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Morning Joe Panel Slams Hillary Clinton for Flippant Answer on Speaking Fees

February 4, 2016

Thursday's Morning Joe panel slammed Hillary Clinton for her flippant answer at Wednesday's New Hampshire town hall to the question of why she had accepted exorbitant Wall Street speaking fees.

CNN's Anderson Cooper asked Clinton why she had accepted $675,000 for three speaking engagements with the investment bank Goldman Sachs. Clinton was defensive and said that she made lots of speeches to different groups. Cooper asked again if she really needed to accept the large speaking fee.

"Well, I don't know. Um, that's what they offered," Clinton said.

Her comment was met with laughter from the audience. Clinton again went on the defensive saying that she accepted the money because she did not think that she would be running for president.

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough was dumbfounded.

"Well, I just don't know where to begin, Mark Halperin. We can start with her suggesting she didn't think that she was going to run for president. Secondly, saying that she could get $675,000 because everybody is doing it, as far as Secretary of States go. She said name one thing that anyone has bought with money paying me. [Former Clinton aide and current ABC anchor] George Stephanopoulos said access," Scarborough said.

Bloomberg's Mark Halperin agreed that the moment was easily her weakest moment in the forum.

"But that answer goes to the biggest contradiction in her campaign now that she faces off with Bernie Sanders, even as she continues to move to the left to try and keep him from having room on the left. She and her supporters suggest that Sanders is too left-wing to be elected president and that answer and all the problems in dealing with being more of an establishment candidate than Sanders revealed there. It clearly makes her uncomfortable," Halperin said.

During Clinton's campaign, she promised to break up the big banks, which would include Goldman Sachs.