Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was lambasted Thursday by Sen. Elizabeth Warren for saying that he supported a “21st Century Glass-Steagall” Act, but opposed breaking up banks’ commercial and investment banking functions.
“This is bizarre!” fumed Warren, D-Mass., at Mnuchin during a hearing on Capitol Hill that quickly turned contentious when it was her turn to question the Treasury chief.
“Tell me what 21st Century Glass-Steagall means if it doesn’t mean breaking apart banks?” asked Warren. She noted, repeatedly, that the original Glass-Steagall Act passed into law in 1933 and repealed in 1999 broke commercial banks apart from investment banks.
Mnuchin tried to dodge Warren on that issue, saying “It is a complicated question.”
“I’ll bet,” Warren snapped.
Mnuchin continued, saying that “the simple answer, which we don’t support, is breaking up banks from investment banks.”
“We think it would be a huge mistake,” he said.
Warren suggested that Mnuchin, who offered to explain his views to her in a private meeting, was engaging in double-speak, particularly since Mnuchin, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and the Republican Party platform had called for a 21st Century version of Glass-Steagall.
“This is like something straight out of George Orwell,” Warren said.