“[W]hen the going got tough, his economic team picked Wall Street,' Warren said. | Rod Lamkey Jr. for POLITICO Warren blasts Obama over Wall St.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is criticizing President Barack Obama for siding with Wall Street after the 2008 financial crisis.

The Massachusetts Democrat, who has become a favorite among the liberal wing of the party, praised Obama for some decisions on economic issues but said he and his advisers “picked Wall Street” over American families.


“[W]hen the going got tough, his economic team picked Wall Street,” Warren said in an interview with Salon published on Sunday.

“They protected Wall Street,” the senator continued. “Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. Not young people who were struggling to get an education. And it happened over and over and over.”

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Warren’s comments echo similar sentiments she expressed in her book published earlier this year. In the memoir, she said “the president’s team chose Wall Street” after the crisis and that she was upset about the Obama administration’s “lost opportunity” for failing to taken bolder action on financial regulatory reform.

But Warren did praise Obama for fighting to build and protect the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency she proposed while teaching at Harvard University and which was instituted as part of the Dodd-Frank regulatory bill.

“If Barack Obama had not been president of the United States we would not have a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Period,” she said. “I’m completely convinced of that.” In her book, Warren describes Obama’s resolve in sticking by the agency despite substantial Republican opposition. The senator served as a special adviser to the agency and was initially seen as the favorite to run it, but was removed from consideration in the face of stiff GOP resistance.

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Some in the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party have called on Warren to run for president in 2016, saying she would present an alternative to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the potential front-runner who has received some criticism for her ties to Wall Street. Warren, who has emerged as one of the party’s harshest critics of Wall Street and big banks, has consistently downplayed her interest in a potential presidential bid.