Tucker: Senator Burr sold shares after virus briefing

welcome to Tucker Carlson tonight February 13th was a relatively quiet day on Wall Street, it won't be noted in any economics textbook in 200 years, the Dow Jones fell about a hundred points, but just the day before the father hit an all-time high, so the loss didn't seem like a big deal overall. It was a quiet, steady week in the markets, but for one investor in Washington, February 13 was full of drama. Richard Burr is a Republican

senator

from North Carolina. North. Burr has no financial or investment experience in In fact, before being elected to Congress in 1994, Burr spent 17 years selling lawnmowers for a dealer in Winston-Salem, but on February 13 of this year, Burr appears to develop very strong feelings about the future of the US stock markets emeritus; that day he dumped up to $1.7 million worth of stock and 33 separate transactions

burr

didn't buy anything that day it was a flurry of selling sell sell sell essentially it was a cash out in fact it was two years ago the list estimated

burr

had With a total net worth of around $1.7 million in other words, on that day in February, Richard Burr suddenly decided to sell virtually everything he owned.

Many people on Wall Street probably envied him. Now it was a pretty smart move. So what did Richard Byrd, the former lawnmower salesman, know that financial experts didn't know much about. It turns out that Richard Burr is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. On January 24 he attended a closed-door

briefing

on the Chinese corona

virus

given by Dr. Anthony fouled him and the head of the CDC, apparently what Burr heard there scared him soon after, he acted decisively to save his family from financial harm, unfortunately, he didn't tell the rest of us, in fact , did just the opposite. hid what he knew about the corona

virus

threat and then lied extensively to the nation in a February 7 op-ed published on our website here at Fox.

Burr wrote this quote: America is better prepared than ever to confront the emerging public health threats like corona virus better prepared than ever Byrne knew it was a lie when he wrote it six days later he dumped his entire portfolio on March 5 a month later no virus had become a full-blown crisis in Italy and Still, Richard Burr, still falsely insisting that everything was fine, issued a statement assuring the United States that we have a framework in place that has put us in a better position than any other country to respond to a public health threat like the virus. crown that was broadcast in public in private.

He panicked on February 27 before an audience at a closed-door speech in Washington. Burk compared the coronavirus to the Spanish flu, a pandemic that killed nearly a hundred million people. There's one thing I can tell you about this: He's much more aggressive in his transition than anything we've seen in recent history is probably more befitting of a public servant. It is quite difficult to imagine many things more immoral than doing this. Richard Burr had critical information that could have helped the people he was sworn to protect, but he withheld that information. and he helped only himself instead of sounding the alarm by alerting the country prompting the government to act as an ethical person would have done.

Burr told easy lies that may have killed people in the end and he wasn't the only one who did that. Dianne Feinstein is a Democrat from California, she also served on the Senate Intelligence Committee in late January and early February of this year. Feinstein dumped up to $6 million worth of stock when she was confronted with this fact today. Feinstein sidestepped and took the surprisingly unfeminist position that selling the stock was her decision. the decision her husband made and somehow she wasn't allowed to ask about it all those confusing numbers is too much for a girl please sometimes this winner Feinstein, to her credit, issued press releases calling attention to the seriousness of the coronavirus and getting better for it, but all of her major public statements were political on February 4, when everyone informed in the US government understood that the corona virus was a very serious threat to the world.

Feinstein spent her time giving a long speech on the Senate floor calling for the conviction of Donald Trump in the impeachment trial, and then there's Kelly Waffler, a new Republican

senator

from Georgia. Financial disclosure forms show Loffler

sold

up to $3.1 million in stock over three weeks after being privately briefed on the Senate floor about the coronavirus. La Fleurs' disclosure shows a total of 29 share transactions. 27 of them were sales, some of the holdings he lost were an energy auto retailer and Airlines, one of his two purchases was a company called Citrix that makes teleworking software which is a product that is suddenly in high demand, so the story broke last night.

