Elizabeth Warren on Monday unveiled a significant expansion of her plan to improve the behavior of public servants and root out Washington corruption.
It was the latest detailed set of policy prescriptions from the Massachusetts senator, who has seen her standing in the top tier of Democratic presidential hopefuls solidify in recent weeks — a signal that the frail state of government ethics is guaranteed to have a place among the issues being addressed in the 2020 campaign.
"Make no mistake about it: The Trump administration is the most corrupt administration of our lifetimes," Warren wrote in a post on Medium that's now part of her campaign website. "But these problems did not start with Donald Trump. They are much bigger than him — and solving them will require big, structural change to fundamentally transform our government."
While anti-corruption proposals are not new to Warren's expansive policy-rich campaign platform, her new, broad plan for reform addressing all three branches of the federal government builds on a relatively narrow array of things she'd previously promised to tackle if elected.
The senator has previously promised to press for legislation setting a lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress, requiring presidents and presidential candidates to release their tax returns and implementing a code of ethics for the Supreme Court.
Monday's announcement details more than 30 additional proposals related to increasing transparency and accountability, restricting lobbying, airing out financial conflicts of interest and strengthening government ethics. Warren asserted it would be "the most sweeping set of anti-corruption reforms since Watergate."
Among the proposals:
- Curtail insider trading in Congress by tightening regulations on political intelligence firms.
- Ban government officials from trading individual stocks while in office.
- Install limits on when lobbyists may take on government roles.
- Require more detailed public disclosure of financial activities and potential conflicts of interest by federal judges.
- Impose a tax on entities that spend more than $500,000 a year on lobbying.
- Establish a new government office to investigate ethics violations.
Several of the proposals are already included in HR 1, the sweeping campaign finance regulation, election administration and ethics overhaul bill passed by the House this spring but sidelined indefinitely in the GOP Senate — even though it's cosponsored by every Democratic senator. That means that, on paper at least, five of Warren's rivals already support much of what she's proposed: Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and Michel Bennet.
Throughout her plan, Warren cites Trump and his administration as some of the worst offenders — terming the president "a walking conflict of interest" — while also making clear her view that the problem predates him and is bigger than him.
Corruption is "at the root of the major problems we face as a democracy," Warren wrote, and most be addressed early in the next administration because otherwise all the other top-of-mind public policy challenges — climate change, health care, gun control and education among them — will remain impossible to tackle.
"I believe that we can root out corruption in Washington. I believe we must make big, structural changes that will once again restore our trust in government by showing that it can work for all of us," Warren said.
The expanded platform was to be the topic of a speech Monday night in New York, near the site of the former Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where a fire 108 years killed nearly 150 workers and led to a many of the workplace safety reforms of the 20th century.
Trump posted a series of tweets on Monday that, while not rebutting the Warren plan by name, took issue with his political opponents for suggesting he's conflicted by his business interests.
"Democrats are trying to build a case that I enrich myself by being President," he tweeted. "Good idea, except I will, and have always expected to, lose BILLIONS of DOLLARS for the privilege of being your President - and doing the best job that has been done in many decades."
Americans across the political spectrum have continued to ask about the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s connections among the political elite. (Angela Weiss/AFP)
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.