The Scoop
Senate Republicans pitched their Democratic colleagues Thursday on amending a proposed ban on stock trading to exclude the current administration after the legislation invoked President Donald Trump’s ire.
“It was a Democrat ‘we hate Trump’ bill,” cosponsor Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, who voted against advancing the most recent version, told Semafor.
He added that he approached Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., on the floor to request members “work together to get something across the finish line that’s actually passable; that’s a serious piece of legislation; that’s not intended to be a circus act” — and that Peters pledged to “talk to a couple” other Democrats about it.
Whether they’ll get on board remains to be seen: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., told Semafor she wouldn’t rule out voting for a Congress-only stock ban, but “hope[s] it doesn’t come to that.”
“There’s a lot of push around the country that all elected officials be included,” Warren said. “And for the first time, we seem to be making some progress.”
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Trump posted on Truth Social Wednesday attacking the bill’s author, Sen. Josh Hawley, after the Missouri Republican helped Democrats expand it to apply to presidents and vice presidents. Though only future administrations would have to divest their stocks, Hawley’s bill would bar Trump and Vice President JD Vance from buying and limit them from selling.
Hawley said Thursday that he’d spoken with Trump, who told him Republican senators had flagged “a last-minute change in the committee that was going to force him to sell all these assets.” Hawley said he told Trump the divestment requirements would kick in after he left office.
“The big thing is, he said over and over and over again, ‘I think we need to have a stock trade bill’” that applies to Congress, Hawley told reporters. “Members shouldn’t be able to trade stock; their spouses shouldn’t be able to trade stock.”
Hawley said he hoped Democrats would be amenable to signing onto a stock ban that did not impact Trump because “they already voted to except him” from the divestment requirements — but he doesn’t “have a prediction” for whether they will.
“We’ll just have to see what the path forward is,” Hawley said. “I don’t know what it is.”
The House is in the process of drafting its own bipartisan stock ban legislation, which lawmakers will have to eventually reconcile with the Senate version should it advance. It remains unclear whether GOP leaders will greenlight either measure.