Sexual harassment
On the heels of a fiery debate Wednesday night in Nevada, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren appeared on ABC’s The View, the morning after the flying verbal volleys on stage.
Many of those shots came from Warren — and Thursday on The View she addressed her feisty performance — going after former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who in turn had testy moments between each other.
Her immediate jab at Bloomberg over how he allegedly has treated women in his employ set the tone for the entire debate, and coming off disappointing finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, it was clear that Warren viewed Wednesday’s debate as a make or break moment for her campaign.
“I’d like to talk about who we’re running against. A billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians, and no I’m not talking about Donald Trump, I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg,” Warren said during the debate to audible gasps in the debate hall, alluding to the slew of recent stories on the mistreatment of women in the workplace at Bloomberg’s companies.
Right off the top, Warren was asked about the shots fired at her many fellow Democrats — and whether it was it misdirected when the eventual target is President Donald Trump.
“Look, the Democrats have to pick the person who has the best possible chance at beating Donald Trump. So this is about beating Donald Trump. It’s about who’s going to be able to do that. And yesterday mayor Bloomberg announced that everyone should drop out of the race except himself and Bernie Sanders, and they should decide who the nominee will be. Well, I take exception to that. I’ve been told to sit down and be quiet enough in my life. I’m ready to stay in this fight.”
Part of that job, she said, was to shed light on Bloomberg’s record when it comes to women.
“The American people are not going to take kindly” to his comments about women she said adding that she feels he is a “risky candidate” to choose… “We need someone with rock solid values who has a history of getting change done. And who knows how to find. That’s why I’m in this race.”
Warren hit Bloomberg again on what she sees as his lack of transparency about his record and the danger that might pose to the Democratic party’s bid against Trump.
“The Democrats should not appoint someone who has a history of embracing racially outrageous practices like stop and frisk and redlining,” she told the show’s hosts and added that she doesn’t feel the party should nominate someone who has “been charged with discrimination against women, or with sexual harassment. And it’s just shoveled some of his money to cover it up.”
Warren also came at Bloomberg on Thursday morning for his past support of stop and frisk — a controversial policing tactic that disproportionately impacted blacks and Latinos during his tenure as mayor. Bloomberg has since apologized for supporting the practice since entering the 2020 presidential race.
“I listened to his apology for stop and frisk. And I thought it was just wholly wrong,” Warren said. “To suddenly years later, the days before he announced, that he wants to be president of the whole United States. He suddenly comes up with, Oh, I’m so sorry that I had a plan that inadvertently hurt people – you know that is just simply not good enough, it reveals his character. It reveals his understanding of race in America.”
She called the timing of his apology and subsequent tour to black enclaves around the country to seek to vocalize his contrition disingenuous.
“I am not a person of color… I have not been thrown across the hood of a car in my own neighborhood,” Warren continued. “But I try to learn from the people who have – and it is clear that what Mayor Bloomberg has learned so far is that he can hire enough ads have enough money that he can insulate himself from any recognition of what his actions did to other human beings, and it was wrong, and he is not accounted for it.”
Warren continued to rail at Bloomberg on issues of race, emphasizing as she has in recent days on his recently resurfaced comments from 2008, regarding the discriminatory housing practice of redlining. A recent AP report outlined how Bloomberg, then mayor, said the elimination of redlining was responsible for instigating the economic meltdown at that time.
“I was one of the people out there ringing the alarm bell as loud as possible over the deregulation of the banks that ultimately let them target communities of color, target seniors, target military members in order to sell them the worst of the worst mortgages and then finally spread them throughout this country,” Warren said. “Now, mayor Bloomberg was busy blaming the financial crash on African-Americans and Latinos who bought homes… the idea that somehow the billionaire who figured out how to suck wealth out of every community and help the rich get richer and shut up the voices of anyone along the way that he stepped on, that that is what capitalism is and that nobody else gets to be a capitalist?” Warren continued.
“These are things we can build from a market economy, but it’s got to be a market with rules, and that’s what I believe in. Bloomberg wants to write me off because I enforce those rules? My answer is I’m willing to stand up to this billionaire and say enough is enough,” she said.
Her pointed line of attack comes as Warren herself battles a slide from the top of the Democratic pack, limping out of the first two early state contests: a third place finish in Iowa, fourth in New Hampshire. Now, however, Warren has made it clear – she’s ready for a fresh fight.
A strong showing at the Nevada caucuses this weekend could help to reestablish her campaign and reengage her as a potential front-runner.
In what marks a complete shift from her debate strategy to this point, Warren consistently and aggressively attacked her rivals on topic after topic.
She also called her rivals out on health care — one of her signature issues — reducing Buttigieg’s plan to a “slogan” and a “powerpoint,” and Klobuchar’s even further – a post-it note.
In a sign that her performance may have resonated, at least with her supporters, Warren had the best fundraising hour of her entire campaign during the debate, including $425,000 raised in just half an hour at one point. Her campaign tweeted that they raised $2.8 million from tonight’s debate.