All posts tagged "elizabeth warren"

Elizabeth Warren names 'darker shadow' behind Trump's 'calamitous' food safety mess

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called out the alleged corruption that led to the Trump administration's "calamitous" response to the cyclosporiasis outbreak.

In a Thursday letter, Warren slammed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Trump administration's handling of "the biggest outbreak of cyclosporiasis in U.S. history" and questioned if changes leading up to it had to do with political contributions made by Taylor Farms, the company whose lettuce allegedly spread the parasite.

"The Trump administration's systematic dismantling of the food safety system has hampered the federal government's ability to prevent, identify, and respond to the latest outbreak," she wrote. "Deep funding cuts forced the CDC's Parasitic Division to slash staff responsible for tracking and identifying parasites like cyclospora."

She also pointed out that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Beltsville Agricultural Research Center was forced to close and relocate despite being a research hub with two labs that investigate cyclospora, as well as 3,500 personnel cuts at the FDA. However, she was concerned that the policies were fueled by corruption as well as incompetence.

"If these changes were motivated solely by ideology, it would reflect a dangerously bad set of policies by the Trump administration," Warren wrote. "But the specter of corruption — and quid pro quo politics — casts a darker shadow over these actions, particularly if political contributions from Taylor Farms' parent company may have influenced policy changes that subsequently endangered millions of Americans."

She noted in the letter that Taylor Fresh Foods "donated millions to political organizations aligned with the President, including more than $1 million directly to MAGA Inc., and has hired a former Trump White House official to lobby on its behalf." The donations came less than a week after the Trump administration's change to food traceability rules.

"These investments appear to be closely timed to favorable regulatory actions — decisions that were good for Taylor Farms," Warren wrote. "Decisions that were good for Taylor Farms, but appear to have increased the risk of food safety problems like the ongoing cyclosporiasis outbreak."

Elizabeth Warren's sizzling fact-check stokes MAGA burrito war fire

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has entered the MAGA burrito war with a sharp message for the Trump administration on Thursday.

In an interview on Capitol Hill with TMZ, Warren blamed the administration and called on officials to make immediate moves and drive down food prices by ending the Iran war.

TMZ DC co-managing editor Jacob Wasserman asked Warren if she would pay $20 for a burrito, mentioning the online debate that started among conservatives, including Vice President JD Vance, over the cost of the popular meal.

Warren laughed, then gave her thoughts, weighing in on why burrito prices have risen.

"We can bring down these prices by stopping the war in Iran so that we're not driving up the cost of all of our groceries," she said. "We can also roll back the illegal tariffs that are driving up the cost of avocados; we can break up our meat cartel that's driving up the cost of meat. There's a lot that the Trump administration could do to lower prices, but instead what they're doing is raising prices. And you know what? It shows up in your burrito."

She argued the cost of food could go down with these immediate changes.

"Stop the war, end the illegal tariffs, and we've got a better chance of being able to feed ourselves without going broke," Warren added.

Would you pay $20 for a burrito? 🤔

Sen. Elizabeth Warren shares solutions with TMZ DC's @jacob_wass to bring down skyrocketing food prices. pic.twitter.com/JsekMHXk7i
— TMZ (@TMZ) August 6, 2026

Trump nominee gets all he can handle at heated hearing: 'You can't even do basic facts!'

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) grilled a Trump nominee during the Senate Housing, Banking and Urban Affairs Committee on Thursday.

Warren reminded Christopher Phelan, the president's pick for White House Council of Economic Advisers, that if approved for the advisory job his role would be focused on offering "objective economic advice."

"Let's go through a few objective facts," Warren said. "Americans are spending more on everything from gas to groceries, prices are rising faster than paychecks and Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill rips away healthcare coverage for 15 million people in order to pay for tax cuts for billionaires and giant corporations, and it adds $4.7 trillion to the national debt and that is why we need someone who will tell the truth about the economy and not just say whatever it is that the president wants them to say."

Warren asked Phelan if inflation was higher today than it was in February 2025.

"Headline inflation now is certainly lower than it was during the Biden administration," Phelan said.

Warren interrupted Phelan and pushed back.

"I'm sorry. Come on. Let's not play this game," Warren said.

Phelan did not answer the question directly.

"I don't want to know how fast you can dance. I want to know if you can answer simple, factual questions," Warren said.

She pushed back with several other questions, cutting off Phelan's responses.

