Donald J. Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election was the final nail in the coffin of Barack Obama’s failed 8 years in the White House.
Since officially leaving office in January, Obama has kept a fairly low profile, traveling around the world with Michelle Obama, and was even caught kite surfing with billionaire businessman Richard Branson.
Despite remaining relatively quiet over the last few months, Obama emerged from hibernation on Monday, speaking at an event on the campus of the University of Chicago, billed as an event on “community organizing and civic engagement.”
It appears as though Obama’s speech on Monday was not a one-time affair, as it has just been reported that the former president will follow in the steps of Bill and Hillary Clinton, securing a $400,00 speaking fee to talk before the investment bank of Cantor Fitzgerald in September.
#Obama’s $400,000 Cantor speech makes him Wall Street’s newest fat cat. @FoxBusiness https://t.co/sqP9FASMwf
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 25, 2017
As Fox Business notes, Obama’s $400,000 fee is almost double that what Hillary Clinton made giving similar speeches.
Obama is speaking at “Cantor’s health care conference in September and will be the keynote luncheon speaker for one day during the event, people at the firm tell FOX Business. These people say Obama has signed the contract, but the company, a mid-sized New York-based investment bank, is waiting to coordinate with the former president before making a formal announcement.”
Obama’s speech to a major Wall Street bank is quite ironic given his frequent attacks on the financial industry. In fact, the former president once gave an interview in which he said “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.”
Here’s video of his comments:
As Fox Business points out, Obama’s anti-banking rhetoric went far beyond just words, as he was a strong supporter of the Dodd-Frank financial law that “squeezed bank profits, and forced firms like Goldman Sachs to drop once-lucrative business lines.”
Either Obama is a hypocrite for taking a massive amount of money from a Wall Street bank, or he never really believed the anti-banking statements that he made as president. If Hillary Clinton is any indicator, we shouldn’t be surprised to see Obama’s $400,000 speaking engagement to be the only high-dollar event the former president has lined up in future months.
Are you surprised that Obama would be cashing in on his presidency with lucrative speaking engagements? Do you think the former president is a hypocrite for speaking before a bank, or do you think he never actually believed any of the anti-bank policies he promoted as president? Share your thoughts below!