WASHINGTON -- Former President Barack Obama has agreed to accept $400,000 to speak at a health care conference this year sponsored by Cantor Fitzgerald, a Wall Street investment bank.
Out of office for about three months, Obama has begun the process of cashing in. In February, he and his wife, Michelle, each signed book deals worth tens of millions of dollars. And Obama's spokesman confirmed last week that he is beginning the paid-speech circuit.
On Wednesday, Obama spokesman Eric Schultz defended the former president, saying Obama decided to give the speech because health care changes are important to him. Schultz noted that Cantor Fitzgerald is a Wall Street firm but pointed out that Obama raised money from Wall Street as a presidential candidate, then went on to aggressively regulate it.
Obama will spend most of his post-presidency "training and elevating a new generation of political leaders in America," Schultz said in a statement.
Obama is hardly the first former president to collect big checks after his time in the White House, though the $400,000 speaking fee for addressing the Cantor Fitzgerald conference is a sharp increase from the amounts typically paid to his predecessors. Former President Bill Clinton became rich after leaving office, earning an average of more than $200,000 per speech over more than a decade. And former President George W. Bush was blunt when asked, shortly after he left office, what he intended to do.
"I'll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol' coffers," he told The New York Times in 2007. Eventually, Bush reportedly received $100,000 to $175,000 for each appearance.
Obama, who was paid $400,000 a year as president, frequently criticized big banks and warned against what he said was a growing inequality in the country. He also pushed for the Dodd-Frank law that regulated Wall Street.
"I believe this is the defining challenge of our time: making sure our economy works for every working American," Obama said in a speech in December 2013.
But Obama also courted Wall Street donors and other wealthy supporters during his eight years in the White House.
And since leaving office, he has spent most of his time in lavish locations, vacationing with Hollywood celebrities and wealthy friends.
Obama and his family now live in an 8,200-square-foot, nine-bedroom home in Washington valued at $6 million. The house, which rents for an estimated $22,000 a month, is in one of Washington's richest neighborhoods, surrounded by ambassadors, executives and other members of the political elite.
"I don't think that former presidents necessarily take vows of poverty, or should," said David Axelrod, one of Obama's closest advisers. "Will he be out there doing good? I think he will be. I watched him for eight years devote every ounce of his energy and thought and attention to the service of this country. I hope that he does find some personal time and solace and enjoyment now. He's earned it."
The Cantor Fitzgerald speech is part of what his aides have described as a series of public and private events that Obama began on Monday in Chicago, where he held a discussion with a half-dozen young people about the issue of civic engagement. Obama is scheduled to deliver a speech in Boston on May 7 at the John F. Kennedy Library and Foundation. In May, he plans to hold a public conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
A Section on 04/27/2017