New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand Announces 2020 Presidential Run

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Updated at 6:57 p.m. ET

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand says she is running for president, joining a growing number of Democrats who are seeking to challenge President Trump in 2020.

Gillbrand announced her decision on CBS's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, saying she is filing her exploratory committee for the White House on Tuesday evening.

"I'm going to run for president of the United States, because as a young mom, I'm going to fight for other people's kids as hard as I would fight for my own," Gillibrand told Colbert. "Which is why I believe that health care should be a right and not a privilege. It's why I believe we should have better public schools for our kids because it shouldn't matter what block you grow up on. And I believe that anybody who wants to work hard enough should be able to get whatever job training they need to earn their way into the middle class."

"But you are never going to accomplish any of these things if you don't take on the systems of power that make all of that impossible — which is taking on institutional racism, it's taking on the corruption and greed in Washington, taking on the special interests that write legislation in the dead of night," Gillibrand continued. "And I know that I have the compassion, the courage and fearless determination to get that done."

She is the second senator to enter the Democratic primary, after Massachusetts' Elizabeth Warren announced an exploratory committee on Dec. 31. Several other Democratic senators are also eyeing bids, including Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro is also running, as is Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

Gillibrand was appointed to the Senate in 2009, succeeding Hillary Clinton when she became secretary of state. Before that, Gillibrand served one term in the House representing the Albany area. She won a special election in 2010 to finish out Clinton's term and was re-elected in 2012 and 2018. In a debate last fall, Gillibrand said she would serve out her six-year term, which if she were to win the race for president, she would not do.

In a campaign video published shortly after she announced her exploratory committee, Gillibrand detailed many issues she has worked on, including transparency in government, not accepting corporate PAC money and helping push through the Sept. 11 health bill.

YouTube

The 52-year-old Gillibrand has long been seen as a possible presidential candidate. In the Senate, she has worked on legislation to combat sexual assault in the military and on college campuses, championed federal family leave and worked to elect more women to office.

"Sometimes people say, 'Well, why do you just focus on women's issues?' " Gillibrand told NPR in 2013. "Well, why do you focus on issues that pertain to 52 percent of the population? It's pretty important. And women are such the untapped potential in this economy."

Gillibrand's previous work on sexual assault and gender equality led to her becoming a leading voice in the #MeToo movement on Capitol Hill. In 2017, she was the first senator to call on Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., to resign after he was accused of sexual misconduct. That provoked the ire of some Democrats, who saw Franken as a progressive hero standing up to Trump and said that Gillibrand had rushed to judgment before the accusations against Franken had been vetted. Politico reported that could hurt her with some potential donors in a presidential campaign.

"It was very difficult because this is somebody I really do care about and think has done great work in the Senate," she told NPR in 2017 after Franken resigned. "But the truth is, if we are defending this behavior but not that behavior, and talking about this, the gradations between sexual assault versus harassment versus groping, and then where on the body you're groping — I just don't think that's the right conversation to be having."

Having represented a more conservative area in upstate New York, one issue where Gillibrand could come under scrutiny in the eyes of many Democrats is gun control. When she was appointed to the Senate in 2009, Gillibrand said, "It's an important part of upstate New York. So I'm going to be an advocate for hunters' rights. But there is so much area where there's common ground, where I can work together with anti-gun — with really solving the problem of gun violence."

She told CBS's 60 Minutes last year that she was "wrong" about her previous stances on gun control and was "embarrassed" by them.

"What it's about is the power of the NRA and the greed of that industry. Let's be clear. It is not about hunters' rights, it's about money," Gillibrand said.</s>
• Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand announced her widely-expected candidacy for the presidency on CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Tuesday.
• Asked why she was running, Gillibrand, a mother of two sons, said she would “fight for other people’s kids as hard as I would fight for my own.”
• Gillibrand joins a number of other popular Democrats who have made their own announcements ahead of the 2020 US presidential election

Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand announced her candidacy for the US presidency on CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Tuesday, a widely-expected political move amid similar announcements from other Democrats in recent days.

“So, I’m just curious,” “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert, asked Gillibrand. “Do you have anything you would like to announce?”

“And what would that be, madam,” Colbert asked.

“I’m filing an exploratory committee for president of the United States tonight,” Gillibrand said, amid cheers from the crowd.

Asked why she was running, Gillibrand, a mother of two sons, said she would “fight for other people’s kids as hard as I would fight for my own.”

Read more: New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is set to announce she’s running for president in 2020, according to reports

Gillibrand listed off a number of broad political issues she would take on as president, including healthcare reform and improving public schools, and added that all of her suggestions would be impossible to achieve “if you don’t take on the systems of power.”

“It’s taking on the corruption and greed in Washington,” Gillibrand said. “Taking on the special interests that write legislation in the dead of night. And I know that I have the compassion, the courage, and the fearless determination to get that done.”

Gillibrand joins a number of other popular Democrats who have made their own announcements ahead of the 2020 US presidential election. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, and former Housing and Urban Development secretary Julián Castro all announced they would be running.

Last week, Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California appeared on the show and gave a strong hint she, too, would be running for president.

You can watch Sen. Gillibrand’s announcement here »</s>Becoming the fourth official Democrat candidate for a White House bid in 2020, Democrat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has announced her intention to run for President.

Senator Gillibrand made the announcement in a rather goofy and awkward appearance on the Late Show with Steven Colbert. Senator wind-tester doesn’t stand a chance; no-one likes her, but it is a fun intellectual exercise to start putting the various candidate parallels together in the growing field of Democrats against the prior 2016 field of 17 Republicans.

Knowing it’s likely the ♦UniParty DNC is following a similar ♦UniParty RNC strategy, we can start to put the personal characteristics and political traits together and contrast them against 2016. Here’s the way it looks so far:
• Senator Ted Cruz was to 2016…. as Senator Elizabeth Warren is to 2020
• Senator Rand Paul was to 2016…. as Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is to 2020
• Senator Rick Santorum was to 2016…. as Senator Sherrod Brown is to 2020
• Governor Bobby Jindal was to 2016…. as Julian Castro is to 2020
• Governor Jim Gilmore was to 2016 as Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is to 2020

Once we get a few more names on the DNC side, we can start to have fun with the celebrity squares graphics:</s>WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand told CBS’ “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” that she would file paperwork on Tuesday night to explore a run for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2020 election.

Colbert, during the taping of an episode that will air on Tuesday night, asked Gillibrand, who has been taking the steps to begin a presidential campaign, if she had anything she would like to announce.

“Yes,” the lawmaker from New York said. “I’m filing an exploratory committee for president of the United States tonight.”

The formation of an exploratory committee will allow Gillibrand, 52, who is known for spearheading efforts to change how Congress handles allegations of sexual harassment and became a prominent voice in the #MeToo movement, to begin fundraising and organizing her campaign.

“I’m going to run for president of the United States because as a young mom I’m going to fight for other people’s kids as hard as I would fight for my own,” Gillibrand said to applause.

She has hired several top political aides in recent weeks, fueling speculation her jump into the 2020 fray was imminent.

There is no dominant early front-runner in what is expected to be a crowded Democratic nominating race to take on President Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee.

Texas Democrat Julian Castro, a former San Antonio mayor and top U.S. housing official, formally launched his White House bid on Saturday. Former U.S. Representative John Delaney has been running for more than a year. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts formed an exploratory committee last month and Representative Tulsi Gabbard said Friday that she will run for president.

Some in the party believe an establishment figure who can appeal to centrist voters is the way to victory. Others argue a fresh face, and particularly a diverse one, is needed to energize the party’s increasingly left-leaning base.

Gillibrand was a member of the centrist and fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition while in the House of Representatives. Her positions became more liberal after she was appointed to fill the Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton in New York when Clinton became former President Barack Obama’s secretary of state.

Gillibrand then won the seat in a special election and was re-elected to six-year terms in 2012 and 2018. She has attributed the ideology shift to representing a liberal state versus a more conservative district.

As a senator, Gillibrand was outspoken about rape in the military and campus sexual assault years before the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and assault first arose in 2017.

In late 2017, as she pushed for a bill changing how Congress processes and settles sexual harassment allegations made by staffers, some prominent party leaders criticized her for being the first Democratic senator to urge the resignation of Senator Al Franken, who was accused of groping and kissing women without their consent.

During the same period, Gillibrand said Hillary Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, should have resigned from the White House after his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky, which led to his impeachment by the House. Some criticized the senator for attacking the Clintons, who had supported her political career.

Gillibrand backs a Medicare-for-all bill championed by Democratic Party liberals. She was the first senator to call in June 2018 for the abolishment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amid controversy over Trump’s separation of families entering the country at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I believe healthcare should be a right and not a privilege,” Gillibrand told Colbert.

