Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she is “troubled” by former President Barack Obama’s decision to accept a $400,000 paycheck for a speech he will deliver to a Wall Street-connected event in September.
The progressive Democrat from Massachusetts made the comment Thursday during an interview promoting her new book on SiriusXM’s “Alter Family Politics.”
“I was troubled by that,” she said about the report this week that Obama will be paid $400,000 to speak at Cantor Fitzgerald’s healthcare conference. “One of the things I talk about in the book is the influence of money. I describe it as a snake that slithers through Washington and that it shows up in so many different ways here in Washington.”
Warren added: “The influence of dollars on this place is what scares me. I think it ultimately threatens democracy.”
As president, Obama derided the bankers on Wall Street as “fat cats” and, like Warren, vigorously blamed big banks for spurring the 2008 financial crisis, which was followed by the Great Recession.
Critics were quick to complain about what they viewed as a double-standard and noted that the $400,000 figure is nearly double the amount Clinton, his former secretary of state, charged for speaking engagements with the likes of Goldman Sachs and others.
Obama’s spokesman, Eric Schultz, put out a statement defending the decision to accept the speaking fee as one that shouldn’t be seen as hypocritical.
“With regard to this or any speech involving Wall Street sponsors, I’d just point out that in 2008, Barack Obama raised more money from Wall Street than any candidate in history—and still went on to successfully pass and implement the toughest reforms on Wall Street since [former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt],” Schultz said.
Obama has been out of the White House for nearly 100 days and has kept a mostly low profile, working on his memoir in French Polynesia. This week he returned to the spotlight, making his first public appearance since the Inauguration during an event in Chicago.
