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Politics18 outlets ran this4 min read

Padilla introduces bill to block Trump selling early access to social media posts

Legislation follows launch of Trump Media premium service offering expedited Truth Social alerts

MediaBias Comparison Desk

AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised

This article was written at the MediaBias News desk from the one-paragraph digests an aggregator publishes for each of the outlets listed below it, together with 2 of those outlets' own reports read in full. How we do it

Updated
Donald Trump holds up a printout of one of his Truth Social posts

What this story says

  • Senator Alex Padilla introduced the Stop Corrupt Trading Act to ban presidents and vice presidents from selling early access to their social media posts.
  • The bill follows Trump Media & Technology Group’s launch of a premium service offering expedited access to Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts.
  • House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin announced an investigation into the service as a potential insider-information scheme.
  • Left-rated outlets led on the corruption framing, while right-rated digests described the bill as a Democratic response to Trump Media’s service.

Who covered it

Left 13%(2)Centre 34%(5)Right 53%(8)

Percentages are shares of the 15 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 3 of the 18 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .

Trust

50/100

Craft

87/100

Hype

15/100

18 sources · methodology

Thin on the left so far

Only 2 of the 15 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated left.

This story is still being watched, so it is a count and not yet a finding. Coverage keeps arriving for hours after an event, and a side that has published nothing this morning may publish by tonight. If it is still true when we stop checking, we will say so plainly.

Senator Alex Padilla introduced legislation on 4 August 2026 to prohibit sitting presidents and vice presidents from selling early access to their social media posts. The Stop Corrupt Trading Act would apply to both official and personal accounts and would impose civil penalties for violations. Padilla’s office said the bill targets what it called a blatant abuse of public office for private gain.

The legislation follows the launch of a premium service by Trump Media & Technology Group, which offers subscribers expedited access to posts from Donald Trump’s Truth Social account. The service was announced days before Padilla’s bill. House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, announced an investigation into the service, describing it as an insider-information scheme that could give wealthy investors an unfair advantage.

What the coverage left out

None of the right-rated digests mentioned Jamie Raskin’s investigation into the Trump Media service as an insider-information scheme. None of the centre-rated digests named Alex Padilla or carried the name of the legislation, the Stop Corrupt Trading Act. The left-rated digests did not report that the bill would apply to future presidents and vice presidents beyond Donald Trump and JD Vance.

Tags:#USPolitics#TrumpMedia#SocialMediaRegulation#CongressionalLegislation#InsiderTrading

Still developing. We have re-checked which outlets are covering this 2 times, most recently on 5 Aug 2026, 05:30, and will add the sides that appear.

How each side covered it

Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.

Left

2 rated outlets

  • Common Dreams led with Padilla’s framing of the bill as a response to corruption. The outlet quoted Padilla calling Donald Trump "the most corrupt president in American history" and describing the premium service as evidence of a government "for sale to hedge funds and Wall Street banks." It named the legislation the Stop Corrupt Trading Act and carried Padilla’s statement that the bill would establish civil penalties for selling nonpublic government information.
  • NBC News’s digest described the bill as targeting a "new paid service from Trump Media promising faster alerts to posts from President Donald Trump." Neither left-rated digest mentioned Raskin’s investigation or the potential market impact of the service.

Centre

5 rated outlets

  • All five centre-rated digests carried the same summary from The Center Square, which described the bill as a response to Trump Media’s new service. The digests led on the service itself, stating that it offered "fast access to Truth Social posts," and framed the legislation as a Democratic initiative to bar presidents from profiting off advance access to their own statements. None mentioned Padilla’s name, the name of the bill, or Raskin’s investigation.

Right

8 rated outlets

  • The six right-rated digests also carried The Center Square’s summary, which framed the bill as a Democratic response to Trump Media’s service. The digests described the service as selling "fast access to Truth Social posts" and the legislation as an attempt to bar presidents from profiting off advance access to their own social media. None named Padilla, the bill’s title, or Raskin’s investigation.

Read it at the source

18 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.

Left

2

Centre

5

Right

8

Not rated

3

How did this read?

About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.

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Padilla bill targets sale of early Trump Social posts access | MediaBias News