Politicians aren’t exactly known for practicing what they preach. It’s rare that they will call out their own. Yet Pete Buttigieg did just that at Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate.
The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, started by pointing out the glaring contradiction posed by the fact that front-runners such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are campaigning on “soak the rich” rhetoric but are millionaires themselves.
“I am the only person on this stage who is not a millionaire or billionaire,” Buttigieg said. “We need to stop with the purity tests we can’t pass.”
Then he targeted Warren directly. The mayor chimed in, saying, “Since when?,” as Warren touted that she doesn’t take so-called big money donations and railed against her fellow candidates for doing so. Buttigieg then called her out, noting that she has transferred money from her Senate campaign funds to her presidential campaign and that much of that Senate money was raised at the same kind of shady dinners with fundraisers she’s blasting everyone else for.
Well done, Mayor Pete. He has the facts on his side.
Even the left-leaning New York Times published an article highlighting Warren’s hypocrisy, titled “How Elizabeth Warren Raised Big Money Before She Denounced Big Money.” It covered how “Ms. Warren wooed wealthy donors for years, stockpiling money from fund-raisers, and has used $10.4 million from her 2018 Senate race to underwrite her 2020 bid.”
Consider this excerpt, revealing the kind of thing that Warren has been doing for years:
Soon after, Ms. Warren was in Manhattan doing the same. There would be trips to Hollywood and Silicon Valley, Martha’s Vineyard and Philadelphia — all with fund-raisers on the agenda. She collected campaign funds at the private home of at least one California megadonor, and was hosted by another in Florida. She held finance events until two weeks before her all-but-assured re-election last November.
Buttigieg deserves credit for calling Warren’s hypocrisy out, especially considering the wrath from leftist activists he is sure to incur. It’s insufferable to listen to Warren rail against money in politics when she was doing the same thing basically yesterday. Now, the voters have one more reminder that Warren is a fraud.
