A Republican senator says he believes that President Joe Biden’s call for a ban on congressional stock trading on his way out of the White House is a “dig” at former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has come under scrutiny for years over her husband’s successful investments.
“I don’t think (Biden) and Nancy Pelosi are getting along very well right now after Pelosi fired him from being president,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told Alabama Daily News. “I don’t know how she was able to do that, but she convinced him to get out of the race, which he should have, but it was her.”
Nancy Pelosi and her husband, Paul Pelosi, have achieved some of the highest stock market returns among members of Congress, with their trades reportedly yielding returns exceeding 720% over the past decade. As of August, the Pelosis’ estimated net worth exceeds $230 million, the outlet noted.
Pelosi has been hesitant to back legislation that would completely prohibit members of Congress from trading stocks. In 2021, she told reporters, “We are a free market economy,” adding that members of Congress “should be able to participate in that.”
“I think while she’s laying up somewhere in Germany – she unfortunately fell and hurt her leg (and) had to have an operation – he decided while she was gone, after 50 years by the way of him being up there in Washington, D.C., (that) now it’s time, as I’m going out the door, to stop stock trading,” Tuberville said.
The Alabama senator has had success of his own in the stock market, but he has repeatedly said he does not have any direct involvement in the makeup of his portfolio.
“I’ve said all along that I don’t get anything up here that gives me an opportunity to make money on stocks any more than anybody,” he told ADN. “I don’t do it myself, I’ve got people that do it. I don’t get involved in that, I don’t understand what’s the big deal. I guess there are people that have made money somehow, some way; I didn’t come up here to do that.”
President Biden expressed his support for banning congressional stock trading in an interview previewed on Tuesday, set to be released this week by a far-left labor advocacy group called More Perfect Union.
Meanwhile, Democratic strategist Lindy Li claimed during a Friday appearance on Fox News that Biden “still has a bone to pick” with Pelosi, Newsweek reported.
Lindy Li, a member of the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) finance committee, attributed President Biden’s recent endorsement of a congressional stock trading ban—which could impact Pelosi, whom she described as “notorious” for such trades—to lingering grievances with the former House speaker.
Pelosi was reportedly instrumental in behind-the-scenes efforts to persuade Biden to step aside from the 2024 presidential race nearly 100 days before the election.
Li said the president is “still very angry that he was summarily pushed aside.”
Biden discussed a ban during an interview with Faiz Shakir, a political adviser for socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is technically an “independent.”
“I think we should be changing the law…at the federal level [so] that nobody in the Congress should be able to make money in the stock market while they’re in the Congress,” Biden said. “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.”
During her appearance on Fox News @ Night with host Kevin Corke, Li remarked that “it took him 50 years to get to that point,” referencing Biden’s long-held stance that members of Congress should set their own rules on stock trading. Li suggested that Biden’s recent shift on the issue stems from a “bone to pick” with Pelosi.
