Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski questioned Tuesday whether Hillary Clinton, who has made millions in speaking fees since 2001, could ever relate to someone below the poverty line.
"Explain to me how that woman, who struggles to get by on $10,000 a year, can relate to a candidate who maybe has made $600,000 in one year from speeches at Goldman Sachs, and knew she was going to be running for president, who pushed her husband to veto a bankruptcy bill and then voted for it as senator," Brzezinski said, referring to a woman who stood up at a Bernie Sanders rally Monday and emotionally recounted her experience working multiple minimum wage jobs.
"How does that woman [at the rally] relate [to Clinton], when she is struggling just to get by every day, when she has a degree?" Brzezinski asked New York Mayor and Clinton supporter Bill de Blasio.
In response, De Blasio said that Clinton has a history fighting big insurance companies, which has prepared her to "take on very powerful people."
"You saw Hillary talk at the town hall the fight for health insurance reform and taking on the big insurance companies, and I remember that vividly," De Blasio said. "This has been her whole life."
Brzezinski, unsatisfied with De Blasio’s answer, asked him again how Clinton could relate to struggling voters.
"How can that woman relate to Hillary Clinton, especially in light of ... the money that she raised for big banks in the year before she decided to run for president, knowing that she was going to run for president? How can that woman relate to her?" Brzezinski said.
De Blasio again said that Clinton has "devoted her life to those kinds of struggles" and that she has the experience to get things done.
"That woman needs a president who will fix the problem. That woman needs a president who is going to go into office, raise minimum wage, raise benefits for working families, paid family leave, paid sick leave, these type of things, and bluntly, tax the wealthy more. Hillary Clinton's platform says that," De Blasio said.
Clinton, along with her husband, has made more than $125 million in speaking fees since 2001. She was paid roughly $200,000 per Goldman Sachs speech, or about four times the median family income in Iowa.
Meanwhile, in her campaign speeches, Clinton continues to raise the issue of fixing the rigged economic system in America and combating big banks. "No bank is too big to fail, and no executive is too powerful to jail," is one of her favorite lines to repeat at rallies.