CNBC's Santelli Rips Media for Ignoring 9/12 DC March
Not everyone at the NBC Universal umbrella of networks got the gag order memo about the Sept. 12 march on
Rick Santelli, who has been a target of the Obama White House and is credited with being the inspiration for the 2009 tea party movement, spoke out about how the media ignored the march. But, a year after the fall of Lehman Brothers, he was making the larger point that the government’s intervention to thwart a financial crisis had been an ineffectual and potentially dangerous maneuver at the expense of taxpayers.
“I think this one-year anniversary is great, but I think it’s great for another reason,” Santelli said on CNBC’s Sept. 14 “Squawk Box.” “I think someday we’ll learn that we didn’t need to do very much, that time heals all wounds and you don’t have to go broke in the process.”
Santelli also argued that, despite claims that the federal government had saved the day, no one – including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner – knows the amount of toxic derivatives still in the system,.
“What I said is that most of what they did is the same thing as papering up a situation in the darkest of times, where they’re going to claim that the credit crisis is fixed and over, as the current administration does many times,” Santelli said.
But these policies, which run counter to the wishes of the American people, would come back to haunt the leaders in government.
“It’s one year ago today I could see that the philosophical issues of those who lead us isn’t in lock step with those who put them there and probably that will change,” Santelli added.
That provoked CNBC “Squawk Box” co-host Carl Quintanilla to ask Santelli if he participated in the Sept. 12 march in Washington, D.C. Santelli said claimed ignorance, since they were ignored by the media in his estimation.
“What demonstrations? I watched network news, I didn’t see any,” Santelli said. “What demonstrations are you talking about?”
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