After plenty of controversies pertaining to insider trading, calls to ban stock investments of legislators have rapidly increased. Now, former President Trump is saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) should be banned from trading stocks.
Pelosi is warming up to the idea of a potential stock trading ban for lawmakers. In her weekly press conference, Pelosi told reporters earlier Thursday, "If members want to do that, I'm okay with that."
However, Trump seemed more about the prospect of eliminating insider trading than Pelosi. In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Trump told the paper, "It's not right. It's not appropriate," said President Trump "I think she's clever in one way and stone-cold crazy. She should not be allowed to do that with the stocks ... It's not fair to the rest of this country."
Pelosi's earlier comments starkly contrast remarks she made on this same topic only weeks ago. Last month when reports revealed that over 100 lawmakers were trading stocks in sectors pertaining to committees they are members of, Pelosi in a libertarian tone said, "We're a free-market economy."
But sentiment amongst the public showed others. The latest poll released showed a huge uptick in support amongst voters of banning stock trading for elected officials. Roughly three in four voters feel that elected officials and their spouses have an unfair advantage in stock trading. In that same poll, only 5% of respondents denied this reality, and 19% of respondents had no opinion at all. The poll, conducted by the Trafalgar Group, surveyed 1,706 likely general election voters between Dec. 17-21. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
