Sam Husseini: “Senator, your five biggest funders are PACs and others related with Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan. Given the huge Wall Street bail-outs, why shouldn’t concerned Americans conclude that Wall Street has basically bought off not just you, but a large chunk of congress?”
John McCain: “Well let me just point out that it is clear that then candidate Obama got measurably more contributions than I did from Wall Street and hedge fund people. That’s just a matter of fact. In fact, I was disappointed that I didn’t get more financial support from [laughs] organizations that I thought fundamentally shared many of my principles. So the fact is that’s a very small percentage of the amount of money that I received, and I was one of the first who criticized the excesses of Wall Street. I, and others, were the ones that after an Inspector General’s report called for the regulation and bringing under control Fannie and Freddie who were the catalysts for the catastrophe that took place. We recognized it, we urged action, and unfortunately that action was not taken.”
[originally published on Washington Stakeout on May 10, 2009; posted on posthaven Nov. 13, 2015]