Trump's Stock Trading! This is NOT NORMAL
Trump, Pelosi, Congress, and the bipartisan defense of self-enrichment
Here I am again talking about stock trading, because President Trump’s latest financial disclosures came out, and it sure as hell looks like the party is happening and we are not invited.
Not that I even want to be invited. What I am saying is that this looks like a massive cluster of self-enrichment, conflicts of interest, insider access, and institutional corruption. And at some point, I have to wonder how much longer people can keep pretending they do not see it.
This is not just some niche ethics story for political nerds. Yale’s Program on Climate Change Communication found that government corruption was the top public worry in the United States, with 54% of Americans saying they were very worried about it, ahead of the cost of living at 48% and the economy at 47%.
So when people say voters do not care about corruption, I think that is bullshit. They do care. They may not always use the same language. They may not follow every disclosure filing. They may not know what an OGE Form 278-T is (The OGE Form 278-T or, Periodic Transaction Report, is a mandatory federal ethics form used by senior government officials to disclose financial transactions, such as the purchase, sale, or exchange of securities). But they know the system feels rigged. They know the people in power seem to get richer while everyone else gets told to tighten their belt.
And they are not wrong.
This Is Not Just a Trump Problem
Democrats are going to use Trump’s financial disclosures as more proof that Trump is corrupt and in office for self-enrichment. Of course he is!!!!! I have written about that plenty of times, and I think the evidence keeps stacking up. Read about it below.
But this turns into party politics way too quickly when the bigger issue is that this is a uniparty of corruption. The rot is not limited to one side.
Nancy Pelosi defended members of Congress being allowed to trade stocks by saying, “We’re a free-market economy. They (congress) should be able to participate in that.”
Mike Johnson has also pumped the brakes on banning congressional stock trading, arguing that a ban could discourage good people from running for office, even after previously saying he supported a ban because of the “appearance of impropriety.”
So there it is.
Different parties. Different speakers. Same basic posture.
Congress needs to get the bag. Members need to be able to make money. Do not make public office too restrictive. Do not scare away “good people.” Let them participate in the markets.
And what does that really mean?
It means the people running the government are allowed to use proximity to power, policy, regulation, classified briefings, committee work, agency relationships, and insider timing to get filthy rich, while lying to the rest of us that it is just normal investing.
That is fucking insane. Unusual Whales
Should Congress Be Paid More? That Does Not Mean They Should Trade Stocks
I want to be clear about something because I have said this before and I still believe it.
Congress should probably be paid more. Their salaries have lost spending power. Many members have to live in two places. They are supposed to represent hundreds of thousands of people. And if we want ordinary people to be able to serve, we should make public service financially realistic.
Mike Johnson has a point there.
But that is a different argument from letting members of Congress trade individual stocks while they are shaping the rules of the economy. Those are not the same thing.
Pay Congress more if that is the problem. Create housing allowances if that is the problem. Reform the size of the House if that is the problem. Hell, maybe we should revisit what representation is supposed to look like when one member of Congress represents far too many people and the whole thing has become completely detached from the original constitutional scale.
But do not tell me the answer is letting elected officials trade stocks while they have access to information, influence, and policy levers that regular Americans will never touch.
NOW the Executive Branch Is in the Game Too
And now, with Trump’s latest disclosures, we are not just talking about Congress anymore. We are talking about the executive branch.
Reuters reported that President Trump disclosed at least $220 million in financial transactions involving U.S. corporate securities during the first quarter of 2026, with the disclosure range putting the total as high as around $750 million. Let me repeat that for everyone in the back. THE FIRST QUARTER
Now, the Trump Organization says these holdings are managed through fully discretionary accounts controlled by third-party financial institutions, and that Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization do not select, direct, approve, or get advance notice of individual investment decisions.
But I keep coming back to the same standard I have written about before.
In the judicial world, there is this old ethics principle that a judge should avoid not only impropriety, but also the appearance of impropriety. The U.S. Courts’ Code of Conduct says an appearance of impropriety exists when reasonable minds, knowing the relevant facts, would conclude that a judge’s honesty, integrity, impartiality, temperament, or fitness to serve is impaired.
