WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden endorsed a ban on congressional stock trading in an interview that’s being released this week, belatedly weighing in on an issue that has been debated on Capitol Hill for years.
“Nobody in the Congress should be able to make money in the stock market while they’re in the Congress,” Biden said.
The interview was conducted by Faiz Shakir, a political adviser for Sen. Bernie Sanders, and published by A More Perfect Union, a pro-labor advocacy and journalism organization. The Associated Press reviewed a video of the interview before its release.
It’s unclear what impact Biden’s statement could have, coming only a month before his term ends.
The Democratic president spoke to Shakir about his economic legacy, which includes supporting unions, investing in clean energy projects and signing infrastructure. But Shakir also asked about congressional stock trading, which has been a catalyst for populist anger at Washington.
For example, when the coronavirus pandemic was approaching, some lawmakers bought and sold millions of dollars worth of stock after being briefed on the virus.
A bipartisan proposal to ban trading by members of Congress and their families has dozens of sponsors, but it has not received a vote.
Although lawmakers are required to disclose stock transactions exceeding $1,000, they’re routinely late in filing notices and sometimes don’t file them at all.
Shakir said he admired Biden for having not “gone in early on Google, and Boeing, and Microsoft, and Nvidia, and, you know, Amazon” while he was a U.S. senator from Delaware, a position he held for 36 years.
Biden said he lived on his senator salary instead of playing the stock market.
“I don’t know how you look your constituents in the eye and know, because the job they gave you, gave you an inside track to make more money," he said. "I think we should be changing the law.”
Biden had previously declined to take a position on congressional stock trading. When Jen Psaki served as White House press secretary two years ago, she said Biden would “let members of leadership in Congress and members of Congress determine what the rules should be."
President Joe Biden speaks during a Hanukkah reception in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Two people were killed and others were injured Monday in a shooting at a private Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin. Police said a student who opened fire, identified as a 15-year-old girl, was also dead.
The girl also wounded six others in the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School, including two students who were in critical condition, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said.
Here's the latest:
Police are trying to determine what led to the shooting. Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said officers were talking with the shooter’s father and other family members, who were cooperating, and searching the shooter’s home.
Barnes said officials don’t yet know if the victims were targeted.
Speaking on CNN, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said they’re trying to put together a timeline of the shooter’s last hours before she went to the school.
Barnes said they’ve asked the ATF to expedite determining the origin of the gun used in the shooting and how the 15-year-old got her hands on it. He said he’s not certain if the weapon was owned or possessed by her parents.
Asked if her parents could be charged with a crime, Barnes said they were voluntarily giving information, but he also wanted to look at whether the parents were negligent. But at this time, he said that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Two prominent cases of parents facing criminal charges after their children are accused in school shootings have come in Michigan and Georgia in recent years.
“Kathy and I join the people of Wisconsin in praying for the families and loved ones of those whose lives were so senselessly taken and for the educators, staff, and the entire Abundant Life school community as they grapple with the grief, trauma, and loss of this gut-wrenching tragedy,” Evers said in a statement. “We are also praying and hoping all those injured survive and recover.”
The governor’s order began Monday and and ends at sunset on Sunday.
The website for the anti-violence organization Everytown for Gun Safety shows that there have been at least 202 incidents of gunfire on school grounds, resulting in 56 deaths and 147 injuries, in 2024. That data doesn’t include the latest shooting in Madison.
The deadliest school shooting in 2024 happened in September at Apalachee High School in Georgia.
Last year, 45 people died in 158 school shootings, the Everytown for Gun Safety website shows. Sixty-seven people died in 181 school shootings in 2022, according to the data.
Firearms were the leading cause of death among children in 2020 and 2021, according to KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues.
The shooting comes less than two weeks after a gunman critically wounded two kindergartners at a tiny religious school in Northern California and then killed himself. Butte County Sheriff Kory L. Honea said the shooter was mentally ill and believed that by targeting children on Dec. 4 that he was carrying out “counter-measures” in response to America’s involvement in Middle East violence.
Litton, 56, gained entry to the Feather River School of Seventh-Day Adventists in Oroville, California, by pretending he wanted to enroll a fictitious grandson, Honea said. He used a handgun to shoot and critically wound two kindergarten boys, ages 5 and 6. Authorities said Litton was found dead afterward just yards (meters) from the school’s playground.
It was unclear why Feather River School was targeted.
Abundant Life Christian School is nondenominational and has about 420 students from pre-kindergarten through high school, according to Barbara Wiers, director of elementary and school relations for Abundant Life Christian School.
She said at a news briefing Monday afternoon that the school does not have metal detectors but uses other security measures including cameras. She also said guns are not allowed on campus and that the school regularly practices safety routines.
“When they heard ‘lockdown, lockdown,’ they knew it was real,” she said.
Wiers said just before the school year, they had done a retraining with the Madison Police Department, so it was “very fresh for faculty.”
The school asked for prayers in a post on its Facebook page on Monday.
Students aboard a bus as they leave the shelter following a shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
A family leaves the shelter after multiple injuries were reported following a shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Emergency vehicles are parked outside the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wis., following a shooting, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
