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U.S. Senate seats seem to have changed Elizabeth Warren, left, and Hillary Clinton.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Washington (CNN) -- In the context of 2016, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren are rivals for the Democrats' presidential nomination whose every word about each other is scrutinized and picked apart.

But Warren and Clinton have been on the national stage for years, and before they were ever considered rivals, they met each other in the late '90s.

Warren spoke about the meeting in a 2004 interview on Bill Moyers' "NOW on PBS" show. Warren reflects glowingly of Clinton as first lady but also bluntly talks about how Clinton's election to the Senate in 2000 changed the former secretary of state.

In 1998, Warren -- an expert and professor on bankruptcy law -- wrote an op-ed for The New York Times titled "Bankrupt? Pay Your Child Support First," about how the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2000 would disproportionally hurt women and families trying to collect alimony checks from their ex-husbands.

The piece, Warren tells Moyers, was eventually read by then-first lady Clinton, whose office subsequently set up a meeting with the professor in Boston.

"After she's finished her speech, we're ushered into a tiny, little room somewhere in the bowels of this hotel, and just the two of us. They close the door. Mrs. Clinton sits down. We have hamburgers and french fries," Warren says.

Warren adds: "And she (Clinton) says, 'Tell me about bankruptcy.' And I got to tell you, I never had a smarter student. Quick, right to the heart of it. I go over the law. It's a complex law. Went over the economics. Showed her the graphs, showed her the charts. And she got it."

According to Warren, at the end of the briefing, Clinton stood up and said: "Professor Warren, we've got to stop that awful bill."

Read more:
Warren's unvarnished view of Hillary Clinton in 2004