Warren slams GOP over Trump: You did this to yourselves

Sen. Elizabeth Warren slammed Republicans on Thursday for enabling the rise of Donald Trump, their party’s front-runner for the presidential nomination.

She argued that GOP lawmakers have empowered Trump by obstructing President Obama during his time in office.

{mosads}“What have Republicans in the Senate been doing since the very day that Barack Obama was sworn in?” she said in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, the Massachusetts senator’s first television appearance since the beginning of the presidential race. “They have given in to their extremists; in fact, they have nursed their extremists along.”

“They are paying the price for their own extremism,” she added in a reference to Trump’s popularity, which has shocked much of the GOP.

Warren slamed Senate Republicans for a “shutdown approach” to legislating that she said extended to their refusal to grant a vote to anyone nominated by Obama to the Supreme Court.

She then linked that approach to Trump’s popularity.

“Guys, this is what you did to yourselves,” Warren said of Senate Republicans. “And if you really want to stop it, stand up and do your jobs.”

Though the liberal firebrand refused to endorse a candidate Thursday night, she delighted in contrasting between the her party’s presidential race and that of the GOP.

Warren said that while the top two Republican presidential candidates, Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), “deny the legitimacy of their opponents” and “demean millions of Americans,” the Democratic race is being driven by substantive debates. 

“We’re out there talking about — both of our candidates are talking about — of holding Wall Street accountable,” Warren said. “We’re having a debate back and forth about the best way to make sure our kids can make it through college without getting crushed by student loan debt.”

“We’re doing what Democrats should be doing,” she added. “We’re talking about the issues, and more than anything else we’re talking about who it is that we want government to work for. And boy, does that make a contrast with what’s going on on the other side.”