In a dig at Trump, Gillibrand said the first thing she would do if elected to the White House is “restore what’s been lost” like the “integrity and compassion of this country.”

“You have to start by restoring what’s been lost, restoring our leadership in the world, addressing things like global climate change and being that beacon of light and hope in the world,” Gillibrand said.

Trump and Gillibrand have sparred publicly in the past. In December 2017, the president targeted her with a sexually tinged tweet, calling her a “total flunky” who had “come to my office ‘begging’ for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them).”

“You cannot silence me or the millions of women who have gotten off the sidelines to speak out about the unfitness and shame you have brought to the Oval Office,” she wrote.</s>Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand announced in Troy, New York Wednesday that she is running for U.S. president.</s>New York: Democratic senator Kirsten Gillibrand took a major step toward announcing a 2020 presidential bid on Tuesday, saying she is launching an exploratory committee for a White House run.

"It's an important first step, and it's one I am taking because I am going to run," the New York senator said on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. She listed a series of issues she'd tackle as president, including better health care for families, stronger public schools and more accessible job training.

Gillibrand, 52, has already made plans to campaign in Iowa over the weekend, more than a year before the leadoff caucus state votes.

She joins what is expected to be a crowded primary field for the Democratic nomination that could feature more than a dozen candidates. Already, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren has announced her own exploratory efforts, and decisions by a number of other senators are expected in the coming weeks.</s>Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand held her first press conference this morning as a 2020 presidential candidate in her home state of New York. She announced Tuesday night that she is forming an exploratory committee to run for president, throwing her hat in the ring for the Democratic nomination in an appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."

"I have the passion and courage and fearless determination to get this done," she said during her announcement Wednesday morning. "I'm going to run for president of the United States because as a young mom, I will fight for your children, as my own health care should be right not a privilege."

Gillibrand is the second U.S. senator — and second female senator — to announce plans to begin the legal process of running for the Democratic presidential nomination. The 52-year-old is one of the most active and outspoken critics of President Trump and she earned acclaim from party activists when she began voting against all of the president's Cabinet and senior government nominees in early 2017.

She joins a Democratic presidential field that is beginning to take shape. Over the weekend, former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary Julián Castro formally launched his presidential bid, while Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren launched an exploratory committee on New Year's Eve. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii said over the weekend she plans to form an exploratory committee in the coming days. Several other senators, current and former governors and mayors, and former Vice President Joe Biden are still mulling potential campaigns.</s>Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said Tuesday that she will run for president in 2020.

Gillbrand, 52, said on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" that she is launching an exploratory committee.

"I'm going to run for president of the United States because as a young mom, I'm going to fight for other people's kids as hard as I would fight for my own," she said.

Gillibrand had told New Yorkers during her last campaign that if she won re-election she would not run for president in 2020.

Even so, recent actions hinted at her larger plans.

The senator spent so little during the midterms that she was left with a $10.7 million war chest, The New York Times recently reported.

She's also veered to the left in the past two years, latching onto national causes that energize the Democratic base and mobilize voters.

New York's junior senator was appointed in 2009 to fill the seat vacated by Hillary Clinton, who was named secretary of state.

She found a niche supporting women's rights early on, making sexual assault in the military and on college campuses a signature issue.

But after Trump's surprise victory in 2016, she staked an even bigger claim to matters that fire up the base. She gave a rousing speech at the Women's March in Washington a day after the inauguration.

Months later, she jumped on the nascent #MeToo movement and was the first to urge Sen. Al Franken to step down after sexual misconduct allegations.

She even called on Trump to resign when allegations against him resurfaced. The move prompted a nasty response from the president who called her a "lightweight" and a "total flunky for Chuck Schumer" who would do "anything" for a campaign contribution.

Her voting record has been one of the most anti-Trump in the Senate, according to analysis from The Washington Post.

"She's done an excellent job carving out a message and space for herself among the potential candidates," said political consultant and venture capitalist Bradley Tusk, who has advised former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

It may not be enough to catapult her to the top of what's expected to be a crowded Democratic field. In a recent MoveOn.org straw poll, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke of Texas, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont led the field. Gillibrand didn't even make the top 10. Among female potential candidates, Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have grabbed most of the attention.

Another potential stumbling block: Gillibrand hasn't always been a liberal firebrand. Earlier in her career, as a congresswoman from upstate New York, she was pro-gun and anti-immigrant.

Some say her move to the left was politically calculated to curry favor with downstate voters.

