- Former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren answered questions from Nevada voters, two days before the state's caucuses.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren took the stage in Nevada tonight, days before the state's caucuses.
In back-to-back town halls, the Democratic candidates addressed a variety of topics, including the Department of Justice, President Trump and the 2020 presidential race.
In case you missed it, here are some of the key lines from tonight's town halls:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren closed out her town hall tonight in Nevada by explaining what she is looking for in a vice president.
"I want somebody who will be in this fight alongside me for your families. That's the whole idea. There is so much we need to do. So many pieces that we need to work on, so I want someone who feels this fight passionately and who brings his or her or their own energy to this to get it done. That's what I'm looking for in a vice president," Warren said.
Warren was particularly effusive about former Democratic hopefuls Sen. Kamala Harris and Julian Castro, the former Housing and Urban Development secretary.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a former special education teacher, shared her plans for attracting new teachers in the US through "providing tuition free technical two-year college, four-year college for anyone who wants to get an education," among other things.
One of the crucial steps necessary in getting more teachers into the system starts with children, Warren said.
"We can take a two-cent wealth tax and provide — now, stay with me on this — universal childcare and early childhood education for every single baby in this country age zero to 5. Universal pre-k for every 3-year-old and 4-year-old in America. And we can stop exploiting the largely women, largely black and brown women, who do this work. Part of my budget says we will increase the wages of every childcare worker and preschool teacher in America. So that's what we can do for our babies," Warren said.
The next part of Warren's education plan focused on grades K-12.
"What we can do k-12 is that my two-cent wealth tax permits us to put an historic $800 billion of federal investment into our public schools. Think what that means. Quadruple the funding for title 1 schools so that we can truly pay our teachers and make sure our kid get a fair start here," said.
And when it comes to young adults, Warren wants to provide prospective teachers with a free college education.
"We can also bring more young teachers in by providing tuition free technical two-year college, four-year college for anyone who wants to get an education, increasing Pell grants so people who come from low income backgrounds have a chance, put $50 billion into our historically black colleges and universities which turn out a huge number of our teachers, and for people who are already teachers, we can cancel student loan debt for 43 million Americans," Warren said.
Elizabeth Warren denied on Thursday that she backtracked on not taking any help from super PACs, despite her website explicitly saying she “rejects the help of Super PACs and would disavow any Super PAC formed to support her in the Democratic primary.”
Warren declined earlier on Thursday to disavow a new super PAC supporting her by spending over $1 million to air a biography-focused television ad in Nevada.
Warren, for the bulk of her campaign, has used her purity on campaign finance to both subtly and directly attack those candidates who were receiving super PAC support.
And on Thursday, Warren said she would disavow super PACs if “all” candidates running for president “disavow super PACs”
“I'm saying come on, Democrats, all of us should disavow super PACs,” Warren said, adding, “I hope every other Democrat will join me and let's all agree to get rid of super PACs.”
But Warren’s position on campaign finance has not always been linked to all candidates doing the same thing on super PACs and the candidate has used the fact that she didn’t take super PAC help as a way to attack her opponents.
Warren, less than two weeks ago, used her national platform at a debate to say, “If you really want to live where you say, then put your money where your mouth is and say no to the PACs."
Warren's website still says, “Elizabeth rejects the help of Super PACs & would disavow any Super PAC formed to support her in the Democratic primary... Democrats should show some moral backbone by refusing their own Super PACs in the 2020 primary.”
And Warren tweeted in October that it’s “disappointing that any Democratic candidate would reverse course and endorse the use of unlimited contributions from the wealthy to run against fellow Democrats. A handful of wealthy donors should not be allowed to buy the Democratic nomination. That's not who we are.”
Warren blasted Bloomberg for refusing to release women who signed nondisclosure agreements.
"If he's not willing to remove those gags and let those women and maybe those men talk, then he is disqualified from being president of the United States," she said.
But Warren added that if he’s nominated, she’ll support him.
"I will support the Democratic nominee because I believe that everyone on that stage would make a better president than Donald Trump," she said.
Warren went on to add: “It’s going to be Donald Trump versus someone. And what I can guarantee is that I’m liking someone.”
Elizabeth Warren discussed the difficulties of being a woman candidate on the national stage on Thursday, describing it as getting “caught in between” of not calling out sexism and being accused of whining.
The answer came in response to a question that noted Democratic 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton “had an illness” in 2016 and “the narrative for weeks was is she fit enough to serve,” while Bernie Sanders had a heart attack last year and “he has not been subjected to the same scrutiny.”
Warren did not take on the Sanders aspect of the question, but described overcoming sexism as a question “we all struggle with every day.”
Warren added that while “the world has changed since 2016,” the best way to fight the sexism is by “calling it out.”
“You've just got to name it. You've got to name it over and over and over and keep saying, this isn't right, look what you've done, we've got to change this,” she said. “But the second is nothing is going to work nearly as well as electing a woman president of the United States. I'm ready.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren took a dig at President Trump's recent pardons, saying, "That is a lawlessness that we have never seen in this country before."
Warren has vowed to create an independent Department of Justice task force. Asked if the creation of such a task force would essentially weaponize the Justice Department, here's what Warren said:
"No, listen to the first word. 'Independent.' Look, we live in an America right now where the president of the United States has effectively said publicly that if anyone breaks the law helping him, he will intervene and either offer a pardon or at least a reduced sentence."
Warren then issued a warning: "So what I have said is I want everyone to hear it who is in the administration right now: If you get out there and break the law now serving this President, he may be willing to look the other way, but President Warren will not look the other way."
Asked about how the two female presidential candidates have been treated in comparison to their male counterparts when it comes to their health, Sen. Elizabeth Warren called it something "we all struggle with every day."
Jolie Lindley, a teacher in Nevada, pointed out how the media covered Sen. Bernie Sanders' health issue along the campaign trail recently and how, in 2016, when Hillary Clinton fell ill, "the narrative for weeks was is she fit enough to serve."
"And I have to say, it's one that is really tough for women candidates. I'm just going to be blunt about this. Because you kind of get caught in between. If you complain about it, then you're whining. And if you don't complain about it, the rest of the women think, what planet are you living on? And so you get caught in between the two," Warren said.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren shared her concern tonight in Las Vegas over reports that Russia is poised to interfere in the US election this November.
"Look, what we're going to do about this is we're going to keep pushing Mitch McConnell to tighten security around our election. What's deeply worrisome about this is we now live in America where one political party seem to think political interference helps them in an election. And that makes the challenge enormous," Warren said.