"You have now made clear what your position is and that is you can't even do basic facts," Warren said. "I didn't even get to the hard questions here."

"I think this person has disqualified himself in five minutes," Warren added.

"You can't even do the basic facts!" -- Here's the full footage of Elizabeth Warren dismantling Christopher Phelan, Trump's nominee to be chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, by asking him basic factual questions about the state of the economy that Phelan refuses to answer… pic.twitter.com/MR06EQCV1X
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 25, 2026

CNBC has on-air mishap with bizarre 'kinky bookkeeping' chyron in Elizabeth Warren segment

CNBC had an accidental blunder during a live interview with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Wednesday.

The television network was interviewing the long-time Democrat about President Donald Trump abruptly canceling the signing of a bipartisan housing bill and the economic fallout during Trump's second administration when the mix-up happened.

Journalist Aaron Rupar caught the moment and clipped it, sharing it with his 1.1 million followers on X.

"Elizabeth Warren said 'AI doesn't get to engage in a bunch of funky, hinky bookkeeping,' but the CNBC chyron writer misheard her and wrote that she said 'kinky bookkeeping' (look at the chyron at the end of this clip)," Rupar wrote.

Other people noticed the gaffe and had some laughs.

"The only entity that gets to engage in funky, kinky book keeping is the governmernt [SIC]," Rick Rule, president and chief executive officer of Rule Investment Media LLC, wrote on X.

"The sequel musical to Kinky Boots," former DFS radio host Dan Strafford wrote on Bluesky.

"Can someone explain what funky kinky bookkeeping is?" AI expert and founder RJ Grimshaw wrote on X.

Elizabeth Warren said "AI doesn't get to engage in a bunch of funky, hinky bookkeeping," but the CNBC chyron writer misheard her and wrote that she said "kinky bookkeeping" (look at the chyron at the end of this clip) pic.twitter.com/imr0EMusYW
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 24, 2026

Elizabeth Warren goes scorched earth on Trump's 'sock puppet' Fed chair nominee in hearing

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) tore into President Donald Trump's nominee for Federal Reserve chairman Kevin Warsh during a confirmation hearing at the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday.

The ranking member criticized Trump, calling out his attacks on the independence of the Federal Reserve and its officials. Warren argued that the economy has suffered under the president's leadership and that this was his last chance to try and take control as the midterms approach this fall.

"The president has repeatedly and illegally attempted to take over the Fed," Warren said. "His bogus attacks on Governor Lisa Cook and Chair [Jerome] Powell were designed to threaten all the members of the Fed to do Trump's bidding and open more spots for Trump flunkies. Why try to end the independence of the Fed? Because Trump's economic failures are causing him political problems, and he wants the Fed to use monetary policies to artificially juice the economy in the short term. And this is his last chance to do that before the November elections."

Warren described her concerns over approving Warsh's nomination, including his role during the financial crisis.

"Warsh took on the job of Wall Street's personal liaison on the Fed board," she said. "He was quick to respond to concerns from Wall Street CEOs, and he worked tirelessly to arrange multibillion dollar bailouts for them with nothing for American families. No regrets, he says. No regrets after the crash, most people on the Fed saw millions of Americans unemployed, people who had lost their homes, and said now might be a good time to lower rates and make the cost of borrowing cheaper for businesses to avoid more layoffs and make it cheaper for Americans who are worried about paying their mortgages or their credit cards. But not Mr. Warsh. Nope. He wanted to keep interest rates high, and he sang the same song for more than a decade, even as the economy struggled when the job of Fed chair became available during Trump's first term as president, Warsh held on to his high interest rate inflation."

She said that once passed on nominating Warsh during his first term, that was when Warsh decided to call for the Fed to pause interest rates hikes. And in fall of 2024, she said Warsh "flipped again" and "was even criticizing the Fed for cutting rates."

"But as soon as Donald Trump became president a second time, Warsh reversed himself once more and began shouting from the rooftops about how the Fed should cut interest rates," Warren said.

"Evidently, he learned his lesson this time around. He sucked up to Donald Trump to snag his dream job. Mr. Chairman, last week, every single Democratic member of this committee asked that you postpone this hearing and instead conduct oversight on the president's role in directing bogus criminal probes into Chair Powell and Governor Cook," she added. "The Senate should not be aiding and abetting Donald Trump's illegal takeover of the Fed by installing his chosen sock puppet as chair. It's an invitation for corruption and for economic catastrophe. We have the power to stop it, and we should be using that power."

