Trump Treasury Secretary to Wall Street: 'You Should Thank Me for Your Bank Stocks Doing Better'

By Judd Legum, ThinkProgress

01 May 17

 

Drain the swamp.

peaking to an elite Wall Street audience in Beverly Hills, Trump administration Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said he deserved a thank you.

Mnuchin, who spent 17-years working for Goldman Sachs, wanted credit for his efforts to deregulate the financial industry. “You should all thank me for your bank stocks doing better,” Mnuchin said at the Milken Institute Global Conference.

Since coming into office, President Donald Trump has begun the process of removing financial protections for consumers, including regulations that protected retirees from getting ripped off by their brokers. He has also started the process of unwinding Dodd-Frank, legislation that was put in place to curb the abuses that precipitated the financial meltdown of 2008.

Stocks in the financial industry, as Mnuchin noted, have surged as a result.

During the campaign, Trump actually pledged to increase regulation of banks, including by reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act, which broke up big banks by mandating they separate “investment and commercial banking”

He also lambasted his opponents, including Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz, for their ties to Goldman Sachs.

More broadly, Trump came to office on a populist wave and a pledge to “drain the swamp.” In his inaugural address Trump said, “For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost…. That all changes starting right here and right now because this moment is your moment, it belongs to you.”