Eric Schultz,a spokesman for Barack Obama spoke out Wednesday against critics
who called out the former president for reportedly accepting a
$400,000 speaking fee, backed by a Wall Street
bank.
Eric Schultz told Fortune that in 2008, then-
candidate Obama pulled in more money than any candidate in history,
and went on to “implement the toughest reforms on Wall Street since
FDR.”
Fox Business reported that Obama has agreed to speak at a Wall
Street conference run by Cantor Fitzgerald LP.
The speaking fee will
be $400,000, which is nearly twice as much as Hillary Clinton, his
secretary of state, and the 2016 Democratic Party candidate, charged
private businesses for such events.
Obama has agreed to speak at Cantor’s health care conference in
September and will be the keynote luncheon speaker for one day during
the event, people at the firm told Fox Business.
These people say
Obama has signed the contract, but the company, a mid-sized New
York-based investment bank, is waiting to coordinate with the former
president before making a formal announcement.
“Is there an irony here because he spoke incessantly about the income
gap and is now earning from those same people he criticized?
Yes it
is,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic political consultant. “Should we
expect it? Yes, we should because all former presidents do this. He
went on the attack against Wall Street and now he’s being fed by
those same people he called ‘fat cats’. It’s more hypocritical than
ironic.”
Schultz went on to say that Obama will continue to give the
occasional speech, but he will devote much of his time to writing his
book and “focusing his post-presidency work on training and elevating a
new generation of political leaders in America.”
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