Tuesday, during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) touted an effort he and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) had partnered on to combat insider trading within Congress.
According to the Florida Republican, his New York colleague was “wrong a lot” but not “corrupt.”
“AOC is wrong a lot,” he said. “She’d probably say the same thing about me. But she’s not corrupt. And I will work with anyone and every one to ensure that Congress is not so compromised. We should disallow congressional stock trading for the same reason we don’t allow the referee to bet on the game. And this is not a small amount of money. Seven hundred and eighty-eight million dollars worth of securities traded by members of Congress last year, about one in every four members of Congress is doing this.”
“And it’s not exactly like I’m elected with a bunch of Gordon Gekko’s and Bobby Axelrod’s take Lois Frankel, who you just mentioned,” Gaetz continued. “[Nancy Pelosi] has been a lawmaker since I was five years old. And I suppose to believe that all of a sudden, she’s making moves like she’s Warren Buffett. This congressional stock trading has all of the fairness of like a Lia Thomas swimming competition, and I think we should put an end to it.”
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