MS NOW’s Joe Scarborough tore into President Donald Trump for betraying his vow to “drain the swamp” after a new Bloomberg review of the president’s financial disclosures found he had made more than 28,000 stock trades since retaking the White House. That’s more than the trades of every member of Congress combined.
Scarborough reacted to the “staggering” figure on Wednesday morning, accusing Trump of hypocrisy on the issue. While the president has backed a proposal from House Republicans to bar members of Congress, spouses and their dependents from trading individual stocks, the plan does not include himself.
“The guy that constantly attacked Nancy Pelosi for her husband — her husband — making stock trades, this guy has made more stock trades than every member of Congress combined?” Scarborough asked.
The White House has repeatedly said that Trump’s portfolio is handled by a third party and that the president cannot direct individual transactions, insisting that “there are no conflicts of interest.”
Most Americans favor barring all elected officials from trading stock. An Economist/YouGov poll from May found that three-quarters of voters supported such a ban.
As Scarborough noted, Trump’s actions are likely particularly offensive to members of his base since his political rise was due, in part, to a promise to crack down on corruption. “That’s not ‘drain the swamp,’” he said.
The “Morning Joe” co-host said the president’s stock trading wasn’t the only example of Trump and his family financially benefiting from the presidency.
“You talk about his cryptocurrency, his wife’s cryptocurrency. You talk about the sons and these defense contracts, and just making just billions of dollars,” he said. “You team that up with the fact that Americans are struggling to pay for gas, for diesel, for groceries, for rent, for healthcare — boy, that becomes a toxic mix for voters.”
Scarborough said that “toxic mix” could backfire on Republicans in November and jeopardize Trump’s grip on power.
“In Hungary, [former Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán wasn’t taken down by what he probably should have been taken down by — you know, his violations of the constitution, his weakening of Western democracy there. He was taken down because of the corruption and because of the sagging economy,” Scarborough warned. “That’s the same thing that’s happening here.”
You can watch Scarborough’s full comments in the clip at the top of the page.
The post Joe Scarborough: Trump’s stock trading could be ‘toxic’ for GOP in midterms appeared first on MS NOW.
From MS Now.

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