Warren criticizes four billionaires in new campaign ad

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a top-tier 2020 candidate, blasted four billionaires who have criticized her campaign in a new ad centered on her signature wealth tax proposal. 

The ad, which CNBC reported will premiere on the network Thursday at 9 a.m., targets four billionaires who have been publicly critical of Warren’s plan which would add an additional tax on them based on their net worth. 

“It is time for a wealth tax in America,” Warren says in the minute-long video, speaking at a campaign rally. “I’ve heard that there are some billionaires who don’t support this plan.”{mosads}

The ad then cuts to clips of billionaires Leon Cooperman, Joe Ricketts, Lloyd Blankfein and Peter Thiel discussing Warren and her proposed wealth tax. 

Warren then goes on to explain her usual pitch for the plan, noting that billionaires build their fortune “at least in part” using workers “all of us helped to educate,” and roads and bridges “all of us helped to build.” 

“We’re Americans, we want to make these investments,” she says in the ad. “All we’re saying is, when you make it big, pitch in 2 cents so everybody else gets a chance to make it.”

Cooperman, a billionaire investor, hit back at Warren’s ad, which also called out the Omega Advisors CEO for being charged with insider trading. 

Cooperman settled with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2017 and paid nearly $5 million in fees. 

“In my opinion, she represents the worst in politicians as she’s trying to demonize wealthy people because there are more poor people than wealthy people,” Cooperman told CNBC. 

“As far as the accusations of insider trading, I won the case,” he continued. “She’s disgraceful. She doesn’t know who the f— she’s tweeting. I gave away more in the year than she has in her whole f—ing lifetime.”

Warren’s campaign has pushed back on the criticism from billionaires.

The plan calls for a 2 percent tax on households with a net worth between $50 million and $1 billion, and a 6 percent tax on a net worth above $1 billion. 

After billionaire Bill Gates called out the plan last week, Warren’s campaign rolled out a “calculator for the billionaires,” an interactive tool that releases the campaign’s own estimates of what billionaires would pay under the tax.

Warren has said the wealth tax would help fund a number of her progressive proposals, including her plans for universal child care, universal pre-k, student loan forgiveness and universal free college.