Even if Trump’s portfolio was technically managed by outside brokers, a president holding and trading hundreds of millions of dollars in securities tied to companies affected by his own administration creates a massive appearance-of-impropriety problem.
Trump Has Monetized the White House
Donald Trump has monetized the White House in a way that is almost too obvious to even describe without sounding ridiculous.
It feels like he brought in a team to walk through the entire federal government and asked: Where are the products? What can we sell? What can be branded? What can be routed through a family-connected business? What can be turned into a financial instrument? What can be converted into access?
Crypto. Stablecoins. Executive orders. Pardons. Foreign policy. Regulatory capture. Government contracts. Military leverage. Public statements. White House events. Everything is a storefront.
And now people are looking at the timing of public statements, policy decisions, and stock positions and asking the obvious question.
Is this all coincidence?
We should not have to ask whether the president is governing for the country or trading around the country.
p.s. I will answer that question for you. No. No it isn’t coincidence.
This Is a Democratic AND Republican Crisis.
No. Actually, this is a democracy and the republic crisis.
This is not a left-right issue. It is not just Trump. It is not just Pelosi. It is not just Mike Johnson. It is not just congressional stock trading. It is not just the executive branch.
It is a crisis of whether representative government still represents the people, or whether it has become a wealth machine for insiders.
It is a crisis when members of Congress trade stocks while sitting on committees that affect industries.
It is a crisis when party leaders defend the right to trade because lawmakers supposedly need more money.
It is a crisis when the president’s financial disclosures show hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions tied to companies affected by the government he runs.
It is a crisis when the public looks at all of this and knows, correctly, that if a normal person did anything even remotely similar inside their job, they would be fired, investigated, or both.
Government officials are using the will of the people, taxpayer dollars, the United States military, foreign policy, and the economic might of this country to benefit a very small group of people. Their friends. Their donors. Their business partners. Their families. Themselves.
That is corruption.
And I am sick of people acting like it is only corruption when the other party does it.
The Solution
The solution should be simple.
Ban members of Congress, presidents, vice presidents, cabinet officials, senior executive branch officials, judges, Supreme Court justices, and their spouses from trading individual stocks while in office.
Require real blind trusts, diversified mutual funds, or divestment where necessary. Ban government officials from holding individual securities in companies they regulate, contract with, subsidize, investigate, rule on, appoint people to oversee, or publicly promote.
And stop pretending disclosure is enough.
Disclosure is not accountability. Disclosure is not prevention. Disclosure is not ethics. Disclosure is just the public getting to see the receipt after the insiders already made the trade.
If elected officials think they cannot survive on their salary without trading around their own power, then raise the salary and close the loophole. Or… wait for it… live pay check to pay check like 60% of the USA!
Do not use underpayment as an excuse for legalized corruption. If you are making policy that moves markets, you should not be personally trading in those markets.
And maybe this is where people need to start thinking bigger. There is no direct national citizen petition that can force a constitutional amendment by itself. A citizen-led campaign could pressure Congress, pressure state legislatures, force candidates to take a position, organize state-level ballot efforts where allowed, and build the kind of public demand that makes this impossible to ignore. Maybe we need to collect signatures across country.
Check out Political Integrity Project & https://integrityindex.us
This is not just unethical. It is a national security issue. A government that normalizes corruption can be bought, bent, manipulated, and redirected away from the people it is supposed to serve.
So we can keep pretending this is just politics, or we can admit the whole damn system is infected. Federal and Local.
Keep electing Zionist and they’ll keep stealing from you. Israel/AIPAC will make sure that you only ever get to choose another Zionist regardless of party, thus they’ll both keep
Stealing from you/us. Gotta start calling out the influence of Jews over our ENTIRE government or nothing will change because people will think Jews only care about what democrats want and not the fact they hate all minorities and need white conservatives to continue enlisting into the military.