In an interview Monday with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said there is “absolutely” a connection between the threatening dialogue from Jan. 6 rioters and the attack on her husband late last month, allegedly by a right-wing conspiracy theorist.
Cooper began by quoting President Joe Biden, who said shortly after the assault on Paul Pelosi how “it’s reported that the same chant was used by this guy they have in custody that was used on Jan. 6 in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.” The 42-year-old suspect, David DePape, allegedly shouted “Where’s Nancy?” after breaking into the Pelosis’ San Francisco home.
“Do you draw the same line?” the CNN host asked.
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“Absolutely. There’s no question. It’s the same thing,” the House speaker replied definitively.
“Copycatter—whatever it happens to be—inflamed by the same misrepresentation. But the fact is right now, it’s time for healing,” she added. “We want the country to heal. This is not a path that we can continue on. And we want people to run for office—local, in every way—and you can’t say to them you’re risking the safety of your families by going forward. There are no guarantees of safety.”
Cooper asked Pelosi about the likelihood of a similar attack happening down the road in light of misinformation and heated rhetoric from some right-wing figures.
“Well, you would think that there would be some level of responsibility, but you see what the reaction is on the other side—to make a joke of it, and really that is traumatizing too,” Pelosi replied, bringing to mind how Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) mocked the assault in a now-deleted tweet. “That has to stop.”
Cooper then asked Pelosi if she had any words for former President Donald Trump and new Twitter owner Elon Musk, both of whom have trafficked in misinformation about the attack.
“It’s really sad for the country,” Pelosi said after a long pause. “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. They don’t care about that, obviously.” Pelosi then added that “there would be no common ground to have any conversation about that.”
Cooper followed up by asking if there is “enough common ground” among Americans to come together, adding that “people on all sides would agree that it does not seem sustainable.”
Pelosi replied that there was, but pushed back on how Cooper phrased it.
“I wouldn’t say, ‘On all sides,’ because the fact is this is a one-sided assault on our democracy—an assault on the credibility and integrity of our elections and the rest,” she said. “There has to be some adult supervision on the Republican side in order to say, ‘Enough.’”
