Progressive Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Thursday she was "troubled" by news that former President Barack Obama would accept $400,000 from a Wall Street investment firm for a speech in September.
In an interview Thursday on SiriusXM's "Alter Family Politics" to talk about her new book, "This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America's Middle Class," Warren was asked how she felt about Obama accepting the big fee for speaking at Cantor Fitzgerald LP's healthcare conference in September.
"I was troubled by that," she responded.
"One of the things I talk about in the book is the influence of money. I describe it as a snake that slithers through Washington. And that it shows up in so many different ways here in Washington."
"The influence of dollars on this place is what scares me," she added. "I think it ultimately threatens democracy. And one of the reasons I feel so urgent when I wrote this book is that we have to think about what the tools are to fight back against it."
Obama spokesman Eric Schultz said in a statement that Wall Street money won't change the former president's politics – and that healthcare is an important issue to him.
"With regard to this or any speech involving Wall Street sponsors, I'd just point out that in 2008, Barack Obama raised more money from Wall Street than any candidate in history — and still went on to successfully pass and implement the toughest reforms on Wall Street since [ex-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt]," Schultz wrote.
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