ANKENY, Iowa -- Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren blasted billionaire Michael Bloomberg on Monday for launching his nascent White House bid with a $37 million TV advertising blitz, accusing the former New York City mayor of trying to buy American democracy.
Bloomberg, 77, a media mogul who will use his personal fortune to spend freely on his campaign and has said he will not take donations, officially jumped into the White House race as a moderate Democrat on Sunday.
Warren, 70, a liberal US senator from Massachusetts and one of the leading Democratic contenders according to polls, has proposed a wealth tax on billionaires and frequently rails against corporate America, something Bloomberg has criticized.
At an event with voters in Ankeny, Iowa, Warren opened her remarks denouncing Bloomberg's tactics.
"Michael Bloomberg is making a bet about democracy in 2020. He doesn't need people, he only needs bags and bags of money. I think Michael Bloomberg is wrong," Warren said.
"That's exactly what's now in play in 2020 - which vision, which version of our democracy is going to win. If Michael Bloomberg's version of democracy wins then democracy changes. It's going to be which billionaire you can stomach," she said.
Bloomberg's campaign would not comment on Warren's remarks, but at Bloomberg's first campaign event on Monday in Norfolk, Virginia, he defended using his wealth to underwrite his candidacy.
"For years I've been using my resources for the things that matter to me," Bloomberg said, according to a video posted by PBS. "I am going to make my case and let the voters who are plenty smart make their choice."
Bloomberg's late entry into the race, less than three months before the Democrats' nominating contests begin, reflects his concern that none of the 17 other candidates vying to take on Republican president Donald Trump in next November's election can beat him.
Despite Warren's status among contenders in polls, moderates like Bloomberg fear her planned costly expansion of government programs will alienate voters in battleground states.
At the same time, some Democrats have been unnerved by an uneven campaign performance from former Vice President Joe Biden, 77, while another leading candidate, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, 37, is seen in some quarters as too young and inexperienced.
At a campaign event in Creston, Iowa, Buttigieg declined to comment on Bloomberg's candidacy and plan to skip early-voting states in favor of competing in larger nominating contests later in the calendar.
But Lori Hays, 59, a Buttigieg supporter from Creston, said Bloomberg was making a mistake.
"As an Iowan, it makes me feel like they don't care about Iowa," Hays said. "To me, Bloomberg thinks he can buy the White House with his billions of dollars and that we Iowans don't matter.”
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NEW YORK -- Elizabeth Warren, one of the leading Democratic presidential candidates, has stepped up her assault on billionaires -- a rallying cry popular with her base, but one that could stymie her efforts to garner wider support among US voters.
The 70-year-old US senator from Massachusetts on Thursday unveiled a new ad in an appearance on CNBC, a business news network that often criticizes her, in which she takes on the ultra-rich.
The one-minute campaign ad shows clips of several leading businessmen criticizing her plans for a wealth tax and predicting economic ruin if she is elected to succeed Donald Trump, a billionaire himself.
"The vilification of billionaires makes no sense to me. It's bull," says investor and hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman, one of the men targeted in the ad. After he speaks, a note appears on screen -- "charged with insider trading."
"I'm most scared by Elizabeth Warren," chimes in Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, who is identified on screen as a "Facebook board member and major Trump donor."
Then the viewer sees Warren at a campaign rally, challenging America's most wealthy to pay up to help reduce income inequality in America.
"Pitch in two cents so everybody else gets a chance to make it!" she says to cheers from the crowd.
The ad marks a new phase in the White House strategy of Warren, who has put her fight against the rich at the heart of her campaign.
"All of this is a publicity stunt," said Capri Cafaro, an executive in residence at American University's School of Public Affairs and a former Democratic member of the Ohio state senate.
"She's showing that she has the toughest talk when it comes to taking on the billionaires and standing up for working families," she told AFP.
'BILLIONAIRE TEARS'
In her campaign, Warren often fluctuates between using irony and outright scorn for those she doesn't like.
When Cooperman blasted Warren as "disgraceful," the Wall Street foe's campaign Twitter account fired back: "ok billionaire" -- a twist on the "ok boomer" meme that has gone viral among those fed up with their elders.
When Bill Gates expressed concern that he would have to pay $100 billion under her wealth tax, her team launched a tax calculator for billionaires on her website, and she offered to meet the Microsoft founder and philanthropist to explain her policy platform.
When one clicks on the tax calculator, you can enter your net worth and get a rough estimate. If you're Gates, Cooperman or former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, there are dedicated links that automatically inputs net worth. For Gates, it's $107 billion.
Bloomberg is, meanwhile, mulling his own presidential bid.
Warren is also selling anti-billionaire swag on her site. One mug has the mocking phrase "Billionaire tears." Buttons promoting the wealth tax -- which would be a two percent levy on fortunes exceeding $50 million -- say "two cents" and show two pennies.
Cooperman is always ready to take a swing at Warren, but he's not the only one.
Former Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein -- who also appears in the campaign ad -- said he was surprised by being included, and noted: "Maybe tribalism is just in her DNA."
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon lamented that Warren was "vilifying" the rich, telling CNBC: "I think we should applaud successful people."
