Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand formally enters the 2020 presidential race

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) announced on Tuesday that she is launching a presidential exploratory committee.

See more

Gillibrand shared the news while taping an episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, telling the host she has the "compassion, the courage, and the fearless determination" to take on corruption and greed in Washington, institutional racism, and "special interests that write legislation in the dead of night."

She also told Colbert she will "fight for other people's kids as hard as I will fight for my own," and she believes 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." Colbert asked Gillibrand the first thing she would do if elected, and she said in addition to taking action on climate change, she would "restore what's been lost — the integrity and the compassion of this country. If you want to get things done, you have to get people together." Gillibrand, a vocal critic of President Trump, was re-elected in November.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.