President Donald Trump was listening when Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) described him as a “wannabe dictator” during an event with the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Monday.
During her remarks, Warren called the president’s failure to confront America’s affordability crisis a “betrayal of working people” and asked what he’s done to tackle sky-high housing costs, ever-increasing grocery prices and surging utility bills.
The senator summoned Trump to take action as she addressed hurdles to the Senate-passed ROAD to Housing Act, which aims to ease construction regulations and boost housing supply but is currently awaiting consideration in the Republican-led House of Representatives.
Noting how a small nudge from the president could get Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) to send the bill to committee, she asked, “And where is Donald Trump? Has he lifted a finger to move that bill forward in the House of Representatives?”
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“He sure knows how to get on the phone when he doesn’t like what they’re doing over the Epstein files,” Warren continued. “He knows how to get on the phone when he doesn’t like what somebody’s trying to do over Venezuela. But is he on the phone to say move that housing bill so that we can start right now, today, on expanding more housing in America? Nope.”
Warren’s entreaty must have caught the attention of someone in the White House, because after her speech, she released a statement where she said she received a phone call directly from the president later that Monday.
“I delivered this same message on affordability to him directly,” she said of the conversation. “I told him that Congress can pass legislation to cap credit card rates if he will actually fight for it.”
“No more delays. It’s time to deliver relief for American families,” her message continued.
The chat, which White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described as a “good call” to the Washington Post, was reportedly the first time the president had ever called the senator directly, according to the outlet.
There is a well-known history of animosity between Trump and Warren.
For years, he’s mocked her about contested claims about her Native American heritage with the nickname “Pocahontas.” Warren seemed to be on Trump’s mind a lot last summer, when he called her “a mean, horrible human being,” a “liar” and a “loser.”