Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) took her obsession with campaign trail “selfies” to a new level during Thursday evening’s Democrat debate, mentioning them multiple times throughout the night.
Warren’s “selfies” — which are not technically selfies, as selfies require one of the individuals in the picture to take the picture — have become a hallmark of her campaign. The “selfies” trail back months. She claimed to have taken roughly 42,000 selfies as of August and told GQ that it energizes her and allows her to connect with voters.
“I get to hear from one person after another what they want me to hear. Anything! This is their chance, and they can tell me anything they want as they come through that selfie line. And it keeps me connected to people in a powerfully important way,” she explained.
The presidential hopeful has stayed consistent in her pursuit of “selfies,” taking approximately 4,000 following her Manhattan rally in September. The process reportedly took four hours.
Warren on Thursday mentioned her “selfies,” which she claims amount to 100,000, a number of times during the PBS NewsHour/Politico debate.
Here are all of those instances:
Warren responded to a question related to her age by saying she has taken 100,000 selfies:
And for me, the best way to understand that is to look at how people are running their campaigns in 2020. You know, I made the decision when I decided to run not to do business as usual. And now, I’m proud to have been in 100,000 selfies. That’s 100,000 hugs and handshakes and stories, stories from people who are struggling with student loan debt, stories from people who can’t pay their medical bills, stories from people who can’t find child care.
The moderator interrupted Warren to move on during the same question, but she fought for more time and mentioned her selfies again:
Those selfies — no, I want to finish this. Those selfies cost nobody anything. And I get it. In a democracy, we all have a lot of different points of view. And everybody gets one vote.
But here’s the thing. People who can put down $5,000 to have a picture taken don’t have the same priorities as people who are struggling with student loan debt or who are struggling to pay off medical debt.
I want — I’m running a campaign where people whose voices get heard…we can’t have…
During a question about free college — and the critique that Warren’s plan would allow wealthy families to send their children to public colleges for free — Warren mentioned her selfies again:
We want to have families. I meet families every day in the selfie lines who talk about what it means to be crushed by student loan debt. That’s why I have a proposal popular among Democrats, popular among Republicans, popular among independents, to ask those at the top to pay a little more so somebody can get rid of that student loan debt so they can make an investment in themselves, start a small business, buy a car, create a future for themselves and for this country.
Toward the end of the debate, Woodruff asked candidates if they would, in the spirit of the holiday season, name a candidate they would give a gift to or ask forgiveness from. Warren asked for forgiveness and got emotional as she brought up one of her selfie experiences:
PBS NewsHour/POLITICOI will ask for forgiveness. I know that sometimes I get really worked up, and sometimes I get a little hot. I don’t really mean to.
What happens is, when you do 100,000 selfies with people…
… you hear enough stories about people who are really down to their last moments. You know, I met someone just last week in Nevada who said that he has diabetes and that he has access to a prescription because he’s a veteran. But his sister has diabetes and his daughter has diabetes, and they simply can’t afford insulin. So the three of them spend all of their time figuring out how to stretch one insulin prescription among three people.
When I think about what we could do if we get a majority in the House, a majority in the Senate, and get back the White House, we could make this country work for people like that man. And that’s why I’m in this fight:
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