Elizabeth Warren Puts GOP On Notice: This Is Just The Beginning

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is putting newly confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Republican senators who approved him on notice. 

GOP lawmakers on Tuesday night invoked Rule 19, which forbids speaking ill of other senators, to silence Warren as she attempted to read a letter from Coretta Scott King criticizing Sessions. 

“She was warned. She was given an explanation,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said. “Nevertheless, she persisted.”

Less than 24 hours later, Warren fired off a blistering series of tweets noting that Sessions is no longer a senator ― and no longer protected by Rule 19. 

She also had a warning for her GOP counterparts who confirmed him. 

Here’s what she said Wednesday evening: 

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Warren said she was stunned when McConnell rose to object to her reading King’s letter. 

“The rule is that you’re not supposed to impugn a senator,” Warren said. “Okay, I took that to mean you’re not supposed to call somebody an idiot or a jerk and I thought, wait, I didn’t do anything like that. I am reading a statement of both fact, and the opinion ― the conclusion ― of a civil rights icon who was there. This letter helped a Republican-led Senate back in 1986 not to confirm Jeff Sessions.” 

She said no Republican senators have spoken to her privately since the incident, but was glad that the letter is now being read by millions of people. 

“I know a lot of people have read Coretta Scott King’s letter. I posted it on Facebook, I tweeted it out. I’m glad that’s the case,” she said. “Because that letter is important right now today for the Jeff Sessions, vote but it’s important in the future. It’s important for us to touch that part of history, when people stood up and said, it’s not a question of whether it’s popular, it’s that you fight back for what you believe in. That the only sin is remaining quiet.”