Obama criticised for ‘$400,000 Wall Street speech’

Former US President Barack Obama is being criticised for reportedly agreeing a $400,000 (£310,000) fee for a speech to a Wall Street bank.

The 44th president has accepted an offer to speak at a healthcare conference hosted by Cantor Fitzgerald in September, US media report.

The deal comes less than 100 days after Mr Obama left office.

In 2009, he told CBS: “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.”

Mr Obama has reportedly agreed to be a keynote speaker at an event hosted by Cantor Fitzgerald LP, an investment bank that lost more than two-thirds of its staff in the attack on the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.