Mark Cuban, who owns the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, accused the senator of "misleading the public" with proposals that he suggested would not work, criticizing, in particular, her Medicare for All health plan.
Amid all the swirling controversy and tit-for-tat attacks, will Warren's strategy pay off?
After running neck-and-neck with former vice president Joe Biden in several opinion polls, earning more than 20 percent support in some surveys, a Reuters-Ipsos poll published Friday showed her trailing off at 13 percent, behind Biden and fellow Senator Bernie Sanders at 19 percent each.
According to Cafaro, some voters already skeptical about Warren's many policy plans could be turned off by her harsh words for the rich.
"But if you're someone that does feel that billionaires need to pay their fair share, this is going to make you even more firmly committed to her candidacy," the analyst added.
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A little more than 2 weeks after Facebook announced a news initiative, the social network was on the defensive, responding to a published report that a website co-founded by the company’s top news executive had displayed bias against Elizabeth Warren.
Popular Information, a liberal newsletter, reported on Monday that The 74, a nonprofit education policy website co-founded by Facebook’s top news executive, Campbell Brown, had published several articles attacking Warren, a senator from Massachusetts and Democratic presidential candidate. One of them called Warren “the second coming of Karl Marx.”
The newsletter entry was written by Judd Legum, a former editor of the defunct liberal website ThinkProgress and a onetime Democratic political operative. It argued that the articles critical of Warren that appeared on The 74 were relevant to Facebook’s move into the news business, because Brown still sits on the site’s board. Legum also reported that the family foundation of the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, was a donor to The 74.
Brown responded swiftly to the criticism on Monday, saying in a Twitter thread that her involvement with The 74 had no bearing on Facebook News and that the articles singled out by the newsletter were opinion essays, not news articles.
“The 74 is not part of Facebook News and the FB news team does not and has not supported The 74 in any way,” Brown wrote on Twitter. “I still care deeply about the issues The 74 covers so I remain on the board of directors w/no editorial role and make personal donations (it’s a nonprofit).”
Brown, a former anchor at NBC and CNN, also said that she had listed her relationship with The 74 in her Twitter biography. She added that her support for the charter-school movement — a frequent topic in The 74 — puts her in the company not only of DeVos, but of Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., a presidential candidate.
The flap is the latest sign that Facebook will be susceptible to charges of bias now that it has stepped more boldly into the role of media publisher.
The company drew the close attention of journalists, politicians and anyone else on the lookout for signs of partisanship when it announced Facebook News, a separate section on its mobile app featuring reporting from publications including BuzzFeed, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.
News organizations responded positively to the move, for the most part, because Facebook is able to deliver readers in huge numbers and had agreed to pay for some content. There was skepticism, too, some of it resulting from Facebook’s decision to include Breitbart, a far-right news and commentary site, among the publications it had chosen to highlight. On Friday, Facebook News removed posts from Breitbart that claimed to identify the whistleblower who set in motion an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
Steve Snyder, the editor-in-chief of The 74, said in his own tweets Monday that the site had also published opinion pieces critical of DeVos and her policies, along with news articles dispassionately covering education. “Nothing is structured here to prioritize one viewpoint over another,” Snyder said in an interview. He added: “Campbell plays no editorial role.”
Legum defended his newsletter story in an interview. “She maintains a public association and is admittedly still involved in the website — she sits on the board,” he said, referring to Brown. “I don’t think it’s illegitimate to say we should be able to evaluate what’s on there and that it reflects somewhat upon her approach.”
A Facebook spokeswoman said in an emailed statement that The 74 was not among the sites whose articles will be featured in Facebook News’ selection of top stories, adding that Brown had always been open about her relationship with the site. “Any suggestion otherwise is baseless,” the spokeswoman said.
When the company announced its push into news last month, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, said he hoped the new tab’s users would number in the “tens of millions” in the United States and “hundreds of millions” globally.
2019 The New York Times Company
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COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — Jackie Wellman worries that Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are too liberal to defeat President Donald Trump, thinks Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, may be too inexperienced and, while she is fond of Joe Biden, she is also uneasy about his tendency to misspeak. “I am worried about the top four candidates because they all have issues,” said Wellman, a 54-year-old Iowa caucusgoer from West Des Moines who likes Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
Wellman is not the only Democrat who keeps finding flaws as she searches for the best candidate to win the White House.
“Voters are holding back because just when they start to fall in love, they find something that gets them a little nervous,” former Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago said. “The reason it’s so fluid is because they’re still searching for the horse that can win.” Michael R. Bloomberg believes that may be him. But Bloomberg’s apparent decision to mount a late entry into the presidential race represents something more than just the robust self-confidence of a New York City billionaire; it’s a manifestation of the Democratic angst that has been growing, particularly among moderate voters and party establishment figures.
Bloomberg has jolted the Democratic primary, drawing fire from the leading liberals in the field who said he was trying to buy the presidency while posing a direct threat to the centrist candidacy of Biden. But he has also exposed the jitters among establishment-aligned Democrats who fear that the leftward turn of the party is endangering their chances of building a winning coalition.For weeks, senior Democratic officials and donors have been musing about whether a new candidate could be lured in the race, a striking illustration of nervousness just three months before the Iowa caucuses. Some talked up Bloomberg and Hillary Clinton, but others wondered if Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio might make a late entry to unite a party splintered along ideological lines.
And while some party leaders have muted their concerns in an effort to be neutral, that restraint has started to give way to open expressions of alarm. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been repeating the same mantra — “Remember November” — in private about focusing on winning the general election, and has told Democratic allies she was uneasy about a nominee running on “Medicare for All.”
In an interview last week with Bloomberg News, the San Francisco-based speaker let her concerns slip, saying that creating government-run health care “would increase the vote in my own district, but that’s not what we need to do in order to win the Electoral College.”
Many voters are just as uneasy. “I like Elizabeth Warren,” said Janet Mayo-Smith, 64, who was attending an event for Biden in Franklin, New Hampshire, on Friday, before adding that she had concerns about whether Warren was too “radical” to win. She expressed some openness to Bloomberg, calling him “a good candidate” but also noting that it was late to join the race.
Stanley Brown, 49, also from New Hampshire, called Bloomberg’s move “interesting.’’ Asked if there were too many voices in the race already, he replied “no such thing.’’
“I’d consider anybody,” he said.
Yet if there is consensus around the high priority of finding the strongest candidate to take on Trump, there is less agreement among rank-and-file voters that the party needs a white knight to enter the race and rescue them. Interviews with Democrats across four states on Friday showed that many were content to pick from those who remained in the sprawling field.
“I’m not sure what his logic is exactly,” Ricky Hurtado, who attended a Hispanic voters forum in North Carolina that featured Warren, said of Bloomberg. Ticking through a number of the leading Democrats in the race, Hurtado, who is running for the state legislature next year, said, “I think we have enough voices in the primary right now covering the majority of the spectrum in the Democratic Party.”
In New Hampshire, where Biden and businessman Andrew Yang were at the statehouse on a frosty day, filing paperwork to be on the state’s primary ballot, voters mostly shrugged about Bloomberg, who on Friday filed paperwork to qualify for the Alabama primary. A few groused about a bloated field getting bigger.
Carolyn Stiles, 75, said she worried that such a large field would make it difficult for Democrats to unify behind one candidate, and described Bloomberg’s potential entrance into the race as “unhelpful.” She said she was considering Biden, Warren and Sen. Kamala Harris.
To some center-left Democratic candidates in the race, though, a Bloomberg bid could prove more than unhelpful. Were he to finance a major advertising campaign, he could siphon support, news media attention and ultimately votes from the more moderate candidates, clearing a path for Sanders and Warren.
“I don’t know who he hurts, but it’s not going to be Bernie or Elizabeth,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is hoping to establish herself in Iowa as a centrist alternative to Biden. “We don’t need another billionaire,” she added.
Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, a co-chair of Biden’s campaign, was even blunter.
“It takes a whole lot of moxie to look at the Democratic field and say, ‘None of them can be president and I’ll enter the race and be the savior,’” Richmond said. “What does Bloomberg offer that’s different? It’s not like he’s 27 — he’s 77.”
Bloomberg may not prove to be the tonic the party is looking for. His record on policing and economic issues, and his skepticism about the #MeToo movement, could alienate large swaths of the Democratic electorate. And he is choosing an unconventional path in the primary; his advisers signaled Friday that if he runs, he’s unlikely to compete in the first four states.
But it is clear enough why he is tempted to run.
Biden’s unsteady performances in debates and on the campaign trail have undermined confidence in his ability to beat the president. They have hurt Biden’s fundraising and early-state polling while exacerbating what may be his biggest liability — that at 76, he may not be nimble enough to beat an unpredictable figure like Trump. Buttigieg is gaining support in Iowa, but polls show he has yet to draw any sizable support from nonwhite Democrats.
On the other flank of the party, Democrats are eyeing Sanders, a 78-year-old democratic socialist who just suffered a heart attack, and Warren, who is tightening her embrace around a pricey single-payer health care proposal that would terminate private insurance plans.
Both candidates have large and devoted followings, but Democrats have not put forward avowedly liberal presidential nominees in decades; a new New York Times/Siena College poll showing Warren and Sanders losing to Trump in some battleground states only further frayed nerves.
“That frightened a lot of people,” Terry McAuliffe, the former governor of Virginia and DNC chair, said of the survey.
Then came Tuesday’s elections, in which Democrats had great success with mostly moderate candidates who posted large margins in suburban jurisdictions — heightening the conviction among many that the party needed a centrist standard-bearer.
Bloomberg’s prospective run has mostly agitated Biden’s supporters, who were already on edge over his fundraising troubles, his dip in the polls in Iowa and Trump’s unrelenting assault on him and his son Hunter. “I don’t like that,” Marge Cudney, who came to celebrate Biden’s filing for the New Hampshire primary, said of Bloomberg. “He’s going to divide the team and will weaken everybody. I think he could pull some people away.”
Yet two former lawmakers who are supporting Biden — Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and Bob Kerrey, a former senator and governor of Nebraska — spoke favorably about Bloomberg and said they would be comfortable with him as a candidate if Biden faltered.
“I’m for Joe,” Rendell said, “but if something were to happen where Joe was no longer a candidate, which I don’t believe is going to happen, I would enthusiastically consider the mayor as a good strong candidate, and I think he’d make a fine president.”
And not every voter dismissed Bloomberg, whose advisers believe will be viewed more favorably once Democrats nationally become more familiar with his business career and record as mayor.
Bryant Tolles, 80, of Concord, New Hampshire, gave Bloomberg high marks for his political experience. “I’m glad he entered the race,” said Tolles, who is undecided, adding, “They need another centrist who can appeal to the broad electorate.”
For all the heartburn in a party that is often given to indigestion about its presidential field, polls show that Democrats are generally pleased with their options. In a Monmouth University poll released this past week, roughly three-quarters of Democratic voters said they were satisfied with the field, while just 16 percent said they were not.
Moderate and conservative Democrats were more likely to say they wished someone new would get in the race, but only 22 percent of them expressed discontent with their choices.
What is more revealing is how many in the party are not yet settled on a candidate: The Times/Siena poll of Iowa, where voters are paying closest attention to the race, found that roughly two-thirds of likely caucusgoers could still be persuaded to change their minds.The ranks of the undecided include Alan Seabrooke, 89, of Elgin, Iowa, who said, “If you get somebody too far to the left, it scares people.”
Alex Stroda, a 40-year-old from Ottumwa, Iowa, who called himself a “leftist libertarian,” was just as concerned about 2020 but for the opposite reason: He thinks too many of the candidates are not progressive enough.
Stroda, a former vice chair of the Wapello County Democrats, who is considering Sanders, Warren and Yang, dismissed the logic behind a Bloomberg candidacy.
“This notion that he needs to ride in on a white horse and save the Democratic Party from somebody who is too left-wing,” he said, “is just an extension of the problem we have understanding politics in America, where we have the Democrats tacking to the right as the Republicans tack farther and farther right.”
2019 The New York Times Company
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Julia Roberts was making the rounds at Blackstone, and no one at the giant private equity firm was particularly happy to see her.
In mid-July, a video featuring a clip of Roberts in the movie “Pretty Woman” ping-ponged through inboxes of Blackstone employees. The video, produced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s office to promote a legislative campaign, showed a scene in a hotel suite where Richard Gere, playing a suave investor, admits to a young Roberts that his work was akin to stealing cars and then selling off the parts.
Warren’s tagline: “Stop Wall Street looting.”
The pitch went largely unnoticed publicly. But at Blackstone, a titan of Wall Street, the video was received with a mix of frustration and incredulity, people who work at the firm said.
They aren’t the only ones: From corporate boardrooms to breakfast meetings, investor conferences to charity galas, Warren’s rise in the Democratic primary polls is rattling bankers, investors and their affluent clients, who see in the Massachusetts senator a formidable opponent who could damage not only their industry but their way of life.
It’s a role that Warren unabashedly embraces, as an increasing number of voters as well as a few veterans of the finance industry see her as the policymaker who can address the growing wealth gap in the United States and take on corruption and excess in the business world.
Warren has made battling corporate greed and corruption a central theme of her fiercely populist campaign, mixing anti-elitist oratory with policy plans calling for sweeping new regulations. Friday morning she released an ambitious proposal to pay for her “Medicare for All” program, with provisions directly affecting Wall Street: aggressive new taxes on billionaires, an additional tax on financial transactions like stock trades and annual investment gains taxes for the wealthiest households.
Just hours later she told an audience in Iowa: “Our democracy has been hijacked by the rich and the powerful.”
Interviews with more than two dozen hedge fund managers, private equity and bank officials, analysts and lobbyists made clear that Warren has stirred more alarm than any other Democratic candidate. (Sen. Bernie Sanders, who describes himself as a socialist, is also feared but is considered less likely to capture the nomination.)
Wall Street has long tried to influence US politics and generally donated to both parties, though traditionally has been more aligned with Republicans. But while there’s no coordinated strategy, the industry is more or less united against Warren. With just months before the first voting begins, it is unleashing a barrage of public attacks, donating money to her rivals and scrambling to counter her blistering narrative about Wall Street.
“Everyone is nervous,” said Steven Rattner, a prominent Democratic donor who manages the wealth of Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor. “What scares the hell out of me is the way she would fundamentally change our free-enterprise system.”
While even some of Warren’s detractors see her soak-the-rich approach as a winning issue in the Democratic primary, President Donald Trump and his team would undoubtedly try to weaponize it against her in a general election. Already, some Republicans are defining Warren as a veiled socialist who would disrupt the fragile economy with her sweeping plans.
As president, Warren would also confront a long list of powerful and well-funded opponents on Wall Street, potentially complicating her ability to enact her agenda. Her tightly organized campaign has no Wall Street liaison or circle of advisers drawn from the industry and has done little outreach to the finance world.
Yet even if Warren cannot get some of her more far-reaching proposals through Congress, finance executives fear that as president, she would appoint regulators who take a far stricter view of the industry.
Warren’s campaign declined to comment, pointing to her public remarks, in which she has welcomed doing battle with Wall Street.
In recent weeks, Wall Street’s warning signals about Warren have begun exploding into the public, coloring analyst reports and earnings calls and echoing from the stages of industry conferences. Billionaire money manager Leon Cooperman castigated her in an open letter released Thursday, and on Friday, Goldman Sachs researchers suggested that tax increases proposed by Warren and others could lower corporate earnings by 11 percent.
Prominent money managers have predicted a double-digit decline in the stock market if Warren wins the presidency, a claim that some skeptics find hyperbolic. Some traders and investors have said, only half-kiddingly, that they’ll leave the country — or at least, relatively high-tax states like New York — to minimize the impact of what they view as punitive policies.
The wariness exists even in more friendly Democratic terrain. When prospective donors to the Black Economic Alliance, a nonpartisan political action committee focused on bettering the economic lives of black Americans, gathered one evening last month, the conversation quickly turned into a debate over Warren, according to someone who attended.
Over dinner at Michael’s in Midtown Manhattan, some attendees suggested they would consider not voting in the general election if Warren won the nomination. They objected to her proposed “ultramillionaire tax,” a 2 percent annual tax on households worth $50 million to $1 billion that would constrain people’s ability to pass their wealth on to their children.
Warren’s many policy plans take aim not only at multimillionaire pocketbooks but also the financial responsibilities of banks and investment firms. Yet many Wall Street officials believe that Warren does not understand modern-day investing and lending, does not respect financial companies and is demonizing those who work in the markets.
Mitch Draizen, a former fundraiser for Obama who made his money in the financial industry, said he would back Warren’s candidacy against Trump’s. But he is supporting former Vice President Joe Biden this time, worried about Warren’s disruptive approach. “She would be just as unpredictable and unproductive as Trump if she were to become president, and who needs that,” he said. “She’s getting a little carried away, and to me, it’s irresponsible.”
On the campaign trail, she has emphasized that she is pushing only for fairness and accountability. She said she believes in markets — as long as they have rules. And unlike Sanders, Warren has not argued that billionaires should not exist; she wants them to pay much higher taxes than they do now.
“Understand I’m not proposing this because I’m cranky,” she said at a stop in New Hampshire recently.
Yet it is also clear that Warren and her campaign see this fight as a political winner, one that can bolster her populist appeal. Indeed, a number of Democrats on Wall Street have dryly noted that every time their colleagues complain in the press, Warren picks up more votes in Iowa.
Even within the finance community, she has supporters — some of whom view Wall Street opposition as a thinly veiled attempt to fend off any policies that affect profits.
“The greed of Wall Street, of area code 212 types, has just gotten absolutely carried away, and it needs to be rolled back,” said Marc Cohodes, a longtime short-seller who bets against troubled companies. Of Warren, he said, “She would be great. I think she would be a breath of fresh air.”
Warren has already collected campaign donations from employees of JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, and the asset management firm Point72, among others.
Wall Street’s allergy to regulation is nothing new. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, despite the industry’s rampant risk-taking, financial institutions successfully beat back proposed curbs on their leverage, lending and use of exotic financial instruments. Even in the aftermath of the recession, banks and financial firms battled the implementation of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which imposed broad restrictions on banks and trading. Now, in ways big and small, Wall Street has begun bracing for a possible Warren administration.
Some money managers and traders are testing something they call the “Warren trade”: either a bet that US stocks will fall next November on the news of her victory or that certain stocks in areas she plans to regulate aggressively — like health care, energy and finance — will fall during the period between now and late 2020.
Private equity executives — who believe the “Pretty Woman” video gives an outdated and inaccurate view of their business — have also begun extolling the virtues of their activities, kicking off a kind of preemptive public relations effort. Their lobbying organization, the American Investment Council, is promoting the industry as a job creator in op-eds, interviews and a digital ad campaign. And Blackstone’s chief executive officer, Stephen Schwarzman, said recently that his firm had created 100,000 more jobs than it has cut in the past 15 years.
Business executives are also donating to Warren’s more moderate challengers, hoping to propel candidates with less transformative visions for revamping the economy.
Of the roughly 1,400 biggest donors to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, just under 2 percent have given the maximum contribution to Warren, according to a New York Times analysis. That’s a far lower percentage than those who gave to rivals like Biden.
Warren also ranks well down the list in money raised from individual donors in the finance industry. She has raised about $330,000, according to year-to-date figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, far less than Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who leads the Democrats with nearly $1.3 million, and behind others who are languishing near the bottom of the polls. (At about $1.5 million, Trump is the biggest beneficiary of finance-industry donations.)
In her presidential campaign, Warren has eschewed donations from corporate PACs and bundlers, swearing off big fundraising events as she collects a flood of small donations. Last month, her campaign announced that it would no longer accept contributions of more than $200 from executives at big banks, hedge funds or private equity firms.
(For her Senate campaign, she did accept money from finance industry donors, some of which was transferred to her presidential effort.)
Warren’s Stop Wall Street Looting Act mandates that private equity firms guarantee the debt of any companies they buy, a move that would make their corporate investments far more risky and possibly dampen their ability to make profits for investors. She has also proposed reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act, the landmark legislation that separated commercial banking from investment banking for decades before its repeal in 1999.
