White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt tore into former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over her eyebrow-raising stock trades, calling her the reason a congressional stock trading ban is even being discussed.
Leavitt read out loud a list of trades made by Pelosi and her husband, Paul Pelosi, that she said beat out Warren Buffett and every hedge fund on Wall Street.
“The president has spoken to Senator Hawley, who called him, and the president took that call,” Leavitt said. “As the president said in the Roosevelt Room yesterday, conceptually, he of course supports the idea of ensuring that members of Congress and United States senators who are here for public service cannot enrich themselves.”
She didn’t hold back when naming names.
“And the reason that this idea—to put a ban on stock trading for members of Congress—is even a thing is because of Nancy Pelosi,” Leavitt said. “I mean, she is rightfully criticized because she makes, I think, $174,000 a year, yet she has a net worth of approximately $413 million.”
“In 2024, Nancy Pelosi’s stock portfolio—this was a fascinating statistic to me—grew 70% in one year, and her portfolio outperformed every single large hedge fund in that same year, and even more than doubled the returns of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.”
Leavitt said the president supports the public’s outrage.
“So I think the president stands with the American people on this. He doesn’t want to see people like Nancy Pelosi enriching themselves off of public service and ripping off their constituents in the process.”
“As for the mechanics of the legislation and how it will move forward,” she added, “the White House continues to be in discussions with our friends on Capitol Hill.”
This came after Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, found himself on the receiving end of a harsh social media post by President Donald Trump.
Hawley is sponsoring a bill to ban members of Congress from being able to trade individual stocks. An amendment to the bill would have carved out an exemption to allow the president to engage in stock trading, but Hawley joined Senate Democrats in voting “no.” That prompted Trump to blast Hawley on Truth Social, calling him a “second-tier Senator.”
Hawley described the situation as a misunderstanding, telling Fox News that the bill exempts President Trump and Vice President Vance. The language instead bans future presidents from trading stock.
Republicans also attempted to add language that would have required a report on stock trades made by former Speaker Pelosi and her husband, but Senate Democrats and Republican Hawley teamed up and defeated the move.
In an interview with reporters on Tuesday, Hawley said that the legislation has the support of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), many Republicans, and even some Democrats. He also said Johnson told him President Donald Trump supported the original bill titled Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments (PELOSI) Act.
“Members of Congress should be fighting for the people they were elected to serve—not day trading at the expense of their constituents,” stated Hawley in April when he originally introduced the bill. “Americans have seen politician after politician turn a profit using information not available to the general public. It’s time we ban all members of Congress from trading and holding stocks and restore Americans’ trust in our nation’s legislative body.”
The PELOSI Act would prohibit members of Congress and their spouses from buying, selling, or holding individual stocks while serving in office. Instead, lawmakers would be permitted to invest in diversified mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), or U.S. Treasury bonds.
