CNN's Wallace spars with Sanders after slamming companies

A contentious political debate between CNN host Chris Wallace and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) got personal over the weekend.

During a discussion on major investment firms and the businesspeople who run them, Sanders offered a familiar admonition of Wall Street's business practices, saying it was wrong that "the billionaire class" has "enormous power."

"And the result is massive income and wealth inequality. Over 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, people on top doing phenomenally well. Then you have concentration of ownership," Sanders said. "You want to talk about oligarchy? You have got three Wall Street firms, Blackstone, State Street and Vanguard, that control assets of $20 trillion. They are the major stockholders in over 90 percent of the S&P 500 companies."

Wallace took exception with the reference to investment firm Blackstone, specifically.

"Wait, wait. But when you are talking about Blackstone, for instance, and I happen to know about them because my son works there, they are investing the money of the teachers funds or public employees funds," the host said. "Those are real people who getting are getting their pension from the process."

Sanders responded, "I’m talking about power."

"If you have three Wall Street firms that combined are major stockholders in over 90 percent of the major corporations in America, determine who is on the board of directors," the liberal senator added.

The interview was aired as part of Wallace's new HBO Max show, which was launched shortly after he was hired by CNN as part of its massive push into a streaming news service, which folded just weeks after it launched and was sold to media conglomerate Discovery.