Hillary Clinton should expect to be attacked by her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), over her paid speeches to Verizon at Thursday night's debate, NBC's Andrea Mitchell reported.
Clinton received $225,000 from the company for a speech she gave in May 2013. In addition, both her campaign and foundation have received large sums from its executives.
Mitchell reported on the appearances by both Sanders and Clinton at pickets of Verizon employees in New York City. Sanders spent considerable time with the strikers while Clinton shook hands with them for only a few minutes.
"People need to come to the table and reach an agreement," Clinton said on Wednesday.
"Sanders expected to go after Clinton for getting paid $225,000 from Verizon for a speech, this before she became a candidate. The same company, Verizon of course, whose striking workers Clinton showed up with on the picket line," Mitchell said.
While Sanders has criticized the communications giant, his campaign has been a good Verizon customer. In addition, Verizon's CEO has also fired back on Sanders' support for the strikers, saying that he does not know about Verizon.
Clinton has been paid multiple times by companies and firms which are now the targets of Democrats. According to CNN, both Bill and Hillary Clinton have received at least $153 million since 2001 for speaking engagements:
In total, the two gave 729 speeches from February 2001 until May, receiving an average payday of $210,795 for each address. The two also reported at least $7.7 million for at least 39 speeches to big banks, including Goldman Sachs and UBS, with Hillary Clinton, the Democratic 2016 front-runner, collecting at least $1.8 million for at least eight speeches to big banks.
Clinton and Sanders debate Thursday night on CNN.