Sen. Elizabeth Warren visits metro Atlanta on campaign stop
Sen. Elizabeth Warren was in the metro Atlanta area Saturday afternoon to campaign for her 2020 presidential bid. The Democratic presidential candidate made a stop at Central Gwinnett High School in Lawrenceville, where she fired up voters at her first rally in Georgia. Channel 2's Rikki Klaus was at the event, where Warren was the first candidate running in 2020 to make a stop in Georgia. A spokeswoman for Warren's campaign said 1,100 people came to hear the senator speak. She advocated for a government that works for all people, and said that will take sweeping reform. Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is about to speak during a 7-state tour at Central Gwinnett High School. pic.twitter.com/HJvVxLfZSX — Rikki Klaus (@RikkiKlausWSB) February 16, 2019 'This country is our future!' Warren said as the crowd cheered. The Democrat from Massachusetts told the crowd that the country has gotten richer, but wages have stayed the same. TRENDING STORIES: Here's a list of the 31 national emergencies that have been in effect for years 'We don't have anywhere to go': Complex gives all tenants two days to move out Man receives $980,000 tax refund after reporting $18,497 in wages When our federal government in Washington is working great only for the rich and the powerful, that’s corruption, plain and simple,' Warren said. Warren announced that she has the biggest anti-corruption proposal since Watergate. She also spoke out about racial issues by pointing out the gap between white and black home ownership. 'It is time to say that race matters,' Warren said. 'We've got to call it out, and we've got to make real change.' That message spoke to attendee Maya Brooks. “(I want) a candidate who can fight for better home ownership, fight against redlining, fight against the policies that stop people of color from succeeding in America,' Brooks said. Brooks and classmate Mollie Marlow stood in line to get their photo taken with Warren. 'She's definitely got my vote,' Marlow said. Eric Jonelunas wasn't so sure, but he appreciated Warren coming to his town. 'It's way too early to say an absolute yes right now, but she came here, so that's definitely a one-up,' Jonelunas said. In an interview after her stump speech, Klaus asked Warren about identifying as a Native American in the past. 'I shouldn't have done it. I am not a person of color,' Warren said. 'I am not a tribal citizen, and I've apologized.' Warren plans to wrap up this seven-state tour in Nevada and California.
Beto O’Rourke: ‘I'd take the wall down’
Beto O’Rourke said he would remove the existing fences and barriers that separate El Paso, Texas, from Mexico, if he could. >> Read more trending news O’Rourke, a Democratic former congressman who ran a high-profile senate campaign against Ted Cruz in 2018, made the statement in a Thursday interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. He was answering a question asked on Twitter by Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, 'If you could snap your fingers and make El Paso’s border wall disappear, would you?' 'Yes, absolutely. I'd take the wall down,' O’Rourke said. President Donald Trump held a rally Monday night in El Paso to drum up support for a border wall, citing the city’s bollard fence as proof that “walls work,” CNN reported. In his tweet, Crenshaw also said border fences have caused illegal crossings to drop. But O’Rourke, who held a rally Monday to counter Trump’s, disagrees that barriers on the border have helped security. 'Here’s what we know: after the Secure Fence Act, we have built 600 miles of wall and fencing on a 2,000 mile border,' O'Rourke said. 'What that has done is not in any demonstrable way made us safer.' 'We do this, whether it is the war on terror, the war on drugs -- we project our fears and anxieties to places like El Paso, to the U.S.-Mexico border, and punish the people who live here. There's no reason to do that. But it is the fear and the anxiety that is stoked by people who should, and frankly do, know better that results in these policies,' he said. He said that the fencing has instead forced migrants to the most inhospitable areas of the southern border, 'ensuring their suffering and death.” O’Rourke criticized Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency in order to fund his border wall. 'It's hard to make a rational case for an emergency declaration or troops on the border or any amount of additional border walls or border fencing or steel slats,' O'Rourke said. Congress passed a government spending deal Thursday to avoid a government shutdown. The deal would provide further funding for border security but not for Trump's wall. Trump said Thursday he’d sign the spending measure, but would also declare a national emergency 'to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border.' O’Rourke has said he will decide this month whether he will run for president in 2020.
