President Joe Biden lent his voice to growing bipartisan calls on the Hill to end stock trading for congressional members on Tuesday.
“I don’t know how you look your constituents in the eye and know because of the job they gave you, gave you an inside track to make more money,” Biden said during an interview with the left-leaning non-profit news organization, A More Perfect Union. “I think we should be changing the law.”
“Nobody in the Congress should be able to make money in the stock market while they’re in the Congress,” Biden told host Faiz Shakir, a political adviser for Sen. Bernie Sanders.
President Joe Biden speaks during a Hanukkah reception in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Dec. 16, 2024.
Rod Lamkey/AP
In July, a bipartisan group of Senators — Democrats Jon Ossoff, Gary Peters and Jeff Merkle, along with Republican Josh Hawley — introduced legislation that would ban members of Congress from selling and buying individual stocks. This legislation would also apply to Senators’ spouses and dependents. Similar bills have also been introduced in the House.
Earlier in his presidency, Biden declined to take a position on members of Congress owning stock — which was particularly controversial as lawmakers made money on the pandemic.
During the interview, Biden went after corporate greed.
President Joe Biden speaks at the Department of Labor in Washington, Dec. 16, 2024.
Ben Curtis/AP
He discussed the decline of products being made in the U.S., saying corporations have sought cheap labor outside the country.
“Corporate America got greedy and what they decided to do is find the cheapest labor in the world,” Biden said. “Send the product they were going to make to that state, that place, that nation and import the product back.”
Biden also spoke about the economy, reflecting on why he thinks people feel down about it even as macroeconomic factors show an improvement — a key factor in Democrats losing the 2024 election.
“It’s just beginning to sink in,” Biden said, speaking of the decades-long policy plans he put in place to invest in technology and infrastructure. “I think that it’s hard to tell someone about the hundreds of thousands of jobs we created with the CHIPS and Science Act when they haven’t seen it yet.”
He also acknowledged that prices are still higher than before the pandemic, including for basic goods like milk and eggs, which he said are “just starting to change.”
“So there’s reason for frustration, but there’s gigantic change been made,” he said.
President Joe Biden speaks at the Department of Labor on Dec. 16, 2024 in Washington, D.C.
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Biden also acknowledged that it’s harder to get by in America now than it used to be.
Biden’s administration has approved over $175 billion in debt relief for more than 4.8 million Americans, primarily those who have been paying for decades, who are enrolled in a public service loan relief program and who were defrauded by their colleges.