Donald Trump lashed out at Josh Hawley’s bill that would ban stock trading by lawmakers in the mistaken belief it would force him to sell his beloved Mar-a-Lago resort, the Missouri senator has claimed.
Hawley, normally one of the staunchest Trump loyalists in the Senate, has been downplaying the president’s attacks after Trump questioned why the “second-tier senator” was backing a bill that would “target” him.
The Missouri Republican now blames his GOP colleagues in the Senate for feeding Trump false information about the bill, which would bar members of Congress, presidents, and vice presidents from trading individual stocks.
“What he said is that he had a number of people call him and say that the bill had been changed at the last minute to force him to sell Mar-a-Lago and divest all of his assets, which is, of course, totally false,” Hawley told Business Insider.
“I said that is absolutely not true at all. And when we walked through the text of the bill, he was like, ‘Oh, OK.’”
Hawley added that Trump did not mention that the bill would bar him from trading stocks, but that he supported the overall idea. “He remains committed to getting a stock-trading ban, so we’ll work with him to do that.”
“He finished by saying, ‘You’re totally exonerated, Josh,’” Hawley added.
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida and Ohio’s Bernie Moreno have opposed the bill specifically because it includes the executive branch.
The bill, originally named after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has long faced accusations from her political foes of benefiting financially from insider information, advanced through the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday with support from all Democrats plus Hawley.
Trump then went after Hawley in a scathing Truth Social post: “I wonder why Hawley would pass a Bill that Nancy Pelosi is in absolute love with—He is playing right into the dirty hands of the Democrats,” Trump wrote. “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!”
Speaking to reporters Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated that Trump supports banning lawmakers from trading stocks, though it’s still unclear whether he backs applying that ban to presidents and vice presidents.
“Conceptually, he, of course, supports the idea of ensuring that members of Congress and United States senators who are here for public service cannot enrich themselves,” she said.
Elsewhere, Pelosi fired back at CNN’s Jake Tapper after he asked her to respond to Trump’s claim that she benefits from insider information.
“That’s ridiculous. In fact, I very much support stopping the trading of members of Congress,” Pelosi said. “I’m not into it. My husband is, but it isn’t anything to do with anything insider. But the president has his own exposure, so he’s always projecting.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
