Elizabeth Warren Deletes Facebook Post That Went ‘Too Far’

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Elizabeth Warren says she ‘went too far’ when she took to Facebook to excoriate a Wall Street figure—who, she later learned, is a supporter of banking reform and a fan of the Massachusetts senator—after some misleading comments he made about Donald Trump

Speaking with the Globe‘s Yvonne Abraham after a flurry of attention surrounding the social media screed, Warren said she regretted targeting hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson the way she did.

“There are many things I agree with Whitney on,” Warren told the Globe yesterday, “and I wish my tone had been less heated.”

In a Bloomberg article, Tilson had reacted to Trump’s appointment of Goldman Sachs’ Steve Mnuchin to head the Treasury by saying he felt “glee” that Trump voters were angry and felt they had been “conned.” He later clarified—to a columnist at the New York Times—that he was simply glad Trump’s appointments weren’t inexperienced unknowns, and he’s made it clear he is a critic of Donald Trump, and is in favor of the kinds of Wall Street regulations for which Warren has advocated.

Warren’s change of heart comes after Tilson and his wife both reached out to her this week. But the senator had previously only agreed to correct a portion of the post that referred to Tilson as a “billionaire,” because he isn’t one. That was, until Wednesday.

This whole debacle has brought criticism to Warren that mirrors the kind of jabs being thrown at Trump, the highest profile of her many nemeses. His no-filter Twitter presence had been, and still is, used as evidence he isn’t fit to be president. So what does that mean for Warren, who has shown presidential ambitions of her own?

MassGOP, for one, is jumping all over it, firing off a response on it website. “Senator Warren’s about-face on her angry, factually-inaccurate Facebook rant is just another example of her ‘strike first, ask questions later’ mentality,” MassGOP Chairman Kirsten Hughes says in a prepared statement. “Following her flip-flopping on the tainted Thornton Law money and her efforts to block the Cures Act, Warren is proving she’s not up to the task of providing thoughtful, fact-based leadership for the people of Massachusetts.”

It’s up to voters to decide how her behavior stacks up to Trump’s, though. As a reminder, this is a man whose tweets today include a rant about the magazine Vanity Fair, which had just published a piece mocking of one of his restaurants.

Warren’s supporters, Abraham notes at the end of her column, can assuredly point to Warren’s mea culpa as an example of the difference between she and him.

“[W]e all make mistakes,” she writes. “Unlike her chief adversary, Warren is willing to admit it.”