Sen. Bernie Sanders and President-elect Donald Trump don't see eye to eye on much, but on this they do agree: both want to re-establishment the Glass Steagall Banking Act of 1933, which separated risky trading and investment from traditional banking activities such as business lending and consumer finance. The act was repealed in 1999.
I asked the Vermont senator about it at a recent Christian Science Monitor breakfast. “Absolutely! You’re right,” Sanders said. The former Democratic presidential hopeful called Trump’s support for re-establishing Glass-Steagall “a step forward.”
“Without going into great discourse here,” Sanders said, “I am one of those who does believe that financial deregulation brought about during the Clinton administration — allowing commercial banks, investor banks, and other large [banks] to merge — created the pathway forward to the collapse of 2008."
As to whether Trump will work with Sanders on what he called “a 21st century Glass-Steagall legislation,” the senator observed that “we’re going to learn all of this pretty quickly. He said a whole lot of things. Was he serious, or was this just campaign slogans to gain votes?”
I pointed out that the revival of Glass-Steagall was included on the Republican platform, and that Trump operatives were on hand at meetings of the party’s convention platform committee this summer when the Glass-Steagall plank was voted on.
Sanders replied, “Millions of Americans believe in it. And I would look forward to working with him.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax.
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