Speaking at a South Carolina townhall on Wednesday night, Senator Elizabeth Warren seized on a question from CNN’s vehemently anti-Trump anchor Don Lemon about how she would handle the coronavirus by attacking President Trump’s “racist wall.”
Lemon triggered Warren’s vitriol by asking, “Just tonight, President Trump detailed the administration’s response to the spread of the Coronavirus. And I want to tell you what it includes: it includes stopping non-U.S. citizens from coming to the U.S. from China, screening people from coming into the country from infected areas; quarantining those infected, and developing a vaccine. Do you think that response is sufficient, senator?”
Warren answered, “No. But let’s start — this really is serious. And we have a lot to talk about here. We know that with any virus that develops the most vulnerable will be our children, seniors, people with compromised immune systems, or undergoing treatment. So this one is tough. So the way I think about this is first we think about allocation — our overall approach. I’m going to be introducing a bill tomorrow to take every dime that the president is now spending on his racist wall at our southern border and divert it to work on the coronavirus.”
Warren is used to calling Trump a racist by now; last July, interviewed by CNN’s Manu Raju, she insinuated as much, saying, “I just think what the president said is appalling, and he’s trying to stir up as much hatred and dissension in this country as possible … because it serves his political ends, he thinks if he can set American against American, that somehow he prospers. But I’ll tell you, the United States suffers.”
Raju asked, “Is the president racist?”
Warren responded, “Look at his remarks. He’s made racist remarks, and he’s been racially hateful to people. That’s what matters.”
Raju persisted, “But is he racist?”
Warren dodged, “I don’t have to look at his heart, that’s not the point. He behaves, look at what he’s done, it’s racist. What he’s done, over and over and over, it’s not the first time.”
But days later, after Trump criticized the late Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, Warren decided to stop insinuating, snapping, “Donald Trump, once again, is a racist who makes ever-more outrageous, racist remarks, It is insulting, both to the congressman and to the people he represents.” She called Trump’s tweets “racist,” adding that his criticisms of Cummings were “beyond insulting” and “disgusting.”
The very next month, Warren called Trump a white supremacist. The New York Times reported:
Asked in a brief interview with The New York Times if she thought Mr. Trump was a white supremacist, Ms. Warren responded without hesitation: “Yes.” “He has given aid and comfort to white supremacists,” Ms. Warren said during a campaign swing in western Iowa. “He’s done the wink and a nod. He has talked about white supremacists as fine people. He’s done everything he can to stir up racial conflict and hatred in this country.”
Warren added, “Donald Trump has a central message. He says to the American people, if there’s anything wrong in your life, blame them — and ‘them’ means people who aren’t the same color as you, weren’t born where you were born, don’t worship the same way you do.”