Stephanie Ruhle Spars with GOP House Member: Why is It Okay to Use Inside Information to ‘Enrich Yourself’?

MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle sparred with Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) over the issue of whether members of Congress should be banned from trading stocks while they’re in office.

Ruhle supports this kind of policy, while Sessions does not.

On Thursday’s Stephanie Ruhle Reports, Sessions said that members of Congress “need to follow the rules. But no one’s complaining that members of Congress make exactly to the penny what we made 18 years ago.”

“No one is concerned about how much money members of Congress make,” he continued. “And we do our job. But this is an issue that is a populist notion poppy nut.”

While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is against the idea of members of Congress being banned from trading stocks, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said earlier this month that he is considering limiting members of Congress from trading stocks if the GOP wins back the House of Representatives in November.

Ruhle asked Sessions whether “Kevin McCarthy is a guy who’s leaning into a populist move.”

Sessions replied that McCarthy “is doing a job to win back the majority.” He also said that there are “enough rules and regulations” when it comes to members of Congress trading stocks.

Therefore, issues like “inflation,” “the border,” “the lack of support for our law enforcement,” should be the focus whereas the issue of members of Congress trading stocks is not a “top-50” issue and is “an unremarkably silly idea,” said Sessions.

“We can talk about all of those things, but as far as how much members of Congress are paid, limiting what you can invest in doesn’t necessarily impact that, right? Like, you could put it in a blind trust,” responded Ruhle. “Right now the way the rules are written, you have access to information that the public does not. Why is it okay for you to use that information, sensitive information, to enrich yourselves? If I was an officer of a publicly-traded company I couldn’t take information I knew about that company and then trade the stock.”

Sessions replied, “I think that for you to assume that that’s true would be a violation of the law by someone to give insider information. I’ve only been a member of Congress for 22 years, and I have never received information like that.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.