Several members of the audience at Thursday’s Democratic primary debate booed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she ran from repeated questions about her refusal to release the transcripts of her speeches to big banks.
The Democratic presidential front-runner struggled to explain Thursday night why, given that she’s assured voters there is “absolutely” nothing to worry about in the speeches she was paid thousands to make to Wall Street executives, she won’t “put it to bed” and simply make the transcripts public.
“I did stand up to the banks. I did make it clear that their behavior would not be excused … If you’re going to look at the problems that actually caused the great recession, you’ve got to looks at the full picture,” Clinton said, ignoring CNN moderator Dana Bash’s question.
Clinton added, “There are certain expectations when you run for president. This is a new one … but I will tell you this, there is a longstanding expectation that everybody running release their tax returns.”
Asked a second time to specifically address the transcripts, Clinton responded by hitting her opponent Bernie Sanders for the delayed release of his tax returns.
“Set the same standard on tax returns. Everybody does it — and then we move forward,” she said, drawing boos from the audience.
“We’ll get them out very shortly. It’s not a big deal,” Sanders responded.
The Vermont senator claimed that his wife, Jane, usually takes care of the family’s taxes and has been busy joining him on the campaign trail. He later vowed to release his 2014 tax returns on Friday, the day after the debate.