The effect of such sweeping measures, some market participants said, could be profound.
“I am a fan of Elizabeth Warren, but electing her may be a case of ‘be careful what you wish for,’” said Jamie Lester, a former hedge fund analyst who now works as a consultant. “I don’t think she realizes how fragile our economy and financial system are, and she will be driving a bulldozer through them.”
2019 The New York Times Company
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Progressive Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren tops the field for the 2020 US Democratic presidential nomination in a new poll, though other voter surveys have former vice president Joe Biden in the lead.
The fresh surveys landed as one of the race's low-polling candidates, congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio, announced Thursday he was dropping out of the race.
While second- and third-tier candidates flounder, Warren and Biden have battled for primacy.
The 70-year-old Warren was backed by 28 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning independent voters in a poll published Thursday by Quinnipiac University.
The more centrist 76-year-old Biden, who has led most polling since joining the White House race, received 21 percent.
Liberal Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who recently suffered a heart attack, was at 15 percent in the Quinnipiac survey while Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was at 10 percent, his strongest showing yet in major national polling.
California Senator Kamala Harris received five percent while Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota was at three percent.
While Warren topped the Quinnipiac poll, Biden came out well ahead in a CNN survey published Wednesday and conducted by independent research company SSRS.
Biden was the choice of 34 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters in the CNN poll, which recorded his largest lead in the race since April, just after his campaign's formal launch.
Nineteen percent opted for Warren and 16 percent for Sanders, while Buttigieg and Harris each received six percent and Klobuchar was at three percent.
Ryan for his part, barely registered in the recent surveys.
"I wanted to give voice to the forgotten communities that have been left behind by globalization and automation, and I'm proud of this campaign because I believe we've done that," the Ohio Democrat said in a video announcing his withdrawal.
With such intense competition in the race to see who challenges President Donald Trump in 2020, Ryan's campaign never caught fire.
Other lower-tier candidates like former cabinet member Julian Castro and Senator Michael Bennet are similarly struggling in the race that still features 18 White House hopefuls.
Warren has vied with Sanders for the progressive vote with bold ideas on health care and education, while Biden has campaigned as an experienced moderate who has the best chance of defeating Trump.
Biden has been the frontrunner in the crowded Democratic field longer, but Warren has been surging lately and drawing large crowds to her rallies.
Biden has also been caught up in the political turmoil surrounding Trump, accused of pressing Ukraine for damaging information on the former vice president and his son Hunter Biden.
House Democrats have opened an impeachment inquiry into Trump for abuse of power.
While Trump has repeatedly hammered the Bidens as corrupt in a bid to taint his possible 2020 election adversary, Biden's resilience in the polls could give him fresh confidence heading into next month's Democratic debate.
Eight candidates have qualified so far for the November 20 showdown, the cycle's sixth debate.
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WESTERVILLE, Ohio -- Surging US Democratic presidential contender Elizabeth Warren came under repeated attack on her healthcare and tax policies in a debate on Tuesday, as moderate rivals pushed her to explain how she would pay for ambitious proposals including her Medicare for All plan.
Warren's recent rise into a virtual tie with former Vice President Joe Biden in many opinion polls made her a frequent target for attacks that exposed the Democratic Party's divisions between its centrist and progressive wings on a range of issues.
The Democratic contenders for the White House were united, however, in supporting the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry of Republican President Donald Trump and criticizing Trump's recent decision to withdraw from Syria.
Moderate rivals Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and US Senator Amy Klobuchar, facing pressure to break out of the middle of the crowded Democratic presidential field, went after Warren for being evasive on her plan for universal healthcare and said her plan would mean higher taxes or Americans.
"I think we owe it to the American people to tell them where to send the invoice," Klobuchar told Warren. "The difference between a plan and a pipe dream is something you can actually get done."
Klobuchar pushed back when Warren said critics of her wealth tax were trying to protect billionaires, saying: "No one on this stage wants to protect billionaires," adding: "Your idea is not the only idea."
Buttigieg chided Warren, who boasts she has a plan for everything, for not releasing a detailed healthcare plan with an explanation of how she would fund it.
The sharp exchanges were a sign of the heightened stakes as a dozen candidates crammed the debate stage in the electoral battleground state of Ohio. It was the most crowded debate so far in the Democratic race to pick a challenger to Trump in the November 2020 election.
The debate comes at a critical time, as Biden has seen his once solid lead in opinion polls in the Democratic race diminished by Warren, a leader of the party's progressive movement, who has steadily risen over the past two months.
Warren stayed calm under the repeated attacks, offering her proposals to end income inequality and level the economic playing field for workers.
'COSTS WILL GO DOWN'
She did not directly respond to questions about whether she would raise taxes for the healthcare plan, but she said she would not sign any bill that does not lower healthcare costs for middle-class families.
"I have made clear what my principles are here, and that is that costs will go up for the wealthy and for big corporations and, for hard-working middle-class families, costs will go down," she said.
The expansive Medicare for All proposal, based on the government-run healthcare plan for Americans over age 65, has sharply divided Democratic presidential contenders. Some analysts have said it would cost $32 trillion over a decade. Many other Democratic candidates back a Medicare-based plan as just one option for Americans seeking healthcare coverage.
