WASHINGTON (AP) – Sen. Elizabeth Warren is grabbing center stage in the 2016 presidential race as Donald Trump’s most effective antagonist and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ top rival for the affections of progressive voters. The combination could make Warren an indispensable ally to Hillary Clinton, in the process elevating her own stature and allowing her to draw attention to the issues she cares about most.
“She doesn’t talk often. And when she talks, you should listen to her,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday, a day after Warren delivered a much-noticed speech lashing Trump as a “small, insecure moneygrubber who doesn’t care who gets hurt, so long as he makes some money.”
The speech at the Center for Popular Democracy gala in Washington was the Massachusetts senator’s first devoted to attacking Trump, though she’s repeatedly mixed it up with him on Twitter, landing punches where others have not. In response Trump has labeled her “goofy Elizabeth Warren” and referred to her as “Pocahontas,” a reference to her time claim to Native American ancestry.
“We all aspire to have a nickname from Donald Trump,” remarked Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.
Warren is the only one of the Senate’s 14 female Democrats who has not endorsed Clinton, raising eyebrows among Clinton allies. Yet her speech hit on some of the same themes that Clinton has developed in recent days, including accusing Trump of benefiting from the housing crisis, mocking his claims of being tough on Wall Street and denouncing him for refusing to release his taxes.