WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden endorsed a ban on congressional stock trading in an interview that’s being released this week, belatedly weighing in on an issue 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 said.
The interview was conducted by Faiz Shakir, a political adviser for Sen. Bernie Sanders, and published by A More Perfect Union, a pro-labor advocacy and journalism organization. The Associated Press reviewed a video of the interview before its release.
It’s unclear what impact Biden’s statement could have, coming only a month before his term ends.
The Democratic president spoke to Shakir about his economic legacy, which includes supporting unions, investing in clean energy projects and signing infrastructure. But Shakir also asked about congressional stock trading, which has been a catalyst for populist anger at Washington.
For example, when the coronavirus pandemic was approaching, some lawmakers bought and sold millions of dollars worth of stock after being briefed on the virus.
A bipartisan proposal to ban trading by members of Congress and their families has dozens of sponsors, but it has not received a vote.
Although lawmakers are required to disclose stock transactions exceeding $1,000, they’re routinely late in filing notices and sometimes don’t file them at all.
Shakir said he admired Biden for having not “gone in early on Google, and Boeing, and Microsoft, and Nvidia, and, you know, Amazon” while he was a U.S. senator from Delaware, a position he held for 36 years.
Biden said he lived on his senator salary instead of playing the stock 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 said. “I think we should be changing the law.”
Biden had previously declined to take a position on congressional stock trading. When Jen Psaki served as 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.”