House Speaker Nancy Pelosi revealed how she learned her husband, Paul, had been attacked, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper that she was “very scared” when Capitol police knocked on the door.
Pelosi said in a new interview that she fell asleep in Washington, DC, after arriving the day before from San Francisco when her doorbell rang early in the morning. “I look up, I see it’s 5 a.m., they must be in the wrong apartment,” she told Cooper after he asked her where she was when she heard the news.
Pelosi went on to say that the doorbell rang again, and then she heard “bang, bang, bang, bang, bang at the door.”
“So I run for the door and I’m really scared,” Pelosi said, describing what happened. “I see the Capitol Police and they say, ‘We need to come in to talk to you. “”
Pelosi described how her thoughts immediately turned to her children and grandchildren.
“And I think of my kids, my grandkids. I never thought it would be Paul because, you know, I knew he wouldn’t be outside, shall we say. And so they walked in. At at that time, we didn’t even know where he was,” she said.
Fear of an upsurge in political violence mid-term: The violent attack on Paul Pelosi has raised new concerns about threats of political violence driven by partisan animosity and increasingly hostile political rhetoric – and has highlighted the potential vulnerability of lawmakers and their families in the current political climate.
Paul Pelosi was attacked with a hammer at the couple’s San Francisco home by a man late last month, authorities said. The assailant who attacked him was looking for the Speaker of the House, according to court documents.
David DePape is charged with six counts related to the attack, including attempted murder, burglary, assault, forcible confinement and threatening a family member of a public official. He pleaded not guilty to all charges against the state.
After the attack, Paul Pelosi underwent surgery “to repair a fractured skull and serious injuries to his right arm and hands,” Drew Hammill, spokesperson for Nancy Pelosi, said in an earlier statement. He was released from hospital last week.
