Members of Congress should honor those whom they work for by issuing Americans tariff rebate checks and passing his bill to ban oddly successful stock trading on Capitol Hill, says Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Wednesday approved Hawley’s Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments “PELOSI Act,” which prohibits members of Congress from trading in individual stocks.

Hawley needed Democrat support to have the committee advance the measure by an 8-7 margin, as other Republicans on the committee opposed it.

Hawley’s office says the bill – now renamed the HONEST Act – “would ban lawmakers and their spouses from purchasing, selling or holding individual stocks for the duration of the lawmaker’s time in office. Lawmakers would be allowed to invest in diversified mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, or U.S. Treasury bonds while in office.”

President Trump, while supporting the concept of a trading ban, decried Hawley’s bill in a pointed post on Truth Social. The White House opposes including the president and vice president in the bill, and Trump writes that it also blocks a review of Pelosi’s suspiciously successful trading.

“I wonder why Hawley would pass a Bill that Nancy Pelosi is in absolute love with,” Trump wrote. “He is playing right into the dirty hands of the Democrats. It’s a great Bill for her, and her ‘husband,’ but so bad for our Country!”

Hawley, appearing on Jesse Watters Primetime Wednesday night, said he’d talked with the president earlier, and that there were some misconceptions about the bill.

“A number of people who are opposed to banning stock trading had said to the president that he would be covered by the bill, he would have to sell Mar-a-Lago and assets. Not the case at all. The [current] president and vice president, their assets are exempted.”

Why the GOP opposition?

But why are Hawley’s other fellow Republicans against this?

“Well, they shouldn’t be, because it’s good for the American people,” Hawley tells The Heartlander in an exclusive interview. “Sadly, members of both parties have engaged in stock trading. And sadly, members of both parties want to keep that up. 

“But I would just say to Republicans and the Democrats, listen – I think your constituents are only going to put up with this for so long. They want you here focused on doing their business, not on making a buck on the stock market. And we’ve got to get back here to what the people sent us here to do.”

The name of the bill is the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments Act – and, for the record, Hawley says he realized when he drafted it that its acronym spells the last name of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who he says has cleaned up in the stock market.

“It’s important because, listen, members of Congress shouldn’t be getting rich day trading on their constituents’ time,” he explains. “They ought to be focused on doing what the people sent them to do. And you see member after member of Congress [doing it]. 

“And Nancy Pelosi is the poster child for this. I mean, she has outperformed every hedge fund in America except for, I think, two over the last two or three years, with her stock trades. Do you think that’s a coincidence? Either she is a genius, the unappreciated mastermind of the stock market of our time, or maybe she’s privy to information that the general public is not. 

“And I’m pretty sure it’s the second thing. 

Something the president will sign

“So, we ought to say to her and every other member of Congress, look, you’re getting a lot of inside information. You’ve got a lot of advantages her. If you want to invest, go buy some mutual funds. They don’t need to be day trading.”

Some worry the ban would infringe on the separation of powers by including future presidents and vice presidents. Hawley didn’t address that concern, but was careful to alleviate President Trump’s worry.

“You know, this bill that passed out [of committee] does not include President Trump or Vice President Vance,” Hawley told The Heartlander. “It would only go into effect for the president and the vice president for the next term – that is, whoever is elected after Trump. 

“But it does apply to members of Congress. And at the end of the day, listen, I want to get something that the president will sign and that members of Congress are bound by, and I think we need to stop them trading stock right now.”

The spoils of Trump’s policies

Trump may be happier with Hawley over his bill to provide $600 “tariff rebates” to every American thanks to Trump’s bold economic moves since taking office.

USA Today columnist Dace Potas calls the idea a “populist attempt to bribe Americans into voting for more MAGA economics.”

“You can’t just hand out money; doing so is either inflationary or adds to the deficit. … 

“For Americans to truly experience a rebate, the government needs to be in a budget surplus. If we are in a budget deficit, any form of spending comes from two sources. The first is through printing new money, which is the simplest way to create inflation. The second way is through borrowing money, which adds to the national debt, requiring higher revenue in the future to cover current spending.”

Hawley simply says hardworking Americans should share in the spoils of Trump’s foreign and economic policies.

“Well, I thought President Trump had the right idea here,” Hawley explains. “I have to say I did get the idea from him when he said just the other day that there’s so much tariff money. I mean, he was right about this, by the way. He said that we bring in a gob of tariff money. His critics said no. They were wrong, he was righ. And he’s the one who said maybe we should consider rebating some of this to the American people. 

“I think that’s just a great idea. It’s a gob of money. And who better to share in the benefits of this economy than the people who make this economy work, which is the working people of Missouri and the rest of the country? 

“I’d give $600 to every working person in the state of Missouri, $600 to each of their kids. You’d phase it out for upper-income earners. You know, rich people don’t need this money. The Wall Street hedge funds don’t need it. 

“But for the blue-collar workers who have gotten the shaft under Joe Biden, and for the folks who have had their jobs taken away, who had their wages suppressed – boy, they could use the help. And the message here is that Donald Trump’s policies are working for them.”

Where are the media?

Speaking of his policies, why isn’t the president getting more credit for an economy and tariff policies that put the government back in the black in June?

“Yeah, well, this is a great reason to do a rebate check,” Hawley argues, “because I think it would alert every single American who gets that check – ‘Wait a minute, this is amazing. Trump’s policies are actually changing our economic landscape. They are working for the average family.’ 

“And of course, the media will never report on that. The liberal, leftist media will never report on the success of the president’s policies. But people know what they feel. They know what they see in their real experience.

“And this is why it’s important to help them feel the benefit of what the president is doing for the economy here. I mean, he’s doing this for working people, and a rebate would make that real to them – in real time.”

Meanwhile, the media seem wholly disinclined to give Trump even meager credit for such things as bringing down inflation and bringing in billions in tariff revenue and foreign investment.

Moreover, those same media seem to be doing their best to doze off during the tectonic aftershocks from the continuing revelations that the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton campaign conspired with intelligence and even FBI authorities to sabotage Trump’s 2016 campaign and, failing that, his first presidency.

Why is that?

“Well, they’re yawning because they were part of the collusion,” Hawley contends. “They were part of this, hook, line and sinker. They weren’t taken for a ride. They were in on the conspiracy. These are the guys who promoted every lie that Obama and his group told – the Steele dossier being exhibit A. 

“Where did they get more traction than in the liberal media, who recycled and laundered it and rehearsed it ad nauseam. It turns out that Obama knew it was fake, Brennan knew it was fake, James Comey knew was fake. They all lied when they say they didn’t promote it; they did promote it. They pushed it out there. 

“And I think there need to be consequences for that. I’ve heard people say, ‘Oh, well, Obama’s immune.’ Brennan’s not immune. Comey’s not immune. These guys who deliberately used the Steele dossier and then lied about it to Congress, there’s got to be some consequences here for this kind of behavior or it will not stop. 

“And if it doesn’t stop, our republic is in serious, serious danger. So, my view is it’s time for DOJ to start prosecuting some people.”