Senator holds Scott Bessent's feet to fire in hearing: 'I don’t know if you can hear me?'

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) had a fiery response to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Thursday on Capitol Hill.

Bessent was testifying before the Senate Banking Committee on the U.S. economy under President Donald Trump and his economic policy agenda.

"Last week, Trump said 'we have the groceries going down.' Did grocery prices drop in 2025?" Warren asked Bessent.

"Numerous prices have," Bessent said.

"Did grocery prices drop in 2025?" Warren asked again.

"Numerous grocery prices have gone down," Bessent said

"I'm sorry. I don't know if you can't hear me?" Warren said.

Bessent attempted to respond when Warren unleashed a serious rebuttal.

"Please stop. Have you seen the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is Donald Trump's own Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers, that report that grocery prices were 2.4% higher at the end of 2025 than they were at the end of 2024?" Warren asked.

"Trump's own Department of Agriculture has projected that those prices would climb higher in 2026 and under Donald Trump, families are paying more and more for groceries," she said. "So if you're just going to insult people by denying the facts that are out there and tell people they're doing great when they're struggling, I think it's just another way to say you don't have a plan to bring down these prices. You're not willing to admit the failures of the Trump administration."

WARREN: Last week, Trump said 'we have the groceries going down.' Did grocery prices drop in 2025?

BESSENT: Numerous prices have

WARREN: Did grocery prices drop in 2025?

BESSENT: Numerous grocery prices have gone down

WARREN: I'm sorry. I don't know if you can't hear me? pic.twitter.com/FlcGjqSaMS
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 5, 2026

'Striking': Shock as Trump makes 'unexpected' phone call to work with longtime rival

Democratic Party Senators confirmed they had heard from Donald Trump, who had surprisingly reached out to party members to discuss the affordability crisis.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer have both been in touch with the president, who, Politico reports, reached out to the leading Dem representatives earlier this week. It may mean a mood change in the White House as one official suggested there is a consensus that could be reached between Dems and the Republican Party on housing and drug prices.

Alex Gangitano wrote, "For a president who wants his party to retain control of Congress, it’s a striking – even unexpected – level of outreach to some of the most liberal members on the opposing side. It comes as both parties compete for the mantle of affordability."

Part of the reason for Trump reaching out to Schumer and Warren, the latter saying she "did not recognize the phone number" when the president called, could be to make headway before the midterms.

An anonymous White House official said, "A lot of these proposals have, in part, been put forward by Democrats." They went on to suggest the affordability actions Trump had been in contact with Dem reps about were "more populist-inflected than some of the more classic proposals that had been worked on."

They also noted "pretty marquee issues where the perspective of more standard old-school Republican orthodoxy is not necessarily in step with where Republican voters are" could be worked on between Dems and the GOP.

"Some of these are issues where the Washington GOP consensus and the GOP base consensus are divergent," the source added.

Gangitano added, "While Trump’s outreach is new, enacting policy changes would require a dramatic reversal in the president’s ability to work with Democrats on Capitol Hill.

"During much of his first term as well as last year, that relationship has been deeply toxic — a government funding meeting last year prompted Trump to post a deepfake of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero — and, until now, neither side has shown any appetite to make amends."

But Trump's sudden call to Warren to ask about capping credit card interest rates, a project Warren had been working on for years, is a shift in the Dems' favor. Warren added, "Congress can pass legislation to cap credit card rates if he [Trump] will actually fight for it."

Senator releases blistering response to lawsuit threat from billionaire pardoned by Trump

A billionaire who was pardoned by Donald Trump sent a lawsuit threat to U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who dropped a blistering reply through lawyers of her own.

Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of crypto exchange Binance who recently received a pardon after months of boosting a crypto venture owned by President Donald Trump's family, reportedly asked Warren to retract a social media post about him. Specifically, the post claimed Zhao had pleaded guilty to a money laundering charge, which Warren says is objectively true.

Writer Brendan Pedersen flagged a letter sent by Warren's attorneys.

"We obtained a letter sent by lawyers for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) today in response to a defamation threat from Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. CZ wants Warren to retract a tweet saying he pleaded guilty to a 'criminal money laundering charge,'" he wrote before quoting the response statement.

