If I Were Elizabeth Warren, What I Might Say Now

We are now in the midst of Donald Trump's attacks on Joe Biden and the beginning of the impeachment.  What I might say if I were Elizabeth Warren:

We are now seeing a vicious, unprincipled attack by Donald Trump on Joe Biden. I don't need to detail how extensive are the lies, how unrestrained the calumnies, how corrupt the use of governmental resources for the personal and political advantage of Donald Trump. Trump will be impeached by the House, as he should be.

But what I want to comment on here is us, the Democrats, and on the terrible attacks on one of the Democrats contending for the presidential nomination, Joe Biden. Joe Biden is my teammate. We are Democrats together. Our ideals are similar, although our approaches differ. Over nearly a half-century of public service, Joe has distinguished himself with his persistence in working for the betterment of the common person. He has done this with a spotless record of integrity. In fact, for years and years Joe was known as the least wealthy member of the Senate because he denied himself any opportunity to make money by virtue of his prominence. Yes, Joe has had his missteps, and his famous gaffes. But I ask, when you are in the arena this long, what else can you expect? Is there anyone whose epitaph will be, he never made a mistake?

Joe is my teammate as we contend to be captain of the Democratic team. If he wins, I will support him enthusiastically, and we can all be sure, he will do the same for me if I should win. We are, after all, teammates. And nothing could be clearer than the difference between us, on this side of the line, and the Republican Donald Trump.

I am speaking today because Joe Biden is being subjected to heinous attack from Donald Trump. Joe can defend himself, but I want to enlarge the issue to defending the spirit of our nation. Trump is subjecting Joe to another one of his assaults on an American icon. This is what he did to John McCain. If you are a hero, or if you are a decent human being, somehow you are a threat to Trump, and he needs to retaliate. He retaliates by tearing down, by lying, by vilifying, by sullying, by trampling, by lying and lying and lying. He tried to cut down a man much greater than himself, John McCain, and now he's trying to do the same thing to another great American, Joe Biden.

This is what this terrible, destructive man does. When Trump does this to people, individual people or whole groups of people, to children on the border in Trump detention centers, to people in countries where he has never been and hardly knows where they are, when he does this, we all need to rise up as one and denounce him. I am standing up now and denouncing Donald Trump for the bully he is, for the liar he is, for the detritus he is.

We on the Democratic side need to ferret out among us who will be the best captain of our team. We are now engaged on a contest to find who will be captain, and also in the process, to see what many of our leaders of the present and future are made of. But besides detailing our differences, we are also discovering where we all stand together. We are discovering that one thing we have in common is human decency. Unhappily for the country, this is something that is not shared by our current President.

We are Democrats together. We are the Party of Decency. I honor my colleagues in the race for captain of our team. We share that, we all share that, and it is an important difference we hold against Donald Trump.