CHICAGO _ Democratic presidential contender Elizabeth Warren brought her campaign to downtown Chicago on Friday night, holding a town hall meeting during which she launched a lengthy attack on the power of large corporations and the corruptive influence of money in Washington.
"Whatever issue brought you here today _ I guarantee if there is a decision to be made in Washington, it has been touched by money, it has been moved, shaped and accepted by people with money," the Massachusetts senator told a large crowd at the Auditorium Theatre at Roosevelt University.
"That is corruption pure and simple, and we need to call it out for what it is," she said.
Warren has re-emerged as a top-tier contender for the 2020 nomination and gave a confident performance in the first Democratic debate Wednesday.
Her candidacy and platform represents the increasing progressive leftward movement of the Democratic Party, an outgrowth of current rival Bernie Sanders' 2016 run for the Democratic presidential nomination against Hillary Clinton.
Warren's proposals include free college tuition, child care and the cancellation of student loan debt. Her plan would be financed by a wealth tax on what she said would be the top earning 75,000 families in the country who "represent the top one-tenth of 1%."
Providing an introduction to a large audience in an hourlong town hall setting with the promise of post-session selfies, Warren recounted the travails of a childhood in Oklahoma that formed many of her ideals, including a recollection of how a minimum wage could sustain a family of three.
"Today, the question asked in Washington is where do we set the minimum wage that will maximize the profits of giant multinational corporations? I don't want a government that works for giant multinational corporations. I want a government that works for our families," she said.
Warren contended power has become too concentrated among large giant corporations.
"These giant corporations, they just run everything. They call the shots in Washington. They roll over their own employees. They roll over their customers. They roll over the communities they're located in," she said. "We need more power in the hands of workers. Unions built America's middle class."
Warren said her campaign is about the need for "big, structural change" including the need to change Washington "by hitting corruption head-on."
"The good news is, I have the biggest anti-corruption plan since Watergate. The bad news is, we need the biggest anti-corruption plan since Watergate," she said.
Ticking off such items as a need to "end lobbying as we know it" and curb a "revolving door" between Wall Street and Washington, Warren, appearing alone onstage in front of a large American flag, said to the audience, "I could do these all night long. Just do corruption."
While she regularly criticized President Donald Trump, she didn't mention any of her rivals for the nomination. She also didn't mention her health care "Medicare for All" plan that would do away with private insurance.
Warren, a senator since 2013, previously served as special adviser for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Barack Obama administration after Republicans opposed her nomination as director. She had proposed creation of the agency as a Harvard Law School professor years earlier.
Her appearance came hours after rival contender former Vice President Joe Biden came to Chicago to attend the annual conference of Rainbow/PUSH Coalition headed by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Warren is scheduled to appear before the group Saturday.
Earlier Friday, Democratic Congressman Jesus "Chuy" Garcia joined with Warren in sending a letter to JP Morgan Chase CEO and President Jamie Dimon asking about reports that Chase would reintroduce forced arbitration clauses in its credit card contracts.
Garcia, who backed Sanders' bid for the White House four years ago, and Warren said forced arbitration would "make it more difficult for customers to hold banks accountable for misconduct."
"Instead of going to court, wronged consumers who have signed contracts with forced arbitration clauses must use private arbitration forums, which do not have the same protections as courts and whose proceedings are often secret. As a result, corporations win the overwhelming majority of the cases, and they are able to hide their misconduct from the public," a statement from Garcia's office said.
Chase began informing customers of the arbitration policy earlier this month. Customers who don't want to be bound to arbitration were told they must opt out by informing Chase by mail by Aug. 7.
