Elizabeth Warren brushes off Trump protester, touts wealth tax plan in Carson campaign stop

America needs to raise taxes on its wealthiest residents and break up some of its largest corporations in order to rebuild the country’s middle class, Elizabeth Warren told a Carson City audience on Wednesday.

“It’s time for a wealth tax in America,” the Massachusetts senator and top 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful told around 1,500 supporters jammed into the city’s Multipurpose Athletic Center. “If you built a great fortune here in America, I guarantee you built it at least in part with workers all of us paid to educate. You built it at least in part on roads and bridges all of us paid to build. 

“If you make it really big, pitch in two cents so everyone else gets a chance to make it in this country.”

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Warren, who was trailed by President Donald Trump’s supporters from the moment she arrived at Reno-Tahoe International airport, was interrupted by the president’s backers several times during her first 2020 campaign appearance in the state capital. 

She barely skipped a beat. 

“There’s a lot we need to do and I understand Donald Trump and his supporters are getting really nervous,” Warren joked after one such interruption, winning loud applause from the town hall crowd.

Warren — a former law professor who built her political reputation as an outspoken critic of big banks — only briefly touched one of her favorite topics: breaking up Big Tech.

The 70-year-old progressive firebrand has recently waged a war of words with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over her plan to reverse some major Silicon Valley mergers and bar the companies from sharing users’ personal data with third parties. 

Zuckerberg responded by threatening to “go to the mat and fight" the plan in court, according to leaked audio recordings first obtained by the Verge. 

Warren seemed undaunted by the tech mogul’s warning.

“I’m not worried about it at all,” she said in a brief, pre-event interview with the Reno Gazette Journal. “I think the antitrust laws in this country are pretty clear. What’s needed is the courage to stand up to giant corporations that are just calling too many of the shots in Washington right now.”

The two-term senator did not fire back at gentle criticisms lobbed her way by fellow New England progressive Bernie Sanders, who last week said his climate plan is the “most comprehensive” ever and that his wealth tax goes beyond what Warren has called for.

Warren said she wasn’t interested in talking about other candidates or their plans, but added that her wealth tax proposal would cover “the great fortunes of this country.”

She remains supportive of Sanders’ ambitious proposal to provide Medicare to all Americans, though she doesn’t believe Sanders-style Democratic socialism is the way to do it. 

“I believe in capitalism with rules,” she told the RGJ. “Capitalism without rules is theft. But markets can work in many areas.”

Warren suspects Nevada's ongoing affordable housing crisis is not one of those areas.

She said her activist-endorsed plan to ease the region’s housing crunch would work on a “compressed” time frame by putting the federal government back in the business of building housing while encouraging local leaders to streamline private sector home construction. 

True to campaign custom, Warren stuck around to meet, greet and take selfies with hundreds of attendees after Wednesday’s town hall. 

Few seemed bothered by the long, snaking line to meet the candidate.  

“I plan to stay here until they close,” said Carole Laydon, a Warren supporter from Dayton. “I loved seeing her. I loved the excitement. I really loved her education plan. Unfortunately, we don’t have the best education system in Nevada, we don’t rank too well. 

“Plus, I want to see a woman president in my lifetime.” 

The event marked Warren’s third appearance in Northern Nevada since she announced her presidential bid in February. 

In April, she rallied supporters during a campaign organizing event at Wooster High School. Three months later, Warren returned to Reno to detail her extensive anti-corruption policy proposals in front of around 800 supporters at Cathexes.

She now trails only former Vice President Joe Biden in most national polls of 2020 Democratic presidential contenders. Warren pulled ahead of Sanders, and gained significant ground on Biden, in the latest Suffolk University/Reno Gazette Journal poll of likely Nevada caucusgoers.

The Silver State’s critical, third-in-the-nation Democratic caucus is scheduled for Feb. 22.

James DeHaven is the politics reporter for the Reno Gazette Journal. He covers campaigns, the Nevada Legislature and everything in between. Support his work by subscribing to RGJ.com right here.