Warren: I'm ready to be commander in chief

After endorsing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president on MSNBC, Elizabeth Warren asserted that she felt confident in her ability to serve as commander in chief.

Appearing on "The Rachel Maddow Show," Warren was pointedly asked about the mounting speculation over whether Clinton would choose her as her running mate. Warren said she hadn't spoken with Clinton about the job.


Maddow went a step further, however, asking the Massachusetts senator if she felt she'd be capable of stepping in to fill in the role of commander in chief.

"If you were asked to be Secretary Clinton's running mate, do you believe you could do it? And by that I mean the most important job of being a vice president is to be ready to be president if, God forbid, something happened to the commander in chief. I know you don't want the job, but do you believe you would be capable of stepping into that job and doing that job if you were ever called to do it?" Maddow asked.

"Yes, I do," Warren confidently replied.

The statement comes on the heels of intense speculation over whether Clinton, by picking Warren — a darling of the progressive wing of the Democratic party — could help bring wayward Bernie Sanders supporters into the fold.

Earlier on Thursday, Clinton told POLITICO in an interview that Warren was indeed "qualified" to be vice president.

"I have the highest regard for Senator Warren," she said. "I think she is an incredible public servant, eminently qualified for any role. I look forward to working with her on behalf of not only the campaign and her very effective critique of Trump, but also on the issues that she and I both care about."

That remark came after longtime Clinton ally Ed Rendell, the former governor of Pennsylvania, said he didn't think Warren was up to the job.

"I think she will not pick somebody that she feels in her heart isn't ready to be president or commander in chief. I think Elizabeth Warren is a wonderful, bright, passionate person, but with no experience in foreign affairs and not in any way, shape or form ready to be commander in chief," Rendell said in a radio interview earlier this week.