Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein responded Wednesday to Donald Trump’s suggestion that he and other top bankers were in league with Hillary Clinton and against the U.S., saying that he was not part of such a conspiracy and downplaying the significance of the Republican candidate’s remarks.
“If there is some international Kabbalah group, once again I’m left out of the party,” Blankfein said in an interview on CNBC.
Blankfein was responding to Trump’s remarks on the campaign trail Thursday concerning portions of transcripts of speeches Hillary Clinton gave privately to banks that were illegally obtained and published by WikiLeaks. “Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special-interest friends and her donors,” Trump said. Some commentators suggested that his remarks were tinged with elements of anti-Semitic tropes.
Trump is tapping into the populist sentiment that always arises in the wake of financial crises, Blankfein said in Wednesday’s interview.
He also provided a straightforward denial: “We weren’t meeting in secret and we weren’t plotting the destruction,” he said.
Blankfein also responded to the skepticism of Wall Street that has grown among liberal Democrats and the pressure that those Democrats have applied to Clinton not to appoint bankers to regulatory posts if she is elected president.
“This will also wear out. These cycles have happened before,” Blankfein said. “I think eventually people are going to have to get things done, are going to have to have talented people.”
