Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has condemned the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul.
Mr Pelosi was taken to hospital on Friday after being assaulted with a hammer by a man who broke into the family’s house in San Francisco in what authorities have described as “a suicide mission” by the attacker.
In an interview with MSNBC, Ms Clinton lashed out at the Republicans over their failure to decry the attack while making crime an election issue for the upcoming midterm polls.
“This midterm election we’ve seen a lot of ads by Republicans running for everything touting crime. Crime is the issue. But when an 82-year-old man is attacked by an intruder in his own home they don’t seem to be too bothered by that. Because that person is married to the speaker of the House who is of a different political party,” she said.
“I would just like your viewers, and every American to think about that.
“This is the kind of violent rhetoric that leads to violent action that props up authoritarians and that’s what we see the Republican party supporting.”
Law enforcement officials have been warning about an increased threat of political violence ahead of the midterm elections.
Authorities have charged David DePape, a 42-year-old man from nearby Richmond, California, with attempted murder, burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, false imprisonment of an elder, and threats against a public official and their family. He has pleaded not guilty.
After breaking into the Speaker’s home on the night of 28 October, Mr DePape allegedly woke Mr Pelosi up and “confronted him about the whereabouts of Speaker Pelosi” and shouting “where is Nancy?”, according to some reports.
Ms Pelosi was in Washington DC at the time of the attack.
On Saturday, Ms Clinton blamed the GOP for spreading “hate and deranged conspiracy theories” after it emerged that Mr Pelosi’s alleged attacker had been spewing far-right conspiracies online in the lead-up to Friday’s assault.
Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk, who completed his takeover of Twitter last week, responded to Ms Clinton on Sunday by pushing a conspiracy theory that the attack was not what it seemed.
Mr Musk later appeared to have taken the tweet down.
“To his credit he took that down. I don’t see Republicans running for Congress or Governors or any other office taking their comments down,” Ms Clinton said to MSNBC.
“Would we trust somebody who is stirring up these violent feelings... scapegoating, making a joke about a violent attack on Paul Pelosi?”
