Trump Media’s new service selling fast access to Truth Social posts drew a legislative response Tuesday, as Senate Democrats introduced a bill to bar presidents from profiting off advance access to their own social media statements.
The Stop Corrupt Trading Act, S. 5221, introduced by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., targets Truth API, a Trump Media & Technology Group service that launched Aug. 1. The company markets the licensed, real-time feed of its “highest-ranking” Truth Social accounts to high-frequency and algorithmic trading firms, pitching it as a “recurring revenue stream.”
The bill would amend federal criminal law to bar a president or vice president – and any company in which they own at least 5% – from selling “nonpublic information,” which it defines to include statements distributed through an “application programming interface” on terms not available to the general public. Sellers would face fines up to twice the transaction’s value and up to five years in prison; buyers would face fines alone.
Padilla’s office said the service could generate roughly $120 million a year for Trump Media if about 100 trading firms subscribe at $100,000 a month. Trump owns more than half of the company, which reported $3.73 million in revenue and a net loss of more than $1 billion over the past year.
In a statement announcing the service, interim CEO Kevin McGurn said Truth API would let the company “monetize proprietary assets,” adding that “markets already move on Truth Social posts.” He said he expects it to become “a meaningful, ongoing source of revenue.”
Trump Media did not respond to questions from The Center Square about the bill or whether the president’s own posts are included in the feed.
The main federal conflict-of-interest statute does not cover the president. A 2019 Congressional Research Service report noted that Congress in 1989 “excluded the President and Vice President” from the recusal law that applies to other executive branch officials, though ethics regulators have said presidents should act as if bound by it.
Padilla introduced the bill with Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Gary Peters of Michigan and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Ore., is carrying a companion bill in the House.
The measure was placed directly on the Senate calendar under Rule XIV, bypassing committee, but as a minority-party bill it faces long odds in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Truth API is Trump Media’s first data-licensing product, part of a broader push into new business lines from cryptocurrency to financial services. The Padilla bill would create criminal penalties for selling that access – a gap in the conflict-of-interest rules that do not reach the president.