Congressional stock trading is at an all time high, and members of Congress are so good at trading stocks that they routinely beat the average market returns. There’s little doubt that they are using their insider knowledge to make themselves rich. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Congressional stock trading is at an all time high, and members of Congress are so good at trading stocks that they routinely beat the average market by miles. There’s little doubt that they’re using inside knowledge to do that. We’d be arrested if we were the average citizen for doing exactly what they get away with every day. The numbers are startling. I mean, this cat, the numbers are ranging, let me see here, with increases above the market average as high as 200%. In other words, if the S&P is at X, they’re beating the X by 200, 250% because of insider trading, right? This is what Nancy Pelosi fought so hard to try to make sure that we could continue doing that. Remember when it came up, Nancy, you’re making what, 70%, 65% above the market. You’re not doing that because you’re so smart. You’re doing it, Nancy, because you have information that no other Americans have, right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And, look, this report kind of makes it crystal clear. This is a big bipartisan thing here. You’ve got Democrats who actually are worse with, what was it, 7,000?
Mike Papantonio: Yes.
Farron Cousins: Versus 3000 for Republicans. And the top, as you pointed out, was Brian Higgins, Democrat from New York, 238.9% above average market return. You can’t make those numbers just guessing on stocks. You don’t.
Mike Papantonio: Let’s stop just a second. Average person’s at home, okay, they’re reading the news, they’re trying to talk to their broker. They may have their pension program tied up in there, their retirement program tied up in there. They’re counting on the money because if they retire, they’ve gotta live on that, right? So all they have is the information everybody else has. Same stuff you would have, or I would have. These cats up in Congress like Pelosi and this guy that, what was the number? 123% higher than the S&P. I mean.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. You got Higgins.
Mike Papantonio: Higgins, yeah, Brian Higgins. You’ve got, but these numbers are to where the reason they’re able to do that is because they got to committee meeting, right? In the committee, they say, well, we’re gonna sell a bunch of weapons to Saudi Arabia. So what does that person do? Hey, we’re gonna sell a bunch of weapons to Saudi Arabia, Mr. Broker, you need to know that information. That’s insider trading. Any way you look at it. It affects policy. It affects war policy. It affects economic policy. It affects health policy, right?
Farron Cousins: It does. And they also know things too, not just about the big things coming. They also know about the bad things coming. Like, hey, we just had a hearing. We’re going to possibly subpoena the heads of the pharmaceutical companies. I need you to dump everything Pfizer, dump everything Merck, dump it, dump it, dump it. So when this happens, those stocks are gonna tank and I’m not gonna be a part of it. I’ll sell while I can get out.
Mike Papantonio: They actually know the names of the people. They know the names of the company, with Silicon Valley, great example. Members of Congress sold, they sold SVB long before it became a problem, because that’s insider information. And so what do we say? Well, if we catch you, Mrs. Pelosi, we’re gonna hit you for the $200 fine. Are you kidding me?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. The Stock Act that is supposed to ban these people from doing it, if they get caught $200 fine. Okay, well, I just made a 240% on my a hundred thousand dollar investment. Yeah. I’ll give you 200 bucks. I’ll give you 400 bucks because I’m gonna tell you right now, I’m gonna do it again. Because there’s no punishment for any of these people.
Mike Papantonio: They actually have something called the Pelosi Act. She was so bad about it. It’s the Pelosi act of 2023. And this other cat, the Democrat that says, look, I did pretty good, 238% above the market. But, you know, its okay because I’m retiring, I’m not running again. Now, you see how patently unfair this is. First of all, it affects the market. People are counting on this money. Most people are counting on, it’s somewhere that they’re counting on for retirement and their pension programs. But we don’t have the same benefit. And if we do this, we go to jail. I mean, I’m talking about serious jail. Pelosi has gotten so good at it, and this article talks about it that she has figured out, let me do all of this at a time during the holidays where it’s not gonna be reported. Let me send in that, hey, I just sold 300 shares of something and made a gazillion dollars, but let me report that on a Friday during the holidays. That’s part of this story, is how they game the system. So they clearly know how wrong it is. Is patently wrong, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: Yeah, it absolutely is. And look, I have to give credit where credit is due. The two people that have been pushing the hardest, a Republican and a Democrat joined forces to try to stop congressional stock trading altogether, it’s AOC and Matt Gaetz.
Mike Papantonio: Wow.
Farron Cousins: They have been a very unlikely duo, but they’re actually pushing for this. So full credit to both of them. Gaetz still talks about it regularly. He has been highlighting this report calling out his fellow Republicans. But it has to be a bipartisan effort. But when you only have these two, three, or even 20 people pushing for the ban, you got 415 who say, hell no, we’re not gonna do it. I’m making too much money.
Mike Papantonio: It’s like the Haley story. What’s her name?
Farron Cousins: Nikki Haley.
Mike Papantonio: Nikki Haley. Okay. So she comes into Congress with no money. We’ve told this story before. It was a great story, a great investigative story on this. She has no money. She has $15,000 in the bank. She owes about a million dollars. But within four or five years, she’s living in a five, $6 million mansion. Now, where did that come from? It came from her relationships with big corporations. This is no different. This is, in a sense, these people, they get calls, they get calls that nobody else gets. They hear testimony that nobody else hears. And they’re able to skulk into, you know, skulk away, quietly make that telephone call that any one of us would go to prison for doing.
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: Something’s gotta be done about it.
