Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent drove Senator Liz Warren up the wall when he appeared before Congress and she berated him about President Donald Trump’s investments, as Bessent repeatedly took the opportunity to remind the nation of Congress’s seemingly quite corrupt stock trading history.
Beginning by berating him for arguing that the president isn’t corrupt, Warren snapped that the Treasury Secretary had “literally signed the 113 page document publicly listing all of his individual stock trades at the same time that he is making decisions affecting those stocks, so you’re going to sit here with straight face and say it’s not a conflict of interest for the President United States to do that?”
Bessent, firing back with a vengeance, snapped that Congress is hardly known for avoiding stock-based corruption, saying, “I’m going to say this body needs to get its house in order. First, I would encourage you to do that.” Warren, responding, angrily insisted, “We don’t trade in individual stocks.” She added, “I don’t own any individual stocks. My house is in order.”
Warren then angrily tried to move on as Bessent noted that the other members of Congress could hardly claim the same thing. She insisted, “Let’s look at some individual traides. On January 6, Donald Trump purchased up to a million dollars’ worth of Nvidia stock. One week later, his administration changed US policy and loosened the rules on export controls, so that Nvidia could sell its chips to China. Now, the price of Nvidia stock is through the roof.”
Still not done, she then demanded, “So, Secretary Bessent, you said last year if any private citizen traded the way members of Congress do, quote, the SEC would be knocking on their door. So, my question is, should the SEC be knocking on President Trump’s door to start an investigation over this trade?”
Bessent noted that Congress needs to take action if it wants action taken, snapping back, ” If this body wants to ban individual stock trading, which I would advocate for yourself. Start there, and if you want legislative action to continue, that’s your prerogative.”
The two then argued for awhile about who needs to take action first, and Warren attacked Trump for buying two stocks that went up, saying, “You say there should be an investigation when that kind of activity takes place. How about we start with the White House, President Trump bought 10s of 1000s of dollars worth of stock in Robin Hood and the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, known as BNY, on April 6. Your Treasury Department announced it had chosen the financial agent to implement the new Trump accounts program BNY and its partner Robin Hood. Both stocks, of course, have risen since then. So, Secretary Bessel, let me ask you a different question. If these stock purchases that Trump made were made using inside information, would that be illegal?”
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Bessent noted that he’s not a lawyer, and so can’t speak to that directly, which set Warren off on another freak out, with the angry legislator insisting, as Bessent noted that Congress is known as a hot bed of co “stronger anti-corruption rules and conflict of interest rules in Washington for everyone.”
Watch them argue here: