Sen. Elizabeth Warren will link Donald Trump’s recent criticism of a federal judge to a larger indictment of the Republican Party’s “full-scale assault” on the federal courts system during a speech Thursday.
The progressive senator, set to speak to the American Constitution Society, will charge Trump and top Republicans – including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – with attempting to delegitimize the judiciary in order to favor “the rich and powerful,” according to a preview of Warren’s remarks.
“Donald Trump is a loud, nasty, thin-skinned, fraud who has never risked anything for anyone and serves nobody but himself. And that is just one of the many reasons why he will never be president of the United States,” Warren will say.
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Citing Trump’s treatment of the federal judge overseeing the Trump University lawsuit as an example of this effort, the Massachusetts senator will say: “Judge (Gonazalo) Curiel has survived far worse than Donald Trump. He has survived actual assassination attempts. He’ll have no problem surviving Trump’s nasty temper tantrums.”
Trump has called the Indiana-born judge of Mexican heritage a “hater” and “a Mexican,” claiming Curiel is biased against him because of his proposal to build a border wall.
Warren will argue Trump’s broadsides against the judge – which received widespread condemnation from many Republicans – are part of a pattern established by Senate Republicans who have stymied judicial appointees from the Obama administration.
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“Where do you suppose Donald Trump got the idea that he can personally attack judges, regardless of the law, whenever they don’t bend to the whims of billionaires and big business? Trump isn’t a different kind of candidate. He’s a Mitch McConnell kind of candidate …Trump is also House Speaker Paul Ryan’s kind of candidate,” Warren will say.
Ryan and McConnell, for their part, have publicly criticized Trump for targeting Curiel – though both have also maintained they will support Trump despite the blowback.
Ryan called Trump’s comments about the judge “the textbook definition of racism” earlier in the week, but on Wednesday, he reiterated his support for Trump at a closed-door meeting with House Republicans and asked his colleagues to unite behind the presumptive nominee, according to several members who attended the session.
McConnell, meanwhile, had called Trump’s attacks “totally inappropriate” and urged him to apologize. But the Senate majority leader told CNN’s Erin Burnett on “OutFront” Wednesday night he thinks there’s “still time for (Trump) to act like a presidential candidate” and called the businessman’s more subdued primary night speech “a good step in the right direction.”
Sources familiar with Warren’s thinking say the senator is treading cautiously entering into 2016 waters, planning to put the full backing of her progressive star power behind Hillary Clinton – but is also eager to avoid the appearance of pushing out Sen. Bernie Sanders.
