At Brown, Warren downplays 2020 presidential talk

PROVIDENCE — Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren avoided talk of a possible presidential run during a speech the day after winning a second term, instead focusing on what she called “a government that works for everyone,” not just the few.

The Massachusetts senator spoke to a crowd at Brown University on Wednesday, the day after a midterm election in which Democrats won the House but lost seats in the Senate.

Warren has pledged to take a hard look at a presidential run but didn’t address that during the speech. After the speech, she declined to answer when asked her timeline for a de- cision.

Instead, she blasted “trickle-down economics” and how deregulation and tax cuts have hurt everyday people, and said government has a role to play in helping people’s lives.

“Government matters,” she said. “It matters enormously.”

Many of the new Democrats coming to Washington ran “on a very progressive agenda that government is an important part our lives, and that government should have a role to play in helping make sure that every one of us gets access to affordable health care, that we have access to an education, that Social Security survives and is strong and robust,” Warren said.

A frequent foil to President Donald Trump, she made several references to him during her talk, including when two students raised a DNA test she released providing evidence of a Native American in her lineage, asking her about a video she released with it and why she waited so long to address it.

Warren replied that she had been attacked by Trump and her Senate opponents about her ancestry, and that she wanted to be transparent.