June 26, 2019

The First Question of the Democratic Debate was a Challenge to Elizabeth Warren. She Didn’t Back Down.

The senator from Massachusetts planned for this moment.

Wilfredo Lee/AP

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The highest polling Democratic candidate on stage during NBC’s first televised debate of the presidential season got the first question on Wednesday night. Host Savannah Guthrie asked Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) about the difficulty of implementing her many economic plans and securing the nomination, when most Americans, including most Democrats, think the economy is performing well.

Warren tore into her campaign talking points—with a notable reference to “LatinX” Americans, a word that perhaps no other presidential candidate has ever used on a debate stage.

“The economy is doing great for a thinner and thinner slice at the top,” the Massachusetts senator said. “It’s doing great for giant drug companies. It’s not doing great for people who are trying to get a prescription filled.”

Warren added that the economy is working for “people who want to invest in private prisons. Just not for African-Americans and LatinX whose families are torn apart, lives destroyed, communities ruined.”

Watch the exchange below:

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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