Bessent says he’ll push to end congressional stock trading

Wed, Aug 13, 2025, 5:18 PM 2 min read

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is calling for a ban on single-stock trading by members of Congress, a push that could supercharge legislative efforts to ban the practice that have gained momentum in recent months.

The Treasury secretary is far from the first big name in Washington to advocate for an end to congressional stock trading in recent months. Bessent's comments come as both House and Senate GOP leaders have been scrambling to address bipartisan pushes for legislation to ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks.

“It is the credibility of the House and the Senate that you look at some of these eye-popping returns — whether it’s Rep. [Nancy] Pelosi, Sen. [Ron] Wyden, every hedge fund would be jealous of them,” Bessent said in a Bloomberg interview Wednesday. “And the American people deserve better than this.”

Speaker Mike Johnson resisted Rep. Anna Paulina Luna's (R-Fla.) plans to try to force a floor vote on a ban in September. But just as the effort to pass a full-out ban has bipartisan support, it also has fierce bipartisan opposition from members who have been bombarding their leadership with their concerns over August recess.

Ian Krager, a spokesperson for the former House speaker, said in a statement that she “does not own any stocks and has no knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions.”

In response, Wyden’s office pointed to a Wednesday social media post in which the senator said he supports the stock trading ban while referencing the administration's struggles to contain the fallout over its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.

"Bessent is fuming that I blew the whistle on the fact that he's hiding a huge Epstein file at the Treasury Department," Wyden said in the post. "Thousands of pages worth of Epstein's bank records with names. Until he releases it, he’s just running interference for Epstein’s pedophile ring."

Still, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have sought to use the issue as a cudgel in messaging efforts throughout the spring and summer. House Democrats slammed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in April after she disclosed purchasing stocks shortly before President Donald Trump announced a partial reversal of his tariff policies.

Meanwhile, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) in April called his bill to bar stock trading by lawmakers and their spouses the PELOSI Act.

“People shouldn’t come to Washington to get rich, they should come to serve the American people,” Bessent said. “And it brings down trust in the system. Because I can tell you that if any private citizen traded this way, the SEC would be knocking on their door.”