Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Elizabeth Warren in Vegas: Trump wants to turn everybody against immigrants

Elizabeth Warren

Yasmina Chavez

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren comforts Gloria Macias as she gets emotional while asking a question during a town hall meeting at the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 hosted by UNITE HERE, Monday, Dec. 9, 2019.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren spoke to union workers in Las Vegas on Monday, making the case that her progressive agenda would be the best fit to fix what she sees as a struggling American middle class.

The Democratic presidential hopeful hit on issues including health care, immigration and labor laws during the first of three presidential forums hosted for workers by UNITE HERE, the national union affiliate of the local Culinary Union. The union will host Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont on Tuesday, and former Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

“When you see a government that works great for those with money and power and it is not working much for anyone else that is corruption pure and simple and we need to call it out,” Warren said.

The senator praised unions as a force for America’s working and middle-class citizens, saying “unions built America’s middle class and unions will rebuild America’s middle class.”

Cristhian Barneond, a cook at the Cosmopolitan, asked how private healthcare plans — like the one negotiated by the Culinary Union — would change under Warren’s proposed Medicare-for-all plan.

Elizabeth Warren at Culinary Union Town Hall

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren speaks during a town hall meeting at the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 hosted by UNITE HERE, Monday, Dec. 9, 2019. Launch slideshow »

“My brothers and sisters at the Culinary Union have been fighting for this health insurance for 84 years, fighting hard,” he said.

Warren said the goal is to replicate the healthcare that union members have access to and offer that nationwide.

“To me, what you’ve got is not something we want to make harder (to get). What you’ve got is something I want to see replicated all around America,” she said. “That’s what I’m looking for.”

D. Taylor, president of UNITE HERE, spoke in favor of Warren’s proposal, saying “health care should be a right, and not a privilege, and no one should go without.”

After the event, Barneond said that is important to ensure that union members do not take a dip in health care quality. He also said it is important to that others not part of the union have access to good health care.

“Before I didn’t have health insurance, so that’s a big thing to me. Now that I’ve joined a union and I have this great insurance, I can go anywhere,” he said. “Before (I) had to think about paying my bills or going to the doctor. So now that I have it, that’s why that I asked her what’s her plan to make sure we keep our health insurance.”

Lucela Watson, a porter at Excalibur who is working to become a citizen through the union’s citizenship project, expressed concerns to Warren about the anti-immigrant rhetoric coming of Washington with President Donald Trump in the White House.

“My plan is to bring my daughter here once I become a citizen, but right now it is a very tense time for immigrants like me,” Watson said.

Warren said she would celebrate immigration as a force that makes the country stronger.

“Donald Trump has a plan, he really does, he has a strategy, to turn people against people all across this nation,” Warren said. “He wants to turn white against black and brown. He wants to turn Christian against Muslim, he wants to turn straight against gay, and trans — particularly against trans. And he wants to turn everybody in America against immigrants, particularly immigrants of color.”