Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have to stretch her imagination to envision political violence striking her and her family. The California Congresswoman and former Speaker of the House has long been the target of violent rhetoric and myriad threats from right wing extremists.
Pelosi was one of the main targets of those who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2020 — many of who screamed her name and one of whom, having breached her office, famously put his feet up on her desk.
Pelosi escaped unharmed, but later that violent rhetoric crossed over harrowingly into real life violence when in October 2022 her husband Paul Pelosi, 82, was assaulted with a hammer in the couple’s San Francisco home by an intruder who demanded to know the whereabouts of the Congresswoman.
So it is a chilling moment when, during a recent interview with Jen Psaki, Rep. Pelosi — her hand pantomiming a pistol — points her index finger at her own forehead as she says the January 6 rioters “were going to put a bullet in my head.”
"They were going to put a bullet in my head. Hang the vice president..They made an assault on our democracy, on our Constitution..You can't arrest people for doing it, while ignoring the big fish who instigated it." @SpeakerPelosi on Jan 6 investigation. pic.twitter.com/Y4zl0abTjz
— Skyleigh Heinen (@Sky_Lee_1) June 25, 2023
Pelosi summons a mental picture of the Jan 6 chaos by reminding citizens that those across the political aisle were equally endangered by the insurrection, emphasizing to Psaki that the rioters also intended to “hang the Vice President of the United States.”
Her index finger portraying the barrel of a gun, Pelosi puts an extremely visual exclamation point on her answer to Psaki’s question about a recent Washington Post report alleging that the Department of Justice, not wanting to seem politically motivated, waited more than a year to begin investigating Donald Trump‘s role in the events of January 6.
Pelosi says she understands “the sensitivity” that DOJ exhibited “to a President who has incited an insurrection,” but whatever the delay, she says, “right now they are proceeding.”
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