US Senator Bernie Sanders, who sponsored a bill in the Senate to create a Medicare for All plan, said he thought it was "appropriate to acknowledge that taxes would go up" under the proposal.
Buttigieg plugged his plan for "Medicare for All Who Want It," a proposal that Warren poked fun at.
"Whenever someone hears the term Medicare for All Who Want It, understand what that really means is Medicare for All Who Can Afford It," Warren said.
US Senator Cory Booker tried to stay out of the fight, and warned the Democrats against tearing one another down during the debates. He urged them to keep their eyes on the goal of beating Trump.
"I have seen this script before," Booker said. "It didn't work in 2016 and it will be a disaster for us in 2020."
Buttigieg and O'Rourke clashed over O'Rourke's plan for mandatory buybacks of assault weapons by the government. Buttigieg called it unrealistic, and fired back at O'Rourke when he said it was time to stop listening to opinion polls and consultants and focus groups.
"I don't need lessons from you on courage, political or personal," Buttigieg said.
BACKING IMPEACHMENT PROBE
At the first debate since Democrats in Congress launched an impeachment probe against Trump, the candidates defended the inquiry and said the president needed to be held accountable for his actions and for stonewalling Congress on its probe.
The investigation focuses on Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his unsubstantiated allegation that Biden improperly tried to aid his son Hunter's business interests in Ukraine.
Biden and Sanders both said that Trump was "the most corrupt president in history," and that Congress would be remiss if it did not pursue the impeachment probe.
"Impeachment is the way that we establish that this man will not be permitted to break the law over and over without consequences," Warren said.
Biden said Trump was going after him because he did not want to face him in next year's election.
"Look, my son did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong. I carried out the policy of the United States government in rooting out corruption in Ukraine and that's what we should be focused on," Biden said. "What I think is important is we focus on why it's so important to remove this man from office."
Some Democrats warned that the party should bring Americans on board to support the probe. "We have to conduct this process in a way that is honorable," Booker said.
Most of the Democrats criticized Trump's abrupt decision to withdraw US troops from northern Syria, which cleared the way for a Turkish incursion to attack the Kurds, longtime US allies in the fight against Islamic State.
"Look, I think that we ought to get out of the Middle East. I don't think we should have troops in the Middle East. But we have to do it the right way, the smart way," Warren said.
The debate marked the return of Sanders, 78, the oldest candidate in the field, who suffered a heart attack two weeks ago and has been recuperating at home in Vermont since having stents inserted to open a blocked artery.
The health scare emphasized his age and that of the other top White House contenders - Biden is 76 and Warren is 70, while Trump is 73 - in a race featuring a debate about a generational change in leadership.
"We are going to be mounting a vigorous campaign all around this country," Sanders said, adding: "I'm so happy to be back here with you."
Sanders will return to the campaign trail on Saturday with a rally in New York, where a Sanders campaign source said he would be endorsed by progressive US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He also was endorsed on Tuesday by U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar, an ally of Ocasio-Cortez.
The two congresswomen have been frequent targets of Trump for their progressive liberal views.
Biden said his age and experience were a positive in looking at his potential for the White House. "With it comes wisdom," he said.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON -- A nationwide Fox News poll released Sunday shows President Donald Trump trailing former vice president Joe Biden and no fewer than 4 other Democratic contenders as early campaigning for the 2020 election begins to gain steam.
A separate survey of key battleground states, by CBS, shows Democrats strongly favor Biden as the candidate most likely to beat Trump in next year's elections.
While the latest polling news proved heartening to Democrats, the Trump re-election campaign reportedly has cut ties to 3 of its own pollsters after some of their results -- showing Trump trailing far behind Biden in key states -- leaked.
The Fox poll showed Biden leading Trump by 49 percent to 39 percent among all registered voters nationwide, while Senator Bernie Sanders held nearly the same advantage over the president, at 49 percent to 40 percent.
Holding edges of 1 or 2 points over Trump -- albeit within the poll's 3-point margin of error -- were senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, as well as Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana.
The polling comes more than 500 days before the Nov. 3, 2020 election, an eternity in the political world. One widely viewed tweet this week shows 5 presidential candidates in recent decades who trailed at this point in their campaigns -- including Trump -- but who went on to win.
The president does not officially launch his re-election campaign until Tuesday, when he plans an elaborate, rally-style event in a huge arena in Orlando, Florida.
BATTLEGROUND STATES
Still, the Fox poll, conducted June 9 to June 12, was welcomed by Democrats eager to chip away at Trump's popularity, particularly in battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The president's campaign had recently dismissed leaked data from its own pollsters showing Biden with double-digit leads in some critically important states, including Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- three states Trump won in 2016.
Trump himself denied the data -- "those polls don't exist," he told ABC -- but his campaign later acknowledged the negative news while discounting it as "ancient" because it dated from March.
On Sunday, The New York Times reported that the president's campaign, furious over the data leak, was cutting ties to three of its five pollsters. They included Polling Company, the former firm of close Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway.
And NBC quoted Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale as conferring a positive spin on the latest results, saying "the president's new polling is extraordinary and his numbers have never been better."
