under trump s skin and trump does not like being taken on by powerful people, particularly powerful women. warren is one of the leading voices of the democratic party today. yet she s only been a senator since 2013 and her path to washington has been anything but straightforward. her life is a story of real perseverance and unexpected turns. and that narrative starts from the very beginning. i was a late in life baby, as they used to be called back then. and my mother always called me the surprise. i was about 30 before it occurred to me what that meant. elizabeth ann herring is born june 22, 1949 in oklahoma city, oklahoma. she s the youngest of four and the only girl in donald and pauline herring s family. they always saw themselves as middle class people.
often dashing through senate hall, sidestepping reporters while her aides try to keep up. mostly you see her walking really fast through the halls, usually carrying literature and getting ready to question somebody at a hearing. i believe in what the democrats fighting for. early on warren rises in the democratic party. still she s not afraid to go against president obama. on his policies. are you ready to fight? all right. no more secret trade deals. and his appointments. she opposes larry somers as president obama s favorite candidate to head the federal reserve in 2013. she saw him as part of the wall street wing of the democratic party. she derails the nomination of an investment banker named antonio weiss to a top division in the treasury department. enough is enough with wall street insiders getting key position after key position.
this is somebody who s image who s selling point, who s appeal is that she s genuine. and then they looked at that and they said, boy, that sounds kind of like there is a calculation there. everybody we talked to kind of said the same exact thing and gave us the same information that it didn t play any role the her employment. i never got any benefit for my native american heritage. the people who hired me have been absolutely clear on this point. that they didn t know and didn t care. her responses don t satisfy everyone. but warren wins the party s endorsement at the june convention. but her republican opponent scott brown raises the native american issue to attack her character in the first debate. claimed she was a native american. a person of color. and as you can see she s not. that may have back fired because a lot of people then did see it as at least somewhat
the hard part was then going back and telling the people i d hired that i wasn t going to be able to stay. but you know, sometimes you got to be the grown up. even before warren steps aside, some around her have an idea of what she could do next. i wanted barack obama to appoint her to head the agency. and i said if they don t confirm her, she can run for the senate. and he said, do you think you want to be a senator? i said yeah she wanted to be a senator. might even want your job. she s got start somewhere. she was untest bud proved very quickly she s in the senate race she s got that. very quickly she s in the senate race she s got that.
states senate. in the summer of 2011, democrats are looking to oust republican scott brown who a year and a half earlier shocked the reliably blue state of ma by capturing the late ted kennedy s senate seat. democrats look to elizabeth warren. so suddenly democrats in massachusetts looking around and saying hey, you know, she couldn t get confirmed maybe that run the cfpb but i think she d make a good messenger in this senate race. warren hasn t held or even run for public office before enter she never saw herself as the politician and that is part of why i thought she d be a terrific senator. reluctant at first she officially enters the race in september at 62 zblun tested but proved very quickly in that senate vase she s got that. warren hits her first real stumble when a controversy