In tonight’s CNN debate, Hillary Clinton described her Wall Street reform proposals as “tougher” than her opponents.
CLINTON: “We can never let the American taxpayer and middle class families ever bail out the kind of speculative behavior that we saw. But we also have to worry about some of the other players. AIG, a big insurace company, Lehman Brothers, an investment bank. There’s this whole area called ‘shadow banking.’ That’s where the experts tell me the next potential problem could come from. So, I’m with both Senator Sanders and Governor O’Malley….”
O’MALLEY: “Actually, you’re not…”
CLINTON: “… in putting a lot of attention onto the banks. And the plan that I have put forward would actually empower regulators to break up big banks if we thought they posed a risk. But I wanna make sure we’re gonna cover everybody. Not what caused the problem last time, but what could cause it next time.”
COOPER: “Secretary Clinton said that her policy was tougher than yours.”
SANDERS: “Well, that’s not true. [Laughter, Cackles.] Uh, Let us be clear…. That the greed and recklessness and illegal behavior of Wall Street, where fraud is a business model, helped to destroy this economy and the lives of millions of people. Check the record. In the 1990’s, in all due respect, in the 1990’s when I had the Republican leadership, and Wall Street spending billions of dollars in lobbying…. When the Clinton administration, and Alan Greenspan said ‘what a great idear it would be to allow these huge banks to merge’ Bernie Sanders fought them. And helped lead the opposition to deregulation. Today, it is my view, that when you have the three largest banks in America, much bigger than they were when they were ‘too big to fail’ WE HAVE GOT TO BREAK THEM UP!”
CLINTON: “You know, I respect the passion and the intensity. I represented Wall Street as a Senator from New York, and I went to Wall Street in December of 2007, before the big crash we had, and I basically said ‘cut it out. Quit forclosing on homes, quit engaging in these speculative behaviors. I took on the Bush administration for the same thing….” (emphasis added).
Clinton again associated her plan with that of O’Malley and Sanders, which drew headshakes from the Vermont Senator. A meme criticizing Clinton suggesting most of her donors were “banks and corporations” was ranked ‘Mostly True’ by PolitiFact.
Watch the whole thing here:
