Good evening. I’m British Chris, and this is Raw America.
Republicans just passed a so-called insider trading ban that somehow allows the president to keep doing insider trading. Donald Trump’s Justice Department is withdrawing subpoenas against three New York Times reporters, but only after a federal judge signaled the subpoenas wouldn’t survive a legal challenge. Two dozen states are suing the Trump administration for holding disaster relief funding hostage unless states make it harder for people to vote and assist Trump’s mass deportation campaign. And the Senate Republican leader has a blunt four-word response for Karoline Leavitt after the White House press secretary said Trump’s patience is running out over the Senate’s failure to pass his voter ID bill.
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Republicans Exempt Trump from Insider Trading Bill
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives just passed the so-called Stop Insider Trading Act — which also includes Trump’s draconian voter ID bill — by a vote of 232 to 198. Republicans are calling it a landmark ethics reform. It would stop members of Congress and their families from buying individual stocks while they’re in office. Lawmakers could maintain their current portfolios, but any new purchases would be banned while all investments would have to be disclosed well in advance of any sale.
That all sounds positive, but there’s a catch: the bill’s definition of “covered individuals” includes members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children. It notably does not include the president or the vice president.
That’s a significant omission. Trump’s own 2026 financial disclosure showed roughly 3,600 stock transactions in just the first quarter of the year. His portfolio is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and is spread across companies with active federal contracts like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla. Presidents have typically avoided active trading precisely because of the inherent conflict of interest. This president has disregarded that longstanding historical precedent for awhile now, and even if this bill becomes law he’ll still be allowed to freely trade as much as he sees fit.
Richard Painter, who was the White House’s chiefethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, called the bill a step forward, but said it leaves a “significant gap” with regard to Trump. Painter told Newsweek it’s better than nothing, since once Congress is no longer able to trade stocks, a president who keeps actively trading would face major political consequences. But Painter made it clear that any insider trading ban should also pply to the executive branch.
Democrats are less enthusiastic about the bill. Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey noted that members of Congress can still keep their stocks, meaning the bill doesn’t actually stop members from profiting off industries they’re tasked with regulating. The Campaign Legal Center argued the bill doesn’t actually ban congressional stock trading at all, and does nothing to address the deeper conflict of interest problem Coleman referred to.
The bill now heads to the Senate, where similar proposals have died before due to the body’s 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster. It’ll be interesting to see whether White House pushes just as hard for the exemption as it is for the bill itself.
Trump DOJ Backs Off on Subpoenas for NYT Reporters
Donald Trump’s Justice Department just withdrew subpoenas this week that it had issued against New York Times reporters. Three journalists at the paper were singled out over their coverage of security concerns over Trump’s new Air Force One jet gifted to him by the Qatari royal family. Federal agents even hand-delivered some of those subpoenas to reporters’ homes. The DOJ also aimed to seize phone and text message records from third-party providers, and in one case, the phone records of a reporter’s mother got swept up in the request.
The Times initially reported that Trump’s return flight from the recent NATO summit in Turkey was on the old Air Force One, rather than the new Qatari plane. This was apparently because the new jet lacked some of the security features built into the old plane.
At a hearing in Manhattan federal court, Judge Arun Subramanian — a Joe Biden appointee — told the DOJ that he’d quash the subpoenas himself if the government didn’t withdraw them of their own volition. Under the law that governs this particular court, prosecutors have to show they exhausted all other avenues of obtaining information before directly going after journalists. The DOJ admitted to the judge it hadn’t done actually that. When faced with Subramanian’s ultimatum, they had no choice but to back off.
David McCraw, who is the deputy general counsel for the New York Times, called the withdrawal of the subpoenas an important victory for the First Amendment. However, he also observed that the subpoenas should never have been issued in the first place. One of the Times’ attorneys told the judge the Justice Department’s conduct throughout the ordeal has been “replete with bad faith.”
It’s also worth noting that these subpoenas were issued by U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, who Trump has nominated to be the next director of national intelligence. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who Trump wants to be the permanent attorney general, signed off on them. If they’re confirmed by the full Senate, both men will soon be in charge of way more powerful surveillance and law enforcement tools than they already have.
24 States Take Trump to Court Over Withholding of Disaster Relief Money
Two dozen states just sued the Trump administration for holding disaster relief money hostage.
More than 20 states are accusing FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security of tying billions of dollars in disaster relief funding to Trump’s partisan pet projects. this includes demands for states to overhaul their election systems and verify the citizenship of every single registered voter. States are also being pressured to assist Trump’s immigration crackdown, and the DHS has given itself the power to yank funds from states at any time for any reason.
Rhode Island Democratic Attorney General Peter Neronha said the Trump administration is bullying states into giving up their own authority, using public safety as collateral. Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro said the White House is improperly withholding critical funds to chase debunked election conspiracy theories.
Trump has already tried this without success. Courts previously ruled against this kind of hostage-taking. Not only with FEMA money, but with Department of Transportation grants to states that wouldn’t help ICE. A federal judge already found that approach unconstitutional. Now Trump is forging ahead anyway, just with a different pot of money.
States are in a tough position if they don’t comply with these demands, as they risk losing at least 20 percent of grant funding that pays for things like cyberattack and terrorism prevention. The White House’s message is remarkably mafia-esque: let us take over your elections and help us round up immigrants, or your communities won’t be protected.
Senate GOP Leader Shuts Down Karoline Leavitt with 4-Word Response
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that the president’s patience with Senate Republican Leader John Thune of South Dakota is running out over the Senate’s failure to pass the SAVE Act, which is Trump’s strict voter ID bill. Thune had a curt response: “Get on the phone.”
“Maybe she or somebody else ought to get on the phone and get the votes,” Thune told reporters. “It’s 50 [votes] around here.”
Thune also told the White House that it could instead focus its anger on Democrats blocking the bill on the floor instead rather than Senate Republicans. He added that if Trump thinks he can get more Republican votes than him, he’s welcome to try.
Leavitt had said Trump wants as much of the SAVE Act passed as possible before lawmakers leave Washington for the August recess. And because the House already passed it by tying it to the aforementioned insider trading bill, the ball is now in the Senate’s court. Trump recently vented about it during a Georgia rally, grumbling that the Senate still can’t pass much of his agenda despite Republicans having the majority.
Thune says the math simply isn’t there. He told reporters this week he can’t get 50 votes on the related budget resolution either, which includes $10 billion for election-related changes as part of a $95 billion reconciliation package the House just passed. Thune says he’s hoping that package can be leverage to pass a short-term government funding deal when the shutdown deadline approaches in September.
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