She spent no time criticizing Goldman or Wall Street more broadly for its role in the 2008 financial crisis.
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It’s no surprise, then, that Clinton has struggled to find the right tone on this issue.
But the sources’ recollections of the Clinton speeches are in line with another Politico report from December 2013.
“I’ll look into it”, she said, dismissively.
There’s the possibility – though I think it’s very remote – that Clinton simply wasn’t expecting the question and didn’t want to commit to anything in the moment.
COOPER: “But did you have to be paid $675,000?”
That’s what they offered.
I’m not sure what the correct response to this question is, but this wasn’t it. At a previous debate, when asked about her previous efforts to curb financial corruption, Clinton again dropped the ball.
These kinds of questions aren’t going away.
Pressure for Clinton to release transcripts of her speeches began in earnest last month when The Intercept’s Lee Fang asked her at a campaign event if she would release the documents.
“It was pretty glowing about us”, one attendee told Politico. Her aides have gone no further – even though at least one publication, the Washington Post, has been asking about the speeches “for the last two weeks”. It was like a rah-rah speech.
Her more immediate problem, though, is that she’ll continue to pay a price for keeping the transcripts under lock and key. “But in this environment, it could be made to look really bad”.
And that’s why Clinton’s unwillingness to release the transcripts is so odd, and so revealing. But in order to secure victory elsewhere-and possibly in the general election, where she may face a man who claims he’s too wealthy to be bought by corporate interests-she will have to address these speeches, her own equivalent of Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” campaign-killer.
A source who saw the speech said that’s why she won’t release a transcript of the remarks. As another attendee of one of the speeches put it, “It would bury her against Sanders”. Bernie Sanders. “It really makes her look like an ally of the firm”. “I think it would be you know a positive thing for the American people to know what was said behind closed doors to Wall Street, but ultimately that is her decision”. Clinton pushed back on ABC’s “This Week,” saying “Let everybody who’s ever given a speech to any private group under any circumstances release them”. Apparently, they mark a sharp contrast from the tough regulation she has recently touted. “It hasn’t changed my view or my vote either!”
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According to the analysis, Clinton collected at least $1.8 million for at least eight speeches given to big banks, while the pair earned a total of roughly $7.7 million for at least 39 speeches to Wall Street. And making matters even more awkward is that her But all politicians do it defense actually plays directly into Sanders’ larger argument, which is that too many politicians do it.
