Elizabeth Warren was made for this moment. Joe Biden should recognize that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/22/elizabeth-warren-is-vice-president-country-needs-right-now/

There’s little doubt the medical and economic catastrophe of the coronavirus pandemic will dominate the presidential race. On Wednesday, Axios published a Joe Biden campaign memo revealing his plan to make the case against President Trump, based on the president’s corrupt, inept and out-of-touch response to the coronavirus pandemic. The former vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee can strengthen his argument by selecting Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as his vice president. There is no one better equipped than Warren to help make the case Republicans are largely responsible for both the mounting death toll and economic carnage of covid-19.

In little more than a month, 22 million Americans have lost their jobs as economic activity ground to a halt. A Gallup poll conducted over the first half of April found 1 in 4 Americans agreeing it was more likely than not they would be unemployed at some point in the next year. And according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, 3 out of 4 Americans say the economy is in either “poor” or “fair” shape.

The Massachusetts senator has the perfect background for this moment. Warren first achieved academic and public prominence studying bankruptcy, talking repeatedly with families plunged into a financial abyss through unemployment or a health crisis. She went on to co-write a seminal book about the financial plight of the American family, “The Two-Income Trap,” which even counts Fox News host Tucker Carlson among its fans. She offered advice and sympathy to financially overwhelmed families on daytime television shows. Like Biden’s talent for connecting with voters when the subject is grief and emotional loss, Warren’s ability to tap into Americans’ financial fears is all but unique among national politicians.

Then there is Warren’s ability to tie the financial plight of American families to the United States’ culture of legalized corruption. This connection has been grotesquely clear during the coronavirus pandemic. Multiple members of Congress sold off stock after receiving confidential briefings on the growing epidemic. Congressional debates over economic stimulus set off a corporate lobbying gold rush. The relief bills passed have repeatedly favored the richest and most connected, including what Warren called a $500 billion “slush fund” for the largest corporations, while leaving everyone else fighting over scraps. Most recently, a loophole in the Paycheck Protection Plan allowed publicly traded companies like Ruth’s Chris Steak House to get their oven mitts on money meant to help small businesses survive. As the inequities have piled up, Warren has remained vigilant, calling out Trump administration officials and warning them she’s keeping an eye on the money.

Warren can point to a long record of fighting corruption. Corruption, she said in 2018 while debuting a tough bill taking the all too ubiquitous issue on, is “like a cancer eating away at our democracy.” It was a centerpiece of her presidential campaign, too. Speaking in New York’s Washington Square Park last year, in the shadow of the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, she said of the first Gilded Age, “Business owners got richer, politicians got more powerful, and working people paid the price,” adding, “Does any of that sound familiar?” It should.

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