Nancy Pelosi Reveals How She First Heard Her Husband Was Being Attacked

  CNN — 

  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi revealed how she learned her husband, Paul, had been attacked, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper she was “very scared” when Capitol Police knocked on the door.   

  Pelosi said in her first interview since the attack that she was sleeping in Washington, having flown in the night before from San Francisco when her doorbell rang in the early hours of the morning.  “I look up, I see it’s 5 [a.m. ET]they must be in the wrong apartment,” she told Cooper after he asked her where she was when she got the news.   

  Pelosi went on to say that the doorbell rang again and then she heard “bang, bang, bang, bang, bang on the door.”   

  “So I’m running to the door and I’m really scared,” Pelosi said, describing what unfolded.  “I see the Capitol Police and they say, ‘We need to come in and talk to you.’   

  Pelosi described how her thoughts immediately went to her children and grandchildren.   

  “And I think about my children, my grandchildren.  I never thought it would be Paul because, you know, I knew he wouldn’t be out, let’s say.  And so they entered.  At that time, we didn’t even know where he was,” he said.   

  The violent attack on Paul Pelosi has raised new concerns about threats of political violence driven by partisan animosity and increasingly hostile political rhetoric — and highlighted the potential vulnerability of lawmakers and their families in the current political climate.   

  Paul Pelosi was attacked with a hammer at the couple’s San Francisco home by a male assailant late last month, authorities said.  The assailant who attacked him was looking for the Speaker of the House, according to court documents.   

  David DePape is charged with six counts related to the attack, including attempted murder, burglary, assault, false imprisonment and threatening a family member of a public official.  He pleaded not guilty to all state charges.   

  After the attack, Paul Pelosi underwent surgery “to repair a fractured skull and serious injuries to his right arm and hands,” Drew Hamill, a spokesman for Nancy Pelosi, said in an earlier statement.  He was released from the hospital last week.