Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) accused President Donald Trump of personally profiting off the presidency while ordinary Americans struggle to afford basic necessities, in a pointed post on X published Sunday, September 13, 2026, that listed Trump’s stock trading, a lavish White House ballroom project, a new coin bearing his face, and his family’s cryptocurrency ventures as evidence of misplaced priorities during an affordability crisis.
Warren’s post, published to her X account at 11:54 a.m. on September 13, 2026, read in full:
“Americans are choosing between paying rent and buying groceries. They’re rationing insulin and selling their blood. And what is Trump doing? Trading stocks. Building himself a ballroom. Putting his face on coins. Selling Trump meme tokens.”
A Recurring Theme For Warren
Sunday’s post continues a message Warren has repeated for months. On May 3, 2026, she wrote on X that “in the richest country on Earth, no one should have to sell their blood to afford groceries and rent,” adding that “no one should have to ration lifesaving medicines because they can’t afford them,” and blaming Republicans for what she called a broken health care system.
Warren returned to the same imagery on the Senate floor on June 17, 2026, while objecting to a bill to fund security enhancements tied to Trump’s ballroom project. She said Americans “are selling their plasma to pay for groceries and gas” and argued that “people are selling their blood just to get by,” calling the security funding bill “a giant slap in the face to American families.”
The Ballroom Project’s Rising Price Tag
The White House ballroom that Warren referenced has been a recurring target of Democratic criticism since it was first announced in July 2025 at an estimated cost of $200 million, funded, the administration said at the time, by Trump and unnamed “patriot donors.”
The estimated cost has climbed steadily since then. Trump said in December 2025 that the project would cost $400 million, up from earlier figures of $250 million and $300 million. By June 2026, an internal cost estimate from the project’s contractor put the price at $600 million, with roughly half expected to come from taxpayers despite the administration’s earlier insistence that the project would be entirely privately funded. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll taken around that time found 56% of Americans opposed the demolition of the East Wing to make way for the ballroom.
By September 2026, Forbes reported that the ballroom, an associated underground security complex, a new White House helipad, a visitor screening center and related projects had a combined cost of at least $927 million, part of a broader wave of costly capital construction under the administration that also includes a planned triumphal arch near Arlington Cemetery estimated to cost up to $100 million.
A Presidential Portrait On U.S. Currency
Warren’s reference to Trump “putting his face on coins” points to the $1 coin the U.S. Mint began circulating and selling on September 2, 2026, to mark the country’s 250th anniversary. The coin features Trump’s portrait alongside the words “LIBERTY” and “IN GOD WE TRUST,” with the presidential seal on the reverse. It marks only the second time in U.S. history that a living president has appeared on circulating currency, and the Treasury Department has cited a 2020 law authorizing special coins tied to the Semiquincentennial as its legal basis. The Washington Post reported that the Mint is selling the coins at markups ranging from roughly 50% to nearly 150% over their $1 face value. The Treasury has also floated draft designs for a second coin featuring Trump on both sides, including an image of him raising his fist after the July 2024 assassination attempt.
Stock Trading Disclosures
Warren’s mention of Trump “trading stocks” refers to a pattern documented across a series of federally mandated financial disclosures throughout 2026. A disclosure filed in May 2026 revealed more than 3,600 stock transactions in the first quarter of the year alone, with a cumulative value ranging from $220 million to $750 million, and showed Trump holding gains of 20% or more on the large majority of positions disclosed. A separate annual disclosure showed more than 21,000 securities trades across 2025, compared with 13 total trades by former President Joe Biden over his entire term. A June 2026 filing disclosed more than 1,000 additional trades that month, totaling between $78.1 million and $263.1 million. The Trump Organization has said the trades are executed by independent, third-party financial institutions with no input from Trump or his family, and Eric Trump has described the holdings as being in a “blind trust.”
A financial disclosure filed in June 2026 also showed that Trump’s total income for 2025 reached approximately $2.2 billion, with the bulk of that increase attributed to cryptocurrency ventures.
The Trump Family’s Meme Coins
Warren’s reference to Trump “selling Trump meme tokens” dates back to the launch of the $TRUMP meme coin on January 17, 2025, days before Trump’s inauguration, followed a day later by first lady Melania Trump’s own $MELANIA token. Warren and Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) wrote to federal regulators on January 22, 2025, warning that the coins would “allow them to earn extraordinary profits off his Presidency” and could expose the president to “uninhibited and untraceable foreign influence” from anyone able to anonymously purchase the tokens.
Warren has continued to press the issue since. She has questioned the Securities and Exchange Commission over a February 2026 staff statement concluding that meme coin purchasers and holders are not protected by federal securities laws. She also criticized the Trump family’s involvement in the World Liberty Financial token, calling a reported $5 billion paper gain for the family “corruption, plain and simple” after the token’s trading debut.
Affordability As A Midterm Flashpoint
Warren’s post arrives amid a broader Democratic push to make affordability the central issue of the 2026 midterm elections, now roughly seven weeks away. The Labor Department reported this week that the consumer price index rose 3.4% year-over-year in August, with monthly inflation accelerating amid renewed fighting in the Middle East that has pushed gas prices higher. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has separately pointed to a national average gas price of $4.55 per gallon in making the case that affordability remains a political liability for Republicans.
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) leveled a similar charge against Trump last month, saying, “He golfs and he trades stocks; he doesn’t want to do the job,” after a separate analysis by Democratic lawmakers found that Trump’s personal oil and gas holdings had likely yielded millions of dollars in profits during the period when the war in Iran began.
Insulin Costs Remain A Documented Burden
Warren’s claim that Americans are “rationing insulin” is consistent with recent research on the issue. A Yale School of Medicine study published in 2025 found that roughly one in four patients at a diabetes center rationed insulin due to cost in 2024, a rate unchanged from 2017 despite policy efforts to cap out-of-pocket costs, and that the rate climbed to 37% when factoring in rationing tied to pharmacy shortages and insurance delays.