As OCC’s New De-Banking Report Reveals, Colin Jost is Even Dumber Than He Looks

A couple of years ago, during his Weekend Update sketch, Saturday Night Live cast member Colin Jost attempted to crack a joke about President Donald Trump’s call for major financial and lending institutions to stop de-banking law-abiding customers and lawful businesses.

At a rally in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, President Trump had told a crowd, “We’re also going to place strong protections to stop banks and regulators from trying to de-bank you.”

Jost scoffed, arrogantly dismissing the president’s concerns.

“Trump did have a slight stumble this week while talking about banks, and he introduced an interesting new term called de-bank,” Jost said. “I don’t know what the hell de-bank means, but you might have to take ‘de-ambulance’ to see ‘de-doctor.’”

Jost might want to do a little reading. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a major government agency housed within the U.S. Treasury Department, released a long-awaited report confirming what the firearm industry and its member businesses have known all along: major banks and financial institutions discriminated against politically disfavored industries, including the firearm industry, simply for political reasons.

Early Evidence Confirms De-Banking

NSSF has long known about financial shenanigans from major banking institutions, going all the way back to Operation Choke Point 1.0, begun in 2013, under former President Barack Obama. That was the hush-hush government-led initiative under the U.S. Department of Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to pressure major banks to cut off lending and banking services to politically disfavored entities, including oil and gas operations, firearm manufacturers and other firearm industry businesses and others. The DOJ was forced to officially terminate Operation Choke Point in Aug. 2017, settling multiple lawsuits and promising to end informal, unwritten guidance to banks.

Fast forward to President Joe Biden’s administration and Operation Choke Point 2.0 was the same goal, only migrated to the private sector and the major banks. Former President Biden’s administration used coercion, informal pressure, threats and guidance documents to force banks to sever ties with many of the same entities, plus some new ones. The firearm industry was of course included, after all — President Biden labeled the firearm industry “the enemy” from the presidential debate stage in 2019.

President Donald J. Trump came back into office and vowed to put an end to it all. He made ending financial discrimination against lawful companies a major plank of his administration and has followed through on his promises.

NSSF was encouraged by the OCC’s preliminary report, released in early Dec. 2025 and praised the progress the administration was making. In short, the preliminary findings confirmed, in short, that large banks including JPMorgan Chase Bank, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo Bank, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank and BMO Bank, unlawfully discriminated against certain industries, including the firearm industry, for political reasons.

Now the final report has been released.

New Report’s Findings Damning

The new OCC report was the culmination of the directives issued by President Donald Trump through his Aug. 2025 Presidential Executive Order Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans. The report doesn’t mince words, revealing that, between 2020 and September 2025, all nine banks held such discriminatory policies.

“Today’s report provides irrefutable evidence that the nation’s largest banks have denied, debanked and discriminated against customers and lawful businesses,” said Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould. “Americans should have access to financial services regardless of their beliefs, affiliations, or political views. Fair access to financial services is not a mantra — it is a mandate.”

In the report, the OCC found that broad reputation risk policies — which “lacked clear standards and objective, risk-based criteria” — penalized certain Americans based on their political, religious or social views or based on their lawful business activities. The OCC also found that “these banks maintained public and nonpublic policies restricting certain industry sectors’ access to financial services,” including “oil and gas exploration, coal mining or coal-powered plants, firearms or ammunition manufacturing or distribution,” and more.

And it wasn’t just a few small examples that OCC used to back up their mandate. According to the OCC’s press release, the agency reviewed nearly 100,000 complaints to OCC-regulated institutions and received approximately 50,000 documents consisting of approximately 420,000 pages from these banks regarding their policies, procedures, practices, and individual customer decisions. NSSF contributed industry examples for OCC to review.

Summarizing the impact of financial discrimination on the firearm industry, the OCC’s report included a specific section titled, “FIREARMS, FIREARMS ACCESSORIES, OR AMMUNITION MANUFACTURING OR DISTRIBUTION.”

Several banks restricted financing to firearms manufacturers or retailers, including those offering assault- or military-style weapons for civilian use. Others included certain firearms accessories. At least two banks highlighted “polarizing” or “polarized” public opinion surrounding individual gun ownership rights and gun control as part of the basis for their firearms restrictions. Another bank noted that “an association with certain [f]irearms [m]anufacturers and [r]etailers could result in significant [f]ranchise risk, particularly when those firearms are associated with civilian gun violence.” As a result, that bank conditioned relationships with these manufacturers and retailers on their adherence to the bank’s view of “best practices” regarding the sale of firearms.

NSSF Leading the Way

Ending the practice of baseless financial discrimination has been a priority for the firearm industry for years, specifically passing state-level financial industry nondiscrimination and fair access laws due to the federal legislative process and dynamics being much slower and volatile.

The OCC recognized this important aspect in their report. NSSF helped to pass financial discrimination legislation in Georgia in 2017 and in several states since that time. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law an improved Financial Industry Nondiscrimination Act into law in 2021 that included taxpayer-funded government contracts among all types of goods and service providers, ensuring taxpayers weren’t footing the bill for unconstitutional discrimination against their rights if the financial institution contracted by the state also held discriminatory policies. Since those years, 11 states have passed their own legislation blocking financial discrimination, something the OCC report recognized.

“During the Review Period, several states enacted ‘fair access’ laws. Passage of these state laws, which included attestation requirements, likely served as a catalyst for many banks to re-think industry-specific restrictions, or at least to update their policies and procedures to ‘clarify’ how business lines should implement them,” the report states. “Many banks revised their policies in late 2023 and 2024 to eliminate any indication that employees should categorically prohibit access to banking products and services on an industry-wide basis.”

More Work Ahead

The OCC report is certainly welcome news and provides official confirmation of what the firearm industry has known and seen for years. But the work is not done. More states need to enact their own “fair access” and “financial industry nondiscrimination” laws to help make sure these behaviors aren’t continued in the states. But Congress needs to act on the federal level, too, so a future administration cannot covertly pick right back up and continue the past problematic actions.

NSSF urges the U.S. Senate to pass S. 401, the Fair Access to Banking Act, introduced by U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), and the similarly titled H.R. 987, introduced by U.S. Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.).

The past despicable discrimination by banks against law-abiding Americans operating lawful businesses isn’t anything to laugh at. It negatively impacted lives and livelihoods. Jost can keep his head in the sand if he chooses to ignore the OCC report. But the firearm industry isn’t going to stop working.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.