WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden endorsed a ban on congressional stock trading in an interview released this week, belatedly addressing an issue that has been debated on Capitol Hill for years.
“No one in Congress should be able to make money in the stock market while they are in Congress,” Biden said.
The interview was conducted by Faiz Shakir, a political adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, and published by A More Perfect Union, a pro-labor advocacy and journalism organization. The Associated Press reviewed video of the interview before it was released.
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It is unclear what impact Biden’s statement could have, coming just a month before his term ends.
The Democratic president spoke with Shakir about his economic legacy, including supporting unions, investing in clean energy projects and signing up for infrastructure. But Shakir also asked about the stock trading in Congress, which has been a catalyst for populist anger against Washington.
For example, as the coronavirus pandemic approached, some lawmakers bought and sold millions of dollars worth of stocks after learning about the virus.
A bipartisan proposal to ban trafficking by members of Congress and their families has dozens of sponsors but has not received a vote.
Although lawmakers are required to disclose stock transactions over $1,000, they are routinely late in filing notices and sometimes don’t file them at all.
Shakir said he admired Biden for not starting “early at Google, and Boeing, and Microsoft, and Nvidia, and, you know, Amazon” when he was a U.S. senator from Delaware, a position he held for 36 years.
Biden said he was living off his senator’s salary instead of playing the stock market.
“I don’t know how you look your constituents in the eye because the job they gave you gave you an inside track to making more money,” he said. “I think we need to change the law.”
Biden had previously declined to take a position on stock trading in Congress. When Jen Psaki was White House press secretary two years ago, she said Biden would let “members of leadership in Congress and members of Congress determine what the rules should be.”
