In his final interview as governor of Massachusetts on necn's Broadside, Deval Patrick said U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren's message is important for the country to hear.
Patrick said Warren is a credible public figure, no matter what she decides for 2016.
"Her emphasis on how we make the American Dream real for the middle class and the middle class wannabes, like I used to be, is a factor and will be a factor in the presidential election, and it should be," he said.
He also said that while he's concerned about economic inequality, he's more worried about economic mobility in the United States.
"The middle class today is a paycheck away from being poor, and they're deeply anxious about it," he said.
Economic growth needs to grow outwards to create opportunities for everyone instead of just growing upwards, Patrick said.
Deval Patrick, the country's first two-term black governor, also told host Jim Braude that race has played a role in the expectations of his administration. When he was elected, he recalled that issues such as street crime and neighborhood violence, which was usually the responsibility of a mayor, was falling into his lap.
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"I resisted it because it seemed to me that was really not the governor's traditional role, but I came to understand that there were different kinds of expectations," he said.
The governor also said he gets questions on national stories with elements of race, including the grand jury decisions over Ferguson, Missouri, and the New York City police officer chokehold, that previous governors would not have gotten about "what all people of color are thinking, what I'm thinking."
Patrick said people are upset after the grand jury decisions in New York and Ferguson because they want accountability.
As for the protests that have sprung up in Boston after the grand jury decisions, Patrick said he feels like people are trying to figure out what they're going to do about it now.
"I think that's been a hard conversation to get going," he said.
So what does Governor Patrick have planned after leaving the state's top job? Find out in the above video.
