Warren Holds Town Hall After Trip

BOSTON (AP) -- Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren tackled Trump administration immigration policies, taxes and her heritage during a town hall she hosted.

Hundreds of people heard the Democrat posed the question "who does the government work for" at the event Sunday at in Natick. She spoke of a multimillion-dollar tax law passed by legislators without public input.

Warren said she was glad she went to see President Donald Trump sworn in, and that it's "burned in the back of her eyeballs." She said it made her think about the many Americans losing health care and how people need to "make their voices heard" in Washington.

She listed Trump's policies over the past 18 months, focusing on gun safety and education and taking questions from the audience.

One woman, who said she is a veteran, asked Warren about immigrants serving in the U.S. military being discharged, and how they could be assisted.

Warren said, "It's not clear whether they're being thrown out because they don't want them in the military or as a prelude of throwing them out of the country all together." She said Trump's administration "inflicts pain on people."

Warren is fresh off an Independence Day trip to visit U.S. troops in Iraq and Kuwait. During her trip, Warren also met with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to discuss Iraq's elections, the ongoing effort to defeat the Islamic State and a shared desire to build a better life for Iraqis.

Her trip comes as people continue to speculate about whether she will run for president in 2020, to which she has said she is running for the U.S. Senate, not for president, and that she will serve her full Senate term if re-elected. Warren faces a challenge to her Senate seat from the winner for the Republican nomination in Massachusetts' September primary.

An adviser for GOP contender state Rep. Geoff Diehl criticized Warren's trip to Iraq. Holly Robichaud told The Boston Herald, "for her to go to Iraq now is nothing more than a photo op for her presidential ambitions."

Warren is also swatting back comments by Trump, who again this week criticized Warren's claims of Native American heritage. At a rally in Montana on Thursday, Trump suggested Warren be subjected to a DNA test, saying, "We will take that little kit ... but we have to do it gently, because we are in the Me Too generation."

Warren said Trump should stop obsessing about her genes and instead focus on reuniting children separated from their parents at the southern U.S. border.

(KA)