"She's very good at reading the media, reading the donors, reading the voters and pivoting to wherever she needs to be," said Tusk, who notes that her decision is no surprise. "Running for higher office is what good politicians do," he said.</s>The 2020 presidential race is starting to heat up, and the Democratic field could get crowded — fast.

Elizabeth Warren, Julian Castro and a handful of other well-known Democrats have seemingly tossed their hats into the presidential ring, and more popular politicians are likely to follow suit in the coming weeks. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said he'd consider a comeback after aiming to inspire a progressive movement during his 2016 campaign.

“If there’s somebody else who appears who can, for whatever reason, do a better job than me, I’ll work my a-- off to elect him or her,” Sanders told New York Magazine in November. “If it turns out that I am the best candidate to beat Donald Trump, then I will probably run.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden — as predicted — has stayed silent about his plans thus far.

Apparently, Biden's advisers have floated Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, as a potential running mate, given his recent rise in popularity. Despite losing the Texas Senate race to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, O'Rourke is still considered a "rising star" in his party.

In a January op-ed in The New York Times, titled "Run, Joe, Run," a columnist advised Biden to enter the race because he has "strengths that no other Democratic candidate does," citing his decades of experience and ties to the Obama administration.

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, an outspoken Trump critic, is expected to announce the formation of a 2020 exploratory committee during a Jan. 15 appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," CBS News reports.

As some political heavyweights continue to mull it over, take a look at those who have already made moves ahead of the 2020 election.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren took a major step in her political career by launching an exploratory committee for president in late December.

She made a splash on Dec. 31 when she released a campaign-style video that slams the "corrupt" government, making an appeal to her party's base.

5 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT MASSACHUSETTS SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN

"[The government] has been bought and paid for by a bunch of billionaires and giant corporations that think they get to dictate the rules that affect everyone," Warren tells supporters, adding, "that’s not how the government is supposed to work. You know it. I know it. And we know it is time to fight back."

Warren, who was reportedly a registered Republican well into her 40s, already tested out a stump speech in Sioux City, Iowa, telling a crowd in the first-in-the-nation caucus state "we need to make a structural change."

“We need to return politics to the people,” Warren said at the Jan. 4 event.

“I can’t stop Donald Trump from what he’s going to do, I can’t stop him from hurling racial insults, I don’t have any power to do that, but what I can do is I can be in this fight for all of our families,” she added.

The 69-year-old previously taught law at Harvard University. When Warren was hired at the Ivy League school in the early 1990s, there were only 60 tenured female professors, according to The Daily Beast. According to Harvard, Warren has written more than 100 educational articles and ten books. She’s also been awarded several teaching awards — at least two from Harvard.

Warren has also been a vocal critic of Wall Street — originally conceiving what became the government's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Former President Barack Obama appointed Warren to serve as assistant to the president and special advisor to the secretary of the treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in September 2010. Warren burst onto the national scene during the financial crisis with calls for greater consumer protections. She quickly became one of the party's more prominent liberals even as she sometimes fought with Obama administration officials over their response to the market turmoil.

Former Maryland Rep. John Delaney was the first person — by far — to announce his 2020 campaign. Delaney announced his intent to run for president in July 2017, just six months into Trump's presidency.

“I'm running for President,” Delaney, a wealthy former bank executive, tweeted on July 28, 2017.

Delaney, who is socially liberal, emphasized his pro-business views in his announcement.

PRESIDENT TRUMP GETS HIS FIRST 2020 CHALLENGER

“We need to encourage a more just and inclusive form of capitalism and reduce barriers to small-business formation, start-ups, job creation, investment and growth,” Delaney said.

He has already invested considerable time and money in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro is hoping to make history as the country's first Latino president. Castro, who served under Obama, announced his campaign for president in his hometown, San Antonio, on Jan. 12.

"I’m running for President because it’s time for new leadership and to make sure opportunities I had are available to every American," he said during his announcement speech, which focused on immigration.

Castro, the grandson of a Mexican immigrant, mocked Trump for claiming that the U.S. faces an "invasion" from its ally to the south. "He called it a national security crisis," Castro said. "Well, there is a crisis today. It's a crisis of leadership. Donald Trump has failed to uphold the values of our great nation."

Castro, 44, became San Antonio's youngest-ever city councilman in 2001 at just 26 years old, The Atlantic Journal-Constitution reports. Years later, he became the city's mayor, serving from 2009 to 2014. During that time, he was thrust into the limelight. In 2012, he delivered the Democratic National Convention keynote speech, leading political pundits to grant him the nickname "Latino Barack Obama," according to the Texas Tribune.

