Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been critical of Democrats throughout his presidential campaign. Recently, Perry has focused his criticism at President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. After Pelosi mocked Perry’s public debate challenge via twitter, the Texas Gov. slammed the California Democrat over her involvement in the congressional insider trading scandal.
“I get it about why Nancy Pelosi doesn’t want to debate me in public, because then she’s going to have to explain why she profited from this insider trading information in the stock market,” Perry told the media in Jackson, Mississippi. “But if she won’t explain her activities in a public setting, such as a debate, then I challenge her to turn over all that information to the Securities Exchange Commission or an independent prosecutor to determine whether she used insider information through her position in congress to make money off of her investments,” Perry added.
Perry’s challenge to Pelosi followed a “60 Minutes” special alleging that the House Minority Leader has participated in insider trading. In a letter to Pelosi, Perry stated that the focus of the debate would be his “Overhauling Washington” plan.
Perry, who was in Mississippi for fundraising events Thursday, was also critical of Obama for not being in Washington D.C. as the debt supercommittee tries to negotiate a deal to cut $1.2 trillion from federal spending by Wednesday, November 23rd. Perry recently released an advertisement attacking Obama for the current state of the U.S. economy.
“I think abrogating the responsibility of the presidency to a super committee of Congress was bad leadership to begin with,” Perry said of Obama, who is currently on a 9 day trip to Asia for the East Asia Summit.
