Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images
President Donald Trump vehemently attacked Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) in a social media post Wednesday over his stock trading ban bill, but the senator told a reporter he’d made peace with the president after they had a phone call and Trump shared a surprising claim with him.
The issue of members of Congress investing in publicly-traded stocks has been controversial for a long time, especially since they often vote on issues that could directly affect their investments and obtain insider information that could shift share prices once it became publicly known. Hawley’s bill would ban stock trading for members of Congress — and the president and vice president.
In a Truth Social post, Trump berated Hawley, accusing him of voting to block a review of Pelosi’s stock trades and supporting a bill that is “so bad for our COUNTRY!”
According to Metzger, Hawley told him that he spoke with Trump on the phone Wednesday night, and “the president told him that GOP senators had called him up telling him he would have to sell Mar-a-Lago if Hawley’s bill passed.”
The claim the bill would force Trump to sell his beloved residence in Palm Beach, Florida is not accurate. As Metzger’s report explained, the latest version of the legislation, once enacted, would immediately bar the president, the vice president, and all members of Congress from trading in stocks, plus an added requirement to sell off existing stock holdings and certain assets by the beginning of their next term. Accordingly, the bill would not require Trump to sell any stock or assets, since he has only one term remaining as president, it would only prohibit him from buying stocks until he was out of office.
“[Hawley] says Trump still supports a stock trading ban for Congress,” Metzger continued, and that the president “didn’t bring up the fact that the bill *would* bar him from trading stocks, that he was just concerned with divestiture, which does not apply to him under the bill.”
Trump hasn’t written any more posts attacking Hawley, one sign the senator seems to be back in the president’s good graces, and Hawley told Metzger that they had declared peace.
“He finished by saying, ‘You’re totally exonerated, Josh, we love you,”” said Hawley.
As to who told Trump the bill would make him sell Mar-A-Lago, a number of political commentators and reporters theorized Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) could have been the one who made that claim. A White House official told Metzger they would not comment on the president’s private conversations. Scott did say he had spoke to the president but called it “inappropriate” to share details of their conversation and declined two attempts to get a comment.
