Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) rose to her feet for Donald Trump on Tuesday night. Read that again.
The progressive icon from Massachusetts gave the president a standing ovation during his State of the Union address after he called on Congress to pass the Stop Insider Trading Act. Other Democrats similarly stood in applause. The moment was brief, bipartisan, and deeply telling.
Trump's appeal was direct and left little room for evasion:
"As we ensure that all Americans can profit from a rising stock market, let's also ensure that members of Congress cannot corruptly profit using inside information. Pass the Stop Insider Trading Act without delay."
The chamber responded. Warren, who has long backed similar legislation, was among the Democrats who couldn't stay seated. She was cheering him on.
Trump noticed. And he couldn't resist.
"They stood up for that — I can't believe it."
Then came the knife. "Did Nancy Pelosi stand up for that?" the president asked. His own answer: "Doubt it."
There's a reason Trump singled out the former House speaker, the New York Post reported. Republicans have long needled Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) over well-timed trades both she and her husband have made over the years. Her net worth sits at more than $269 million, according to Quiver Quantitative. That's a staggering sum for someone whose career has been in public service.
The Stop Insider Trading Act would bar lawmakers, their spouses, and dependent children from buying publicly traded stocks. It also mandates that lawmakers, their spouses, and dependent children give a seven-day public notice before selling off a stock. The bill has cleared a House committee but is awaiting a full vote in the lower chamber.
Pelosi, for her part, glared at Trump. She sat next to Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), took some notes, and wore a "Release the Files" button. She did not, apparently, stand.
The visual contrast told the whole story. Warren, the leftist firebrand who has built a brand on fighting corporate greed, applauds a Republican president. Pelosi, the woman whose household has profited handsomely from the stock market while she helped write the rules governing it, sat stone-faced.
If you ever wanted proof that congressional stock trading reform cuts across ideological lines and threatens the right people, Tuesday night was it.
Warren's moment of agreement didn't last long. She later ripped into President Trump's State of the Union address. The standing ovation was a momentary concession to policy reality before the partisan programming kicked back in.
But that's exactly what makes the moment valuable. Warren has long backed similar legislation. She knows the issue polls well. She knows the public is furious about lawmakers trading on information unavailable to ordinary Americans. When Trump put it on the table in front of 50 million viewers, she couldn't pretend otherwise.
Warren was also seen standing after Trump said that Iran can't be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. Two standing ovations for Trump in one night from a woman who has made opposing him a central feature of her political identity. The issues were simply too popular, and the audience too large, to sit through.
That's the power of picking the right fights. When you champion policies that Americans overwhelmingly support, you force your opponents into uncomfortable positions. They can either applaud and concede the point or sit on their hands and explain to voters why they oppose banning congressional insider trading.
Not every Democrat handled the evening with Warren's pragmatism, however brief it was.
For the second year in a row, Rep. Al Green was ejected from the House chamber during Trump's speech, this time for waving around a sign that read, "Black People Aren't Apes!" The interruption was a stunt in search of a moment that existed only in Green's imagination. No one in the chamber called anyone an ape. The sign responded to an argument no one was making.
Reps. Ilhan Omar(D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) left early after repeatedly heckling Trump throughout the speech. They interrupted, they shouted, and then they walked out.
This is the state of the Democratic caucus in 2026. One faction stands and applauds when the president champions popular reform. Another faction waves signs, screams into the void, and storms out of the building. The serious members and the performative members are increasingly impossible to tell apart from a distance, which is precisely the problem for a party trying to rebuild credibility with the American middle.
The Stop Insider Trading Act deserves a vote. It's sitting in the lower chamber right now, already through committee, waiting for leadership to bring it to the floor. The policy is straightforward:
This isn't complicated. Americans understand, instinctively and correctly, that the people writing regulations for industries shouldn't be trading stocks in those same industries. The fact that it took this long to get a serious push tells you everything about who benefits from the status quo.
Pelosi's 2020 State of the Union moment was tearing up Trump's speech in full view of the cameras. In 2026, she sat silently while her colleagues applauded a bill designed to end the exact kind of trading that made her household fabulously wealthy.
Some protests are louder when they're quiet.
