‘I never thought it would be Paul’: Nancy Pelosi reveals how she first heard her husband had been attacked

By Clare Foran, CNN

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi revealed how she got the news that her husband, Paul, had been attacked, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper that she was “very scared” when there was a knock on the door from Capitol Police.

Pelosi said in a new interview that she had been asleep in Washington, DC, after getting in the night before from San Francisco when her doorbell rang early in the morning. “I look up, I see it’s 5, they must be at the wrong apartment,” she told Cooper after he asked where she was when she got the news.

Pelosi went on to say that the doorbell rang again and then she heard “bang, bang, bang, bang, bang on the door.”

“So I run to the door, and I’m very scared,” Pelosi said, describing what unfolded. “I see the Capitol Police and they say, ‘We have to come in to talk to you.'”

Pelosi described how she thoughts went immediately to her children and her grandchildren.

“And I’m thinking my children, my grandchildren. I never thought it would be Paul because, you know, I knew he wouldn’t be out and about, shall we say. And so they came in. At that time, we didn’t even know where he was,” she said.

The violent attack on Paul Pelosi has raised fresh concerns over threats of political violence driven by partisan animosity and increasingly hostile political rhetoric — and 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 home in San Francisco by a male assailant at the end of last month, authorities have said. The assailant who attacked him was searching for the speaker of the House, according to court documents.

David DePape is charged with six counts relating to the attack, including attempted murder, burglary, assault, false imprisonment and threatening the family member of a public official. He has pleaded not guilty to all state charges.

Following the attack, Paul Pelosi had surgery “to repair a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands,” Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Nancy Pelosi, said in an earlier statement. He was released from the hospital last week.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.