Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday suggested Republicans are partly to blame for the move to attack her husband, Paul Pelosi, in the 2022 presidential race.
“I think they’re taking responsibility for that,” Pelosi said. MSNBC host Andrea MitchellWhen asked if she thought those who “targeted” and “demonized” her were to blame for David DePape’s brutal assault on her then-82-year-old husband, she replied:
The California Democrat accused the Republican Party of engaging in a “politics of personal destruction” since the Clinton administration and said the party has stepped up its attacks against her in recent years, which she claims “motivated” her husband’s assailant.
“The Republican Party with its forked legs and horns on its head really started with the Clintons, Hillary and Bill Clintons. They handed the politics of personal destruction over to me,” she said.
“As they did so, they entered a different area of political debate that fanned the flames and fueled the flames even more,” Pelosi added.
The former House speaker said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” earlier this week that he feels guilty about the attack because he believes DePape’s actions were politically motivated and that Paul Pelosi is “not very political.”
“The sad thing about my husband’s situation is that he’s not very politically inclined,” Pelosi said. “They were coming after me, and I feel guilty that he’s paying the price.”
DePape allegedly attacked House Speaker Paul Pelosi with a hammer after he broke into the couple’s San Francisco home.
DePape, who was deeply immersed in online conspiracy theories, acknowledged during his trial before being sentenced to 30 years in prison in May that Paul Pelosi “has never been my target.”
