WASHINGTON -- Saturday evening’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa marked a seeming turning point in Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) presidential campaign.
The Vermont senator, known for his nearly monomaniacal focus on his agenda, took actual swipes at Hillary Clinton on everything from her vote for the Iraq War to her ambiguity on the Keystone XL Pipeline and trade deals.
Though Sanders didn’t mention Clinton by name, the jabs weren’t subtle. Nor was the timing, coming after a two-week period in which Clinton had a solid debate performance, did well at a hearing before the Select Committee on Benghazi and saw one of her toughest competitors -- Joe Biden -- pass on a presidential run.
In an interview with CNN Sunday morning, Sanders didn’t back down from his charges. And though he declined to say whether this marked a “new phase” of the presidential campaign, he did go after Clinton by name this time.
“I have consistently been a critic of what is going on on Wall Street, the greed, the recklessness, the illegal behavior. I helped lead the effort to ― against the deregulation of Wall Street. I believe that we should bring back Glass-Steagall legislation so that you do not have the absurd situation of commercial banks and investment banks and large insurance companies being together,” Sanders told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“You do not have six financial institutions having assets equivalent to 60 percent of the GDP,” he continued. “With all the economic and political power that these banks have, I think you’ve got to break them up. That has always ― that has been my view for a very, very long time. That is not Hillary Clinton’s view.”
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