House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on Jan. 6, 2021, that if then-President Donald Trump came to the Capitol following his “Stop the Steal” speech, she was going to “punch him out,” according to footage from an upcoming HBO documentary that CNN aired Thursday.
After an aide informed Pelosi that the Secret Service talked Trump out of arriving on the scene of the Electoral College certification as thousands of Trump supporters made their way toward the U.S. Capitol, she said, “I hope he comes. I want to punch him out.”
“I’ve been waiting for this,” Pelosi said while being filmed by her daughter, filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi. “For trespassing on the Capitol grounds. I’m going to punch him out, and I’m going to go to jail, and I’m going to be happy.”
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In his speech, Trump had told the crowd, “I’ll be there with you,” referring to the Capitol. He was ultimately driven back to the White House instead—though not without protest, according to former West Wing aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony earlier this year before the House Jan. 6 Committee.
The Pelosi footage aired hours after the committee held its final public meeting before the midterm elections. It voted unanimously to subpoena Trump after showing that he planned on declaring victory in the 2020 election long before the results came in.
The committee also played previously unseen footage of Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaking over the phone with then-Vice President Mike Pence, acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, and acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, asking for help securing the Capitol and for them to convince Trump to tell his supporters to go home.
