'MAGA leftist' ripped for claim Trump fights Wall Street for 'forgotten working class'

Batya Ungar-Sargon, a rising political pundit who calls herself a “MAGA leftist” and a “Marxist,” is facing backlash after echoing Republican talking points, attacking former President Barack Obama, and praising Donald Trump—all while getting basic facts wrong, including when each was in office, and then doubling down on her claims.

Some may remember the global financial crisis of 2008, which occurred during the final months of the presidential race that ultimately put Barack Obama in the White House — in January 2009. To help protect the financial industry, Congress passed the Troubled Asset Relief Program, commonly known as TARP. President Bush signed it into law on October 3, 2008, as part of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.

Not according to Ungar-Sargon.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the 10 million Americans who lost their homes in the 2008 financial crisis, and how President Obama’s first act in office was to give $700 billion to the banks that caused it, including $3 billion in bonuses to the crooks who organized it,” she said on CNN’s “NewsNight” on Thursday.

“And I’m thinking about how those very Americans saw a president [Obama] pick Wall Street over Main Street and what they saw this whole week was a President willing to go out there and fight for the forgotten men and women of this heartland and take on the entire international global order for them.”

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Her remarks were met with varying degrees of disbelief and pushback.

“Lots of people in the heartland have 401Ks,” Neera Tanden, who served as President Joe Biden’s Director of the Domestic Policy Council, reminded Ungar-Sargon. “They have jobs where they work for a company, that is thinking of now laying them off because the supply chain is impossible. The idea that he’s taking on the global elite, when he’s offering a giant tax cut to the billionaires, I’m sorry, it makes very little sense.”

Financial journalist James Surowiecki, author of “The Wisdom of Crowds,” wrote: “TARP was necessary. But even if you don’t agree, blaming Obama for a law passed by Congress while Bush was president is a sign of total ‘Somehow it’s always liberals’ fault’ derangement.”

Thursday night, CNN’s Richard Quest slammed Ungar-Sargon’s claims Trump is “taking on” Wall Street on behalf of the forgotten working class.”

“Will we please stop this ‘forgotten working class’?” Quest urged. “Everybody in some shape or form is part of a working class, either historically, today or whatever, and every one of us, in some shape or form, lives in an economic environment where we are aware of what is happening in our own areas. But this idea that somehow it’s Wall Street versus Main Street and Main Street doesn’t care about Wall Street and Wall Street just wants —”

Friday morning, Ungar-Sargon doubled down on social media, writing: “In 2008, President Obama bailed out Wall Street and screwed over Main Street. In 2024, President Trump screwed over Wall Street to bail out Main Street. That’s what a lot of Americans are going to remember about last week.”

Veteran journalist John Harwood unleashed his anger, writing, “as if these bulls— cliches weren’t dumb enough, George W Bush was president in 2008 and Joe Biden was president in 2024.”

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The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a political scientist, chastised CNN’s Abby Phillip and her producers, saying, “putting on bloviating ignoramuses should be a no-no.”

Phil Magness, an economic historian for a libertarian think tank, slammed Ungar-Sargon:

“How did a Marxist English PhD with no background or understanding in basic economics become the go-to cable news ‘economic’ commentator for the MAGA tariff agenda?”

2008, for some, was a long time ago. Some may not have been alive, many may not have been old enough to remember the events.

“In September 2008 our nation was on the edge of falling into a second Great Depression,” the U.S. Department of the Treasury says on its website. “Confidence in the financial system was vanishing and panic was spreading.”

“Every major financial institution was vulnerable. The credit markets that provide financing for credit cards, student loans, mortgage loans, auto loans, small business loans and other types of financing stopped functioning,” Treasury added, noting that “a generalized run on the nation’s banking system was a real possibility.”

“The nation was losing almost 800,000 jobs a month and household wealth had fallen by 17 percent – more than five times the decline in 1929. It was out of these extraordinary circumstances that TARP was created to restore the nation’s financial stability and restart economic growth.”

Congress authorized $700 billion, but that number was scaled back much further under President Obama. Much of the funds that were allocated were repaid. The final cost to taxpayers was about $31.1 billion — less than 4.5% of the figure Ungar-Sargon quoted.

Former Obama National Security Council spokesperson Tommy Vietor blasted Ungar-Sargon and CNN.

“Bush was President in 2008. Trump’s tariffs are cratering the economy in 2025. I would recommend that @CNN and @abbydphillip stop inviting on pundits who don’t seem to have a handle on the most basic facts about politics or economics.”

Another former Obama spokesperson, Aaron Albright, reminded that the “first major bill Obama signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act….when he became president in 2009.”

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