Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren called out Republican officials during a Thursday night appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” for letting President Trump attack their Democrat colleagues without earning any meaningful opposition from his own political party.
On Thursday, Trump called for six Democratic lawmakers, Senators Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly, as well as Representatives Jason Crow, Chrissy Houlahan, Maggie Goodlander and Chris Deluzio, to be arrested and put on trial for participating in a Tuesday video urging members of the American military and intelligence community not to follow unlawful orders. All of the Democrat officials who were featured in the video are either military or national security veterans.
Trump accused them on Truth Social of engaging in “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” and wrote that the “traitors” should be “ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand.” He later reposted a number of posts from other Truth Social users, including one who called for Trump to hang the Democrats like “GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD” have.
“Trump is wrong,” Warren told Colbert about the president’s threats. “Here’s the deal: We gotta have their backs. Donald Trump thinks he can intimidate them and, I gotta say, I think he picked the wrong set of people to try to intimidate. But it is powerfully important that we push back.”
Warren said the onus to publicly call out Trump’s actions falls on the shoulders of not just elected Democrats, but also Republicans. “This is a time to call on these Republicans, who have been surgically altered and have no spines,” Warren argued. “When Donald Trump is encouraging violence like this, when he’s threatening violence like this, when he’s calling out specific members of congress with death threats, it is time for everyone in congress to stand up and say, ‘No, that is enough. We are not doing this and not gonna put up with it anymore.’”
Elsewhere, Warren touched on the end of the recent government shutdown and told a story about a woman she met in Florida who is suffering from malignant melanoma. “She’s got four kids. She’s got a job. Her husband has a job, and they’ve looked at their insurance and said, ‘The new price, we just literally can’t afford it,’” Warren detailed. “What she’s doing is planning to drop all of [her] treatments after Jan. 1.”
“The United States of America is the richest country in the history of the world,” Warren concluded, calling on Republicans to fulfill their health care promises. “It is time for us to make good on the statement that health care is a basic human right. We need health care for everyone.”
