John Legend made a pitch and sang a tune for 2020 Democratic hopeful Elizabeth Warren as he joined her on the campaign trail in South Carolina Wednesday, with just three days to go before the pivotal first-in-the-south primary.
‘Let me tell you why I’m so confident in Elizabeth Warren,’ Legend said. ‘She is brilliant.’
‘I know the bar is really low right now,’ the singer added to laughs. ‘We have a president who embarrasses this country. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to have a woman of Senator Warren’s brilliance replacing him?’ Legend mused.
Following Warren’s lead on the last two debate stages, Legend also went after Michael Bloomberg.
‘Unlike Mayor Bloomberg, she knows that housing discrimination through redlining has been a national tragedy,’ Legend scoffed at one point during the 15-minute pitch he made for the Massachussetts senator at the historically black college, South Carolina State University, in Orangeburg.
John Legend (left) came to South Carolina to support Elizabeth Warren (right) on Wednesday, saying he supported her because of her smarts and empathy
Both John Legend (left) and Elizabeth Warren (right) went after rival Democratic hopeful Michael Bloomberg when they appeared together Wednesday at South Carolina State University
Elizabeth Warren told the crowd at South Carolina State that she was skipping the selfie line Wednesday and instead John Legend would come out and play
The stop was one of two the duo planned for Wednesday in the Palmetto State.
Legend told the crowd he originally planned to stay out of the Democratic primary race. That he was going to stay quiet and then ‘work my butt off to make sure Trump was a one-term president.’
But in October, Legend and his supermodel and TV host wife Chrissy Teigen told Vanity Fair they were Warren fans.
‘My wife Chrissy says hello too. She sends her love,’ he told the audience of mostly college students Wednesday, earning shrieks of adoration from the crowd.
Legend said the celebrity couple already had their mail-in ballots ready for California’s Democratic primary, which takes place next week as part of ‘Super Tuesday.’
‘I’m happy to report. I already marked my choice,’ he told several hundred people gathered at the campus’ MLK Auditorium. ‘I put it in pen because I made my decision, I’m not changing my mind.’
‘I believe Elizabeth Warren should be the next president of the United States,’ he said.
Legend said he came to the decision after watching some of the early debates and town halls and said it was made ‘abundantly clear’ that Warren was a cut above the rest.
He said it was her smarts, plus her empathy that earned her his endorsement.
‘How do I know Elizabeth Warren practices empathy?’ the crooner asked the crowd. ‘More than any other candidate I’ve seen, Elizabeth’s answers about policy start with a story about people.’
Legend also dedicated a part of his speech to speaking about racial inequality, saying that it ‘runs rampant in our society,’ one of the long-lasting effects of slavery, which has led to ‘centuries of trauma and exclusion’ for black American communities.
‘And Elizabeth has listened to us,’ Legend said.
He talked about how Warren wants to explore giving descendants of slaves reparations.
And the singer went after Bloomberg – Warren’s favorite punching bag on the debate stage – for controversial comments the former New York City mayor made about redlining.
In 2008, Bloomberg connected the financial crash to Congressional efforts to eliminate the discriminatory housing practice of redlining.
‘And once you started pushing in that direction, banks started making more and more loans where the credit of the person buying the house wasn’t as good as you would like,’ Bloomberg said at the time.
Warren couldn’t resist going after Bloomberg, too, when she gave her stump speech Wednesday. She already ripped him on the debate stage twice, mainly going after him for his company’s use of non-disclosure agreements with ex-employees.
At South Carolina State, as she explained her ‘two cent’ wealth tax, she talked about how billionaires haven’t been a fan.
Some of them go on television and cry about it, she said.
‘Some of them run for president,’ she added. ‘Maybe discovering it’s harder than they thought,’ she said under her breath.
Another reason Legend gave for liking Warren is that ‘she doesn’t spend time wining and dining billionaires.’
‘She might just personally call you and say thank you,’ Legend added, speaking of the calls she makes to everyday political donors.
Legend also gave Warren credit for sticking around after events and taking selfies with people in line.
But on Wednesday, Warren scrapped the selfie line, pitching to her crowd something else instead.
‘Instead of doing a selfie line today, we’re going to get music from John Legend,’ she said to screams.
And so after she was finished with her remarks, Legend joined her again onstage and then sat down at a piano, playing two of his songs, including the hit ‘All of Me.’