‘He was looking for me,’ former US House speaker says in CBS interview about home intruder David DePape
The former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi has revealed that she has been struggling with guilt ever since a man wielding a hammer invaded her home and gave her husband a near fatal beating that had been meant for her ahead of the fall 2022 elections.
“He was looking for me. Imagine the guilt of all of that,” the California Democratic congresswoman said in an interview aired on CBS News Sunday Morning, which contained some of her most extensive remarks to date about the attack that badly injured Paul Pelosi. “It’s just a horrible thing.
“I was the target.”
Pelosi was in Washington DC when a man named David DePape broke into her San Francisco home through the back door in the early hours of 28 October 2022. Less than two weeks before that year’s federal midterm elections, DePape planned to kidnap the then-speaker, question her and post footage of the purported interrogation online. DePape was motivated by a far-right conspiracy theory falsely claiming Donald Trump is locked in secret, mortal combat with a cabal of elite Democratic pedophiles trying to take out the Republican former president.
But instead DePape only encountered Paul Pelosi – aged 82 at the time – in his bedroom. Holding a hammer and zip ties, DePape demanded: “Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?”
Paul Pelosi managed to call the police for help. Before officers arrived, DePape used the hammer to repeatedly batter Paul Pelosi in the head and knock him unconscious.
Pelosi needed surgery for a fractured skull as well as injuries to his arm and hands. In addition to having a metal plate placed in his head, Pelosi has since grappled with dizziness, balance problems and permanent nerve damage in his left hand, according to a letter filed in federal court.
Juries convicted DePape on both state and federal charges connected to the violent home intrusion. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
In her new book, The Art of Power, Pelosi explained how her daughter – documentary film-maker Alexandra Pelosi – told her, “You have to give … up … everything in your public life” following the break-in.
But Pelosi told CBS that her family did not blame her as much as “certain elements of the Republican party who had been demonizing” her for years.
She seemingly alluded to a speech Trump delivered at the California Republican party’s convention last September during which he mockingly asked: “How’s [Pelosi’s] husband doing by the way? Anybody know?”
“The sad thing about my husband’s assault was that they just made a joke of it – they thought it was funny, and people laughed,” said Pelosi, whose book is scheduled for a Tuesday release.
The feelings of guilt that Pelosi described on Sunday in her conversation with CBS’s Lesley Stahl are common among people whose loved ones experience a traumatic situation, whether or not they are public figures, according to experts.
Pelosi, 84, joined Congress in 1987. She served two four-year stints as House speaker, beginning in 2007 and 2019.
One of her party’s most influential voices on Capitol Hill, Pelosi reportedly played a key role in passing on messages to Joe Biden about their fellow Democrats’ concerns over his ability to retain the Oval Office in November.
The president ultimately quit his re-election campaign on 21 July, making way for his vice-president, Kamala Harris, to become the Democratic nominee to face Trump in November’s race for the White House.
As of Sunday, polls suggested the lead that Trump had built against Biden in vital swing states had vanished, and he and Harris were locked in a close contest that many believe could decide the future of American democracy.
Pelosi on Sunday declined to answer when asked if it was true that Biden was furious at her over the looming end of his presidency. She also declared “No, I wasn’t a leader of any pressure” campaign for Biden to step down.
“He knows that I love him very much,” Pelosi said to Stahl. “Let me say the things that I didn’t do. I didn’t call one person. I did not call one person. I could always say to him: ‘I never called anybody.’
“What I’m saying is – I had confidence that the president would make the proper choice for our country, whatever that would be. And I said, … ‘Whatever that is, we’ll go with.’”
