Former Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein said he may vote for President Trump over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) if the progressive firebrand wins the party’s 2020 presidential nomination.
“I think I might find it harder to vote for Bernie than for Trump,” Blankfein told the Financial Times in an interview published Friday. “The Democrats would be working very hard to find someone who is as divisive as Trump. But with Bernie, they would have succeeded.”
Sanders frequently argues that billionaires “should not exist” while millions of Americans struggle to afford basic human needs. Blankfein compared Sanders’s rebuke of billionaires to Trump’s widely criticized rhetoric.
“I don’t like assassination by categorization. I think it’s un-American. I find that destructive and intemperate,” Blankfein said. “I find that just as subversive of the American character as someone like Trump who denigrates groups of people who he has never met. At least Trump cares about the economy.”
Blankfein, a Democrat who supported former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election, led Goldman Sachs from 2006 through 2018. He has been frequently hammered by Wall Street critics, including Sanders, for Goldman’s involvement in the subprime mortgage bond trade that helped fuel the 2007-08 financial crisis.
“I welcome the hatred of the crooks who destroyed our economy,” Sanders shot back in a Friday tweet.
Blankfein, who is worth at least $1 billion, and Sanders have long feuded over the senator’s proposals to drastically increase taxes on billionaires. Blankfein has called Sanders “just as polarizing as Trump.”
“If Dems go on to nominate Sanders, the Russians will have to reconsider who to work for to best screw up the US,” Blankfein tweeted after Sanders won the New Hampshire primary.
“Sanders is just as polarizing as Trump AND he’ll ruin our economy and doesn’t care about our military. If I’m Russian, I go with Sanders this time around,” he added.
Blankfein’s latest attack comes amid rising fear among moderate Democrats that Sanders could build an “insurmountable” lead in electoral delegates by Super Tuesday, wrapping up the party’s presidential nomination.