Barney Frank Stumps for Elizabeth Warren as Hillary’s VP on ‘Chelsea’
Former Democratic Rep. Barney Frank used his appearance on Chelsea Handler’s show to make the case for Elizabeth Warren as vice president.
Barney Frank has been out of Congress since 2013, which makes him a more fun late-night talk show guest than most politicians. And the former Massachusetts representative’s appearance on Chelsea Handler’s Netflix show this week was no exception.
Referring to a bit from earlier in the show when the host had a male model strip down to his tighty-whities to demonstrate what men should and shouldn’t wear, Frank said he was a little “nervous” that Handler might make him get naked as well. “I forgot where I’m supposed to start, what comes off first.”
“It’s top down, you don’t want to be caught bottomless, Barney,” she said, to which Frank replied, “Very important to tell a gay man.”
Soon they moved on to more important matters, like the vice presidential selection process of Frank’s preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton. “I am very much an enthusiast for Senator Elizabeth Warren,” Frank said of his fellow New Englander, explaining that he worked with her starting in 2009 on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency Donald Trump has vowed to abolish.
Frank said the theory that Wall Street donors will abandon Clinton if she chooses Warren is overblown, adding, “They don’t get a veto.” He added that people are “unfairly skeptical” that Clinton is capable of being tough on bankers. “I think Elizabeth Warren would do the best job of reassuring the people who voted for Sanders,” he said.
As for those who believe the country isn’t ready for two women on one ticket, Frank said it might be the perfect way to upend her reputation for being too much a part of the establishment. “A woman for president of the United States is about as unconventional as you can get, given our history,” he said. “For her to defy the rules and pick another woman as her running mate is one more sign that no, she’s not the staid, stolid person they say [she is].”Later in the show, Handler brought out Weston Lindemann, a 19-year-old delegate for the Democratic National Convention, who just happens to support Bernie Sanders and predicted that many of the Vermont senator’s voters will never vote for Clinton no matter how much she courts them.
“I hope that the number that are not going to vote for Hillary Clinton will diminish,” Frank said, arguing that Sanders’ biggest issues are also priorities for Clinton. “She’s not just better than Donald Trump,” he said. “Saying someone is better than Donald Trump is like saying…” He paused, for once unable to come up with an apt analogy. “It’s hard to say, because that’s such a low bar.”