Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, who says he is considering launching a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, said Friday that Hillary Clinton is “a little too close to Wall Street.”
“On the economy, of course, she’s been a little too close to Wall Street and that’s Senator [Elizabeth] Warren’s point,” he said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” referring to the Democrat from Massachusetts.
{mosads}But Chafee — who is a critic of Clinton’s 2002 Senate vote to authorize the war in Iraq — said that the two mostly agree on domestic policy, specifically noting shared support for minimum wage increases and bolstering Pell grants.
“I assume there’s going to be a lot of similarities [as] we go into the campaign on domestic issues,” he said.
Chafee has already shown that he is willing to repeatedly hit the presumptive Democratic frontrunner — setting him apart from former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), who is also said to be considering a run for the nomination.
“The donations to the Clinton Foundation are alarming to me,” Chafee told The New York Times on Thursday, referring to foreign donations made to Clinton’s philanthropic initiative. He also suggested that her Iraq vote disqualified her from being president.
Chafee surprised many when he announced Thursday he was exploring a 2016 bid. He served in the Senate has a Republican between 1999 and 2007, and was later elected governor as an independent.
Clinton is reportedly planning to announce her candidacy on Sunday.