Pelosi says children, grandchildren are ‘heartbroken and traumatized’ in first comments since attack
By Greg Clary and Sonnet Swire, CNN
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that while her husband, Paul, continues to improve following Friday’s violent attack in their San Francisco home, their children and grandchildren “are heartbroken and traumatized.”
“Yesterday morning, a violent man broke into our family home, demanded to confront me and brutally attacked my husband Paul,” Pelosi wrote. “Our children, our grandchildren and I are heartbroken and traumatized by the life-threatening attack on our Pop.”
The comments, her first since her 82-year-old husband was attacked with a hammer, came Saturday night in a letter to all members of the House of Representatives.
She thanked law enforcement and first responders for the “life-saving medical care” her husband is receiving, and she thanked members for “the outpouring of prayers and warm wishes.”
San Francisco Police Chief William Scott said that the suspect, David DePape, 42, now faces charges of attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, burglary and other felonies in relation to the attack, which happened after 2 a.m. on Friday.
The break-in raises concerns about the safety of members of Congress and their families. Capitol Police are responsible for Nancy Pelosi’s security and the security of other members of Congress, but lack the resources to protect lawmakers’ families around the clock.
President Joe Biden made a direct link Saturday between right-wing conspiracies and violence like the assault on Paul Pelosi, saying the “talk has to stop.”
“All the malarkey that’s being put out there — you can’t just apologize. It affects people’s mentality. It affects how people think. Particularly, people who are not as stable as other people,” Biden said in Delaware.
“The talk has to stop,” he went on. “That’s the problem. That’s the problem. You can’t just say, feel badly about the violence, we condemn it. Condemn what produces the violence. This talk produces the violence.”
Biden noted the accused assailant asked “where’s Nancy” when he entered the Pelosi home.
“The generic point I want to make is it’s one thing to condemn the violence but you can’t condemn the violence unless you condemn those people who continue to argue the election was not real, that it’s being stolen,” he said.
DePape is expected to be charged with multiple felonies on Monday and arraigned Tuesday, according to San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins.
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CNN’s Manu Raju and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report
