Elizabeth Warren & Pete Buttigieg CLASH & They Both EXPOSE Each Other For Being Sellouts!

Elizabeth Warren & Pete Buttigieg CLASH & They Both EXPOSE Each Other For Being Sellouts!

#Warren #ElizabethWarren #Warren2020 #PeteButtigieg #MayorPete #Buttigieg

Elizabeth Warren turned Pete Buttigieg’s wining and dining of donors, namely his recent fundraiser inside a swanky Napa Valley wine cave, into a punchy argument against his presidential campaign during Thursday’s Democratic debate.

“Billionaires in wine caves,” Warren said in the midst of a heated exchange at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, “should not pick the next president of the United States.” Photos of the fundraiser, popping with crystal chandeliers, went viral this week, drawing virtual smirks online and a quick rebuke via a small-dollar fundraising plea from Bernie Sanders. With Buttigieg and Warren competing for similar high-education voters in Iowa, and with Buttigieg overtaking Warren in polls in the first caucus state, the Massachusetts senator saw an opportunity to burnish her populist credentials at the expense of the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

“So the mayor just recently held a fundraiser that was held in a wine cave full of crystals and [that] served $900-a-bottle wine,” Warren began — after obliquely referencing Buttigieg’s fundraising practices a moment earlier. “Think about who comes to that. He had promised that every fundraiser he would do would be open-door, but this one was closed-door.”

The clash had been brewing for weeks. Warren, who does not hold high-dollar fundraisers, pushed for Buttigieg to open his donor events to reporters — a level of transparency that former vice president Joe Biden had been adhering to since the spring. Buttigieg’s campaign relented soon after, and a reporter actually attended a portion of the wine cave event, though the fundraiser was otherwise closed to those who hadn’t donated at least $500.

“Those doors shouldn’t be closed, and no one should be left to wonder what kind of promises are being made to the people that then pony up big bucks to be in the room,” Warren said earlier this month.

Buttigieg has parried Warren’s criticism by casting her as a hypocrite, given her personal wealth and her acceptance of high-dollar fundraisers before her presidential campaign. On the debate stage Thursday night, he also offered what amounted to an extended defense of pricey fundraisers, asserting that Democrats need all the help they can get if they want to beat President Donald Trump.

“This is the problem with issuing purity tests you cannot yourself pass,” Buttigieg said to Warren, who stood to his immediate left. “If I pledge never to be in the company of a progressive Democratic donor, I couldn’t be up here.”Buttigieg then turned toward Warren with a personal challenge: “Senator,” he said, “your net worth is 100 times mine. Now supposing that you went home feeling the holiday spirit — and I know this isn’t likely, but stay with me — and decided to go on to PeteForAmerica.com and give the maximum allowable by law, $2,800, would that pollute my campaign because it came from a wealthy person? No, I would be glad to have that support.”

Warren shot back: “I do not sell access to my time.”

Buttigieg, who got the last word in the nearly five-minute exchange, then noted that Warren had transferred money from her Senate campaign to her presidential campaign — money she raised during a time in which she participated in “big-ticket fundraisers.” At the start of her 2020 bid, she transferred $10.4 million from her 2018 Senate campaign to her presidential account

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