(Bloomberg) -- Billionaires Lloyd Blankfein and Leon Cooperman, both targets of Elizabeth Warren's new campaign ad, struck back on Thursday.
Blankfein, who ran Goldman Sachs Group Inc. until last year, said on Twitter that vilifying the rich is bad for the U.S.
“Maybe tribalism is just in her DNA,” he wrote. Blankfein didn't return a message asking if that was a reference to the genealogy test she took to prove she's part Native American. She apologized to the Cherokee Nation this year.
On CNBC, Cooperman referred directly to her heritage claims, which have included her citing her race as “American Indian.”
"Why did you lie on your Texas bar application in 1986?" Cooperman asked. "We don't need another fabricator in the White House."
Warren's ad, which opens with her call for a wealth tax, points out that Cooperman was accused of insider trading. In 2017, the billionaire investor and his firm agreed to pay $4.9 million to resolve claims from regulators that he traded on insider information, without admitting fault.
The Democrat's ad said Blankfein earned $70 million during the financial crisis and shows him saying that she prefers “cataclysmic change to the economic system as opposed to tinkering.”
Before President Donald Trump picked Goldman Sachs alumni for prominent posts in his administration, one of his final ads of the 2016 campaign showed Blankfein's face as the candidate said in a voiceover that a corrupt global power machine was robbing the U.S.
--With assistance from Melissa Karsh and Max Berley.
To contact the reporter on this story: Max Abelson in New York at mabelson@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Alan Mirabella, Alan Goldstein
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