Today was a busy news day for political junkies. Leading off was the official endorsement of Hillary Clinton by President Obama. Obama released video of his support following a White House meeting with Sen. Bernie Sanders. However, what is likely to be best remembered is the scorching treatment Donald Trump got from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the woman he derisively and offensively calls “Pocahontas.”
In a speech before the American Constitution Society, Warren held nothing back as she blistered the GOP’s most embarrassing nominee in decades. The best way to appreciate this is to watch the whole speech yourself (video below), but here are some choice excerpts. Warren began by setting up the problem:
“What we’ve seen over the past three years, accelerating over the past three months and even the past three weeks, is alarming. Powerful interests are launching a full scale assault on the integrity of the federal judiciary and its judges.”
Warren went on to criticize Republicans in Congress for trying to “undermine the fundamental principle of equal justice under law” by “extremist Republicans who reject the legitimacy of President Obama” in order to “advance the agenda only of the wealthy and powerful.” She tied all of this to the unprecedented obstruction of Judge Merrick Garland, Obama’s appointment to the Supreme Court, who Senate Republicans refuse to even consider.
And then she put forth the main event: “Even disqualifying judges based on their professional background isn’t enough for Donald Trump.”
“Trump tells everyone who will listen that he is a great businessman. But let’s be honest. He is just a guy who inherited a fortune and kept it rolling along by cheating people. And you know, when that’s you’re business model, sooner or later you’re gonna run into legal trouble. And Donald Trumphas run into a lot of legal trouble.”
This was Warren’s introduction to her commentary on Trump University. She noted that Trump’s own former employees referred to it as “one big fraudulent scheme.” She also pointed out how Trump U’s playbook directed his salespeople to target financially vulnerable victims who would be unable to fight back.
Warren’s speech also covered Trump’s vile, racist attacks of Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is presiding over the Trump U case in San Diego. She noted that Trump sent his “army of surrogates” out to smear Curiel and ridiculed Trump’s theory that his “own bigotry compromises the judge’s neutrality.”
“As all federal judges, Judge Curiel is bound by the federal code of judicial ethics not to respond to these attacks. Trump is picking on someone who is ethically bound not to defend himself. Exactly what you would expect from a thin-skinned, racist bully.”
Then Warren outlined the heroic record of Curiel, a man who served as a prosecutor who took on Mexican drug cartels at risk to his own life. He lived for a year in seclusion, under the protection of federal agents. He was later appointed to a California state court by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and then to the federal bench by President Obama. It is a record of honor that Warren then contrasts with Trump:
“That’s what kind of a man Judge Curiel is. What kind of a man is Donald Trump? Donald Trump says that Judge Curiel should be ashamed of himself. No Donald. You should be ashamed of yourself. Ashamed for using the megaphone of a presidential campaign to attack a judge’s character and integrity simply because you think you have some God-given right to steal people’s money and get away with it. You shame yourself and you shame this great country”
Warren continued…
“Donald Trump says ‘they don’t look into what Judge Curiel is doing because Judge Curiel is a total disgrace.’ No, Donald, what you are doing is a total disgrace. Race-baiting a judge who spent years defending America from the terror of murderers and drug traffickers simply because long ago his family came to America from somewhere else? You Donald Trump are a total disgrace.”
The distinctions between Judge Curiel and Donald Trump could not be more stark. And Warren laid them out with righteous vigor:
“Judge Curiel is one of countless American patriots who has spent decades quietly serving his country. Sometimes at great risk to his own life. Donald Trump is a loud, nasty, thin-skinned fraid who has never risked anything for anyone and who served no one but himself.”
With that Warren promised that Trump would “never be President of the United States.” Then she made sure to tie Republican leaders like House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to Trump’s bigotry. She called Trump a Mitch McConnell kind of candidate who would “execute a full-scale assault on the integrity of our courts.” And she said that the GOP wants the law to tilt “in favor of big businesses and billionaires,” they just want Trump to “quit being so vulgar and obvious about it.”
Warren closed with a rousing appeal to activism saying that…
“Now is not the time to stand by. Now is the time to stand up.” And that “We will not allow a small, insecure, thin-skinned, wannabe tyrant, or his allies in the Senate, to destroy the rule of law in the United States of America”
This speech is well worth watching in full for the inspirational drama it provides. You can be sure that Trump will watch it and respond with some asinine and insulting crack about “Pocahontas” or what a loser she is. Rest assured that he will not respond with anything substantive to the issues she raised because he is simply incapable of doing so.
[Update: As predicted, Trump responded in his typically juvenile way with a tweet saying “Pocahontas is at it again! Goofy Elizabeth Warren, one of the least productive U.S. Senators, has a nasty mouth. Hope she is V.P. choice.” No substance, no counter-argument, no sign of intelligent life, just insults]
How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.
