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Paul Pelosi ‘looks like Frankenstein’ after being hit over the head with a hammer, his daughter Alexandra joked, saying his scars are healing but he worries about the lasting emotional impact.
Paul Pelosi, 82, was attacked in the early hours of October 28 by a man who broke into the San Francisco home he shared with his wife Nancy, the Speaker of the House. She was away at the time, but Paul was attacked and left with a fractured skull.
On December 4, Paul was seen in public for the first time since the attack, joining his wife at the Kennedy Center Honors.
But Alexandra Pelosi, a 52-year-old filmmaker, said her father still had a long way to make a full recovery.
‘He is getting better every day. Thanks for asking,’ she told CBS News‘ John Dickerson, in an interview that will air in full on Sunday.
The scars are healing. I mean, he looks like Frankenstein. The scars are healing.
“But I think the emotional scars, I don’t know if they’ll ever heal.”
Alexandra Pelosi spoke to CBS News about her new documentary about her mother Nancy, and was asked how her father Paul was recovering from his attack.
Paul Pelosi and his wife Nancy are seen in September 2022, a month before Paul was attacked by an intruder, who broke into his San Francisco home and hit him with a hammer.
On December 4, Paul Pelosi joined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a box to watch the Kennedy Center Honors, the annual televised ceremony. It was his first time in public and he was wearing a black hat and a glove on his left hand.
At one point, he could be seen smiling and pointing at the president, who smiled and returned the gesture as vice president Kamala Harris smiled.
Alexandra, a mother of two and the youngest of five children, said she had not slept since the night of the attack.
And he expressed his anger at his mother’s political opponents by laughing at the attack on his father.
‘I don’t care who you are and who you vote for. No one should think it’s funny that an 82-year-old man was attacked in the middle of the night,” he said.
“And yet a sitting governor and a governor-wannabe and members of Congress were laughing about it.”
Her attacker, David DePape, 42, is in custody and has pleaded not guilty to a series of federal and state charges against him.
The federal charges include kidnapping and one count of assault on a family member of a US official.
He will next appear in federal court on February 8.
Alexandra spoke with CBS News to promote her new documentary about her mother’s shadow, which will air on HBO next week.
Nancy, also 82, will step down as House speaker at the end of this month and will be replaced as Democratic leader by Hakeem Jeffries when the new Congress convenes on January 3.
David DePape, a fringe activist drawn to conspiracy theories, has been charged federally with kidnapping and assaulting a federal official, and state charges with attempted murder, robbery and elder abuse.
When officers responded to Paul Pelosi’s 911 call at the San Francisco home, they found Paul Pelosi and DePape fighting over a hammer, according to the six-page indictment.
An officer ordered DePape to drop the hammer, he responded, ‘ummm nope,’ before swinging it hard at Paul Pelosi, the indictment says. The police recorded the house on October 28.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is seen Thursday at one of her last news conferences as a Democratic leader.
Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House for the first time in 2007. She is shown above after she was sworn in, surrounded by her grandchildren and the children of other members of Congress.
The House speaker will be a Republican: Kevin McCarthy was nominated in November as the likely leader, but he is struggling to maintain momentum ahead of the official swearing-in in January.
Nancy Pelosi is not retiring from Congress and was re-elected to serve as a member of Congress representing San Francisco until 2024.
However, there has been speculation that Alexandra will seek to replace her mother in Congress when she finally retires.
Alexandra, who lives in Manhattan with her husband, the Dutch journalist Michiel Vos, and their children, has not commented on the speculation.
As early as 2011, he said that his mother was ready to leave front-line politics.
“He would retire right now, if the donors he has don’t want him to stay so long,” he said.
However, they know that she wants to leave. They believe that she is destined for the desert. She has very few days left.
‘She is 71 years old, she wants to have a life, it’s over. It’s a must, that’s all I’m saying.