Trump Portfolio Surged in Drug Stocks Tied to Medicare Carveout

President Donald Trump’s pharmaceutical holdings rose from a maximum reported value of $1.7 million in 2024 to as much as $56.2 million at the end of 2025. The portfolio included stock in companies that benefited from a Republican-backed law shielding certain medications from Medicare price negotiations, according to a report congressional Democrats released Friday.

The report came from the minority arm of the Joint Economic Committee. It found that up to $39.1 million of Trump’s holdings sat in companies benefiting from exemptions created by a provision in Republicans’ 2025 tax and spending law.

The Timing

Committee Democrats examined Trump’s financial disclosures and found that his portfolio bought as much as $2.55 million in shares of pharmaceutical companies benefiting from the exemptions on three dates before he signed the legislation in July 2025. As much as $950,000 of those purchases came on July 1, 2025, the day the Senate passed the bill. The portfolio then bought as much as $1 million in AbbVie stock in August 2025, after the bill became law.

The buying didn’t stop there. The report said the portfolio continued to buy and sell pharmaceutical stocks during the first eight months of 2026, adding as much as $3.5 million in stock wealth in the sector.

Sen. Maggie Hassan, the Democrat who leads the committee’s minority arm, called the findings “outrageous and yet typical from this president, who makes the American people foot the bill again and again for his own gains.”

Who Pays the Price

The policy at the center of the report is the orphan drug exclusion. A law under President Joe Biden allowed Medicare, for the first time, to negotiate prices for some of the costliest prescription drugs. Republicans’ 2025 bill expanded an existing exemption for drugs developed to treat rare diseases or conditions, delaying when certain costly drugs could become eligible for negotiation or excluding them entirely, according to healthcare research nonprofit KFF.

The report argues that patients bear the practical cost. Medicare beneficiaries receiving Keytruda, made by Merck, and Opdivo, made by Bristol Myers Squibb, could pay roughly $5,000 more annually than they would if Medicare negotiated prices for the drugs. Trump’s portfolio includes stock in both companies. The exemptions could leave some beneficiaries paying thousands of dollars more for certain cancer treatments and other medications.

Supporters of the broader exemption said it would encourage development of rare-disease treatments. Critics countered that it lets makers of blockbuster drugs avoid negotiations that could lower costs for Medicare and its recipients.

White House Response

The White House has repeatedly denied ethics issues and accused Democrats of “attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest.” Spokesperson Davis Ingle said third-party financial institutions independently manage Trump’s stock and bond portfolio, and denied a conflict of interest. “Neither President Trump nor any member of his family has any ability to direct, influence, or provide input regarding how the portfolio is invested or when investments are bought or sold,” Ingle said.

The report’s findings arrive as Trump has made lowering prescription drug costs a central part of his healthcare policy, striking deals with pharmaceutical companies that his administration said would make medications more affordable. Drug pricing depends on a complicated set of factors. The report noted that Trump’s wealth has grown since he took office last year through business interests, many of which have benefited from administration policy moves.

Public opinion appears to be turning against him on the question. Recent polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that most Americans think Trump is profiting from the presidency in unethical or illegal ways and is more focused on his wealth than helping people like them.

Why This Matters:

Medicare negotiation aimed to lower what the program and its beneficiaries pay for the costliest drugs. An exemption that narrows that power carries real costs for seniors. The report estimates roughly $5,000 more a year for patients on two major cancer drugs. When the official who signs such a law also holds stock in companies that gain from it, questions about whom the policy serves become unavoidable, whatever the independent-management defense says. The White House says no conflict exists, but the AP-NORC polling suggests many Americans aren’t convinced. For households weighing the price of cancer treatment against everything else, the stakes of that trust gap are concrete. They put pressure on Congress to examine how drug pricing decisions are made and who benefits.