Earlier in the primary season, Hillary Clinton set the condition that she would only release the transcripts of her paid, closed door speeches to Wall Street if everyone else running for president did the same. Now it seems that standard has been met, in that the only two people left in the race have no Wall Street speeches to release.
If you will recall, a few months back Clinton was adamant that she would only release the transcripts to her Wall Street speeches if the Republicans released theirs as well. “If everyone agrees to do it — because there are speeches for money on the other side — let’s set the same standard for everybody,” she said in an April debate against Bernie Sanders, as if he wasn’t even there. “When everybody does it, OK, I’ll do it.”
This seemed like a bad standard at the time, as she wasn’t technically running against any Republicans yet, just Sanders, who’s never given a speech to Wall Street unless you count his frequent, emphatically unpaid attacks. But it was information the Republicans might ostensibly use against her in the general election, so it made political sense that she’d want potential nominees Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich to put their cards on the table as well.
But, as progressive commentator Cenk Uygur pointed out on a recent edition of his web show “The Young Turks,” it’s just Clinton, Donald Trump, and Sanders now. And neither Trump nor Sanders have given paid speeches to Wall Street; Trump because he’s the laughingstock of the financial sector, and Sanders because of mutual loathing. In fact, my favorite part of the recent Sanders rally in Long Island City was when he “released” his Wall Street speeches by throwing a bunch of imaginary papers into the air and saying, “Here they are!” Because there are none, get it? I’m really gonna miss that guy.
Anyway, now that her own standard has been met, it’s going to be a bad look if she tries to move the goal post to “when Trump releases his tax returns” or what have you. We know Clinton too well at this point to think there’s anything in there but the bland corporate cheerleading we’ve come to expect from her. Perhaps something about how we need more women and minorities in the ruling class. Bill has even showed signs of trying to get out in front of it by talking about how it’s not fair to blame the people who wrecked our economy for wrecking our economy.
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