Martin O'Malley has reportedly become Wall Street's 'public enemy number one'

By Hunter Walker

Fox Business Network correspondent Charles Gasparino claims a lot of his sources have been talking about Martin O'Malley since the former Maryland governor launched his White House bid on Saturday. And Gasparino says Wall Street is angry with the Democratic presidential candidate.
"Martin O'Malley is now like, I would say persona non grata - public enemy number one in in the halls of Goldman Sachs, in the halls of Black Rock, the big money management firm. All throughout Wall Street right now," Gasparino said in an appearance on Fox Business on Tuesday.

According to Gasparino, O'Malley became Wall Street's bete noire by taking a shot at the financial industry during his announcement. In that speech, O'Malley accused Wall Street of essentially trying to anoint Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) as nominees in the 2016 race.

"Recently, the CEO of Goldman Sachs let his employees know that he'd be just fine with either [Jeb] Bush or [Hillary] Clinton. I bet he would," O'Malley said, adding, "Well, I've got news for the bullies of Wall Street: The presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth by you between two royal families. It is a sacred trust, to be earned from the American people, and exercised on behalf of the people of these United States."

In a previous television appearance on Monday, Gasparino suggested O'Malley's comments would make him the "last person" Wall Street would want to win the Democratic nomination.

Gasparino expanded on that analysis Tuesday. He claimed the financial industry "was not expecting" a presidential candidate to adopt the kind of aggressive approach towards Wall Street. Further, Gasparino suggested that even though O'Malley is polling far behind Clinton, there are fears his message could resonate and push Clinton "to the left" on Wall Street.

"Right now people on Wall Street are talking about Martin O'Malley. Now does he have a chance to win? I'm not a political guy, it would seem like odds are low based on everything that I know," Gasparino said, later adding, "What they're really worried about is not that he's going to win. It's that he's going to force [Clinton] so far to the left with that resonating message."

Gasparino said Wall Street fears this O'Malley effect could stop Clinton from doing "some of the things they want her to do like water down Dodd-Frank."

"They really think that if she gets in there, that if Hillary Clinton gets in there, that Dodd-Frank will be watered down to the point where they can do proprietary trading using their own capital to trade which is outlawed right now. And various aspects of Dodd-Frank will be freed up so the banks can go back to making a lot of money," Gasparino explained. "Not that they don't make a lot of money now, but even more money, Clinton-era money."

Though she hasn't targeted Wall Street with the same type of fiery rhetoric O'Malley unleashed in his announcement speech, Clinton has said she supports Dodd-Frank. Clinton has also given other indications that, if elected, she plans to take a relatively tough stance towards the financial industry.