“There are two Democratic visions for regulating Wall Street,” the Vermont senator says in the ad, which his campaign said will be broadcast in Iowa and New Hampshire. “One says it's okay to take millions from big banks and then tell them what to do. My plan: Break up the big banks, close the tax loopholes and make them pay their fair share. Then we can expand health care to all and provide universal college education.”

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Sanders, who delivered a major speech on Wall Street last week in New York, has long suggested that Clinton, a former senator who represented that state, is too close to the financial sector to implement needed reforms.

Clinton contends that she has the stronger plan to overhaul Wall Street regulations in a fashion that would prevent another financial collapse akin to that of 2008. Following Sanders’s speech, several of her surrogates criticized his approach as too focused on breaking up banks, suggesting that the move could lead to instability in the industry.

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Sanders also released a letter Thursday signed by 170 economists that argues that his Wall Street plans are superior.

“Will they like me? No,” Sanders says of Wall Street executives in the new ad. “Will they begin to play by the rules if I’m president? You better believe it.”

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The Clinton camp cried foul over the spot, with aides telling reporters during an afternoon conference call that it broke a long-standing Sanders pledge not to air negative ads.

"It was clearly a negative ad," said Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, adding that he was "very surprised" that Sanders had moved in that direction.

Clinton aides distributed past statements from Sanders and top advisers suggesting that he had no plans to run traditional "contrast" ads during his presidential bid.

Tad Devine, Sanders's media consult, said he saw no contradiction with those statements.