Run against Trump? Elizabeth Warren will certainly stand and fight

Standing before the faithful of the National Rifle Association in Atlanta on Friday, the president predicted a surfeit of candidates. “You’ll have plenty of those Democrats coming over and you’re going to say, ‘No, sir, no thank you – no, ma’am,’” the president said. “Perhaps ma’am. It may be Pocahontas, remember that.”

Pocahontas is the racially charged term that Trump used on the campaign trail to dismiss Warren, who has claimed Native American heritage. Clearly, she had got under his skin. The Massachusetts senator was a self-declared “nasty woman” with a message for Trump: “Women have had it with guys like you.” She went to toe to toe with him on his favourite medium, Twitter, hammering him for delivering a “one-two punch of bigotry and economic lies”.

It is small wonder that, if asked who now personifies the anti-Trump resistance, Warren would come top of many people’s lists. At 67, the former Harvard law professor is a formidable figure with a reputation for reticence bordering on aloofness when approached by reporters in the corridors of Capitol Hill. But the woman who walks into Senate Democratic offices in Washington for this interview, wearing a blue jacket and dark trousers, is the opposite of aloof.

“Elizabeth Warren,” she says, despite being instantly recognisable to anyone following US politics, offering a handshake and warm smile.

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