U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren took direct aim at President Donald Trump from the first sentence of an address to New England business leaders Monday, and did not retrain her sights throughout the 15-minute speech. “Donald Trump has been in office for two months now and he has delivered one punch after another to working families, to poor families across this country,” Warren said at a luncheon hosted by the New England Council. She added, “America is worried and its worried about its future. What I’m worried about is that Donald Trump and his reckless plans … will deal another blow to the working class.” Warren focused on three areas, highlighting immigration, the federal budget and health care reform as the most critical matters for Massachusetts. “You can’t shoot everything that moves,” she said. Even though the American Health Care Act supported by Trump and some Republicans in Congress was effectively defeated on Friday, Warren said the battle over health care is not settled.
“If you think we’re past that because health care reform failed last Friday and has been taken off the table, I just want for you to think again. Trump is now rooting for the Affordable Care Act to fail and it’s important to think about what that means,” she said. “Within the administration, without going to Congress, there are many places where they can make it just more difficult for the Affordable Care Act to succeed.” Trump’s executive action on immigration, Warren said, “threatens how we have really built an economy in New England going forward” and imposes a chilling effect on immigrants from around the world who consider coming to America. The state’s senior senator said the cuts proposed in Trump’s budget blueprint would be “devastating” to Massachusetts, particularly the “meat ax” that the plan would take to funding from the National Institutes of Health.
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