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Trump has ‘failed miserably,’ Sen. Elizabeth Warren says at the Democratic convention

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
(Charles Krupa / Associated Press)
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren described Joe Biden on Wednesday as a man with “some really good plans” to rebuild an American economy ripped apart by the coronavirus crisis.

“Joe’s plan to build back better includes making the wealthy pay their fair share, holding corporations accountable, repairing racial inequities and fighting corruption in Washington,” Warren said in a Democratic National Convention speech from a preschool in Springfield, Mass.

Warren, known for her wide array of policy plans when she was a Biden rival in the race for the party nomination, said the former vice president would bring back union jobs in manufacturing, create new ones in clean energy, increase Social Security benefits, cancel billions of dollars in student debt and make bankruptcy laws work for families “instead of the creditors who cheat them.”

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“These plans reflect a central truth: Our economic system has been rigged to give bailouts to billionaires and kick dirt in the face of everyone else,” the Massachusetts senator said.

Warren dropped out of the presidential race in March. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who was vying with Warren to be standard-bearer of the party’s progressive wing, survived as the last remaining alternative to the more moderate Biden. But in April, Sanders also quit the campaign after it became clear he could not win enough delegates to catch up with Biden.

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Warren had promised “big structural change” to reduce inequality in the nation’s economy, vowing higher taxes for big corporations and the rich to pay for her ambitious policy agenda, including “Medicare for all” and the cancellation of student debt.

In her convention speech, she said President Trump’s “ignorance and incompetence have always been a danger to our country.”

“COVID-19 was Trump’s biggest test,” she said. “He failed miserably. Today, America has the most COVID deaths in the world, and an economic collapse. And both crises are falling hardest on Black and brown families.

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“Millions out of work. Millions more trapped in cycles of poverty. Millions on the brink of losing their homes. Millions of restaurants and stores hanging by a thread. This crisis is bad — and it didn’t have to be this way.”

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