our
campaigns? Or do we recognize that we got to go in full force, all the
way? Full-throated?

I’m not stupid. I understand that money is important, and I don’t
believe in ... unilateral disarmament against the Republicans. But the
reality here, Perry, is that if worrying about the donors keeps us
from being bold, keeps us from ... fighting—if that’s what
happens, then the money just ain’t worth it.

BACON: Do you support this, just to be clear, in California?

WARREN: That’s right. We need to be in the fight, because we need to
establish that trust with working people: That we’re willing not
just to do what’s easy and everybody agrees to, but to do things
that are going to—there’re gonna be some rich people who aren’t
going to like it—and the answer has to be that we’re still
committed to do it.

Damn it, we are the Democrats. We’re the party that brought America
Social Security and the 40-hour workweek and overtime and
unions—real power and protection for unions. We’re the party that
did unemployment insurance. We’re the party that did homes for
returning veterans and homes for first-time homebuyers. That did
Medicare. We’re the party that did the Affordable Care Act and tried
to get coverage for everybody in this country. We need to be willing.

Every one of those was, by the way, a hard fight against the
Republicans. They voted no on all that stuff. We need to be the party
that is willing to stand up, willing to be bold, and willing to fight
for what families need to unrig this system.

BACON: I know you’ve got to go. But you’re a senator with a plan,
so I do want to ask. People are asking, across the country, about ICE.

Is there any—have you thought much about what we should do about
ICE? People are outraged by what they’re seeing. I’m outraged by
what I’m seeing. You’ve probably given this some thought. You may
not have a full-fledged proposal, but what are your thoughts about how
we can make ICE differently, or whether ICE should exist in the first
place?

WARREN: We need to reorganize our whole approach to immigration, and
yes, we need to enforce our immigration laws. Yes, we need to enforce
our borders, but it needs to be done differently, and we need more
restraints over people who are going into our neighborhoods.

I always think about the fact—going back to Donald Trump and his
run-up to the 2024 election, he promised two things: that he would
lower costs on day one, and he would keep us safe. He was going to
make this a safer country. You remember that? _Lower costs on day
one_. Cost of housing is up, cost of healthcare is up, cost of
utilities is up. Up, up, up. Cost of groceries is up. Because of his
policies.

Safe? Nobody is safer because of ICE invading our communities now,
throwing people down on the sidewalk, shooting when civilians are
around. He is not making America more affordable, and he’s not
making America safer. And it’s up to us to put those plans out there
and to show we’re willing to fight for them.

BACON: Senator, great to see you. Thank you for joining me.

WARREN: Good to see you. You take care.

_Right Now With Perry Bacon is a twice-weekly show about national
politics with a focus on the radicalism of the Trump administration
and tactics to combat it. The program, hosted by New Republic staff
writer __Perry Bacon_ [[link removed]]_
on __Substack_ [[link removed]]_, features in-depth
discussions with experts and politicians. It goes beyond the daily
headlines to explain why things are happening and put them in a
broader context._

 

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