In speech near NY Trump hotel, Gillibrand calls Trump a coward

Associated Press

NEW YORK

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Sunday launched a pointed attack of President Donald Trump and his policies, speaking feet away from one of Trump’s Manhattan properties. She called Trump a “coward” who “punches down” and says that he is “tearing apart the moral fabric of our country.”

She lambasted the Trump International Hotel & Tower, which appeared over her left shoulder as she delivered a 30 minute speech, as “a shrine to greed, division and vanity” and accused Trump of putting his name on every building.

“He demonizes the vulnerable and he punches down. He puts his name in bold on every building,” Gillibrand said. “He does all of this because he wants you to believe he is strong. He is not. Our president is a coward.”

Though Gillibrand first said that she was exploring a presidential bid in January, the New York speech was her first since formalizing her efforts last week. It seemed an attempt by her campaign to position Gillibrand in the crowded field of Democrats seeking the party’s nomination, a field in which she has been looking to define her path.

She said Sunday, “It is not often that I agree with Richard Nixon, but he was right to say that the American people have the right to know whether their president is a crook.”

KAMALA HARRIS

In Atlanta, California Sen. Kamala Harris sent a subtle signal to the old-guard of Democratic politics that every era has its end.

At an Atlanta church service dedicated to youth Sunday, the presidential candidate compared leadership to a relay race in which each generation must ask themselves “what do we do during that period of time when we carry that baton.”

Then she added with a smile that for “the older leaders, it also becomes a question of let’s also know when to pass the baton.”

The 54-year-old senator – one of the younger contenders for the White House in 2020 – did not mention any other presidential hopeful or tie her remarks to the Democratic presidential scramble.

ELIZABETH WARREN

Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Sunday the National Rifle Association is holding “Congress hostage” when it comes to stemming gun violence.

The Massachusetts senator and Democratic presidential candidate tells a campaign rally that if seven children were dying from a mysterious virus, “we’d pull out all the stops till we figured out what was wrong.” But in terms of gun violence, she said the NRA “keeps calling the shots in Washington.”

Warren focused much of her speech on her approach to economics, but paid special attention to unions Sunday. She said more power needs to be put back in the hands of workers.

BETO O’ROURKE

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke told voters in Las Vegas Sunday that President Donald Trump bears blame for the separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border but responsibility lies with everyone in the country to fix the situation.

O’Rourke spoke Sunday to more than 200 people packed into and snaking around a taco shop on the city’s north end. He said immigrant families are leaving their home countries and journeying on foot because they have no other choice.

The former Texas congressman said desperate families were broken up in the U.S. when they were at their most vulnerable and desperate moments, and what happened to them “is on every single one of us.”