Paid speeches have been the bane of presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s campaign, with it becoming increasingly clear she wasn’t only extremely well-paid for speaking to the bankers and corporations(to the tune of 153 million dollars in full between Bill and herself) – she was also trying very hard to convey that she is one of them. She has thus far resisted attempts to release transcripts of her speeches, and will do so only when “everyone else does“.
During last Thursday’s MSNBC Democratic town hall meeting, a realtor asked Clinton a question that many have been dying to get an answer to:
“As a realtor here in Nevada I know how important the economy is to our great nation,” he said. “As a Democratic candidate who has delivered speeches to the largest U.S. financial institutions in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees, why are you hesitant to release transcript or audio/video recordings of those meetings to be transparent with the American people regarding the promises and assurances that you have made to the big banks?”
Fair enough; if you’ve got nothing to hide…
“Let me say this,” Clinton replied, “I am happy to release anything I have when everybody else does the same, because every other candidate in this race has given speeches to private groups, including Senator Sanders.”
Bernie Sanders has countered her challenge with yet more rhetoric… Nope. Actually, he posted a video of one of his paid speeches – as well as the amount he was “paid” (after counting charitable costs, it amounts to zero dollars).
This is what a paid @BernieSanders speech looks like:https://t.co/g0AaUEu4yn
Don’t worry. The $500 payout was given to charity.— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 19, 2016
He wasn’t trying to misdirect you by featuring a cheap speech either; even the New York Times reported last year, if you can get beyond the fact that the article is dripping with condescension, that he earned a miserable 850 bucks at most per speech, while Clinton earns 315,000 dollars on average. Sanders donated all 1,867 dollars of the “chump change” he earned from speaking three times in 2014, while Clinton had donated “some of” the 11 million she earned in a 15 month stretch… “aiming to garner the 7-figure donations that Senator Sanders can only renounce.”
Although she has not released a transcript of her speeches, those present for the engagements were able to fill the rest of us in on the details. According to Politico, while speaking to Goldman Sachs execs at a 2013 Arizona summit, “she spoke glowingly of the work the bank was doing to raising capital and helping create jobs, according to people who saw her remarks.”
Thanks for “creating” jobs by crashing the economy with risky investments that benefit you on the upside, and get bailed out by tax payers on the downside.
Sources: Common Dreams, The American Mirror, CNN
This article (Hillary Clinton’s Paid Speeches vs. Bernie Sanders’) is a free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author(CoNN) and AnonHQ.com.
The fact that Sanders claims to have earned zero dollars for speeches made, could also be an indication than most don’t believe he has much to impart that is worth paying to hear.
You are right, they probably don’t want to pay to hear him tell them they need to start paying their fair share of taxes and that they need to stop using the middle class to pay their employees while they keep the profits.