As chronicled in Noam Scheiber's cover story this week, Elizabeth Warren's unapologetic populism and intellectual credentials have endeared her to those on the left looking for a champion. But it is her aggressive hearing-room cross-examination style—captured in a slew of video clips that quickly went viral—that have bonded her to the Democratic left.
Here's an assortment of her greatest rhetorical flayings, barn-burning rants, and cable news cross-examinations:
Just after announcing her 2012 Senate candidacy, she talked rings around Joe Scarborough on his own show:
On the eve of October's government shutdown, she openly derided Republicans on the Senate floor:
Early in her tenure as the senior senator from Massachusetts, she doggedly questioned Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on "Too Big to Fail" banks:
Warren has proven herself formidable on both ends of the congressional podium; as head of the TARP oversight panel, she was accused by Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry of "making up" a prior scheduling conflict during questioning. The look on her face is pretty priceless:
As reported in Noam's article, one of Warren's legislative hobby horses is government's student loan policy. Here she is grilling Sallie Mae on profiting from the loans:
And she doesn't just dismantle hosts on the morning shows! As a guest on CNBC, she dismantled her questioner's arguments on financial regulation before anyone even had time to change to a better channel:
We had to include this one--the impromptu speech from a campaign event that turned her into a liberal dream candidate and helped launch the "You didn't build that" meme:
Tim Geithner was thought to oppose her candidacy to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. After a shakedown like this, who could blame him?
And if the previous clip seemed a little too gentle...
And finally, she wondered at her very first Senate hearing why so few Wall Street banks are ever taken to court: