Warren exhorts Democrats
Says party has no time for infighting
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren tried to rally beleaguered Democrats at a town hall in Lowell last night, decrying the party’s woeful track record in recent special elections saying it “sucks” to keep losing to the GOP.
“I get it,” said Warren, answering a question about what can be done to remove House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. “It’s tough out there right now for the Democrats. You don’t have to remind me. … 0-for-4 in special elections — that sucks.”
But she cautioned that Democrats have too much at stake in Washington to spend time infighting.
“The one thing we’ve got to do is we’ve got to keep in mind that we can’t be spending our energy shouting at each other,” said Warren. “Boy, now more than ever we have got to keep our eye on what the Republican majority in the House and Senate and Donald Trump in the White House will do to America.”
Warren’s comments came on the heels of a bruising loss in a special election in Georgia on Tuesday, where Republican Karen Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff by about 6 points, despite Democrats pouring in tens of millions of dollars and hyping the showdown as a referendum on President Trump.
In South Carolina the same night, Republican congressional candidate Ralph Norman beat Democrat Archie Parnell by a 3-point margin. The GOP also grabbed House seats recently in Montana and Kansas.
U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Salem) was quick to knock how Democrats have handled the post-presidential election era as news of the losses came in.
“#Ossof Race better be a wake up call for Democrats — business as usual isn’t working,” Moulton tweeted. “Time to stop rehashing 2016 and talk about the future.”
Moulton has also called for a “new generation of leadership in the party,” in a shot at longtime House leader Pelosi.
“Se th makes a very legitimate point,” Warren told reporters after the town hall last night. “He wants to see leadership evolve. That’s fine. I just want to be really clear that we’re not firing at each other. There are always changes. When I came into the Senate, Harry Reid was the leader. … Now it’s Chuck Schumer. The leadership team has changed. I understand there are changes.”
Warren — who has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2020 — also blasted the Republican health care bill, calling it a “tax-cut bill” aimed at protecting the wealthy. Republicans in the Senate hope to vote on the bill by next week, but key GOP holdouts could block that plan.
“Republicans have said it’s more important to give tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires than it is for us to help provide medical care for millions of our citizens,” Warren said. “This is not an economics decision. This is a values decision. This is a measure of who we are as a people.”
Warren did say she would be open to meeting with the group Veterans Assisting Veterans, which is alleging that the Bay State senator puts the priorities of illegal immigrants ahead of those of war vets.
“Look, all three of my brothers are veterans and I have been very committed on veterans issues long before I got into the United States Senate, both at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the research work I’ve done,” she said. “And, now in particular that I’m on the Armed Services Committee, advancing bills to help veterans in every way that I can. I think my office has reached out and I’m glad to meet with anybody.”