Thursday at the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee update on the Trump administration’s fiscal policies, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (R-MA) peppered Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin with hostile questions, interrupting several times over an updated Glass-Steagall law.
Mnuchin said, “Republican platform did have Glass-Steagall. We during the campaign and I had the opportunity to work with the president on this, specifically came out and said we do support a 21st century Glass-Steagall, which is, that means there are aspects of it, okay, that we think may make sense. But we never said before that we supported a full separation of banks —”
Warren interpreted Mnuchin saying “I’m sorry, let me just stop you right there, Mr. Secretary.”
Mnuchin objected saying, “You’re not letting me finish.”
Warren shot back, “Yeah, I’m not because I really have to understand what you’ve just said. There are aspects of Glass-Steagall that you support, but not breaking up the banks and separating commercial banking from investment banking? What do you think Glass-Steagall was if that’s not right at the heart of it?”
As Mnuchin tried to explain, Warren said, “So you’re in favor of Glass-Steagall, which breaks apart the two arms of banking, regular banking, and commercial banking, except you don’t want to break apart the two parts of banking. This is like something straight out of George Orwell.”
Warren continued the grilling, saying, “This is just bizarre. The idea that you can say we are in favor of Glass-Steagall but not breaking up the banks.”
Mnuchin said, “We never said we were in favor of Glass-Steagall. We said we were in favor of a 21st-century Glass-Steagall. It couldn’t be clearer.”
She ended by saying, “We are in favor of a bill that is called breaking up the banks only don’t break up the banks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is crazy.”
(h/t Grabien)
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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