Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) called out Hillary Clinton for her six-figure speaking fees from major financial institutions on Sunday.
"What do you see as the difference between what you would do and what Secretary Clinton would do?" NBC anchor Lester Holt asked on Wall Street regulation.
"The first difference is I don't take money from big banks. I don't get personal speaking fees from Goldman Sachs," Sanders said.
Hillary Clinton and her husband, Bill Clinton, came under scrutiny last year for their massive speaking fees from universities, corporations, non-profits, and even foreign governments.
Hillary Clinton made $2.9 million in speaking fees to large financial institutions from 2013 to 2015 alone—including a $675,000 fee from Goldman Sachs.
Many of Bill Clinton’s largest speaking fees came during the period when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, raising the possibility that payers hoped to influence U.S. government policy through their payments.
The couple have earned over $100 million from speeches since leaving the White House "dead broke," a sum they have used to pay their bills.
Transcript below:
LESTER HOLT: Let’s turn now to the economy. Senator Sanders, you released a tough new ad last week in which without mentioning Secretary Clinton by name, you talk about two Democratic visions for regulating Wall Street. Quote, one says it’s okay to take millions from big banks and tell them what to do. My plan, break up the big banks, close the tax loopholes, and make them pay their fair share. What do you see as the difference between what you would do and what Secretary Clinton would do?
BERNIE SANDERS: The first difference is I don’t take money from big banks. I don’t get personal speaking fees from Goldman Sachs. What I would do —what I would do is understand that when you have three out of the four largest banks today bigger than they were when we bailed them out because they were Too Big to Fail. When you have the six largest financial institutions having assets of 60 percent of the GDP of America, it is very clear to me what you have to do. You have to bring back the twenty-first century Glass-Steagall legislation and break up these huge financial institutions. They have too much economic power and they have too much financial power over our entire economy. If Teddy Roosevelt were alive today, the old Republican trustbuster, what he would say is, these guys are too powerful. Break them up. I believe that's what the American people to want see. That’s my view.