President Donald Trump on Wednesday seemed to endorse the idea of a bill that would ban members of Congress – as well as the president and the vice president – from trading stocks while in office.
‘Well I like it conceptually,’ Trump said to reporters at the White House, promising to take a look at the legislation if not fully embracing all its details.
A bill that would ban stock trading that was originally introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley was advanced by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The vote was 8-7, with all Senate Democrats and Hawley voting to advance it.
‘Nancy Pelosi became rich by having inside information, she made a fortune with her husband and I think that’s disgraceful,’ Trump said.
Pelosi has said she does not trade stocks, but her husband Paul Pelosi does as a venture capitalist.
‘Speaker Pelosi does not own any stocks, and she has no prior knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions,’ Ian Krager said in a statement to the Daily Mail.
Pelosi’s net worth is $261 million, according to Quiver Quantitative, which runs a stock tracker of her and her husband’s investments.
‘Nancy Pelosi should be investigated because she has the highest return of anybody practically in the history of Wall Street, save a few,’ Trump said. ‘How did that happen?’
President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. on Capitol Hill
‘She ought to be investigated,’ Trump added.
But the Hawley bill would also ban the president and vice president from trading stocks. Trump and Vice President JD Vance would be exempt since it would not go into effect until the next term.
A White House official flagged concerns that the bill was modified to include the president and vice president, according to an Axios report, citing Article II concerns of limiting the president’s executive power.
Hawley hailed the bill’s progress as an important step forward.
‘We have an opportunity here today to do something that the public has wanted us to do for decades, and that is to ban members of Congress from profiting on information that, frankly, only members of Congress have,’ Hawley said.
Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio said he did not support the bill, as it was altered from the original bill that he supported with Hawley.
Other Republican senators, such as Sen. Ron Johnson, Sen Rick Scott, and Sen. Rand Paul, also flagged concerns about changes to the legislation.
But Pelosi endorsed the bill shortly after it advanced in the Senate.
‘We must have strong transparency, robust accountability and tough enforcement for financial conduct in office because the American people deserve confidence that their elected leaders are serving the public interest – not their personal portfolios,’ she wrote in a statement.
Pelosi previously resisted a bill to ban stock trades from members of Congress, noting it would be deeply unpopular with members in office.
In 2021, Pelosi said lawmakers should not be banned from trading stocks.
‘We are a free market economy. They should be able to participate in that,’ Pelosi said.
