Matt Gaetz Defends Co-Sponsoring Bill With AOC on Lawmakers Trading Stocks: ‘We Are Not Part of the Bought-and-Paid-For Caucus’
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) defended co-sponsoring a bill that would ban members of Congress from trading stocks during his appearance on The Charlie Kirk Show.
“I’ll work with anyone and everyone to make Congress less corrupt,” Gaetz said. You can disagree with a lot of AOC’s views. I certainly do. And she probably disagrees a lot with mine. But we are not part of the bought-and-paid-for caucus. She holds her views sincerely, whether you like them or not, and so do I.”
Gaetz continued by expressing frustration with the difficulty of passing such legislation.
“One of the things that’s really frustrating is when you even try to engage in debate with some of the colleagues, you don’t get a sincere reaction or response to the substance of the argument, because it’s all about what stock trades they have, what lobbyist pay for their votes and what interests they are beholden to,” Gaetz said.
The representative for Florida’s first district compared Congress trading stocks to referees betting on the games.
The legislation I’ve sponsored with Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez ends Congress insider trading stocks. Members of Congress should not be allowed to trade individual stocks. It’s like letting the referee bet on the game and I can’t believe we’ve allowed it to occur so frequently and when you look at the backgrounds of some of the representatives and then see the wizardry that they are able to deploy in their stock trades, it’s really a head-scratcher.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) along with Ocasio-Cortez and Gaetz proposed a ‘‘Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act’’ that would ban members of Congress, along with their spouses and dependents, from investing and trading stocks.
This is not the first time that two representatives have teamed up, despite being members of different parties.
Both representatives signed the letter that would urge President Joe Biden to get approval from Congress before deploying troops to Ukraine.
Additionally, in 2021, both officials co-sponsored a bill called “Ban Conflicted Trading Act” that would’ve forbid members of Congress and certain congressional employees from trading securities.
