Sen. Elizabeth Warren took on Fox News primetime hosts Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham in a new ad announcing she will explore a presidential run in 2020.
“Our government’s supposed to work for all of us, but instead it has become a tool for the wealthy and the well connected,” Warren said in a video announcing she would form an exploratory committee to run for president. “The whole scam is propped up by an echo chamber of fear and hate designed to distract and divide us. People who will do or say anything to hang on to power, point the finger at anyone who looks, thinks, prays or loves differently than they do.”
As she spoke, images of Carlson, Ingraham and Hannity flashed past. Warren also threw in the network’s morning show “Fox & Friends” — a Trump favorite.
A rep for Fox News did not immediately respond to request for comment from TheWrap.
Also Read: Tucker Carlson Mocks Elizabeth Warren's Native American Claims: 'Fauxcohontas Is on the Warpath'
Trump has repeatedly referred to Warren as “Pocahontas,” a reference to her longstanding claims of Native American ancestry. Months before her announcement, Warren triumphantly revealed the results of a DNA test showing that she did in fact have a Native American ancestor from between six and 10 generations in the past.
“That’s about roughly as American Indian as virtually every white person you’ve ever met, which is to say, not American Indian at all,” Carlson said in response. The effort was also criticized by the Cherokee Nation, which said in a statement that “using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong.”
Warren may also face headwinds closer to home after her state’s most important newspaper, the Boston Globe, called on her not to run in 2020.
“Warren missed her moment in 2016, and there’s reason to be skeptical of her prospective candidacy in 2020,” said the Globe. “While Warren is an effective and impactful senator with an important voice nationally, she has become a divisive figure. A unifying voice is what the country needs now after the polarizing politics of Donald Trump.”
She did however coast to reelection in her 2018 Senate race, a year which broadly saw Republican gains in the chamber.
In her announcement ad, Warren suggested she would focus hard on income inequality in America, an issue she has championed for years in the Senate. The ad touted her success in creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the millions of dollars it has returned to Americans cheated by big banks.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll from November suggests Warren will have a daunting field of competitors with no clear frontrunner. Joe Biden led the theoretical pack with 29 percent support, with Sen. Bernie Sanders taking 22 percent. Warren placed in a third tier of candidates which also included Sen. Cory Booker and Sen. Kamala Harris.
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