He did all this unlike Richard. Senator Burr La Fleurs responded very aggressively and quickly and in some detail said that her holdings are managed by outside advisors, she has nothing directly to do with that and pointed to a financial disclosure that she says she received days after it was carried out the transactions, which shows that they have passed it arrived on February 16. We are happy to have Senator Lafleur join us tonight to learn more about the story. Loftware welcome center. We appreciate you coming, thank you, thank you, so you've been very clear. Senator Burr, as I said, who hasn't really explained how this happened, although I think it's pretty obvious that you said it right away.

I didn't know this happened. I had nothing to do with it. I found out on February 16, so can you tell us tonight? who made who specifically made this decision to sell these

shares

and why do you think they made that decision. Tucker, let me start from the beginning when I was appointed to the Senate. What I did was spend time with lawyers making sure I understood not only SEC Requirements to be in the Senate because I come from the private sector. I have 20 years of experience in financial services, but I also spent time making sure I understood the securities law and the Senate ethics committee rules on how we conduct our financial activities. transactions I decided that I was going to maintain the same stance that I had in the financial services industry, which was to have a third party that was a set of advisors who were completely in charge and able to do these transactions on my own so that I didn't have to be involved in any of the decisions related to these financial transactions and that worked very well in the private sector, it prevented us from having concerns about insider trading and that is what I maintained in the Senate and that has allowed me to be able to work hard for the American people and focus on the things I write here to Washington to do.

Oh, okay, I understand that, let me back up and ask you so that you are in the set of transactions that have been made. publicly available there, 29, 27 of them, as we noted, were also

sold

or bought, it was a pretty strong market at the time, a lot of people were not doing what you did and the stocks that were lost, some of them, not all , I mean this is mixed. stock market to some extent, but some of them were stocks that really took a hit, so I'm wondering - I'm not accusing you of anything, but I'm wondering again who made that decision, who specifically made that decision for you and on what basis .

I think so, Tucker, those would be the financial advisors in charge of making trades in our portfolios that we have no say over, and you know, I think the most important thing is that they inform me only after making those trades. I don't have anything. you know, in terms of voice and what buying and selling are executed, what that timing is and I'm only told after it happens around the same time as the public reporting that we do here, well, that makes you saying that you received a notice of Here you have the list of the stocks that were sold and the two that were bought on February 16, so not long after that, you knew, I mean, they are selling, oh, they are selling a lot of stocks here.

I want to put on our screen for our viewers a video that you posted after you found out about this and here's the good news: the consumer is strong, the economy is strong, jobs are growing, our president has done a fantastic job making sure that you are in the best position to handle this situation, so I'm wondering, I mean, you said you looked at this when you spent all those years in business and you realized that they're getting rid of retail, for example, which people don't I was doing. I mean, somewhere, but most weren't and then you make a video saying the economy is totally fine.

In retrospect, you think maybe you should have hinted that maybe it's not right, obviously, I mean, just from your portfolio sheet you know that very well. Look Tucker, this situation has changed dramatically in the space of three months. I don't think any of us could have predicted where we would be today and I think that's why it's important that I'm not involved in stock trading. I don't want to have to do it. explain my actions from three months ago that I do not need to take if I can no no no this was not endurance I am sure with respect this was not three months ago this was a month ago on February 16 or 17 when you receive this, she made it ring for You, I mean, you can read a balance sheet, obviously, it's what you did your whole life until recently, did you think that maybe this is meant to be something sinister for the economy, did that thought cross your mind?

It's kind of the standard course for managing portfolios. Some months you have purchases and sales. Some months you have some once you have sales. I trust the professionals who manage our portfolio. I don't get involved there. I don't have to say it. I don't want to give an opinion I want to focus on my work for the Georgians we'll talk about cars right now I get it I get it right then and I won't do it again I'm not accusing you of executing the trades yourself It sounds like you didn't do it and you don't know it.

I'm not saying you did it. I'm just wondering about the broader issue of reassuring the public that the economy is fine and the coronavirus can be controlled when, of course, you take into account your position, you know that's not true, so I ask Tucker That's not true, Tucker, we just had employment reports that were solid, in fact, January is a big employment. 80,000 additional workers were added to payrolls once February was reported so we've created like 600,000 jobs this year we have very strong members and heading into March none of us knew where we would be on March 20th we are where we are today we need to focus on The American people, people are suffering, they wonder about their jobs, what's going on, their family, 30 million children don't go to school, 5 to 7 million waiters, waitresses, line chefs, they're out of work, oh, I am very aware, no, no, we absolutely show something, we do programs every night and we share your concern.

One hundred percent, so your colleague Richard Berg, do you think he should be charged for what he apparently did? Of course, it would be illegal to use the information he obtained in the Senate for profit. Tucker I've been in the Senate 11 weeks. I spent a lot of time establishing my own situation before I came to the Senate. I did not advise my colleagues on how they handle their financial situations. I don't know what your situation is. The situation is that I cannot speak for him and I will not speak for him. I think he's been very forthcoming in terms of saying that he's willing to appear before the Senate Ethics Committee and I applaud that.

Well, no, but I won't. Asking you to give you financial advice, obviously, or to tell you what to do next. I'm just wondering what you think should happen next. Do you think, given what we know and what he has admitted, that he himself made these transactions at exactly the same time? Once he was assuring the public that everything was fine, he lied and you think that by appearing before the Senate Ethics Committee, I've been in Washington my whole life, I'm not even sure what that is, I know nothing happens there, You think that's an appropriate response, look, Tucker.

I don't know what Senator Byrd knew or knows. I can't predict what his mood will be in front of the Senate Ethics Committee. What was it like when he made decisions about those exchanges? What information did he have? I know. You know that. many of our

briefing

s were instantly posted to Twitter as soon as I left the meeting. These were called closed meetings, they were not classified, they were closed, but as soon as I left, the information was already on Twitter. the public domain, well, but here it is and again you don't need to speak for it, Richard Burr, but I just want to beclear to our audience and I wouldn't ask him to, but he wrote an op-ed on our website saying it you know everything, we're good to go, everything's fine, you know we're in good shape and then he gives this speech comparing the coronavirus with the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic that killed up to 100 million people, so you have to think.

There is a massive disconnect between what he says publicly and what he privately believes is a problem if there are leaders on all sides and I would say the same thing by the way for Dianne Feinstein, who also behaved disgracefully. I mean, it's not a problem. Do you think right, Tucker? It all comes down to the timeline, this is a rapidly changing situation and you know, I think we need to put it out there and say you know what we knew and when and what you said and when and none of us. We believed today what we believed on February 1st February 1st we were trapped in an impeachment trial we were headed to the State of the Union we were having the prayer breakfast a million things were happening in Washington no one was locked up other than President Trump, no wonder he said that we need to close the border to flights coming from China because there were 24 deaths in the province of Wuhan, amen, and I am glad that you did it. from whom I received information or had a long conversation closed his conversation with the official of the very well government very knowledgeable government official on February 3 I looked at my schedule and he said, you know, millions of people could ultimately die from this and we went on the air immediately that night.

I didn't say I talked to anyone about this, but we reported the substance, which is scary as hell, no one's paying attention, so I mean, it was out there. And I guess it doesn't help anyone who likes to point fingers retroactively, but wants to think that their leaders are putting their interests before theirs and I wonder if that's always happening well, I think with President Trump in the rudder is he and our leaders. You can see Dr. In the stock market you can see all the healthcare leaders, the economic leaders, they are putting us first. Senator Burr stepped forward and said he would be willing to participate in the Senate ethics process and I think that's all we can do is go for it from Well, okay, that's one last question, have you heard today?

I mean, I'm just editorializing, but I can't help myself, it's hard to believe that Richard Burr and I agree with him on most political issues. Not that he has any political bias here, but do you think he'll be able to keep his Senate seat after this? I mean, what message would that send to the country? Look, Tucker, I'm a political outsider. I'm here working to try to solve the coronavirus. I can't predict where the political outcomes may go, but I'm just telling you that right now I'm focused on working for Georgia, the state of Georgia, for the American people and making sure that we solve the coronavirus and let's let this play out in the right place, well, I appreciate it and I really want the government to get its act together and focus on solving this, I'm sorry, I appreciate the senator thank you very much for joining us tonight.

Thanks, Tucker.