Nancy Pelosi opens up about attack on husband: ‘I was very scared’

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (centre) is escorted to a vehicle outside her and her husband Paul Pelosi's home. Photo / AP

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held back tears while speaking on Monday for the first time about being awakened by pounding on the door as Capitol Police rushed to tell her about the assault on her husband at the family’s home in San Francisco.

“I was very scared,” Pelosi told CNN in an interview. “I’m thinking, my children, my grandchildren. I never thought it would be Paul.”

On the eve of the Midterm elections, the Democratic leader is opening up about the brutal attack, as her party is struggling against a surge of Republican enthusiasm to keep control of Congress at a time of rising threats of violence against lawmakers and concerns over the US election.

Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was bludgeoned with a hammer 11 days before the election by an intruder, whom authorities said broke into the family’s San Francisco home and was looking for the Speaker before he struck her 82-year-old husband in the head at least once. The intruder told police he wanted to talk to Speaker Pelosi and would “break her kneecaps” as a lesson to other Democrats. Paul Pelosi suffered a fractured skull and other injuries in what authorities said was an intentional political attack.

David DePape, right, allegedly broke into Nancy Pelosi's home and attacked her husband Paul. Photo / AP

Pelosi said she was sleeping at her apartment in Washington, having just returned from San Francisco, when there was a “bang, bang, bang, bang, bang,” on her door. It was about 5am on the morning of October 28.

“We didn’t even know where he was or what his condition was,” Pelosi said in excerpts of the interview, which is scheduled to air later on Monday. “We just knew there was an assault on him in our home.”

David DePape, 42, is being held without bail in San Francisco after entering a not guilty plea to attempted murder and other charges in San Francisco. He also faces the federal charge of attempted kidnapping of an elected official.

The fringe activist, who followed conspiracy theories, broke into the Pelosi home, woke up Paul Pelosi and demanded to talk to “Nancy,” authorities said. When Paul Pelosi told the intruder his wife was out of town, DePape said he would wait. After Pelosi called 911, officers arrived to see the two men struggling over a hammer, before DePape struck Pelosi at least once in the head with the hammer.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is escorted to a vehicle outside of her home. Photo / AP

DePape later told police he wanted to kidnap the Speaker, and threatened to injure her “to show other members of Congress there were consequences to actions.”

The stark narrative laid out by the authorities in court filings in the case comes in contrast to the jokes and innuendo that conservatives and some Republican officials have spread about the Pelosi family in the aftermath of the attack.

Pelosi has said little since the attack on her husband, cutting short her campaign appearances, but she did speak in a virtual call to grassroots activists late last week after Paul Pelosi was released from the hospital.

“People say to me, ‘What can I do to make you feel better?’ I say: ‘Vote!’” Pelosi told those on the call.

Her voice cracked as she said of her husband’s recovery: “It’s going to be a long haul.”