Senator Elizabeth Warren has been fighting an amazing Twitter war with Donald Trump for months. Yesterday, during a speech in DC, she took their war of words offline, and delivered a blistering attack on Trump, emphasizing, as Greg Sargent observed, that "Trump is not just a small, greedy person, but a cruel one, too."
Here are some highlights from her address, with transcript below.
Unfortunately, if you've been watching the presidential race, you know that we need to stand up now more than ever. Just yesterday, it came out that Donald Trump had said back in 2007—that is the year before the Estradas lost their home—that he was, quote, "excited" for the real estate market to crash because, quote, "I've always made more money in bad markets than good." That's right. The rest of us were horrified by what happened during the 2008 financial crisis, by what happened to the millions of families, like Mr. Estrada's, that were forced out of their homes. But Donald Trump was drooling over the idea of a housing meltdown—because it meant he could buy up more property on the cheap.BOOM.
What kind of a man does that? What kind of a man roots for people to get thrown out out of their house? What kind of man roots for people to get thrown out of their jobs? To root for people to lose their pensions? To root for two little girls in Clark County, Nevada, to end up living out of a van? What kind of a man does that? I'll tell you exactly what kind of a man does that: It is a man who cares about no one but himself. A small, insecure money-grubber who doesn't care who gets hurt, so long as he makes a profit off it. What kind of a man does that? A man who will never be President of the United States!
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And I just want to make one more point about Donald Trump, a point that won't quite fit into a Twitter war. But the last point that I want to make really sums up Donald Trump and what he's all about—his taxes.
Now let's be clear: We don't know what Donald Trump pays in taxes because he is the first presidential nominee in 40 years to refuse to disclose his tax returns. I mean, look, maybe he's just a lousy businessman and he doesn't want everyone to know that he's not as rich as he claims to be.
But we do know this: The last time that his taxes were made public, Donald Trump paid nothing—zero. Zero. Zero taxes before, and for all we know he's paying zero taxes today. And he's proud of it. Two weeks ago, he said that was more than happy to dodge taxes, because he doesn't want to throw his money, quote, "down the drain."
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The central question at this juncture in our history is who this country works for. Whether this country works for billionaires like Trump and their big bank friends, or whether this country works for everyone else, for the people who get up every day and work their tails off and who are sick and tired of always getting the short end of the stick.
That's what matters, and each and every one of you works on different pieces of that fight. Wall Street accountability and Fed reform. Minimum wage and overtime pay. Fair scheduling. A liveable planet. Workers' rights and racial justice. You know the list, you know the stakes, you know the challenges.
But I know one thing: Whether we're talking about Donald Trump or we're talking about changing this country, you can't win if you don't fight. And we're in this fight—and we're in it to win. Thank you all so much. Thank you.
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