Warren rushing to Tester's aid

Warren rushing to Tester's aid after Trump attack

The support comes less than two months after Warren trashed Tester for backing a bank deregulation bill.

By ZACHARY WARMBRODT

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is coming to the rescue of Sen. Jon Tester in the face of escalating attacks by President Donald Trump, just weeks after her campaign trashed the politically vulnerable Montana Democrat for supporting a landmark bank deregulation bill.

In a fundraising email Monday, the progressive leader called on her vast base of supporters to donate to Tester's reelection campaign and help him fight back.

Tester "reminds me a lot of my big brothers back in Oklahoma," the Massachusetts Democrat said, describing him as "tough as nails" with a "heart bigger than the state of Montana."

Less than two months ago, Warren's team circulated Tester's name as part of a list of senators who voted for the banking bill, suggesting that he and other moderate Democrats who backed the legislation were on the side of Wall Street rather than the American people.

Now that the president is threatening to tank Tester's reelection — a very real threat in a state that Trump won by 20 points in 2016 — the bank bill is receding in importance.

"Jon and I don’t agree on everything — but I know that Jon makes every decision with the working people of Montana and all across this country in his mind," Warren said in the fundraising plea. "He’s a good and decent man, and right now he needs our help."

Trump began targeting Tester last week after the senator released damning information that helped sink the nomination of White House physician Ronny Jackson to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Trump in tweets has called on Tester to resign, and at a rally Saturday the president said, "I know things about Tester that I could say, too, and if I said 'em, he'd never be elected again."

Warren said Monday that Trump was attacking Tester "just for doing his job."

"Jon’s a man of integrity and courage, and I know he’s not going to back down or change his votes because of a television commercial or a tweet," she said. "But he needs our help to build the sort of grassroots campaign that can go town-to-town, person-to-person, to talk about what this election is really about."

For his part, Tester defended his actions on the Jackson nomination. "It's my duty to make sure Montana veterans get what they need and have earned, and I'll never stop fighting for them as their senator," he said over the weekend.