House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is worth $114 million and just 2 months ago was railing about how capitalism has "not served us well" and "needs improving" is all of a sudden a bold advocate for free market economics.
All it took was potentially taking away her (and her husband's) stock trading privileges. Funny how that works, isn't it?
"We are a free-market economy. They should be able to participate in that," Pelosi said of the idea of barring members of Congress from trading individual stocks while in office.
"If people aren't reporting, they should be," Pelosi responded to Insider, who asked for comment after 49 members of Congress and 182 staffers had violated the STOCK Act that prevents insider trading.
"We're a free-market economy. They should be able to participate in that." -- Pelosi's rationale for why spouses of members of Congress should be able to trade individuals stocks is not very convincing pic.twitter.com/NuOw0VznVm
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 15, 2021
This stance puts Pelosi immediately at odds with both Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who have spoken out against members of Congress trading individual stocks.
"It is absolutely ludicrous that members of Congress can hold and trade individual stock while in office," AOC said earlier this year, via Twitter. "The access and influence we have should be exercised for the public interest, not our profit. It shouldn't be legal for us to trade individual stock with the info we have."
Warren referred to the trading by members of Congress as "brazenness" when asked by Insider for comment.
She continued: "We need...