President Biden in a new interview published Tuesday said there should be a ban on members of Congress trading stocks, taking a position on an issue that has entered the spotlight in recent years.
“I don’t know how you look your constituents in the eye and know because the job they gave you, it gave you the inside track to make more money,” Biden said in an interview with Faiz Shakir, a political adviser for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who founded the media group More Perfect Union.
“I think we should be changing the law … that nobody in the Congress should be able to make money in the stock market while they’re in the Congress,” Biden said.
Shakir noted in the interview that Biden did not own stock when he was serving as a senator.
A bipartisan group of senators earlier this year unveiled a plan that would ban the president, vice president and members of Congress from buying stocks and a wide range of other financial assets.
The legislation would prevent lawmakers from buying stocks and other types of financial assets while also blocking them from offloading stocks 90 days after the law’s enactment. It would apply to spouses and dependent children starting in 2027 and would also extend to the president and vice president.
Stock trading by both elected and unelected government officials has been an increasing focus of ethics watchdogs and others concerned about members of the federal government profiting from insider information.
The Wall Street Journal won a Pulitzer Prize in 2023 for a lengthy series on regulators, who traded stocks as the pandemic hit, and bought and sold stocks for companies that were under their direct regulatory authority.
