Senate bill would bar Trump from White House? Not true | Fact check

A Nov. 19 Threads post (direct link, archive link) claims a new development may prevent President-elect Donald Trump from retaking office.
“BREAKING: the U.S Senate accidentally passed a bill banning Trump from Becoming President, and Biden is planning to sign it,” reads text in the image, which is a screenshot of a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The Threads post received more than 1,000 likes in three days. A similar version shared on that platform also circulated widely.
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The post is wrong on multiple fronts. The bill in question would not bar Trump from the White House and has not been voted on, much less passed, by the Senate.
The original X post was first shared on Aug. 13, more than three months before it was shared as “Breaking” news in the November Threads post. Follow-up posts on the X post clarify the bill it references is the Ending Trading and Holdings In Congressional Stocks, or ETHICS, Act. The measure would largely prohibit members of Congress and their immediate family members from buying or selling individual stocks.
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But contrary to the post’s claim, it would not bar Trump from becoming president again – one of several ways in which the Threads post is wrong.
The text of the bill does not mention anything about banning Trump or anyone else from any office. The penalties it lists are monetary in nature. It would fine violators either a month’s salary or 10% of the value of each involved asset, whichever is greater. It also would raise the penalty from $200 to $500 for failing to report under the STOCK Act, which was passed in 2012 and bans insider trading and the use of other non-public information for private profit by government employees.
The post also mischaracterizes the actions lawmakers have taken. As of Nov. 21, the full Senate had yet to take it up for a vote, much less pass it “accidentally” or otherwise. Most recently, it advanced from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. That group voted 8-4 on a revised version of the bill that broadened its scope to include the president and vice president and their family members. The revised version of the bill likewise makes no mention of barring Trump from the presidency.
The claim in the post appears rooted in a statement from Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who called the bill a “wolf in sheep’s clothing because it’s been drafted in a thoughtless way” and mentioned Trump – who owns roughly 60% of the stock in the company behind his social media platform – as someone who could be affected by it. “Have you thought about Donald Trump, for instance? Under this bill, he couldn’t become president,” Romney said, according to Roll Call. “He’d have to sell all of his Truth Social stock. He’d have to sell all of his private investments.”
USA TODAY previously debunked false claims that Trump was prosecuted criminally for taking out a loan and paying it back and that Sephora donated to his presidential campaign.
USA TODAY reached out to multiple social media users who shared the claim but did not immediately receive any responses. The X account that shared the original X post has previously shared misinformation debunked by USA TODAY.
PolitiFact also debunked the claim.
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