Massachusetts senator and Trump tormenter-in-chief turns insult into rallying cry in support of Hillary Clinton, as partnership hints at progressive agenda

Liberal firebrand Elizabeth Warren launched the most stinging attack yet on Donald Trump’s sexism on Monday during a rally alongside Hillary Clinton.

Turning an insult Trump hurled at Clinton during the last presidential debate into a rallying cry for Democratic voters, the Massachusetts senator told supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire, it was time to hang the epithet “nasty woman” around his neck.

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“Women have had it with guys like you, and nasty women have really had it with guys like you,” Warren said. “Get this, Donald. Nasty women are tough, nasty women are smart, and nasty women vote, and on November 8, we nasty women are going to march our nasty feet to cast our nasty votes to get you out of our lives forever.”

Coming days after Michelle Obama’s steely attack on Trump’s record with women, Warren opted for a blunter approach still.

“He thinks that because he has money he can call women fat pigs and bimbos,” Warren said. “He thinks because he is a celebrity that he can rate women’s bodies from one to 10. He thinks that because he has a mouthful of Tic Tacs he can force himself on any woman within groping distance.”



Warren’s comments referred to the publication earlier this month of an Access Hollywood recording from 2005 that captured Trump bragging that he could kiss and grope women without their consent because he is a “star”. “I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her,” Trump says on the tape. “You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful – I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab ’em by the pussy.”

The Republican candidate has denied claims from nearly a dozen alleged victims who have come forward since the emergence of the recording of him boasting of groping women.



Though once tipped as a leftwing alternative to Clinton, Warren has become a loyal stalwart for the campaign after her early attacks on Trump seemed to provoke him.

“She gets under his thin skin like nobody else,” Clinton said of Warren as she began her speech. “I expect if Donald heard what she said he’s tweeting like mad.”

On the campaign trail, Warren, the so-called scourge of Wall Street, has furiously attacked Trump, who has nicknamed her “Pocahontas”, a reference to her claim of Native American ancestry, and “Goofy Liz Warren”. During a speech in Cincinnati, she fired back: “You want to see ‘goofy’? Look at him in that hat.”

Warren, a progressive power player who the Clinton campaign fretted might cast her support behind Bernie Sanders in the primary, has become one of her sharpest attack dogs on the trail. She withheld her endorsement until after Clinton was the clear victor in the Democratic primary.

Facing a rising populist tide led by Sanders on the left, Clinton’s staff and allies carefully plotted how to “survive” what they called the “Warren primary”, ie one dominated by the issues pushed by Warren and Sanders such as regulating Wall Street, according to hacked campaign emails published by WikiLeaks.

The campaign has not verified the authenticity of the emails and has called the hack a partisan attack intended to sway the election. The Obama administration has stated that Russia is behind the hack.

A separate email exchange from January shows Warren already flexing her muscles behind the scenes to keep the influence of corporations and Wall Street out of the White House.

In one email, Clinton speechwriter Dan Schwerin relays a conversation with Dan Geldon, a longtime aide to the Massachusetts senator, following an earlier meeting between their bosses.

“They seem wary – and pretty convinced that the [former treasury secretary Robert] Rubin folks have the inside track with us whether we realize it yet or not – but open to engagement and to be proven wrong,” Schwerin purportedly wrote to campaign staff.

He mentions that Clinton received a list of potential personnel hires from Warren, which campaign staff had already begun reaching out to as of January 2015, months before Clinton launched her campaign.

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After Clinton won the election, Warren’s name was circulated as a potential vice-presidential pick. Some Democrats believed she would energize the ticket and heal a divided party after an acrimonious primary. But pragmatists doubted her appointment.

Could Warren join Clinton’s cabinet? Democrats have their eye on taking back the Senate, and losing Warren would have hurt their chances. In Massachusetts, the governor appoints the temporary replacement if a senator steps down, and he is currently a Republican, Charlie Baker.

Instead, Warren and her deep bench of allies are working to push the progressive agenda both publicly and privately, said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

“Elizabeth Warren is an agenda-setter and she’s shown during the election that she’s a very powerful ally to have on your side,” Green said. “But she’s also a powerful person to have against you and therefore all the incentives point towards partnering with Elizabeth Warren on key appointments and setting the policy agenda so that everybody’s fighting in the same direction.”

There was no initial response to Clinton and Warren’s remarks from Trump, who spoke later in Florida, but there are increasing signs of panic within his campaign, which is now up to 12 points behind in some polls since the Access Hollywood tape emerged.

Instead, the Republican nominee added opinion pollsters to the long line of people to blame for his ailing presidential campaign, accusing Democrats of “making up phony polls” and the press of refusing to highlight the handful of less reputable pollsters still showing a tighter race.

“We are winning and the press is refusing to report it. Don’t let them fool you – get out and vote!” he tweeted on Monday. “Major story that the Dems are making up phony polls in order to suppress the the Trump [sic]. We are going to WIN!”

Even the Republican’s campaign manager has acknowledged he is “behind” and facing a number of structural disadvantages against the well-organised and well-financed Clinton campaign.

But Trump himself has struck a defiant tone, refusing to say whether he would accept the result on 8 November if it shows him losing and claiming – without evidence – that voter fraud is widespread.

With just two weeks to go until polling day, campaigning hit a new intensity on Monday. As well as Clinton and Warren appearing in New Hampshire, Trump was due to speak at two rallies in Florida, and both vice-presidential candidates Tim Kaine and Mike Pence are on tours of their own.

But Clinton’s ability to bring a wide variety of big-name politicians to support her cause is increasingly emerging as a significant advantage. Michelle Obama is due to return to the stage later this week, appearing alongside Clinton for the first time, in Winston Salem, North Carolina.

Barack Obama attacked Trump’s fellow Republicans on Sunday during a speech in Las Vegas in which he questioned why they were only now choosing to distance themselves from his campaign.

“They just stood by and said nothing. And their base began to actually believe this crazy stuff,” said the president. “Now when suddenly it’s not working, and people are saying, wow, this guy is kind of out of line, all of a sudden, these Republican politicians who were OK with all this crazy stuff up to a point, suddenly they’re all walking away.

“Well, what took you so long? What the heck? What took you so long?”