Chairman Paul Atkins on Restoring America’s Capital Markets

Speaker 1 you own your own business, you own every decision.

Speaker 2 Catch the red eye or take the 6 a.m.

Speaker 1 Make a new hire or promote internally. Celebrate a win with the toast at the gate or unwind at the lounge.

Speaker 5 Big props to this team.

Speaker 1 Some decisions are a win-win. Like earning eight times points on Chase Travel, introducing Chase Sapphire Reserve for business.

Speaker 1 With $2,500 in annual value, it's the business card that gives back all you put in. Visit chase.com slash reserve business to learn more.

Speaker 6 Cards issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank and a member of DIC subject to credit approval.

Speaker 3 Terms apply.

Speaker 2 Our Daily Wire Plus Cyber Week sale is live. All annual memberships are 50% off, and this year, you get more than ever.

Speaker 7 More new daily shows from the most trusted voices in conservative media. Uncensored, ad-free, available an hour before you can see or hear them anywhere else.

Speaker 7 Daily Wire Plus is premium entertainment built to compete with the best that's out there. Epic production, cinematic storytelling.

Speaker 7 Every project crafted with major studio precision, but grounded in truth, not trend.

Speaker 2 That standard comes to life with the Penn Dragon cycle of the Rise of the Merlin. The seven-part cinematic epic premieres January 22nd, 2026, exclusively on Daily Wire Plus.

Speaker 2 All access members get early access to episodes one and two on Christmas Day.

Speaker 8 Your annual membership for 50% off gets you full access to everything else we're building next.

Speaker 2 The Cyber Week sale ends Monday, December 8th. When it's gone, it's gone.

Speaker 7 Go to dailywire.com/slash subscribe and join right now.

Speaker 9 In a speech before the New York Stock Exchange this week, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins slammed the Biden administration for using financial rules as a political weapon.

Speaker 9 While sporting a bright red Make IPO's Great Again hat, Atkins promised to return to what he called America's Hamiltonian dynamism and to bring an end to the mountains of ESG disclosures and red tape that have throttled innovation and driven companies overseas.

Speaker 10 The question before us is not whether our entrepreneurs have the capacity to reinvent and reinvigorate our capital markets, but whether we as regulators have the will.

Speaker 10 In this new day, the SEC, and under President Trump's leadership, I am pleased to report that we do.

Speaker 10 In this episode, we sit down with Chairman Atkins to discuss how to make initial public offering markets great again and how we can keep countries like China honest when trading with the U.S.

Speaker 10 I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. This is a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

Speaker 11 Consistency is everything when it comes to your health, but life gets busy and honestly remembering to reorder supplements every month, that's just one more thing on your already packed to-do list.

Speaker 11 That's why I became a Balance of Nature preferred customer and here's why it's a total game changer. Your supplements show up like clockwork every 28 days right to your doorstep.

Speaker 11 No remembering to reorder, no running out, it just happens automatically. And here's the kicker.
You're getting the lowest price Balance of Nature offers every single time.

Speaker 11 No hunting for deals, no promo codes, no stress. Plus, shipping is totally free every month.
But what really sold me is you get your own personal health coach.

Speaker 11 Someone who actually checks in, cheers you on, and helps you stay on track with your goals. The easiest routines are the ones you don't have to think about.

Speaker 11 You handle life, balance of nature handles the rest. Right now, you can become a preferred customer and lock in wholesale pricing, free shipping every month.

Speaker 11 Head over to balanceofnature.com and make consistency automatic. Go to balanceofnature.com and use promo code wire for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer.

Speaker 11 Plus, get a free bottle of fiber and spice. That's balanceofnature.com, promo code WIRE.

Speaker 10 Joining us now is Chairman Paul Atkins. Chairman, first of all, thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 8 Thank you very much, John. Great to be with you.

Speaker 10 Now, you just gave this major speech before the New York Stock Exchange. You took aim at the previous administration's regulations in particular.
You said they were used politically.

Speaker 10 How has that affected things?

Speaker 8 Well, I think it skewed the marketplace, for example.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 in one area, which many of your viewers might be familiar with and following is sort of the digital asset area, cryptocurrencies, and whatnot.

Speaker 8 There were really only two countries in the world that were working to make

Speaker 8 cryptocurrencies illegal, and that's Communist China and the United States through the Securities and Exchange Commission. So

Speaker 8 that tells you one thing. So, you know, we are,

Speaker 8 we're taking a different tack at that, of course. And so we are trying to, you know, embrace technological advancements and innovation.

Speaker 8 And because I think it's much more important to embrace it and to make sure it fits within our laws and rules here in the United States, rather than the alternative is chase it offshore.

Speaker 8 And we saw what happened with FTX there, which was Sam Banknum-Fried's operation, which was in the Bahamas. And he did a lot of panky-panky there and hand in the till and whatnot.

Speaker 8 But he had one, and this is what what the example I like to show.

Speaker 8 There was one legitimate firm that he had bought that was still operating in the United States, and it was a swaps trading platform for cryptocurrencies. And that was under CFTC regulation, and it had

Speaker 8 bided by

Speaker 8 segregated accounts for customers. So when FTX imploded, Ledger X, it was called, didn't skip a beat.
It operated, no customer lost any assets.

