Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is defending his proposed bill to ban stock trading by federal lawmakers — as well as by the president and vice president — in the face of criticism from President Donald Trump.
The legislation passed a key hurdle Wednesday, clearing the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in an 8-7 vote. Hawley was the lone Republican to side with Democrats in advancing the bill.
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Trump lashes out on Truth Social
In a Truth Social post, Trump dubbed Hawley a “second-tier Senator” and accused him of “playing right into the dirty hands of Democrats.”
“I don’t think real Republicans want to see their President, who has had unprecedented success, TARGETED, because of the ‘whims’ of a second-tier Senator named Josh Hawley!” Trump claimed.
Hawley responds: ‘I want results’
Hawley said he hopes Trump will support the bill and is open to making changes to gain his approval.
“Listen, I want the president to sign the bill, so I’m happy to do whatever it would take to get him to say, ‘Yes, this is good.’” Hawley said after Trump’s social media post. “I want results.”
Hawley emphasized that under the current version, Trump would not be required to divest his holdings during his current term. The bill would ban stock trading for executive and legislative branch officials immediately — but mandates divestment only at the start of their next terms.
The bill gains Pelosi’s support
Hawley originally dubbed the bill the PELOSI Act, after former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose family’s trades have drawn GOP scrutiny.
“[Trump’s] not covered by the PELOSI Act, but Nancy Pelosi is,” Hawley said.
The bill has since been renamed the HONEST Act. Pelosi said she supports the measure and plans to vote for it.
“The American people deserve confidence that their elected leaders are serving the public interest — not their personal portfolios,” Pelosi said in a statement.
Trump tried to soften the rules — and failed
Republican lawmakers had attempted to work with the Trump team to include a carve-out for the presidency, but Hawley and Democrats blocked the effort. Trump also criticized Hawley for opposing a separate GOP amendment that would have specifically targeted the stock trades of Pelosi and her husband, Paul Pelosi. However, while her husband is a trader, the former speaker’s office acknowledged that Nancy Pelosi does not personally own stock.
“We have an opportunity here today to do something that the public has wanted to do for decades,” Hawley said to the panel. “And that is to ban members of Congress from profiting on information that frankly only members of Congress have on the buying and selling of stock.”
A longstanding concern in Washington
Lawmakers from both parties have long faced scrutiny over stock trading while in office. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, some members were found to have traded stocks after receiving closed-door briefings. Unlike the general public, federal lawmakers are not always held to the same insider trading laws.
If the legislation is signed into law, it would immediately ban elected officials, including the president, from purchasing stocks, and would bar them from selling stocks for 90 days after the law takes effect. It also mandates that elected officials divest from all covered commodities, but they would not be required to do so until the beginning of their next term in office — which would exempt Trump from the ban.
Trump also targets Grassley
Trump’s attack on Hawley comes just a day after he criticized Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley on Truth Social.
On Tuesday, Trump pressured Grassley to get rid of the Senate’s 100-year-old tradition known as a “Blue Slip” that often requires bipartisan support on presidential nominations of federal judges. That custom forces both federal senators from any one state to agree to move forward a nominee for a vote.
“Senator Grassley must step up,” Trump wrote on Tuesday, July 29, while saying he helped the long-time senator get reelected.
Grassley responded on Wednesday and said he was “offended” by Trump’s comments.
