Very smart people sometimes do very stupid things. Former President Bill Clinton had an affair with a White House intern. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton set up a private server for her email. And now former President Barack Obama has decided to give a speech on Wall Street for $400,000. What were they thinking?
News that Obama has agreed to pocket an obscene $400K for speaking at a September conference on healthcare sponsored by the Wall Street bank Cantor Fitzgerald is especially troubling, for several reasons.
{mosads}First, because it comes so soon after Democrats got their clock cleaned by Donald Trump, partly because middle-class voters believed — fueled by news of Hillary Clinton’s raking in cash from Goldman Sachs — that there was no longer any difference between Democrats and Republicans. They were all fighting for Wall Street bankers, not Main Street and blue-collar workers. Obama’s Cantor Fitzgerald event merely adds fuel to the fire.
Second, because it comes on the heels of an Obama administration that was too soft on Wall Street to begin with. It was candidate Obama who raised a record amount of money from Wall Street. It was President Obama, remember, who brought in Wall Street titans Tim Geithner and Larry Summers as his chief economic advisers. It was the Obama Justice Department that failed to prosecute one single Wall Street executive for the illegal financial shenanigans that led to the Great Recession of 2008 and wiped out the savings of millions of American families. And it was Obama who refused to reinstate Glass-Steagall and instead signed the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, which was little more than a slap on the wrist of Wall Street.
Third, because Americans were expecting so much more from Barack Obama. Other presidents have given paid speeches, too. But, especially after all the criticism Hillary received and the constant money-grubbing by Donald Trump and family, we thought Obama would be different. Instead, it looks like he, too, is just trying to cash in.
Obama staffers rushed to defend the former president’s decision to accept a $400,000 check from a Wall Street bank because, said spokesman Eric Schultz, healthcare “is an issue of great importance to him.” No doubt it is. But that begs the question: Then why isn’t he openly fighting Trump’s attempts to repeal ObamaCare? And, if healthcare is so important to him, why isn’t he giving this speech for free?
After all, it’s not like he needs the money. We treat our former presidents very well. They get an office, staff and Secret Service protection. Obama will receive a $200,000 pension every year for the rest of his life. He and former first lady Michelle Obama reportedly received a $65 million advance from Penguin Random House to write their memoirs. And yet he still charges the equivalent of one year’s salary as president to give a speech on healthcare?
Barack Obama knows better. Of course, there’s nothing illegal about his $400,000 Wall Street speech. It’s just unseemly, unnecessary and tone-deaf.
Press is host of “The Bill Press Show” on Free Speech TV and author of “Buyer’s Remorse: How Obama Let Progressives Down.”
The views expressed by this author are their own and are not the views of The Hill.