Speaker 8 And then here recently, it was just sold out of the bankruptcy estate. And so it lives on

Speaker 8 to do

Speaker 8 good by its customers. So that's an example of how responsible regulation and

Speaker 8 embracing financial innovation can lead to benefits for everybody.

Speaker 10 You said during your speech that the path to public ownership has become narrower and costlier. How do we reverse that? How do we get back to broader and more affordable?

Speaker 8 Well, so we're talking about companies becoming public. And so today we have about half the number of public companies as we had 30 years ago.
And

Speaker 8 so that comes about, you know, you have mergers and acquisitions and you have bankruptcies and whatever. But so that takes, you know, the companies out of that

Speaker 8 population. And if unless you have new ones coming in to replace the defunct ones, then you're going to have

Speaker 8 necessarily a diminishing number of corporations. So

Speaker 8 what I'm suggesting here

Speaker 8 is that we address the reasons why people don't want to go public.

Speaker 8 So the idea is to make IPOs great again, initial public offerings great again, and to make it cool to be public again. And the reason why

Speaker 8 people do not want to take their companies public is one, the high cost of abiding by the regulations that the SEC has imposed over the years. Two, is the litigation issues around

Speaker 8 a lot of frivolous lawsuits, let's say, that are filed against public companies because lawyers know that they can extract some settlement and then get contingency fees out of that.

Speaker 8 And then finally, is

Speaker 8 the weaponization of corporate governance. So shareholder proposals,

Speaker 8 many of your listeners probably, you know, have

Speaker 8 owners of

Speaker 8 securities in one way or another. And so you often, every year for the annual general shareholder meeting, you get a proxy statement in the mail.

Speaker 8 And oftentimes there is, you know, at least one or more things that shareholders are asked to vote on.

Speaker 8 So those have been weaponized over the years by politicized shareholder activists who are pushing social agendas and other. They have their axe to grind about something.

Speaker 8 Most of these things don't get adopted by the shareholders at the annual meeting, but it's used to pressure management in order to kind of

Speaker 8 extract from management concessions that advance the interests of these special interest groups.

Speaker 10 Are you talking about ESGs there? That's something that we've reported on in the past. That kind of of political agenda?

Speaker 8 A part of it, yeah, ESG, DEI, that whole thing. So, environmental activists, social activists, that sort of thing

Speaker 8 is what we're talking about here. So, this is a way to, that's why companies, I mean, these things are not central to

Speaker 8 why or how, in general, how a company makes money. For it's that's what they're in the business for, after all, is to make money for their shareholders through dividends and whatnot.

Speaker 8 And so these are really more, you know, side issues and not central to what's important for the economics of the company. So they're distractions.

Speaker 10 As I understand it, one of the other impediments to going public is the time it takes, the process. Is there anything being done or can be done to speed it up?

Speaker 8 Well, that's one thing we'll be looking at as well. So all of this is, I mean, compare it to a boat.

Speaker 8 You know, if you have a boat and and you don't tend to it at least every year and scrape the barnacles off, you know, you're going to slow down as process through the water.

Speaker 8 And so that's what we're going to try to do here.

Speaker 8 But,

Speaker 8 you know, go through our rule book and try to throw out things that don't deal with financial materiality of a company.

Speaker 8 And so, and then, so that's, you know, the cost of it is lawyers and accountants and everything else to go over disclosures that have just grown over time.

Speaker 8 But then you're talking about the actual time to market, which is very important,

Speaker 8 obviously. But

Speaker 8 basically, we're still living in a paper world from the 1930s and 40s with our rule book, and it's time to

Speaker 8 make it fit for purpose for the 21st century.

Speaker 10 I did want to ask you one more question about your speech. You mentioned Alexander Hamilton and his vision for capital markets.

Speaker 10 What specific Hamiltonian principles do you think we've drifted away from?

Speaker 8 Well, I mean,

Speaker 8 Hamilton basically stood for the power of free markets and individual liberty and choice,

Speaker 8 you know, as to pursuing what the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were talking about. And that's the

Speaker 8 protection of private property, you know, the pursuit of livelihood.

Speaker 8 And as they use the term happiness, which is not necessarily a, you know, let's skip down the street and, you know, and be happy and whistle, but it's, it was a concept of, you know, proper balance,

Speaker 8 you know, and to find that proper balance is what the Constitution guarantees. So, anyway, so that's that's what Hamilton was

Speaker 8 focused on. And I think he was correct.
And so that, and,

Speaker 8 you know, Ludwig von Mises also, you know, has talked about the importance of free enterprise and individual liberty to make your choices and to

Speaker 8 pursue

Speaker 8 what your goals are.

Speaker 5 Ghana por la mañana con el extra value meals, sausage, mac, muffin with egg, hash browns, and a cafe.

Speaker 5 Poros $7.

Speaker 5 President participación pueden varia. Los preces de la promión pueden sermonores que lo de las comidas.

