Should the people who craft the Pentagon’s budget be allowed to own stocks in the very same companies whose profits are determined by Pentagon contracts?
Obviously not — this is an enormous conflict of interest! But that’s exactly how things work in Congress today. In 2024, 50 members of Congress traded between $24 million and $113 million worth of Pentagon contractor stocks on the side, while at work they were writing the military budgets that determined which weapons companies receive multi-billion dollar contracts.
In this episode of Always at War, we explore how this open secret — that our members of Congress are personally invested in America’s war machine — keeps our country perpetually at war. With the help of Public Citizen’s Savannah Wooten, we navigate how the military-industrial complex has woven a complex web of financial and political incentives to keep politicians from questioning either our $1 trillion Pentagon budget or the disastrous cover-the-globe foreign policy it enables.
We reveal how defense stocks consistently surge during military conflicts — jumping after the Soleimani assassination, Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, and throughout the wars in Ukraine and Gaza — creating direct financial incentives for lawmakers to support military interventions over diplomatic solutions. Through suspiciously timed trades, like lawmakers buying Lockheed Martin stock days before an $11 billion contract announcement, we show how the military-industrial-congressional complex that Eisenhower warned about has evolved into a system where peace literally costs politicians money.
When the people writing checks to weapons companies own stock in those same companies, every vote for military action becomes a vote for personal profit — helping to explain why America's wars never seem to end and the Pentagon budget just keeps growing, without making Americans any safer.