House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) disagrees with Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) notion that the Obama administration is too soft on Wall Street.
While Warren has been a vocal critic of how some of President Obama’s top lieutenants policing Wall Street have done their job, Pelosi cast her perspective as an outlier among her colleagues.
When asked in a CNBC interview if the president is too soft on Wall Street, Pelosi replied, “The financial industry doesn’t agree with that.
{mosads}“There may be a couple people who say that, but that is not the consensus in our party,” she added.
Warren has been a thorn in the side of the Obama administration on all things financial. She led the charge to scuttle a top Treasury Department nominee over his extensive ties to the financial sector, and earlier this month, she detailed her perceived failures in Mary Jo White, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
But Pelosi was quick to caution anyone from taking Warren’s argument and applying it to the entire Democratic Party.
“People will express themselves the way they do. That doesn’t mean they speak for the whole party,” she said.
Her remarks come as the Democratic Party’s stance towards Wall Street is one of the biggest topics within the party. Liberals such as Warren have pushed colleagues to take a much tougher stance against the sector, arguing that both parties overextend themselves to accommodate the banking industry.
And Hillary Clinton, seen by some on the left as too close to Wall Street, has taken heat from liberal challengers in the 2016 presidential race, including Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Pelosi was in charge of the House when Democrats pushed through the Dodd-Frank financial reform law back in 2010.
And she struck a confident tone Wednesday on the odds her party could make gains in the 2016 elections, despite the perception it will be highly unlikely Democrats could regain control of the House.
“We’re very excited,” she said. “We have met people who want to run. They believe they can win.”
And she herself gave little indication that she was preparing anytime soon to step down as the Democratic leader in the House, perhaps as younger Democrats push for leadership positions.
“I don’t feel any pressure from younger members of Congress. Maybe other members of Congress, but not necessarily younger members of Congress,” she said.