Texas Representative Dan Crenshaw has come under fire recently after he was accused of spearheading the effort to give Congress a pay raise and defending congressional stock trading. Crenshaw says congressmen need to be able to trade stocks to make money.
Crenshaw has previously said that stock trading is the only way for members of Congress to better themselves. He also recently said, "We haven't gotten a pay raise since 2008. Even a COLA increase. This is a great idea, let's make Congress a place where only the millionaires can actually afford to do the job."
In that same interview, Crenshaw seemingly attempted to make the case that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has been widely criticized by Republicans for her stock trading, was an outlier. He said, "Are there a couple of cases where Nancy Pelosi has some very suspicious timing of her trades? Yeah, that has happened. But nobody else can point any others out."
Multiple X users then pointed to Crenshaw himself, who has drawn criticism for some of his own trading activity.
That clip was recently posted to X, where it exploded, even drawing a response from Elon Musk, who said, "Congress should only get a raise when the budget is balanced."
KTRH's Michael Berry weighed in on the issue during the December 19th edition of The Michael Berry Show. Berry pointed out that Congress does have a very clear advantage when it comes to trading stocks. He said, "Congressmen are being briefed on things the public doesn't know. They shouldn't be trading stocks on that. If you want to be an active day trader, don't be in Congress."
The original post by Nick Sortor resulted in Crenshaw sparring with multiple different conservative influencers, including Twitter user @catturd2. Much of that thread cannot be posted here due to its explicit nature. A summary can be found here.
Crenshaw's comments throughout the X spat led to multiple conservatives accusing him of being a RINO (Republican In Name Only). Crenshaw referred to Sortor as a "bottom feeder."