Nancy Pelosi blames Republicans for hammer attack on her husband: ‘Fueled a flame’

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi indicated Wednesday that she partly blames Republicans for the 2022 hammer attack against her husband Paul Pelosi. 

“I think they take some responsibility for that,” Pelosi told MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell, when asked whether she holds the people that have “targeted” and “demonized” her responsible for David DePape’s brutal assault on her then-82-year-old husband. 

The California Democrat accused the GOP of engaging in the “politics of personal destruction” since the Clinton administration, and said that in more recent years, the party has been honing its attacks on her – attacks which she claims “fueled” her husband’s assailant. 

“The Republican Party with cloven feet, head horns — really, actually, they started under Clinton, Hillary and Bill Clinton. The politics of personal destruction and then they transferred that to me,” she said.

“When they were doing it they went into a different territory of political debate and it fed a flame, it fueled a flame,” Pelosi added.

The former House Speaker said earlier this week, in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” that she feels guilty over the attack because she believes DePape was motivated by politics and Paul Pelosi is “not very political.” 

“What was sad about my husband’s situation is he’s not very political,” Pelosi said. “They were after me. And I feel guilty about his paying the price.”

DePape bludgeoned Paul Pelosi with a hammer after he broke into the couple’s San Francisco home.

DePape – who had immersed himself in internet conspiracy theories – acknowledged at trial that Paul Pelosi “was never my target” before he was sentenced to 30 years in prison in May.