"Your client asserts that Senator Warren has published a 'defamatory' statement about him in an October 23, 2025, post on X. Specifically, we understand your client to maintain that it is objectively false that he 'pleaded guilty to a criminal money laundering charge.' In relevant part, Senator Warren’s post stated that 'CZ pleaded guilty to a criminal money laundering charge and was sentenced to prison.' Senator Warren’s post is true in all respects and therefore cannot be defamatory," the letter says. "Senator Warren accurately represented publicly available and widely reported facts. The 'charge' referenced in Senator Warren’s X post refers to the 'charge' to which Mr. Zhao pled guilty and as to which President Trump had just pardoned him."

The letter adds, "The law Mr. Zhao pled guilty to violating is an anti-money laundering law. All of this is public record, and is plainly what Senator Warren’s X post concerned. Simply put, any threatened defamation claim would be without merit. We provide further context below, which we trust resolves any misunderstanding as to what Senator Warren’s statement means."

Read the letter here.

'I have had enough': Trump nominee gets a tongue-lashing from Senate Republican

A Senate Republican gave President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, a tongue-lashing on Thursday over allegations of widespread misconduct at the agency.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) expressed his annoyance that acting FDIC Chair Travis Hill — who Trump wants to lead the agency permanently — said no changes were underway after an external investigation in 2024 revealed "pervasive sexual harassment and discrimination," according to Politico.

“I have had enough of this, and if your name came up in front of me right now, I wouldn’t vote for you,” Kennedy said to Hill during a Senate Banking Committee hearing. “Got nothing to do with your policy chops, but I have had enough.”

Kennedy's push back could impact Hill, who has not been personally accused of any misconduct, but might stall his appointment to his position — especially if all the Democrats on the committee vote against him.

The GOP lawmaker ordered Hill to give him a report in 30 days describing how the agency has handled the accusations of harassment among employees and other workplace misconduct claims.

"Otherwise, you can forget about my vote,” Kennedy said.

“Until I’m convinced that they’re not going to sweep this under the rug — and that there’s going to be justice for these young women that they touched and harassed and tried to have sex with — then I’m not going to go for him,” Kennedy added.

Hill responded to Kennedy, saying “reforming the culture continues to be a top priority” at the agency.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) rebuked Hill's claims and said "no record" exists of any moves to address the problems.

Hill was a senior aide and vice chair at the FDIC prior to the 2023 investigation exposing the toxic workplace allegations.

'Resign!' Elizabeth Warren's questioning of RFK Jr. explodes into shouting match

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy shouted at each other during a contentious hearing on Thursday.

While appearing before the Senate Finance Committee, Warren challenged the secretary about earlier claims that he would not restrict access to vaccines.

"So last November, while you are under consideration to become Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mr. Kennedy, you said, quote, if vaccines are working for somebody, I'm not going to take them away," Warren noted. "No exceptions, no ifs, or buts. You would not take away vaccines from anyone who wanted them."

"Then last week you announced that the COVID-19 vaccine is no longer approved for healthy people under the age of 65," she continued.

"It's not recommended for healthy people," Kennedy agreed.

"If you don't recommend, then the consequence of that in many states is that you can't walk into a pharmacy and get one!" Warren exclaimed. "You are effectively denying people vaccines!"

"We're not going to recommend a product for which there's no clinical data for that indication!" Kennedy shouted back. "Is that what I should be doing?"

"What you should be doing is honoring your promise that you made when you were looking to get confirmed in this job," Warren stated. "Did you hold up a big sign saying that you were lying when you said that because you are the one who said you would not take them away?"

"You want me to indicate a product for which there is no clinical data?" Kennedy complained. "Is that what you want? I'm not taking them away! Everybody can get access to them!"

"No, they can't walk into a pharmacy the way they could last month and get access to a whole vaccine," Warren insisted before pressing Kennedy about his firing of CDC official Susan Monarez.

"Do you tell the head of the CDC that if she refused to sign off on your changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, that she had to resign?" the senator asked.

"No, I told her that she had to resign because I asked her, are you a trustworthy person?" Kennedy said. "And she said no."

Warren pointed out that Monarez had publicly disputed Kennedy's claim.

"So you're saying she's lying?" she asked. "This is the same person that, less than a month earlier, you stood next to her and described her as unimpeachable."

"It looks like she didn't bend the knee, so you fired her," Warren remarked. "Look, you're putting America's babies' health at risk, American's seniors' health at risk, all Americans' health at risk, and you should resign."

Watch the video below or click here.