“This administration is looking out for the interests of businesses and corporations instead of the betterment of seniors, consumers, and homeowners…I have not heard today anything that you have said that is looking out for the interests of these people.”
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Development, today pressed Department of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin about the Trump Administration’s failure to focus on policies supporting American consumers and homeowners. In her questioning with Secretary Mnuchin, Cortez Masto noted recent comments he made, indicating the Administration’s focus on helping Wall Street, big banks and big corporations over hardworking Americans.
Cortez Masto said, “Mr. Mnuchin, you recently spoke at a conference of executives – where the cheapest ticket to attend cost $12,000 – and joked that quote, ‘you should all thank me for your bank stocks doing better,’ unquote. This remark came during a discussion of your efforts to roll back Wall Street Reform, including under an Executive Order signed by President Trump before a room full of powerful Wall Street executives. Well, while you’ve been working to undo financial protections, I am still hearing from constituents in my state who are suffering based on your actions.”
Cortez Masto continued, “Why doesn’t President Trump’s Executive Order that rolls back Wall Street reforms mention consumer or investor protection even once? Why doesn’t it direct you to consider the financial needs of borrowers, students, service-members, seniors, homeowners? What are you doing to ensure that you’re looking out for their best interests and who are you surrounding yourself with so that you just don’t hear from executives, but that you also get the perspective of homeowners and victims of that 2008 collapse?
“Because I have not heard today anything that you have said that is looking out for the interests of the people that I just talked about. I have not heard any specifics about middle class tax breaks, not heard any specifics about how you’re going to address the very people that I just talked about. You’ve been talking in absolutes and without bringing specifics into the conversation, and that concerns me.”
Watch Senator Cortez Masto’s full questioning here.
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