Mic Smith/AP
Bernie Sanders attacked Hillary Clinton’s ties to big banks, taking off the gloves on Sunday night in the last Democratic presidential debate before the Iowa caucuses.
Asked to lay out the difference between his and Clinton’s plans for dealing with big banks, Sanders responded with a personal jab.
“The first difference is, I don’t take money from big banks, I don’t get personal speaking fees from Goldman Sachs,” Sanders said, to boos and scattered applause from the audience.
Goldman Sachs paid Clinton $675,000 in speaking fees in 2015, according to public disclosures. Wall Street reform is a key plank in Sanders’ campaign platform.
“Can you really reform Wall Street when they are spending millions and millions of dollars on campaign contributions and when they are providing speaker fees to individuals?” Sanders asked. “So it’s easy to say, well, I’m going to do this and do that, but I have doubts when people receive huge amounts of money from Wall Street.”
Clinton responded by suggesting that Sanders had cast aspersions not only on her ties to financial corporations, but on President Barack Obama as well. “He’s criticized President Obama for taking donations from Wall Street, and President Obama has led our country out of the great recession…I’m going to defend President Obama for taking on Wall Street, taking on the financial industry and getting results,” Clinton said.
See the exchange:
