Booker backpedals after comparing Warren’s Facebook proposal to Trump

Sen. Cory Booker said fellow presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass) proposals to break up major tech companies like Facebook “sounds like a Donald Trump thing to say.”

“I don’t think that a president should be running around pointing at companies and saying ‘breaking them up’ without any kind of process,” he said in a clip of an interview he did with ABC News that was posted online Saturday. 

“It’s not me and my own personal opinion about going after folks. That sounds more like a Donald Trump thing to say like ‘I’m going to break up you guys,’” he added. 

{mosads} When ABC’s Jonathan Karl asked if Booker “just compared Elizabeth Warren to Donald Trump” Booker denied doing so.

“I most certainly did not. She is my friend,” he said. 

 “We do not need a president that is going to use their own personal beliefs and tell you which companies we should break up,” he added. “We need a president that’s going to enforce anti-trust laws in this country, and I will be that person.”

He also noted in the interview that he believes corporate consolidation is “absolutely” a big problem. 

The Hill has reached out to Warren’s campaign for comment.  

After Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes called for the social media company to be broken up, Sen. Cory Booker tells @ABC’s @jonkarl antitrust laws need to be enforced: “We’ve had a problem in America with corporate consolidation”

See more on @ThisWeekABC: https://t.co/TBnCDD3UkN pic.twitter.com/GbNKjFcBzl

— ABC News (@ABC) May 11, 2019

Warren has called for the breakup of major corporations including Facebook, Amazon and Google. 

“To restore the balance of power in our democracy, to promote competition, and to ensure that the next generation of technology innovation is as vibrant as the last, it’s time to break up our biggest tech companies,” she wrote in a Medium post. 

Facebook’s co-founder Chris Hughes this week also advocated for the company’s breakup in a New York Times op-ed. 

Warren and Booker are among more than 20 people competing for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination.