Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, owns a small company called Financial Leasing Services, Inc. (estimated annual revenue $434,284) that bills itself as a real estate and venture capital investment and consulting firm. Nancy Pelosi herself has spent the last 38 years as a federal employee. Her current salary is $174,000 per year. Nevertheless, Paul and Nancy Pelosi are estimated to be worth around $413 million, up from a “mere” $370 million just two years ago.

This power couple’s wealth is almost magical. They are the living embodiment of the fact that, while Republicans get rich and then go into politics, Democrats go into politics and then get rich.

Image created using AI.

Now, though, these rich Democrats are getting called out. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has introduced legislation that he originally entitled “the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments Act,” aka “the PELOSI Act.” It’s now known as the Honest Act because Democrats objected to the original name.

The Act would ban members of Congress and their spouses from directly investing in the stock market while in office (as opposed to having their money in managed funds, Treasury Bonds, etc.). In other words, it bans insider trading by those who create America’s policies. President Trump hasn’t been happy with this specific proposed bill, although he generally supports the goal of ending congressional insider trading.

However, while Trump believes that the bill is problematic, he does not think that Nancy Pelosi should get away with her improbable knack for making money. Therefore, he launched one of his epic social media attacks against her:

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???

Those who don’t like Trump will point out that this is no way for the President of the United States to speak. They will writhe uncomfortably, saying that the innuendo about Pelosi’s “interesting” husband, whatever that means, and the claim that Pelosi herself is a “disgusting degenerate” are highly inflammatory and beneath the office.

However, no one can escape the fact that what Trump did is an incredibly powerful form of communication. As Scott Adams argued when Trump first appeared on the political scene, his persuasive powers are extraordinary. One of them is his ability to use simple, repetitive phrases to paint pictures in people’s minds.

When I first heard Adams make this argument, he was talking about Trump’s demand to “build a wall.” While the sophisticates were arguing that this wasn’t feasible, ordinary people got an image in their mind: America suddenly had a solid protection against the millions of people swarming its borders. It made concrete both the problem and the solution. It was a tangible thing in a sea of abstracts. (And Trump has finally built that wall metaphorically, simply by enforcing existing laws!)

The same is true here. Using power words such as “interesting,” “disgusting,” and “degenerate,” Trump has created a vivid mental image of people whose alleged financial and actual political crimes are so repulsive that they themselves, as human beings, are repulsive, too. They are the living embodiment of Swamp Creatures. Moreover, Nancy Pelosi is a loser Swamp Creature. Sure, Trump says, Pelosi may have cheated her way to wealth, out-investing every hedge fund in America, but she couldn’t destroy him.

It doesn’t hurt that “interesting,” “disgusting,” and “degenerate” also carry a strong whiff of sexual innuendo. One cannot help but speculate about whether these two have been players in the D.C. and San Francisco sexual debauchery scenes. And please note that Trump does not say that they are engaged in sexual debauchery, nor am I saying that. It’s just that his words invite that subliminal line of thinking and beg the question of what Trump knows about their personal lives.

The language is crude and vicious, but it hits hard, leaving indelible images in people’s minds. That is Trump’s gift, and he’s using it against his political enemies, people who were willing to destroy all the institutions of government to bring him down.