Elizabeth Warren joins Obama to slam Trump on Wall Street reforms
Progressive firebrand Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, teamed up with President Obama in a video address released Saturday to tout the administration's achievements on Wall Street reform -- all while taking swipes at Republican nominee Donald Trump.
"When I took office in the darkest days of the crisis, I promised you we wouldn't just recover from crisis - we'd rebuild our economy on a new foundation to make sure a crisis like that never happens again," Mr. Obama said in the video.
Next to him, Warren lauded the president for the pledge he "delivered" on.
"He signed into law the toughest Wall Street reforms and strongest consumer protections in generations," said the Massachusetts Democrat. "Trust me - I'm a pretty tough grader. These new rules are making our financial system more transparent, getting rid of a lot of fine print and making sure that if a bank screws up, you have someone to call so you don't get stuck with the bill."
The president also praised the work of the watchdog Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as one more institution in place to safeguard Americans from powerful Wall Street firms.
The pair stressed the dangers they said the Republican Party posed to the "progress" of the Obama administration, pointing specifically to Trump's "promises to dismantle all of it."
"Every year, like clockwork, big banks and their Republican allies in Congress try to roll back these protections and undermine the consumer watchdog, whose only job is to look out for you," Warren said. "Their nominee for president promises to dismantle all of it. They may have forgotten about the crisis, but working families sure haven't. We haven't either. And that's why we're not going to let them give Wall Street the ability to threaten our economy all over again."
Earlier this year, Trump pledged to deregulate Wall Street firms, saying that legislation like the Dodd-Frank Act has "made it impossible for bankers to function."
"It makes it very hard for bankers to loan money for people to create jobs, for people with businesses to create jobs. And that has to stop," Trump told Reuters. He added that the changes to legislation under his watch would be "close to dismantling of Dodd-Frank."