Tea Party Heckler Calls Mass. Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren 'Socialist Whore' (VIDEO)
A heckler publicly taunted Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren during a speech before a group of volunteers in Brocton, Mass., Wednesday night, calling the Senate hopeful a "socialist whore."
The incident was captured on video and it has since gone viral. The video (seen below) shows Warren calmly handling the heckler who wanted to ask a question before the politician even began greeting guests.
The heckler, who has not been identified, said, "I've been out of work since February of 2010. I think I saw you on TV taking credit for the Occupy Wall Street.”"
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The crowd of likely Warren supporters booed at the man's word choice but the liberal, U.S. candidate said, "No, no, it's all right. Let me say two things. I'm very sorry that you've been out of work. I'm also very sorry that the recent jobs bill that would've brought 22,000 jobs to Massachusetts did not pass in the Senate."
The heckler, an alleged Tea Party supporter, voiced his frustrations with the Occupy protests. He brought up Warren's recent comments that suggested she had laid the "intellectual foundation" for the movement.
Warren went on to address his question about her association with Occupy Wall Street. "I've been protesting what's been going on Wall Street for a very long time," she said, but added that the movement has its own independent agenda and will proceed along its own course.
"Yeah, so has the Tea Party," the man said, before becoming visibly infuriated.
"Well, if you're the intellectual creator of that so-called party," he said, "You're a socialist whore. I don't want anything to do with you."
The man also took a stab at Warren's "boss," saying her boss was "foreign-born." Viewers and commentators assume the man was referencing President Barack Obama as Warren's "boss."
After the event, Warren reflected on the man's outburst, which she said was her first such encounter. She told The Huffington Post, "I actually felt sorry for the guy. I really genuinely did. He’s been out of work now for a year and a half. And bless his heart, I mean, he thought somehow it would help to come here and yell names."
The assault stuck with Warren, and she continued to think about it throughout the night. Hours later, she said she wasn’t upset with the man himself, but rather with those who attempt to channel his anger in a spiteful direction.
"Elizabeth was making the point that she has been protesting Wall Street's practices and policies for years – and working to change them," said a spokesman for the Warren campaign in a recent statement.
"Bankers and the illegal activity that's gone on crashed our economy, and so Elizabeth Warren being one of those people that have highlighted that and provided a foundation for what the people at Occupy Wall Street are doing," Jeff Smith, a spokesman for Occupy Wall Street, told ABC News. "But to call her a founder, leader or responsible is akin to calling Abraham Lincoln responsible for the civil rights movement."
The Occupy Wall Street website says the movement drew inspiration from the Arab Spring movement in Egypt and Tunisia.
Warren was the subject of a viral video in the past where she was seen passionately refuting the conservative claim that raising taxes on the wealthy amounts to class warfare.