The Stanford University and Harvard Law School graduate was in the running to become Hillary Clinton's potential presidential running mate but ultimately lost to Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine.

Democrat Richard Ojeda, a retired Army paratrooper and West Virginia lawmaker, formalized his campaign for the presidency on Veterans Day 2018. He announced he was going to resign his state Senate seat on Jan. 12 to focus on campaigning for president in 2020.

The so-called "Trump Democrat," who has been branded as a "JFK with tattoos and a bench press" by Politico Magazine, is of Mexican descent and became a champion of teachers during their fight for better pay and benefits. He sponsored successful legislation to make medical marijuana legal and has stressed health care and economic issues.

Ojeda came under fire in September 2018 for allegedly threatening state delegate Rupie Phillips, writing in a Facebook message, "When I'm done with you, you will beg me to ease up. I’m going to make you famous… and it’s not going to be in a good way."

At the time, the Ojeda campaign didn't deny the message was sent but pushed back against its meaning.

“This is absurd and obviously not a threat of physical violence,” the campaign’s spokeswoman told Fox News. “Richard was speaking about exposing Del. Phillips for his corruption in the West Virginia legislature."

Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii is also planning to run for president in 2020.

"There are a lot of reasons for me to make this decision,” Gabbard told CNN on Jan. 12, though she plans to make a more formal announcement within the week. “There are a lot of challenges that are facing the American people that I'm concerned about and that I want to help solve.”

The 37-year-old Iraq War veteran, who served two tours of duty in the Middle East, is the first Hindu elected to Congress and the first member born in the U.S. territory of American Samoa. She has visited early primary and caucus states New Hampshire and Iowa in recent months and has written a memoir that’s due to be published in May.

The lawmaker made news during the 2016 presidential campaign when she opted to back Sanders instead of Clinton.

TULSI GABBARD, HAWAII DEMOCRAT, SAYS SHE WILL RUN FOR PRESIDENT IN 2020

“As a veteran of two Middle East deployments, I know first hand the cost of war,” Gabbard explained in a YouTube video in February 2016, per The New York Times. “I know how important it is that our commander-in-chief has the sound judgment required to know when to use America’s military power and when not to use that power.

“As a vice chair of the D.N.C., I am required to stay neutral in Democratic primaries, but I cannot remain neutral any longer. The stakes are just too high. That’s why today I’m endorsing Senator Bernie Sanders to be our next president and commander in chief of the United States," she concluded.

Gabbard’s run would not be without controversy.

In 2016, she alarmed fellow Democrats when she met with Donald Trump during his transition to president and later when she took a secret trip to Syria and met with President Bashar Assad, who has been accused of war crimes and genocide. She questioned whether he was responsible for a chemical attack on civilians that killed dozens and led the U.S. to attack a Syrian airbase.

She said she doesn’t regret the trip and considers it important to meet with adversaries if “you are serious about pursuing peace.” She also noted that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was based on faulty intelligence and said that she wanted to understand the evidence of the Syria attack.

Fox News' Madeleine Rivera, Alex Pappas, Lukas Mikelionis and The Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>Announcement season for the 2020 presidential election is upon us, and the Democratic field is looking more diverse than ever. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's 2020 announcement on Stephen Colbert's show revealed that she's the latest politician entering the arena, following Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Tulsi Gabbard.

"I am filing an exploratory committee for president of the United States tonight," Gillibrand said on Stephen Colbert's The Late Show.

Although Gillibrand technically announced her exploratory committee, legally speaking, it's effectively the same thing as announcing her candidacy. That's because, as Vox explained, politicians must file a statement of their candidacy with the Federal Election Commission in order to form a formal exploratory committee in the first place.

Gillibrand has been hinting at her 2020 aspirations for some time now. Following the November midterm elections, in which she easily secured her Senate seat with 68 percent of the vote, she told the Late Show host she would be giving a presidential run "a long, hard thought of consideration." Now, that interview has come full circle.

"I do think it's an important question," she told Colbert at the time when he asked if she would be running. "I believe it is a moral question for me ... And as I've traveled across my state, across this country for all these candidates, I've seen the hatred and division that President Trump has put out into our country and it has called me to fight as hard as I possibly can to restore the moral compass of this country."

More to come ...
Democratic U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York announces she is running for president in 2020.