Wall Street tells Clinton: Stay away from Elizabeth Warren

CNBC

Chip Somodevilla - Wall Street has an unambiguous message for Hillary Clinton: Don't pick Elizabeth Warren as your vice president if you want to keep getting our money.

That warning came through very clearly in over a dozen interviews I did over the last week with some of the largest Democratic donors on Wall Street who have helped fund Clinton's campaigns over the years as well as funneled cash to Bill Clinton's political career in the 1990s.

"If Clinton picked Warren, her whole base on Wall Street would leave her," one top Democratic donor who has helped raise millions for Clinton told me. "They would literally just say, 'We have no qualms with you moving left, we understand all the things you've had to do because of Bernie Sanders, but if you are going there with Warren, we just can't trust you, you've killed it.'"

The arguments of course are mostly self-serving. The financial services industry loathes Warren, who more than anyone in the last 80 years has channeled the rage against Wall Street that began with the Great Depression and continues to course through the nation following the 2008 financial crisis. Warren wants to break up the nation's largest banks. She created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The mere mention of her name draws groans from bankers.

The bankers I spoke with also said they thought there was no chance Clinton would tap Warren. The arguments: The two don't really get along; Clinton would never pick a number two who could outshine her; Clinton doesn't want a VP who would create her own power center in both the campaign and the White House.