Jan 8, 2026

Hello, and welcome back to The Best & The Brightest, your daily politics dispatch from Puck. I’m Julia Ioffe.

Despite the alarm bells signaling that the Republican Party needs to focus on affordability, President Trump has other plans, and most of them involve the rest of the world. Trump told the Times yesterday that America is going to “rebuild” Venezuela, and he plans on the U.S. being there for a long time; members of his administration continue to insist that we’re taking Greenland by hook or by crook; and Steve Witkoff, God bless him, is still trying to get that Ukraine deal. Meanwhile, the nation is reeling after an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis and D.H.S. Secretary Kristi Noem accused her of being a domestic terrorist. Affordability!

In tonight’s issue, Abby Livingston grapples with another dimension of America’s economic discontent: congressional stock trading. Yes, a handful of Democrats and Republicans alike are once again making a push to prevent their colleagues from profiting off of insider information—or even appearing to. But good luck getting it past Mike Johnson.

Also mentioned in this issue: Lew Olowski, Susan Collins, Rob Bresnahan, Steny Hoyer, Pramila Jayapal, Hakeem Jeffries, Ro Khanna, Nancy Pelosi, Chip Roy, Seth Magaziner, Anna Paulina Luna, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Chuck Schumer, John Thune, and many more…

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But first…

The meltdown heard ’round the world: Lew Olowski, the eccentric, Monster energy drink–chugging, evangelical MAGA chief of human resources at the State Department, is out, sorta—after what three sources familiar described as an epic meltdown at his own going-away party. Olowski, who had spent nearly a year running a department that manages over 70,000 people in 180 countries, had been told that he was being moved to head up the more prestigious Office of Foreign Missions, which runs all of America’s embassies. I’m told by a source who has worked closely with Olowski that he had been looking forward to getting more sway over foreign policy. But before long, it all went very, very wrong.

On December 23—the day of his farewell party and his last day at PERT, as State’s H.R. department is now called—Olowski was told that he would not, in fact, be appointed to head O.F.M. Instead, he would be transferred to the Office of the Undersecretary for Management (or “M,” in Foggy Bottom parlance), which handles budget, H.R., and diplomatic security—in other words, everything that makes the department run. But Olowski’s assignment at M would be “special projects,” a hazy, ill-defined mission. Olowski understood that this was a demotion, and refused.

But by then he’d discovered that his things had already been cleared out of his PERT office and placed in a cubicle in the hallway. At this point, Olowski, according to all three sources, began yelling and throwing things. A senior official suggested calling diplomatic security, but Olowski, according to one source familiar, left the building on his own and diplomatic security did not get involved. Olowski is now on leave and a State Department spokesperson told me he was coming back to work—at some future date, at some other spot at State. The spokesperson disputed the story, but when pressed on the details, said, “I’m not going to get into specifics because we don’t talk about personnel. That’s a long-standing policy.” Olowski, whose auto-responder directs people to his personal cell phone, did not pick up when I called this number several times. [Read More]

Leigh Ann Caldwell

A good day for Democrats: It’s been a long time since Democrats had such a good day in Washington, but they’ve scored two major wins since this morning. First came a rare flex of Congress’s constitutional authority when the Senate advanced a War Powers Resolution over Venezuela that would require congressional approval for the future use of military force in the country. The measure, led by Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine and Republican Sen. Rand Paul, moved ahead by a vote of 52-47, with support from four other Republicans: Josh Hawley, Todd Young, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski.

President Trump duly attacked those five on social media, saying they should “never be elected to office again”—a sentiment Democrats cheered. Collins, in particular, is up for reelection in blue Maine, and is a top target for Democrats seeking to flip the Senate. (This is another example of Trump sabotaging his own congressional majority, a phenomenon I detailed yesterday.)

Later in the day, across the Capitol, House Democrats notched another big victory when they advanced their three-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, with the help of 17 Republicans—many from swing districts. The measure goes to the Senate, which is unlikely to bring it up. But this gives Democrats a big campaign issue.

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Abby Livingston

Steny over and out: Steny Hoyer, the 86-year-old former second-ranking House Democrat, announced his widely expected retirement last night. Hoyer has been a beloved, paternal figure to a generation of House Dem members and staffers, and even his Republican former counterpart Kevin McCarthy joined the chorus of well-wishers. But while McCarthy called Hoyer “a friend,” he couldn’t resist a dig at the also-retiring Nancy Pelosi—saying Steny was “the only one trustworthy in his party’s leadership team.”

That team is now passing from the stage. Last week, its third member, the 85-year-old James Clyburn, pondered his own retirement, noting that the impending exit of many of his Democratic colleagues “gets you thinking,” as he told The Post and Courier. With other older party members like Jerry Nadler, Jan Schakowski, and Dwight Evans also stepping aside, members who hadn’t considered retirement might start missing their friends and pricing lakefront real estate.

Now for the main event...

The Wolves of First Street

The once quixotic, bipartisan crusade to ban congressional stock trading is gaining real momentum—but in the least productive Congress in history, getting Washington’s best-informed traders to give up their Robinhood accounts may be a long shot.

