Republicans are crying foul over claims that Elizabeth Warren’s campaign aides shoved a GOP video tracker. Warren’s camp says the man was a taxi driver, not a campaign worker.
In video posted by the Weekly Standard, a tracker follows Warren closely as she heads to her car. The car’s driver pushes the camera. The driver approaches the camera and says, “Dude, get out of my face or I’m going to call the police.”
“It’s a public event,” the Republican staffer responds multiple times.
“You’re messing with the wrong people,” the driver says.
“The person featured in the video was not a member of the Elizabeth Warren for Massachusetts staff. He is a cab driver,” Warren communications director Julie Edwards told TPM.
“Elizabeth did not see what happened. The photographer has a right to film in public locations, and the campaign had allowed him to film the entirety of Elizabeth’s event. The confrontation was wrong,” Edwards said.
The Massachusetts GOP has issued a statement from executive director Nate Little, castigating Warren for the incident:
“Yesterday on Martha’s Vineyard, a campaign aide for Elizabeth Warren physically assaulted and threatened an employee of the Massachusetts Republican Party. In addition to knocking the camera from the employee’s hand, the individual also threw a punch. This type of behavior is completely unacceptable and has no place in our public discourse. Despite witnessing this assault first-hand, Professor Warren took no action and allowed it to continue. As Professor Warren falls further behind in the polls, we expect that she will become more negative toward Scott Brown. However, that should not be an excuse for her staff to lash out in violence. Professor Warren needs to address this situation and ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”
Massachusetts Democrats have posted their own YouTube video of a March incident in which a Democratic tracker is suddenly manhandled and ejected from one of Sen. Scott Brown’s events. The video was uploaded to their account in March, but was kept unlisted until today.
State Democratic spokesman Kevin Franck would not say whether the video was listed now as a response to the recent complaint from Republicans. “The video speaks for itself,” Franck told TPM.
