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Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) got into a heated exchange with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough over Wall Street’s support of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election. Whitehouse said he believed that Wall Street donors helped Sen. Bernie Sander (I-VT) during the Democratic primary.
Scarborough asked Whitehouse if he could think of a major Democratic presidential candidate that had closer ties to Wall Street than Clinton, who Whitehouse supported during the primary.
“No, I can’t,” said Whitehouse, who pivoted to attacking Republicans for their ties to Wall Street and cited President Trump’s appointment of several former Goldman Sachs executives to Cabinet positions.
Scarborough followed up by telling Whitehouse, “You and I both know that Wall Street wanted Hillary Clinton to win a hell of a lot more than they wanted Donald Trump to win.”
“Oh, please. They were spending money in New Hampshire for Bernie Sanders,” Whitehouse responded heatedly.
Scarborough called out Whitehouse on this absurd claim, saying that Wall Street preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in the 2016 election.
“That is why Wall Street money supported Bernie Sanders in Democratic primaries to take her out because they thought she would be the stronger candidate. You can’t pretend that didn’t happen,” Whitehouse responded.
Whitehouse and Scarborough then proceed to have a back and forth regarding the absurdity of Whitehouse’s claims.
There is no evidence that Wall Street supported Sanders during the Democratic primary on the contrary. According to Open Secrets, “Wall Streeters donated more than any other industry to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and pro-Clinton super PACs,” during the Democratic primary.