Sanders calls Clinton ‘naive’ on Wall Street

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) knocked Hillary Clinton as “naive” on Wall Street during the first Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday in Las Vegas.

“Going to Wall Street and saying ‘please stop’ is very naive,” Sanders told Clinton during a heated exchange about their regulatory policies, in particular the Glass-Steagall Act.

{mosads}The former secretary of State has sought to differentiate herself from two of her closest Democratic challengers: Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who have called for reviving Glass-Steagall. The Great Depression-era law, which President Bill Clinton repealed in 1999, required financial institutions to separate their commercial and investment banking operations.

Clinton, in contrast, argued that Glass-Steagall is the wrong policy prescription and wouldn’t have prevented the 2008 economic collapse.

“If only you look at the big banks, you may be missing the forest for the trees. We’ve got to look at all the other financial institutions,” Clinton said during the debate.

Instead of Glass-Steagall, Clinton would raise the fees for financial institutions that engage in high-risk transactions and banking.

The Democratic contenders each tried to make the case that they would be the toughest on Wall Street.

“You are not for Glass-Steagall. You are not for putting a firewall between speculative, risky shadow banking behavior. I am,” O’Malley told Clinton during the debate.