WARREN ON THE RISE
The new CBS poll, conducted May 31 to June 12, confirms a significant Biden lead in battleground states among Democratic voters, as the crowded race for that party's nomination begins to take shape.
Those voters told pollsters that their support was based above all on a sense that Biden was the candidate best positioned to defeat Trump in 2020.
The CBS News/YouGov Battleground Tracker survey found that Biden had the backing of 31 percent of Democratic voters in 18 key states, ahead of senators Elizabeth Warren (17 percent), Sanders (16 percent) and Kamala Harris (10 percent).
The poll, with a 1.5 percent margin of error, was conducted in influential early-voting states including Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as well as in populous states in the upper Midwest where Trump eked out narrow but decisive victories in 2016.
Elizabeth Warren has been steadily rising in the polls, while Sanders' support has slipped.
He acknowledged on Sunday that "polls go up and polls go down," but insisted that the survey showed he was well-placed to defeat Trump.
"I think we can win in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan and some of the other battleground states," the self-styled democratic socialist told "Fox News Sunday."
Democrats begin more earnestly winnowing down their large field of candidates when they hold successive nights of televised debates on June 26 and 27.
The Fox poll found that Democratic voters, by roughly three-to-one, favor a nominee who would provide "steady, reliable leadership" rather than a "bold new agenda."
But Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the fiery 29-year-old New Yorker who has emerged as a heroine to young voters and progressives, suggested Sunday that Democrats could be in trouble if they fail to nominate an energizing candidate with working-class appeal.
She said she would support the 76-year-old Biden if he wins the nomination but added on ABC that "we have to really factor in the enthusiasm of voters."
"We need to pick a candidate that's going to be exciting to vote for -- all people, women, people of all genders, races, income levels."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
Senator Elizabeth Warren vowed on Friday to break up Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet Inc's Google, and Facebook Inc if elected US president to promote competition in the tech sector.
Warren, who is seeking to stand out in a crowded field of presidential candidates, said in a blog post that on their way to the top, the big tech companies purchased a long list of potential competitors, like Facebook's acquisition of Instagram.
"They’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field against everyone else. And in the process, they have hurt small businesses and stifled innovation," Warren wrote.
Warren said that she would nominate regulators who would unwind acquisitions such as Facebook's deals for WhatsApp and Instagram, Amazon's deals for Whole Foods and Zappos, and Google's purchases of Waze, Nest and DoubleClick.
Investors shrugged off her comments, with shares in the 3 companies barely affected. Shares of Facebook and Alphabet were each down less than 0.5 percent on Friday. Amazon.com was down 0.9 percent.
It is rare for the government to seek to undo a consummated deal.
The most famous case in recent memory is the government's effort to break up Microsoft. The Justice Department won a preliminary victory in 2000 but was reversed on appeal. The case settled with Microsoft intact.
Warren also proposed legislation that would require tech companies like Google and Amazon who offer an online marketplace or exchange to refrain from competing on their own platform. This would, for example, forbid Amazon from selling on its own Amazon Marketplace platform.
Amazon and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Facebook declined to comment.
TECH UNDER FIRE
The tech companies have come under fire because of their role in displacing existing businesses. Amazon has replaced brick and mortar stores and has been criticized for its poorly-paid warehouse workers.
Facebook has angered lawmakers for losing track of users' data and for not doing more to stop foreign meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. Google has clashed with smaller companies, like Yelp, over search placements and has raised concerns it would comply with China's internet censorship and surveillance policies if it re-enters the Asian nation's search engine market.
Congress held a series of hearings last year looking at the dominance of major tech companies.
NetChoice, an e-commerce trade group whose members include Facebook and Google, said Warren's plan would lead to higher prices.
"Sen. Warren is wrong in her assertion that tech markets lack competition. Never before have consumers and workers had more access to goods, services, and opportunities online," said Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel for NetChoice.
Public Knowledge, a tech policy group, called Warren's plan a step toward protecting the next generation of businesses but stopped short of a full-throated support for breaking up the tech giants.
"We need legislation specifically targeted to enhance competition on digital platforms so that there is a real opportunity for new, innovative competitors to succeed," said Charlotte Slaiman, the group's policy counsel.
Tech expert Tim Wu, who coined the term "net neutrality" and has warned against an economy dominated by a few giant firms, tweeted that it was "heartening" to see the idea of breaking up the tech giants gaining some traction.
Tech companies are some of the biggest political donors. Google spent $21 million to lobby in 2018 while Amazon spent $14.2 million and Facebook spent $12.62 million, according to their filings to US Congress.
Angering a deep-pocketed industry could hurt Democrats.
Warren made her political mark by going after big banks after the 2007-2009 financial crisis. In the Senate, Warren continues to be an outspoken critic of Wall Street and is a leader of her party's progressive wing.
Other candidates have also criticized the tech firms.
Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota used her presidential campaign launch speech to vow action on digital issues like privacy, saying "big tech companies" misuse personal data.
Vermont's Bernie Sanders, another presidential candidate, in 2018 even named a bill after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the Stop BEZOS Act, which would tax big companies if their employees receive public benefits.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