Speaker 10 Switching gears a little bit now. I wanted to ask you about China.
China doesn't follow the same disclosure agreements that other countries do. Is that set to change anytime soon?

Speaker 8 Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, they have a generally a different system than we,

Speaker 8 so that's one issue that obviously the SEC will never change. But at the same time, we have seen over the years a real change of the type of companies that are being listed here in our markets from

Speaker 8 East Asia in particular. And so in particular, China, where

Speaker 8 a company may have operations or management or whatever based in China. And then they are incorporated maybe in the Caribbean on Barbuda or

Speaker 8 different islands down there, Cayman Islands.

Speaker 8 And then their primary listing is here in the United States on NASDAQ.

Speaker 8 And over the years, I think it's great what the SEC has done over the last 40, 50 years is to encourage foreign companies to list here in the United States because then Americans can buy these shares under American law and with American protections and disclosure and all of that, which I think is valuable rather than buy them abroad.

Speaker 8 And then you you have to worry about you receive your dividends, how am I going to change

Speaker 8 whatever I rode to dollars or whatever it may be? But over time, we've seen, in particular, as I mentioned with the Chinese companies, that if they're not being regulated

Speaker 8 in their home country, then these foreign companies that are listed in the United States have particular exemptions.

Speaker 8 They don't have to comply with all the rules that American companies do because we had a concept of substituting compliance. Okay, your home country is regulating.

Speaker 8 And so, you know, this is a convenience for Americans. But if the Chinese companies now,

Speaker 8 they're listed in the United States,

Speaker 8 they should be under American regulation, but because of this kind of loophole in our laws, you know, are not subject to that, we give them exemption from that, that's what we're looking at.

Speaker 8 And so we've noticed over time that

Speaker 8 some of these shares, especially if they're penny stocks, you know, that they're subject to what we call ramp and dump.

Speaker 8 So over time, we watch the price go up without any real explanation, no news about the company. And we monitor chat rooms and things like that.
And then suddenly the price collapsed.

Speaker 8 So that's because people are manipulating it. So we have stopped now trading of those sorts of companies.
We start seeing the indicia there of what's going on. And then we stop trading with it.

Speaker 8 NASDAQ is cooperating with us and all. So we have

Speaker 8 about a dozen companies so far.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 under my chairmanship here, we're taking more action in that.

Speaker 10 It's a very complex world out there. And I can't imagine the process it takes to keep your eye on so many things at once.

Speaker 10 We appreciate you so much taking the time to talk with us, Chairman, and great luck with these efforts to really revamp the way we do business here.

Speaker 8 Great. Well, I appreciate your time and I wish you all the best and your listeners too.

Speaker 10 Thank you so much.

Speaker 8 Thank you.

Speaker 10 That was SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

Speaker 13 All of this is an illusion, an echo of a voice that has died.

Speaker 4 And soon that echo will cease.

Speaker 4 They say that Merlin is mad.

Speaker 13 They say he was a king in Dovid.

Speaker 4 The son of a princess of lost Atlantis.

Speaker 4 They say the future and the past are known to him.

Speaker 4 That the fire and the wind tell him their secrets. That the magic of the hill folk and druids come forth at his easy command.

Speaker 4 They say he slew hundreds. Hundreds, do you hear?

Speaker 13 That the world burned and trembled at his wrath.

Speaker 4 The Merlin died long before you and I were born.

Speaker 13 Merlin Emirus has returned to the land of the living.

Speaker 5 Fortigen is gone.

Speaker 2 Rome is gone.

Speaker 13 The Saxon is here.

Speaker 13 Saxon Hengist has assembled the greatest war host ever seen in the island of the mighty. And before the summer is through, he means to take the throne.

Speaker 5 And he will have it.

Speaker 13 If we are too busy squabbling amongst ourselves to take up arms against him, here is your hope.

Speaker 2 A king will arise to hold all Britain in his hand.

Speaker 13 A high king who will be the wonder of the world.

Speaker 13 You

Speaker 12 to a future of peace.

Speaker 4 There'll be no peace in these lands till we are all dust.

Speaker 11 Men of the island of the mighty,

Speaker 11 you stand together.

Speaker 8 You stand as Britons.

Speaker 11 You stand as one.

Speaker 4 Great darkness is falling upon this land.

Speaker 13 These brothers are our only hope to stand against it.

Speaker 4 Not our only hope.

Speaker 13 I say Merthen slew 70 men with his own hands.

Speaker 4 At Cathay, he slew 500.

Speaker 4 No man is capable of such a thing. No mortal man.

Speaker 3 Hear that?

Speaker 14 That's me in Tokyo learning to make sushi from a master.

Speaker 6 How did I get here?

Speaker 14 I invested wisely.

Speaker 6 Now the only thing I worry about is using too much wasabi.

Speaker 14 Get where you're going with SPY, the world's most traded ETF. Getting there starts here with State Street Investment Management.

Speaker 6 Before investing, consider the funds' investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. Visit state street.com/slash IM for prospectus containing this and other information.
Read it carefully.

Speaker 6 SPY is subject to risks similar to those of stocks. All ETFs are subject to risk, including possible loss of of principal.
Alps Distributors Inc. Distributor.