GOP Lawmaker Points To Pelosi In Pushing Bill To Ban Lawmakers From Making Individual Stock Trades

yesterday

On "Forbes Newsroom," Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) spoke about his bill to ban lawmakers and their close family members from trading individual stocks.

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Transcript

00:00But I do want to talk about something else. Speaking of transparency, speaking of you being a straight shooter,

00:05you just introduced a bill to, quote, prohibit stock trading and ownership by members of Congress and their spouses and dependent children.

00:12Can you talk to us about why you feel that this legislation is necessary?

00:16Yeah, I think it's very necessary. People don't trust Washington for good reason.

00:20We're crooked as a dog's leg.

00:22If you saw where when President Biden gave away our missile defense system, sent it to Ukraine, then we replenished our missile defense system.

00:33We had to rebuild it, of course, immediately. And that was through a no bid contract.

00:38And and that stock went up considerably at that time, from what I remember.

00:43And as it turns out, I believe that members of both parties own stock in that company and some of them bought it just weeks prior to the president announcing that decision.

00:56Are they clairvoyant or are they crooked?

00:59And I don't I don't have my I have my suspicions, but I just think it's important for people to have trust in us.

01:08I have a 13000 dollar portfolio and a mutual fund.

01:13My buddy, my buddy Tommy Siler manages it for me and he's done real well with it.

01:18I think it was eleven thousand dollars last year, so I'm pretty pleased with it.

01:22But I'm not involved in individual stock trades and I think it's wrong.

01:27I think when you when you it's a incredible honor to be in Congress, there's more people who play professional baseball than have served in the United States Congress.

01:39And I think that we ought to treat it as such.

01:42And if some people have to sacrifice, some don't.

01:47But I think that the public needs to know that it needs to be very clear and transparent.

01:53Congressman, I would encourage people to go on a Web site on a Twitter or X.

01:58It's called Unusual Whales, like the mammal that swims in the sea.

02:03And in it, it shows the Congress people and some of their trades.

02:11And it's and it's very alarming to me.

02:14Congressman, based on the fact that you introduced this legislation, I don't think you think that your colleagues are clairvoyant.

02:21But what have your conversations with your colleagues been like?

02:24Do you have bipartisan support?

02:26Because I've heard from both sides of the aisle lawmakers saying that they would want to prohibit stock trading.

02:32Also, I can imagine if you're making a lot of money, you wouldn't want this to go into effect.

02:37So what have those conversations been like?

02:40Well, I've been warned off of it, you know, I've been told to quit talking about stuff like this by some of our our leadership.

02:48And I said, well, you know, it's the truth, though, right?

02:50And I said, well, yeah, but some some members of leadership aren't real happy about when I talk about things like this.

02:57So do I think it'll go anywhere?

02:59No, neither party will let it.

03:01They'll if they do, they'll pass it in the House and sit on the Senate or do the a combination there.

03:07I just don't see it happening.

03:09And why do you think that why is leadership calling you off?

03:12Are they the ones that are trading?

03:15No, no, I don't know.

03:16I suspect I don't think our leadership is.

03:22I don't think Mike Johnson is.

03:24But I think you've got some people behind the scenes that that are that are doing a lot of stock trading.

03:30It's public record.

03:31Like I said, go on unusual whales.

03:33You can you know, and everybody gripes about Pelosi and granted her her trades are, as my daughter would say, ginormous.

03:42And she does appear to be clairvoyant sometimes.

03:44But she's not even in the top 10.

GOP Lawmaker Points To Pelosi In Pushing Bill To Ban Lawmakers From Making Individual Stock Trades

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