CNBC's Jim Cramer said Thursday that he has a soft spot for Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren because she has really spent her career thinking about how to help people.
"You have a soft spot for her, it seems," "Squawk on the Street" host Carl Quintanilla said to Cramer.
"Yes," Cramer replied, saying it's "because I think she has thought about the people who are not doing well in the country, and that is great."
Those remarks add another layer to this week's back-and-forth between the Massachusetts senator and the "Mad Money" host, who on Tuesday said Wall Street executives were telling him that her 2020 bid has "got to be stopped."
Cramer's comments drew widespread attention, and Warren responded by tweeting, "I'm Elizabeth Warren and I approve this message."
Warren, whose steady rise in the presidential race has placed her alongside Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden in the upper echelon of Democratic candidates, followed up in another tweet on Wednesday.
Before her election to the U.S. Senate, in 2012, Warren was a well-known bankruptcy expert and professor at Harvard Law School. She has for years been critical of the financial industry, ardently opposing a 2005 law that she believed was too favorable to credit card companies and not helpful enough to Americans facing bankruptcy.
She also was instrumental in the conception of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a regulatory agency created as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.
"It would be a suboptimal situation for the banks" if Warren were to win the Democratic presidential nomination, Cramer said Tuesday.
But on Thursday, Cramer was adamant that he respects Warren. She is "smart as a whip," he said. "She is rigorous. She tweets then sends you to position papers." Warren has been a guest on "Mad Money."
Cramer's follow-up comments came shortly after Warren's campaign released a proposal for an increase in Social Security benefits, paid for by new taxes on high-income Americans. Cramer said he liked the proposal.
"Why not?" Cramer said of increasing the investment income tax rate. "Investment income means you don't do anything. Why is investment income taxed lower than the hard-working people who [make] ordinary income?"
Cramer also said he views Warren's signature wealth tax proposal, which would levy a 2% tax on Americans with $50 million-plus in assets, relatively favorably. Some question both the constitutionality of the proposal and whether it would actually raise the $2.75 trillion over 10 years that her campaign projects.
"Do you think those people would get hurt? I think no," Cramer said. "Those people do great. They can afford it, is what I'm saying."
Warren and nine other Democratic candidates will appear in Houston on Thursday night for another Democratic presidential debate.