Former US vice-president Mike Pence has condemned the attack on the husband of the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, describing it as "an outrage".
Paul Pelosi is recovering in hospital after undergoing surgery for a skull fracture from an assault by a 42-year-old man who broke into their San Francisco home on Friday, wielding a hammer.
The alleged assailant — later identified as David Depape — shouted "Where is Nancy?" as he entered the house and told police he was "waiting for Nancy" when they arrived at the scene.
Ms Pelosi was in Washington DC with her protective details at the time of the break-in, according to US Capitol police, ahead of next month's midterm elections.
Mr Pence, who was a target of the January 6 attacks on the US Capitol and is a potential Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election, took to Twitter to say that Depape "should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law".
Other senior Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, also decried the attack, but former president Donald Trump remained silent.
Having presented a united image during the Trump presidency, Mr Trump and Mr Pence have drifted apart after losing the 2020 election.
Mr Trump said his former vice-president lacked "courage" when he refused to reject the election results as he certified them on January 6, 2021.
His claims of widespread voter fraud have been repeatedly debunked, including by his own election officials and by former attorney general, William Barr.
The US congressional hearings on the January 6 attacks heard that Mr Trump urged his supporters to turn on Mr Pence for ignoring his requests, with some chanting "hang Mike Pence" and setting up a gallows with a noose outside the Capitol building.
Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a key ally of Mr Trump who continues to claim the 2020 election was "rigged", said on Twitter that she was also the victim of "rampant" crime in "Joe Biden's America" before adding that she was "praying for Paul Pelosi".
US President Joe Biden described the attack as "despicable" and suggested it was a natural progression from lies that Republicans have spread about the 2020 election.
"This is despicable. There's no place in America. There's too much violence, political violence, too much hatred, too much vitriol," Mr Biden said at an event in Pennsylvania.
"And what makes us think that one party can talk about stolen elections, COVID being a hoax, that it's all a bunch of lies, and it not affect people who may not be so well balanced?"
Kari Lake, a Republican candidate for Arizona governor, blamed "leftist elected officials" on the incident in an appearance on right-wing TV network, Fox News.
"It's the policies of the left which have made our streets more dangerous," Ms Lake, a former TV news anchor, told Laura Ingrahram.
"It's because of leftist elected officials who have not enforced the laws … it is the left pushing terrible policies which makes all of these terrible things worse and that's why they're coming over and voting for Republicans."
As a longtime representative from one of America's most liberal cities, Ms Pelosi is a popular target for Republican criticism and is often featured in so-called attack ads on television.
Her office was ransacked during the January 6 attack with graffiti saying "cancel rent" and "We want everything" painted on the house and a pig's head left in front of the garage.
Far-right anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have been recently posted on social media accounts under the name of David Depape, including statements from the cult-like QAnon movement.
Mr Pelosi, 82, who owns a San Francisco-based real estate and venture capital firm, is expected to make a full recovery.
Former US president Barack Obama blamed the attack on the politics of stirring up division and amplifying anger "on platforms that often times find controversy and conflict more profitable than telling the truth".
"The politics, where some in office or who aspire to office, work to stir up division [is] to make folks as angry and as afraid of one another for their own advantage," Mr Obama said.
Prominent Republicans, such as Mr McConnell, have been targets of vandalism as well.
ABC/Wires
