Pelosi says she ‘absolutely’ draws parallel between husband’s attack, Jan. 6

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday said she “absolutely” draws a line between last month’s attack on her husband, Paul Pelosi, 82, and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

The Speaker sat with CNN’s Anderson Cooper for her first sit-down interview since the brutal assault on her husband at their San Francisco home. During that conversation, Cooper quoted President Biden, who, in remarks last week, drew a similarity between the assault on Paul Pelosi, and the Capitol riot.

“The assailant entered the home, asking: ‘Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?’ Those were the same words used by the mob when they stormed the United States Capitol on Jan. 6,” Cooper said, quoting Biden.

“That’s right,” Pelosi responded.

Asked by Cooper if she draws the same line, Pelosi said “absolutely.”

“There’s no question. It’s the same — the same thing, and a copycat or whatever it happens to be, inflamed by the same misrepresentation,” she added.

An alleged assailant broke a glass door and entered the Pelosis’ San Francisco home in the early hours of Oct. 28 and struck Paul Pelosi in the head with a hammer, authorities said. He was transported to a hospital after the attack where he underwent successful surgery to treat a skull fracture and injuries to his right arm and hands, and was released on Thursday.

Authorities and a source, however, have since revealed that the Speaker was the intended target of the incident.

According to the Justice Department’s affidavit, the alleged attacker — who authorities have identified as David DePape, 42 — threatened to hold the Speaker hostage and break her kneecaps.

“DEPAPE stated that he was going to hold Nancy hostage and talk to her. If Nancy were to tell DEPAPE the ‘truth,’ he would let her go, and if she ‘lied,’ he was going to break ‘her kneecaps,’” the affidavit reads.

DePape also told authorities he was “looking for Nancy,” according to the charging documents.

A source briefed on the attack told The Hill shortly after the incident that before the assault occurred, the suspect confronted Paul Pelosi and shouted “where is Nancy? Where is Nancy.”

The phrase led some to draw parallels to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, when rioters who stormed the building demanded to know where the Speaker was, including some who ransacked her office.

In one video of the riot, presented at former President Trump’s impeachment proceedings, a voice asks “where are you, Nancy? We’re looking for you.”

“Nancy. Oh Nancy. Nancy. Where are you, Nancy?” the voice adds.

On Monday, the Speaker told CNN that the attack was “a flame that was fueled by misinformation and all the rest of that, which is most unfortunate. It shouldn’t — has no place in our democracy.”

Multiple sources reported after the attack that DePape posted about conspiracy theories online, including ones regarding COVID-19 vaccines and the Capitol riot, and had posted about QAnon.

Later in the interview, Pelosi called for a message to be sent to Republicans to stop its engagement with misinformation.

“I do think that there has to be some message to the Republicans to stop, to stop the disinformation, because that is, without any question, a source of what happened on January 6, and the denial of that, and then the source of what’s happening to me now,” she said.

Since the attack on Paul Pelosi, some figures have elevated conspiracy theories casting doubt on the incident, including new Twitter CEO Elon Musk and former President Trump. Asked what she has to say to those individuals, the Speaker responded “it’s really sad for the country.”

“It’s really sad for the country that people of that high visibility would separate themselves from the facts and the truth in such a blatant way. It’s really sad. And it is traumatizing to those affected by it,” she said.

“They don’t care about that, obviously. But it is — it’s destructive to the unity that we want to have in our country. But I don’t have anything to say to them. I mean, I — we have nothing — there would be no common ground to have any conversation with them,” she added.