WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden endorsed a ban on congressional inventory buying and selling in an interview that’s being launched this week, belatedly weighing in on a difficulty that has been debated on Capitol Hill for years.
“Nobody in the Congress should be able to make money in the stock market while they’re in the Congress,” Biden stated.
The interview was performed by Faiz Shakir, a political adviser for Sen. Bernie Sanders, and printed by A Extra Excellent Union, a pro-labor advocacy and journalism group. The Related Press reviewed a video of the interview earlier than its launch.
It’s unclear what affect Biden’s assertion might have, coming solely a month earlier than his time period ends.
The Democratic president spoke to Shakir about his financial legacy, which incorporates supporting unions, investing in clear power tasks and signing infrastructure. However Shakir additionally requested about congressional inventory buying and selling, which has been a catalyst for populist anger at Washington.
For instance, when the coronavirus pandemic was approaching, some lawmakers purchased and offered hundreds of thousands of {dollars} value of inventory after being briefed on the virus.
A bipartisan proposal to ban buying and selling by members of Congress and their households has dozens of sponsors, however it has not obtained a vote.
Though lawmakers are required to reveal inventory transactions exceeding $1,000, they’re routinely late in submitting notices and typically don’t file them in any respect.
Shakir stated he admired Biden for having not “gone in early on Google, and Boeing, and Microsoft, and Nvidia, and, you know, Amazon” whereas he was a U.S. senator from Delaware, a place he held for 36 years.
Biden stated he lived on his senator wage as an alternative of taking part in the inventory market.
“I don’t know how you look your constituents in the eye and know, because the job they gave you, gave you an inside track to make more money,” he stated. “I think we should be changing the law.”
Biden had beforehand declined to take a place on congressional inventory buying and selling. When Jen Psaki served as White Home press secretary two years in the past, she stated Biden would “let members of leadership in Congress and members of Congress determine what the rules should be.”