Nicolle Wallace: Clinton Has Turned Wall Street Ties Into a ‘Gaping Wound’

WALLACE: "I think the fact that she stood there and laughed. I mean, Donald Trump has relationships on Wall Street, he is not paying a price in his primary. It’s that instead — every time she is given an opportunity to sort of strip herself down and say, look at my record and listen to what I’m going to do,’ her first reaction is always to hold the questioner at arm’s length and I think she’s paying a price for that as much as with anything.”
BRZEZINSKI: "I agree completely, but Sam, her policy papers--I mean, to what point do you want to look at those? To what end? Because if you take, for example, the story that Elizabeth Warren told about her basically do whatever she needed to do to get that veto from president Bill Clinton of a bankruptcy bill that then when she was elected senator she voted for, that’s all you need to know. Then what are you reading on a policy paper that you’re actually going to believe?"
STEIN: "Well, a policy paper is done to sort of set a benchmark of where she wants to go."
BRZEZINSKI: "But why would we think that she’s going to go there?"
STEIN: "Because that’s the place where voters can hold you accountable. They can say, OK, this is what you promised and you this is what you delivered. Now, the question facing Democrats is how do you get from point A to point B. And this is the fundamental question of this election on the Democratic side of the aisle. Can you do it through the outside game, which is what Bernie Sanders is saying. I can get the grassroots on, I can apply pressure on Congress, I can bring the Wall Street through its knees. Or do you need someone who is an inside operative like Hillary Clinton. Clinton has the added vulnerability of that she is close to these people, they are more persuasive to her, maybe she would be redirected from her policy paper and that’s why the Elizabeth Warren video is so damaging. It’s because it says, yes, when they do have her ear she listens to them and they can take her away from the places she wants to go."
WALLACE: "But it’s her own fault that that’s damaging is my only point."
STEIN: "Absolutely."
WALLACE: "She has the opportunity to turn it into an asset, to say I can bring Wall Street to their knees and make them help us. I can get things out of Wall Street which you can’t do when you are in a combative posture with them as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. But instead of turning what could have been a strength, you know, instead of tuning it into an asset, something that she brings that no Democrat — people used to like business friendly Democrats, people like that about Bill Clinton, [that’s how he had approval ratings] in the 60s during most of his presidency. [People trusted him to grow the economy.] The fact that she has squandered this opportunity and turned this into a gaping wound for herself is her own fault."