"It stinks": Democrats criticize White House over meeting with billionaire Tom Steyer

Although progressives were unwillingly to publicly condemn the White House for the Steyer gathering, multiple Democratic sources on Capitol Hill privately said that President Obama looked like he was playing the same political game he so actively criticized.

“If a Republican president did the same thing with the Koch brothers, we would skewer them,” a House Democratic lawmaker told the Washington Examiner. “If you’re going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk.”

“That’s probably the last person I’d like White House officials to meet with,” added a senior aide for a centrist Senate Democrat in a tough re-election fight.