00:00Senators thank you so much for joining us. You are joining forces both with each other and with Democrat Adam
00:05Schiff and Republican John Curtis to introduce something you're calling the public integrity in financial markets act of 2026. Can
00:13you please explain to us what this is and why you're introducing this legislation now.
00:18Sure. I mean, I think, you know, for those who maybe haven't seen what's gone on in the last year,
00:23these issues of prediction markets where you can basically bet on anything anywhere online have really exploded.
00:30And there's really not great left and right limits on things like insider training.
00:35And so what we've seen in the past couple of months, particularly ahead of things like military action, is people
00:41will go on anonymously and they'll make a bet that we're going to take military action in Venezuela or military
00:47action in Iran.
00:47They'll make a boatload of money, $100,000, $300,000 anonymously and get away with it.
00:54And so we wanted to put something in place on a bipartisan basis to say that there should be some
00:59left and right limits around insider trading and sort of integrity in these new emerging prediction markets.
01:05Senator Young, is this based on supposition that government officials have been doing this or is there evidence that they
01:10in fact have been?
01:13Yeah, I don't know that anyone has been caught in the act, so to speak.
01:17But we want to make sure that there are penalties in place and that there are procedures in place so
01:24that members of Congress, members of the executive branch, elected or non-elected, and congressional staff have to report when
01:33they do event contracts on prediction market platforms.
01:39We think that we're creating this sort of mechanism that the American people would expect, and our hope is that
01:46this will restore trust in the decision-making that we have here in Congress and make sure that no one
01:52is profiting off of their position of public trust.
01:55We also think there's a real possibility, if we don't nip this in the bud as the prediction markets grow
02:01in attraction and in subscription, that we're going to start to see more decisions based on the improper incentives of
02:13personal enrichment.
02:14That, of course, will erode trust, not increase trust.
02:18Senator Slokin, you've said this is a national security concern.
02:20Is that why, that some of these decisions could start to be made based on impetus from these prediction markets,
02:25or is it more to it than that as well?
02:27Well, look, I'm a former CIA officer, so I think of the national security implications, you know, of an adversary
02:34looking at a prediction market and saying, holy moly, a lot of people are placing bets on war in Iran
02:39tomorrow.
02:40I'm an Iranian.
02:41Maybe that means we're about to receive an attack, right?
02:43So we don't want to give away anything.
02:45But I think it's much broader than that.
02:47And at this point, you can kind of bet on anything.
02:49And you can imagine that particularly for elected officials, but government officials writ large, folks in the military, you never
02:56want people to think that you're profiting off of your position, that you have advantage of getting a classified briefing
03:03or having access to a report that the public doesn't have.
03:06You go and place a bet, and you make a lot of money, and you literally enrich yourself from your
03:11early access to things.
03:13So it goes to a whole host of issues, not just national security.
03:16I just think that that one has multiple implications beyond just ingratiating yourself with money.
03:23I'm curious.
03:24Go ahead.
03:24Yeah.
03:25Well, Alyssa, she is a CIA officer, former CIA officer.
03:32I'm a former Marine Corps intelligence officer.
03:35And I think perhaps the most obvious context in which you shouldn't be able to place event contracts on prediction
03:42markets is a national security, sort of a war-like scenario.
03:46And there have been some really serious questions asked recently about whether we have people in a position of public
03:53trust getting financial gain from the inside information, material inside information that they have access to.
04:02But I think this is broader.
04:04I mean, we have long had norms in our society against insider trading.
04:09And we have positions of public trust at a time when, frankly, trust of elected officials and, more broadly, of
04:17government officials is at a low.
04:19And we need to restore that.
04:21And we think that by acting in a very responsible and preemptive way, we can prevent a lot of bad
04:29decisions from being made in the future and increase trust in the decisions that are made here in Washington.
04:34I'm curious how you're thinking about this as individuals.
04:37I saw the Democratic congressman, Seth Moulton, imposed a rule on staffers in his office, kind of similar to what
04:42you're laying out here in this legislation, effectively barring his staff from making these kinds of bets on the kind
04:47of grounds that are in your legislation.
04:49Are you each thinking of doing the same thing or have you, in fact?
04:53You know, I think it's interesting.
04:54These are such new questions.
04:56And actually, this is what Congress should be focusing on, right?
05:00I think about, you know, artificial intelligence or prediction markets or cryptocurrency.
05:03Like, they're all new categories where we just don't have a whole lot of law.
05:07And I think that new members to the Senate, new members in general to this body are probably best positioned
05:12to go at those issues.
05:14I know we certainly put a policy in place in my office on AI.
05:18But I haven't yet gotten, even in my own office, to think about the prediction market.
05:22It's not a bad idea to sort of, you know, live what we preach here.
05:26But that just shows you how new this is.
05:28A year and a half ago, you didn't know what the word prediction market up here in this body was.
05:33And so I think it's good to be bipartisan and, frankly, to have a bunch of newer members, a little
05:39bit younger on the scale, at least on my side, to, you know, be engaged on these newer policy issues.
05:46Well, I would commend Congressman Bolton and others who take this action and apply that rule to their staff and
05:53to their own offices.
05:55I think it's important you learn this in the military and you learn it in other official capacities that it's
06:01really important to avoid the appearance of impropriety in addition to avoiding improper and illegal behavior.
06:09We want to clarify at a base level here that this should be illegal to trade on these event contracts
06:15in prediction markets.
06:17But I think upholding that norm of behavior by avoiding any appearance of impropriety makes sense because there no doubt
06:24will be debates about what constitutes insider information, what doesn't constitute insider information, how seriously you should take this sort
06:33of law, et cetera.
06:35And I think we all have work to do on that front.
06:38Do you think you have the votes for this?
06:40Do you think it will pass?
06:42I do think that we'll get the votes for this.
06:44Of course, we're just introducing it.
06:46And this is where the spade work of legislating takes place.
06:50And we rely on advocates across the country.
06:54And we talk through the media.
06:55And then we approach individual colleagues and try and persuade them that this is the right thing to do and
07:01that their constituents care a lot about this issue.
07:03And we're already finding, I've heard from a number of my constituents who received word that I'm working on this
07:09issue, that this is really popular.
07:11They think it's a no-brainer.
07:12And frankly, many of them believe that this already is illegal.
07:16And when we share with them that we don't yet have a legislative framework, anything on the books that would
07:22prohibit these sort of contracts from being made, then they believe it's a call to action.
07:30And so I think we'll meet with success.
07:32But today is the starting gun of this effort.
07:35It is refreshing to see a Republican and a Democrat side by side, such comedy and working on this piece
07:40of legislation together.
07:42Our thanks to Senators Todd Young and Alyssa Slotkin for joining us.
07:45It was comedy with a T. Cometee.
07:47It sounded like comedy. I didn't mean that in that way.
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