On Thursday, President Trump issued his expected tweet after Senator Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the Democratic presidential race, and it was spot-on. Trump wrote:
Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren, who was going nowhere except into Mini Mike’s head, just dropped out of the Democrat Primary…THREE DAYS TOO LATE. She cost Crazy Bernie, at least, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas. Probably cost him the nomination! Came in third in Mass.
Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren, who was going nowhere except into Mini Mike’s head, just dropped out of the Democrat Primary…THREE DAYS TOO LATE. She cost Crazy Bernie, at least, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas. Probably cost him the nomination! Came in third in Mass.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 5, 2020
Trump’s summation that Warren staying in the race hurt the chances of Senator Bernie Sanders in the Super Tuesday primaries is undoubtedly accurate; they drew from the same group of leftists. On Tuesday, before the voting on Super Tuesday had finished, Politico bemoaned the chasm between Sanders and Warren and how it was hurting the chances of “Progressives”:
The moderate presidential candidates are falling in line. The progressives are falling apart … After recently arguing Sanders “consistently calls for things he fails to get done,” Warren began airing a TV ad this week flashes images of Sanders, Biden and Mike Bloomberg while a narrator says, “Politicians and billionaires won’t cut it.” At a rally in her home state of Massachusetts on Saturday, Sanders said, “We don’t have a super PAC, we don’t want a super PAC, we don’t need a super PAC.”
That was an implicit jab at outside spending for Warren and Biden, which has exceeded independent expenditure assistance Sanders has received. The deepening rift among the two progressive candidates threatens to lock the Democratic Party’s left wing out of the White House.
The leftist site Vox wrote in late January:
Heading into the 2020 Democratic primary, Warren and Sanders, who are longtime friends and allies, purportedly had a non-aggression pact where they agreed not to attack one another. The candidates declined to attack one another when prompted on the campaign trail, and during debates, they backed one other up on policy matters. That didn’t stop their campaigns or supporters from some aggressions — and, eventually, the candidates themselves broke the pact as well.
Trump has had a merry time targeting Warren; last September, speaking at a rally in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, he quipped, “1,024th. That means I have more Indian blood than she does, and I have none.” In January 2019, he mocked the livestream in which she drank beer, tweeting, “If Elizabeth Warren, often referred to by me as Pocahontas, did this commercial from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen, with her husband dressed in full Indian garb, it would have been a smash!”
Also in 2019, Trump retweeted a meme from The Daily Wire that mocked Warren’s claims of Native American Ancestry by referring to the upcoming election:
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2019
In December 2018, Fox News’ Pete Hegseth spoke to Trump about Warren. Trump stated, “She did very badly in proving that she was of Indian heritage. That didn’t work out too well. I think you have more than she does and maybe I do, too. And I have nothing. So, you know, we’ll see how she does. I wish her well. I hope she does well. I’d love to run against her.”
Hegseth asked, “She says she’s in the fight all the way Mr. President, do you really think she believes she can win?”
Trump replied, “Well, that I don’t know. You’d have to ask her psychiatrist.”