‘My Goodness, Come On!’ Stephen A. Smith Challenges Anna Paulina Luna on Trump’s Stock Trades

 

Stephen A. Smith pressed Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) on President Donald Trump’s countless stock trades since taking office.

In recent months, Trump has been accused of abusing his power as president to enrich himself. At the time of writing, there were numerous examples of Trump purchasing stock in a specific company. He would then publicly praise the company, causing the value of stock to rise.

During a recent interview on his show Straight Shooter with Stephen A., Smith called out Paulina for a supposed double standard after hearing her criticize members of Congress for making trades. The conversation continued:

LUNA: What I will also tell you is I sit here, and on a regular basis, I am seeing that members that are sitting on committees of jurisdiction are making a lot of money because they are trading in the same defense contractor spaces that a lot of these wars are being funded by; and they have no reason or incentive to actually stop and maybe say, “Hey, maybe we should actually–”

SMITH: But aren’t mimicking the president? Aren’t they mimicking the president? I mean–

LUNA: I don’t know about the president’s personal stock trades, but what I will say is with the president, you have him saying, “We need to actually engage in a peace talk.” So, for example, bringing over Zelensky, meeting with Vladimir Putin, offering a plan that Witkoff and Kushner have both pitched to Ukraine and Russia and actually saying this war needs to end, right? Um, I don’t see members of Congress doing that.

Smith was not moved by that explanation, saying:

Hold on, let me interrupt. I got that. I believe that. I got that. But my goodness, come on! I mean, if anybody got common sense, it’s you! The man has been trading– I mean, this dude has over 21,000 trades. I mean, think about the things that he has been doing, not just cryptocurrency. I’m just saying, he’s been engaging in a lot of activity, so chances are people are looking at what he’s doing and saying, “Follow the money. He can manipulate the market.”

Watch the clip above.

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