Bernie Sanders Slams Obama for $400k Speaking Fee From Wall Street

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the failed 2016 Democrat presidential contender whose unabashed support for socialism will ensure he never becomes president, was not pleased by former President Barack Obama having recently accepted a $400,000 deal to speak at a conference later this year.

“I think he, as a president, represented our country with integrity and intelligence, but I think at a time when people are so frustrated with the power of Wall Street and the big money interests, I think it is unfortunate that President Obama is doing this,” Sanders said Friday on CBS News.

But Sanders was not the only anti-capitalist kook upset by the former president’s admittedly savvy money-making skills.

“I was troubled by that,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren moaned Thursday during a radio interview on the SiruisXM show “After Family Politics,” according to ABC News.

Warren was so “troubled,” in fact, that she used it to hawk her book — trying to make a little money off the ex-president’s moneymaking.

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“One of the things I talk about in the book (“This Fight is Our Fight”) is the influence of money,” she continued. “I describe it as a snake that slithers through Washington. And that it shows up in so many different ways here in Washington.” (Warren’s book is available on Amazon for $16.80 hardcover, if anyone’s interested.)

To be clear, there was nothing inherently wrong with Obama being paid by Wall Street to speak. Writing for National Review, Jim Geraghty noted that “(i)t’s a free country, and he’s not violating any law, government regulation or ethics code.”

Reason magazine contributor Ed Krayewski, a former Fox Business and Fox News media producer, added that to truly “drain the swamp,” Americans “don’t have to restrict the actions of former government officials to reduce corruption” — they have “to restrict the actions of government.”

That being said, Obama does deserve criticism for being a hypocrite. Recall that while pushing Wall Street regulation during a speech seven years ago, the then-president bluntly stated, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money,” as noted by the New York Post.

The problem is that neither Sanders nor Warren were concerned about Obama’s hypocrisy. What bothered them was that he was making money via Wall Street. In other words, what they found distressing was that the former president was benefiting from the institutions of capitalism. This despite evidence showing that Sanders and Warren are themselves capitalist pigs, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

So, yes, while Obama deserves plenty of criticism for hypocrisy, Sanders and Warren are by no means innocent themselves.

H/T The Daily Caller

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