Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got into a heated exchange with Jake Tapper when the CNN host confronted her with a claim from Donald Trump that she had directly benefited from insider trading.
Pelosi was appearing on Tapper’s show, The Lead, on Wednesday to promote the 60th anniversary of Medicaid when the host brought up the president’s latest attack on the California congresswoman.
Trump told reporters earlier Wednesday: “Nancy Pelosi became rich by having inside information.”
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Trump added: “She made a fortune with her husband, and I think that’s disgraceful. Nancy Pelosi should be investigated because she has the highest return of anybody, practically in the history of Wall Street.”
Trump was talking after a Senate debate over a new bill designed to stop insider trading on stocks by lawmakers, presidents, and vice presidents, which has been given the name Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments—and the obvious acronym PELOSI.
The tense exchange on CNN was not helped by a technical fault which meant Tapper had to read out Trump’s quotes to Pelosi, rather than watch them on video.
Pelosi interrupted him. “Why do you have to read that?” she asked. “We’re here to talk about the 60th anniversary of Medicaid, that’s what I agreed to come to talk about.”
Tapper kept going, saying, “He accused you of insider trading. What’s your response to that?”
Pelosi replied: “That’s ridiculous. In fact, I very much support the stop[ping] the trading of members of Congress. Not that I think anybody’s doing anything wrong. If they are, they are prosecuted, and they go to jail.”
She added: “I have no concern about the obvious investments that have been made over time. I’m not into it. My husband is, but it isn’t anything to do with anything insider. But the president has his own exposure, so he’s always projecting. He’s always projecting. And let’s not give him any more time on that, please.”
Pelosi and her husband Paul are regular targets of Trump and his MAGA supporters. In January, the New York Post reported Paul Pelosi had made $38 million worth of stock trades in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration. The ex-speaker is legally required to disclose the trades her husband makes.
On X, the official “Rapid Response” account of Trump’s White House administration posted the exchange with Tapper, noting, “Why so defensive, Nancy?”
MAGA podcaster Charlie Kirk also posted the CNN video on X, writing, “Wow! Watch as Nancy Pelosi explodes on Jake Tapper when he asks her about allegations of insider trading. The lady doth protest too much, me thinks!“
During the CNN exchange, Pelosi also addressed Trump making jokes about the incident when her husband was attacked by an intruder at their house in 2022, leaving him with a fractured skull.
In a speech at the California Republican Party Fall Convention in September 2023, Trump called Pelosi “crazy” before asking the audience, “How’s her husband doing by the way? Anybody know?” He stated that a “wall around her house” didn’t obviously “didn’t do a very good job?” It received laughs from his supporters.
Pelosi told Tapper on Wednesday, “I’m very proud of my family, and while he might make fun of us while somebody... breaks into our home and in a deadly fashion, hits my husband over the head, and he thinks that’s a riot, I’d rather not go into some of my other complaints about him right now.”
The former speaker got one final dig in, rebranding Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” as the “Shameful, Dirty, Filthy, Stinking, Lousy, Rotten, Anything-But-Beautiful Act.”
A spokesperson for Pelosi told the Daily Beast: “Speaker Pelosi does not own any stocks and has no knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions.”
In a statement of support for Hawley’s legislation, Pelosi said: “We must have strong transparency, robust accountability and tough enforcement for financial conduct in office because the American people deserve confidence that their elected leaders are serving the public interest — not their personal portfolios.”
“If legislation is advanced to help restore trust in government and ensure that those in power are held to the highest ethical standards, then I am proud to support it—no matter what they decide to name it,” Pelosi added.
