WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the attack on her husband, Paul, would be a factor in deciding her political future, and expressed dismay that former President Donald Trump and others, including Elon Musk, had cast doubt on the attack.
“You see what the reaction is on the other side to this, to make a joke of it, and really that is traumatizing, too,” Pelosi said in an interview with CNN on Monday night.
Shortly after the interview was broadcast, Trump lashed out at Pelosi during a rally in Ohio for Republican candidates, calling her “an animal.”
“They’ll say ‘what a horrible thing he said about Nancy.’ She impeached me twice for nothing.”
Pelosi said that the assault on Paul Pelosi in the couple’s San Francisco home by an intruder who the authorities say was looking for her, had “the same root, disinformation and the rest” that inspired the insurrection by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
President Joe Biden, in a speech last week, drew a line from Trump’s refusal to accept the 2020 vote and the attack on the Capitol to the assault on Paul Pelosi.
The CNN interview quickly became remarkably personal, and the speaker told anchorman Anderson Cooper, that she had been “close to tears” several times during the interview as she discussed the attack, her husband’s recovery and her concerns about the country on the eve of the midterm elections.
“Well, I have to say, my decision will be affected about what happened the last week or two,” she said when Cooper asked what she planned to do next.
Pelosi added that she remained upbeat about the Democratic Party’s prospects in the elections on Tuesday that will determine control of both houses of Congress. “The races are close, some of them could go one way or another,” she said. Still, “I feel optimistic. It just depends on turnout.”
“I’m a former party chair, and I’m always about owning the ground and getting out the vote,” she said. “And I feel confident that we are in that position.”
When asked about Paul Pelosi’s recovery, she said “he is doing OK. He’s — it’s a long haul. And — but he knows he has to pace himself. He is such a gentleman that he is not complaining, but he is also knowing that it’s a long haul.”
Paul Pelosi was released from a San Francisco hospital last week.
“For me this is really the hard part because Paul was not the target and he’s the one who is paying the price,” Pelosi added. “He was not looking for Paul, he was looking for me.”
