WASHINGTON — Senator Elizabeth Warren set off a new round of speculation about her presidential ambitions last week by sparking a liberal rebellion against a spending bill, as outside groups stepped up an effort to draft her.
Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, often answers the question in the present tense — “I’m not running” — which leaves room for her to change her mind.
In an interview that aired Monday on National Public Radio, she was pressed several times about her use of the present tense. After saying again that she is not running, she added another flourish she sometimes uses: “You want me to put an exclamation point at the end?”
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Warren has answered the question more definitively before. Last year, the Globe asked her at a news conference in Boston whether she would make a a more ironclad pledge to serve out her Senate term, which ends in January 2019.
“I pledge to serve out my term,” she said at the time.
On Monday, Warren’s spokeswoman, Lacey Rose, was asked by the Globe in an e-mail whether the senator stood by that pledge.
“Yep, nothing has changed,” Rose replied.
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