A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement Friday morning announcing that her husband, Paul Pelosi, was in the hospital after “an assailant broke into the Pelosi residence in San Francisco and violently assaulted” him.
Since the initial announcement, San Francisco Police Chief William Scott explained that police were dispatched at 2:27 AM and the suspect was caught in the act of assaulting Paul Pelosi, 82, with a hammer. Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson writes that when police arrived, both men had hands on the hammer but the suspect wrenched it away and continued assaulting Pelosi. The alleged suspect is David Depape, 42, a resident of Berkeley, California. He was apparently in search of the Democratic speaker, calling out, "Where is Nancy," during the attack, USA TODAY reports.
This horrific incident has all the makings of an assassination attempt on the elected official who is second in line to succeed the president. So why is Fox News acting like this is just another “random” act of crime in America?
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In the example below, these Fox News hosts refer to Pelosi’s attack as being in “Pacific Heights,” adding the area is “pretty high-living” and saying that “crime hits everybody.” As if Nancy Pelosi hasn’t been the direct target of right-wing conservatives for the past few years, and insurrectionists weren’t threatening to kill her in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Fox News anchor John Roberts acted like no one should jump to conclusions about the suspect’s motivations, saying, "We just don’t know at this point, that this person could have been motivated by just about anything. We don’t know."
Bret Baier responded with, "Yeah. The only indication we have is 'Where's Nancy?' That he was waiting for Nancy. But we don't know his point of view."
The reality is that Fox News has been pushing violent rhetoric against Democrats for the past 25 years. The only thing surprising about today’s attack is that we didn’t see one sooner.
In April, The Hill reported that Florida resident Paul Vernon Hoeffer was sentenced to 18 months in prison after making death threats against Speaker Pelosi. Hoeffer was sentenced to three years of supervised release.
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In March 2019, authorities said, Hoeffer called Pelosi’s office as well as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office in November 2020 and Chicago District Attorney Kim Foxx’s office, threatening to kill them all, according to The Hill.
According to Secret Service emails obtained by CREW, the Secret Service knew about a threat to the speaker’s life on Jan. 6 but declined to make it known to law enforcement until hours after insurrectionists stormed the Capitol.
But Fox News really had some audacity to provide a platform to a host who had the nerve to blame the attack on the suspect’s mental health. That’s the standard fallback when a suspect is white, even when said suspect walks into a school and massacres children.
In another Fox News clip, the hosts ramble on about the suspect’s social media and anti-COVID conspiracy theories, even that he once mentioned “using Biblical justification to do harm,” and still, John Roberts, even after reading off the suspects traits—i.e. ”a bunch of anti-trans, covid truther and election denier/Jan. 6 links,” says, “So, it looks like we potentially have somebody here who embraces conspiracy theories?" Then Roberts asks, “Again, how do you connect all of that with Nancy Pelosi? That’s the missing trail of dots here."
Fox News’ hypocrisy knows no bounds. Even when the White House condemns the violence of Pelosi’s attack, the network finds a way to rage against the Democrats.
It could not be any more obvious where this guy was radicalized, just like other violent extremists before him. Until Fox News and other right-wing media outlets tone down the rhetoric and stop painting more than half the country as the enemy, we are doomed to repeat this over and over again.