At a breakfast event Wednesday, Lloyd Blankfein said he could understand the appeal of Donald Trump to many voters, even if many of his policies seem “wacky.”
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President Trump?
"It's hard to imagine his finger on the button," Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein said of a potential Donald Trump presidency at a Wall Street Journal sponsored breakfast Wednesday. "That blows my mind."
But Blankfein, a Democrat who has appeared at Clinton Foundation events (and donated to some Republican congressional candidates), said he gets why Trump appeals to some voters. It's a sign, he said, that some may be yearning for politicians inclined to make deals, rather than lock themselves in bitter standoffs. "You put together a country where everyone has a pledge not to compromise, then Trump comes along and talks a language of dealing," he said.
Blankfein acknowledged Trump's positions were "wacky to me," but said he could see the attraction of somebody who "comes along and says 'hey I'm gonna get the best deal for my set of positions.'"
Gerard Baker, the editor of the Journal, also asked Blankfein about Bernie Sanders, who has said that Goldman wants "undue influence over the political process."
"He's not saying much to us, he says a lot about us, we've slipped into his talking points," Blankfein said. But the Jewish kid from the Brooklyn projects, who had scholarships to Harvard and Harvard Law School before ending up at Goldman Sachs, at least sees a fellow old-school Brooklynite in Sanders.
"I'm not saying the words sound like the words I use, but the accent sounds most like mine," Blankfein said. Sanders grew up in Midwood, Brooklyn and graduated from James Madison High School in 1959, while Blankfein graduated from the now-shuttered Thomas Jefferson High School, just over five miles away, in 1971.
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