During a CNN drive-in town hall Thursday, 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden characterized his campaign as a righteous campaign for the working-class people of Scranton, Pennsylvania, against the affluent executives in Manhattan profiting off middle American labor.
Joe Biden characterizes his campaign as a campaign between Scranton and Park Avenue.
"All that Trump can see from Park Avenue is Wall Street. All he thinks about is the stock market." https://t.co/pV99Ho0FH1 #BidenTownHall pic.twitter.com/sGGWL5mv89
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 18, 2020
“I really do view this campaign as a campaign between Scranton and Park Avenue,” Biden said. “And I really mean it … All that Trump can see from Park Avenue is Wall Street. All he thinks about is the stock market.”
This election is Scranton vs. Park Avenue.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 18, 2020
While Biden tarnished his November opponent as a puppet of Wall Street however, Biden’s campaign and transition team possesses a number of notable connections to the New York financial district of its own.
CNBC Political Finance Reporter Brian Schwartz pointed out on Twitter that Biden’s transition team co-chair features Jeff Zients, the CEO of the investment firm Cranemere. Meanwhile, 32 Advisors Founder Robert Wolf, and prominent investment manager Jim Chanos have also each held fundraisers for the former vice president.
https://twitter.com/schwartzbCNBC/status/1306948676326219783?s=20
Schwartz continued, highlighting a list of Wall Street names who have generously contributed to a Biden victory, including Orin Kramer, James Murdoch, Mike Novogratz, Marc Lasry, and Blair Effron.
Trump of course, enjoys his own allies in the nation’s financial capital. No president hasn’t, let alone a billionaire who played the game for decades before leaving for the political arena, at great personal cost. The president fundraised in the Hamptons just last month, Schwartz wrote in August, where dinner tickets went for up to $500,000 per couple hosted by billionaire former hedge fund manager John Paulson.
Trump’s ties however, which he largely hasn’t shied away from since coming down the escalator of Trump Tower more than five years ago, don’t erase Biden’s cozy relationship with America’s top corporate board rooms. In fact, Biden has benefited from Wall Street far more than Trump, raking in eight times as much cash, according to Breitbart Economics and Finance Editor John Carney, formerly at the Wall Street Journal.
“Biden’s campaign has raised over $1 million from donors living on Park Avenue, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings,” Carney wrote. “That is more than eight times the $127,000 raised by the Trump campaign from the same area.”
