Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a new interview detailed the moment she first learned of the attack on her husband, Paul Pelosi, at their San Francisco home late last month.
The Speaker, speaking with CNN for her first sit-down interview since the incident, said she was sleeping when she heard her doorbell ring. When she did not answer the door, Capitol Police officers began banging. At that moment, Pelosi said she was “very scared.”
“I was sleeping in Washington D.C., I had just gotten in the night before from San Francisco, and I hear the doorbell ring and think it’s five something,. I look up I see it’s five, it must be the wrong apartment. No. It rings again and then bang, bang, bang, bang, bang on the door,” Pelosi told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
“So I run to the door and I was very scared, I see the Capitol Police, and they said we have to come in to talk to you,” she added.
Pelosi said she immediately thought about her children and grandchildren, noting that she “never thought it would be Paul because, you know, I knew he wouldn’t be out and about, shall we say.”
“And so they came in,” she said of the police. “At that time we didn’t even know where he was or what his condition was, we just knew there was an assault on him in our home.”
The Speaker’s full interview with CNN is scheduled to air at 8 p.m. EST on “AC360.”
Paul Pelosi, 82, was attacked in the early-morning hours of Oct. 28. Authorities allege that David DePape, 42, broke into the home and struck Paul Pelosi over the head with a hammer, causing serious injuries.
In an interview following the incident, DePape told authorities that he wanted to hold the Speaker hostage and talk to her, according to the Justice Department’s affidavit. If she told the “truth,” he would let her go, but if she “lied,” he was going to break “her kneecaps” to send a message to others in Congress, DePape told authorities.
Paul Pelosi was transported to a hospital after the attack and underwent successful surgery to treat a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands. He was released from the hospital on Thursday.
On Friday, in her first on-camera remarks since the attack, the Speaker said her husband “will be well,” but noted that “it’s going to be a long haul.”
DePape is facing several state and federal charges, including attempted murder and attempted kidnapping. He was arraigned in San Francisco last week and entered a not guilty plea for the state felonies. He is facing between 13 years and life in prison for those charges.