Abby Livingston

It’s a rare sight on Capitol Hill to find the far right (Chip Roy, Anna Paulina Luna) standing shoulder to shoulder with the far left (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pramila Jayapal). But that’s exactly what happened at a news conference last fall, when firebrand Republicans and progressive Democrats alike pushed for a ban on the once routine practice of congressional stock trading.

Of course, in the 119th Congress, true bipartisanship is sometimes a negative indicator. “There’s less than a 50-50 chance this Congress acts to ban members of Congress from stock trading,” one House Democratic chief of staff told me. “But then again, this is the least productive Congress in history—so that’s the case for every bill these days.”

Nevertheless, the anti-stock-trading movement has gained some momentum over the past year. There are currently several competing proposals circulating around the Hill. The most advanced legislation is the bill co-sponsored by Roy alongside Rhode Island Rep. Seth Magaziner, which would ban members from trading stocks and require them to divest their holdings, or put them in a blind trust, within 180 days. (New members would have to do so within 90 days of taking office.) Leadership has been less than enthusiastic: Last month, House Speaker Mike Johnson worried aloud that a ban would discourage rich people from running for office. But Luna has attempted to work around him with a discharge petition that would force Roy’s bill to the floor. So far, 75 members—15 Republicans and 60 Democrats—have signed on.

Whatever happens this term, it’s an extraordinary turnaround from the early Covid era, when multiple scandals and mounting public scrutiny forced lawmakers to reconsider a practice that was once commonplace. A key catalyst on the Hill was the miserable headlines that faced Sens. Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler and the late Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Jim Inhofe amid allegations of insider trading as Congress was being briefed in early 2020 about the looming pandemic. Around that time, Burr sold a minimum of $628,000 in stock, Loeffler sold at least $1.2 million, Inhofe sold no less than $180,000, and Feinstein dumped at least $1.5 million.

At the height of the scandal, Burr temporarily stepped down as the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and both the S.E.C. and the D.O.J. investigated him. The F.B.I. also reportedly interviewed Feinstein about her husband’s trades. All of those lawmakers denied wrongdoing, and the investigations were eventually dropped, but the scandal tarnished the twilight of those Senate careers. Loeffler narrowly lost her election in early 2021.

Making Bank

Ban or no ban, a growing number of members in both chambers—whether leadership, vulnerable incumbents, or those with higher political ambitions—now avoid trading stocks. It’s just not worth the blowback in the press or opposing campaigns. Neither Johnson nor Chuck Schumer ever did while in office, according to Quiver Quantitative, which crunches members’ financial disclosures. The other two congressional leaders, John Thune and Hakeem Jeffries, stopped during the pandemic. The two vulnerable senators of this cycle who have been trading, Susan Collins and John Husted, have done so only minimally in recent years. “It’s so easy to put that shit in a blind trust,” a G.O.P. consultant who works for several members told me. “I don’t understand why that was never standard operating procedure.”

Still, more than a handful of bold-faced members traded tens of millions of dollars last year, including Michael McCaul ($65 million), Ro Khanna ($73 million), and, most famously, to Republicans’ delight, Nancy Pelosi ($27 million). Pelosi’s portfolio is likely the most scrutinized in congressional history—there’s even an E.T.F. that tracks her trades—but with her impending retirement, a G.O.P. consultant told me that Republicans will “need to find somebody else to beat up on.” It won’t be her successor, Jeffries—he’s pro-ban, himself.

Most of the big traders are in safe seats, where the practice is unlikely to cause them problems. Which doesn’t mean that congressional stock-trading micro-scandals won’t show up in campaign ads or opposition dumps this year. Democrats hope to use the issue as part of their anti-corruption messaging while they flog the Epstein files, though there’s mixed evidence that the attack line resonates with voters. Recently, for example, both her Democratic rivals and Republicans tried to wield an unreported stock trade against Mikie Sherrill in the New Jersey gubernatorial race, which she went on to win easily. The special election to fill her seat could set up another test case: One of the leading candidates in the primary, former Rep. Tom Malinowski, also took some heat for his unreported trades before losing reelection in a neighboring district in 2022.

On the Republican side, Pennsylvania freshman Rep. Rob Bresnahan is one of the rare active traders in a vulnerable seat—an alleged habit his opponent, Democrat Paige Cognetti, played up in her campaign-launch video. (“Rep. Bresnahan has a financial advisor who manages his portfolio, and he does not know what is traded, how much, or when it is traded,” his spokeswoman, Hannah Hope, said.) His case has been especially noteworthy, since he campaigned on banning congressional stock trading and yet has made 639 trades since being sworn into the House, a year ago. In December, he signed Luna’s discharge petition to bring a ban to the floor.

Other vulnerable members have done the same, including Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick and Mike Lawler, along with endangered Dems like Gabe Vasquez and Dan Goldman (also a big trader). But should the anti-traders fail this term, the odds of passage are likely to increase next year, particularly if Democrats take back the House. Meanwhile, though, at the start of 2026, a dozen House members have filed disclosures of fresh trades.

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