“So many of these people are crooks, liars, and frauds. And Marjorie Taylor Greene is, of course, exhibit A,” Jeffries said Monday on MSNBC after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) allegedly bought tens of thousands of dollars in stock the day before and the day of Trump’s pause on his sweeping tariffs. 

“One, we do need to change the law so that sitting members of Congress cannot trade stock, period. Full stop,” Jeffries continued. “And until we get to that point, we obviously have to continue to highlight why this is problematic. And if Republicans are unwilling to hold a hearing on this matter, I can assure you Democrats will, on Capitol Hill, in partnership with the Senate. And we also will take this matter on the road.”

Jeffries has mostly aligned with Pelosi on major issues since she stepped down from leading House Democrats. Pelosi, who wrote off the matter for a long period of time, seemed to back down on her staunch opinions ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

Pelosi, whose husband is a multimillionaire investor who regularly makes large trades, opposed previous legislation, saying we live in a “free market economy.” However, in 2022, she softened her opposition against the measure, saying she would be “okay with it” if that’s what Democratic lawmakers wanted.

“No one should come to Congress to make a profit. Americans want to see a stock ban, and as a co-sponsor of the bipartisan TRUST in Congress Act, I’m glad to see Leader Jeffries voice support for a ban,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) told the Washington Examiner. 

Many Republicans, including Greene, who were accused of acting on inside information, pushed back by saying their stock exchanges were in a blind trust.  

Jeffries is not the only Democratic leader who has weighed in on this matter since Trump’s “Liberation Day.” His appearance on MSNBC came after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), along with other Senate Democratic colleagues, called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Trump’s possible “tariff market manipulation” regarding insider trading.

“We urge the SEC to investigate whether the tariff announcements, which caused the market crash and subsequent partial recovery, enriched administration insiders and friends at the expense of the American public and whether any insiders, including the President’s family, had prior knowledge of the tariff pause that they abused to make stock trades ahead of the President’s announcement,” the senators said. 

“Before pausing the tariffs that threw markets into disarray, President Trump appears to have previewed his plans to do so on Truth Social: at 9:37 am, he announced, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.” His official announcement of the tariff pause came roughly 4 hours later at 1:18 pm,” they said. 

As they work to win the House in the 2026 midterm elections, banning congressional stock trading could be a major play for Democrats as they search for messaging that resonates with voters, especially after the market turmoil following Trump’s tariffs.

Although Democrats are messaging on the matter now, many Republicans are also on board with the stock trading ban. The right flank of the GOP party, the House Freedom Caucus, included a stock trading ban on its list of necessary legislation in a letter earlier this year following the speaker race. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has remained quiet on the matter and does not own any individual stocks, according to his ethics disclosures.

This longtime issue has had many pushes but has never been fully successful. The STOCK Act, signed into law in 2012, prohibits members from acting on insider information and requires them to report their trades within 45 days, but the law acts more as a slap on the wrist. The penalty is a mere $200 fine, and members have not been punished for said violations.

Earlier this year, Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Seth Magaziner (D-RI) reintroduced the TRUST Act, which would ban Congress members, their spouses, and dependent children from trading individual stocks. The piece of legislation has 63 cosponsors as of Wednesday. 

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Last year, a group of bipartisan senators, including Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Jacky Rosen (D-NV), introduced legislation that passed out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to ban stock trading for sitting Congress members, marking the first time a bill with this language passed out of committee. Ossoff has introduced similar legislation multiple times, but none have crossed the finish line. 

“Members of Congress should not be here to turn a profit on the people’s time. They should certainly not be trading or owning individual stocks, especially not in companies they oversee through their government work,” Hawley said in a press release following committee passage. 

The Washington Examiner reached out to Jeffries’s office for comment but did not hear back.