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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) dropped a bomb on Wall Street today when during a CNN interview he vowed that if elected, the fat cats will have no place in his cabinet.

Transcript via CNN:

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TAPPER: I know it’s premature to ask you the type of person you would want to be your vice president, but if you were to get the nomination and then the presidency, could you give us a sense of the kinds of individuals you would want serving in your Cabinet?

SANDERS: Yes.

Unlike many other presidents, they — my Cabinet would not be dominated by representatives of Wall Street. I think Wall Street has played a horrendous role in recent years in negatively impacting our economy and in making the rich richer.

There are a lot of great public servants out there, great economists who for years have been standing up for the middle class and the working families of this country who know that it is an international embarrassment that we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth.

And let me tell you something else, Jake, that I will appoint people to deal with the issue of youth unemployment today, which we don’t talk about at all. Youth unemployment in this country, real youth unemployment for African-American kids is over 50 percent, the Hispanic kids, over 30 percent, and the same for white kids.

And that’s why we have to create a whole lot of jobs to put our kids back to work, rather than put them in jail or incarcerate them or build new jails. So, I want a Cabinet that is focused on rebuilding the crumbling middle class, demanding that the wealthiest people and large corporations become part of America, and do not live as an island unto themselves.



Not only does Sanders promise contrast him with his Democratic opponents, but it is also sends a clear message about the type of campaign that he is running.

It would be difficult to find a candidate taking a more grassroots liberal position on the composition of their cabinet than what Bernie Sanders offered.

If Sanders were to be somehow elected, it would be Wall Street’s biggest nightmare come true. The problem that he would have in governing is the same that President Obama currently faces. If Republicans still control all or any part of Congress after the 2016 election, the Sanders agenda would go nowhere.

Governing exists only in the realm of the hypothetical for Bernie Sanders right now. Sen. Sanders (I-VT) is taking bold positions to show the American people what could be.

The point that Bernie Sanders was making was that government doesn’t have to work the way that it has in the recent past. Voters don’t have to put up with the sorry excuse for a legislative branch that has been passed off as governing. The American people can make a change by thinking big and bold.

Wall Street may not be afraid of Bernie Sanders winning the White House in 2016, but they should be terrified of the possibilities that he is revealing.