Watch Wall Street Billionaire Literally Cry Over Choice Between Trump and Elizabeth Warren

Tommy ChristopherNov 5th, 2019, 10:52 am
 

Wall Street billionaire Leon Cooperman was overcome by emotion after spending twenty minutes or so railing against Elizabeth Warren, choking up when asked if he supports the re-election of President Donald Trump.

The Omega Advisors CEO has previously declared that a Warren presidency would crash the stock market by 25 percent, and said “They won’t open the stock market if Elizabeth Warren is the next president.”

On Monday’s edition of CNBC’s Fast Money Halftime Report, Cooperman continued to rail against Warren, including a curiously-worded walkback of his previous comments that ended up comparing a Warren presidency with the attacks of 9/11.

“If they opened the stock market after 9/11, they’re going to open it no matter who wins the presidency,” Cooperman told host Scott Wapner.

Elsewhere in the interview, Cooperman said, of Warren’s policy plans, “What she’s peddling is bull, total complete bull,” told Wapner “I read somewhere that Elizabeth Warren is worth $18 million” (according to Forbes, Warren and husband Bruce Mann are worth $12 million), and started to choke up while describing his plan to eventually give away his entire fortune.

He told Wapner he wished he could use “an expletive,” again describing Warren’s plans as “bull,”and said “She’s screwing around with the wrong guy” because he plans to give away his fortune, “but I want to control the decision.”

Cooperman also said that “The idea of vilifying wealthy people is so bogus,” and complained that Warren and Bernie Sanders are “trying to make bogeymen out of wealthy people.”

But when Wapner got around to asking Cooperman about Trump, the CEO was all over the place, complaining that Trump’s “deportment is not presidential and we need a unifier in that position,” but then citing Trump insults to figures like Mitt Romney, Rex Tillerson, John McCain, and Saturday Night Live.

He praised Trump for his economic performance and for “focus(ing) this discussion on illegal immigration,” but said he thought Trump should not run for reelection unless he’s willing to “change his dialogue.”

Cooperman also posed Trump as the victim, though, saying “What I would tell the president is, ‘Why are you putting up with all this abuse?’ all of it’s not unfair, some of it is fair, some of it is unfair.”

Wapner asked Cooperman why he was so emotional about the subject, and Cooperman got choked up.

“I care,” he said after a tearful pause. “That’s it.”

He then compared Trump favorably to former President Ronald Reagan, but said the difference was that Reagan was nice to Joe Piscopo, while Trump insults Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep.

“We need a unifier,” he said, but then added, with a quaver, “and I don’t need Elizabeth Warren telling me that I’m a deadbeat, and that billionaires are deadbeats. The vilification of billionaires makes no sense to me.”

Warren responded to Cooperman’s outburst by retweeting it with the message “One thing I know he cares about—his fortune. He’s a shareholder in Navient, a student loan company that has cheated borrowers and used abusive, misleading tactics. He even went so far as to ask how I might impact his investment in the last earnings call with Navient.”

Watch the clip above, via CNBC.

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