Rep. Nancy Pelosi choked back tears while discussing her husband’s prolonged recovery from a brutal hammer attack last fall, saying it could take months before he is “back to normal.”
The former House speaker, 82, opened up about Paul Pelosi’s condition during an appearance on “Who’s Talking To Chris Wallace?”
“He’s doing OK,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) told Wallace after the veteran newsman asked how her husband was doing. “It’s going to take a little while for him to be back to normal.”
Paul Pelosi, also 82, was alone at the family’s San Francisco home early Oct. 28 when conspiracy theorist David DePape, 42, allegedly forced his way into the residence and asked after Nancy Pelosi’s whereabouts.
Prosecutors said DePape then bludgeoned Paul Pelosi with a hammer before being arrested. The alleged assailant purportedly told investigators that he planned to “hold Nancy hostage,” interrogate her, and “break her kneecaps” if he felt she was lying to him.
Paul Pelosi sustained a fractured skull and serious injuries to his right arm and hands, which required surgery.
In her sit-down with Wallace, a visibly emotional Nancy Pelosi said she feels “very sad” about what happened, “because [DePape] was searching for me, and my dear husband, who’s not even that political, actually, paid the price.”
Nancy and Paul Pelosi were seen in public together for the first time since the assault when they attended the Kennedy Center Honors on Dec. 4. The tuxedo-clad Paul Pelosi wore a wide-brimmed black hat and a glove on his uninjured left hand.
Paul Pelosi also showed up this week for a White House event honoring the NBA champion Golden State Warriors and received a shout-out from President Biden.
When pressed by Wallace to share details about Paul’s “long haul” recovery, Nancy Pelosi acknowledged that her husband’s healing could take months.
“Anyone who’s had a head injury knows that you have to be very careful,” she said. “You have to be careful about movement. You have to be careful about light, you have to be careful about sound and it just takes a while, probably another three or four months, according to the doctors, for him to be really himself.”
In an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” last month, Nancy and Paul’s filmmaker daughter Alexandra shared that her father is “healing” but “looks like Frankenstein” because of his scars.
DePape remains jailed after pleading not guilty in November to state and federal charges, including attempted murder, attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault of an immediate family member of a federal official.
He is due back in court in February.
Pelosi’s interview with Chris Wallace is streaming on HBO Max and will air on CNN Sunday at 7 p.m.
