President Donald Trump has called former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a “disgusting degenerate” in a Truth Social post, accusing the longtime Democratic U.S. representative for California’s husband of using insider information to profit from the stock market.

The attack coincides with growing momentum for a congressional stock trading ban.

Newsweek contacted Nancy Pelosi via telephone for comment on Sunday outside of usual working hours.

Why It Matters

The clash highlights the heightened scrutiny over elected officials and their families engaging in high-value stock trades.

The proposed legislation, initially dubbed the PELOSI (Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments) Act before being rebranded the Halting Ownership and Non-Ethical Stock Transactions (HONEST) Act, is advancing with bipartisan support, but has drawn sharp criticism from Trump, who claims it targets him politically.

What To Know

Supporters of the HONEST Act argue it is necessary to eliminate the appearance of conflicts of interest and restore public trust.

Nancy Pelosi has previously said she strongly supports the bill and looks forward to voting for it, as reported by The Associated Press.

“The American people deserve confidence that their elected leaders are serving the public interest, not their personal portfolios,” she said.

In his all-caps Truth Social post, Trump claimed Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, “beat every hedge fund in 2024,” attributing it to “INSIDE INFORMATION,” and taunted Nancy Pelosi over her role in his impeachments.

When Trump has previously accused Nancy Pelosi of insider trading, her office has consistently denied involvement, stating she does not personally own stocks and had no role in her husband’s investment decisions.

Nancy Pelosi has also dismissed Trump’s accusations as “ridiculous” to CNN, and politically motivated, accusing him of projecting his own ethics problems onto others.

As reported by Newsweek, a stock owned by Nancy Pelosi’s husband surged in value by more than double in just one month, according to her financial disclosure documents.

The disclosures showed Paul Pelosi’s 2024 trades resulted in an estimated 54 percent portfolio return, more than doubling the S&P 500’s 25 percent gain and outperforming major hedge funds.

A significant share of the couple’s wealth is said to stem from stock investments and well-timed trades, mostly made under Paul Pelosi’s name. By 2024, Quiver Quantitative estimated their stock portfolio at $133.7 million, including stakes in major tech companies such as Apple, Amazon, Google, and NVIDIA,Indian newspaper The Economic Times reported.

Notable transactions included a $2.4 million NVIDIA option trade that later skyrocketed in value and an AI cybersecurity call on Palo Alto Networks that yielded about $2.8 million in gains, as reported by the New York Post.

The couple’s net worth reportedly rose from around $370 million in 2023 to as much as $413 million in 2024. The “Pelosi Tracker,” as reported by The Times, is an automated fund that mirrors Paul Pelosi’s trades, which delivered about 54 percent returns last year and attracted over $400 million in investor assets, according to numbers in Bloomberg‘s end-of-year tally of hedge funds’ returns, as per the Post.

As reported by Newsweek in July, Trump tore into the GOP’s Josh Hawley after the Missouri senator was the lone Republican to join Democrats in advancing legislation that would ban members of Congress from buying, selling, or owning individual stocks.

Trump holds individual stocks, whereas Vice President JD Vance divested his individual stock holdings during his time in the Senate, as per Business Insider.

In a lengthy Truth Social post in July, Trump called Hawley a “pawn” and a “second-tier senator,” adding that the GOP lawmaker is “playing right into the dirty hands of the Democrats.”

What People Are Saying

President Donald Trump wrote in a Truth Social post, August 10: “Crooked Nancy Pelosi, and her very “interesting” husband, beat every Hedge Fund in 2024. In other words, these two very average “minds” beat ALL of the Super Geniuses on Wall Street, thousands of them. It’s all INSIDE INFORMATION! Is anybody looking into this??? She is a disgusting degenerate, who Impeached me twice, on NO GROUNDS, and LOST! How are you feeling now, Nancy???”

Nancy Pelosi spokesperson Ian Krager, previously toldNewsweek:“Speaker Pelosi does not own any stocks and has no knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions.”

What Happens Next

The legislation now heads to the full Senate for debate. If passed, it would ban individual stock trading by high-level officials and their spouses, possibly including forced divestitures. Trump’s incendiary language against Nancy and Paul Pelosi is expected to keep this issue prominent in political discussions.