The Republican candidate for governor of Arizona, Kari Lake, drew laughter at a campaign event in Scottsdale on Monday with a remark about the attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of the Democratic US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.
“Nancy Pelosi, well, she’s got protection when she’s in DC,” Lake said. “Apparently her house doesn’t have a lot of protection.”
Paul Pelosi, 82, was attacked with a hammer at his home in San Francisco on Friday. He remained in intensive care on Monday but was expected to recover.
His attacker, David DePape, 42, reportedly shouted “Where is Nancy?” On Monday, he was charged with attempted murder, assault and other crimes. Authorities said he told police he wanted to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage and “break her kneecaps”. DePape is also reported to have posted conspiracy-laced screeds online.
Republican and rightwing responses to the attack – many seeking to advance the GOP’s law-and-order midterm elections message – have drawn controversy. Democrats and media observers have warned of the danger of stoking politically inspired violence.
On Monday, the conservative never-Trumper Bill Kristol quoted the dissident Russian writer Dmitry Bykov – “Fascism is a ‘physiological’ phenomenon that refers to ‘the pleasure a person takes in allowing himself to break every moral law, divine or human’” – and said: “Kari Lake takes that pleasure. Her audience shares that pleasure.”
Lake also said: “If our lawmakers can have protection, if our politicians can have protection, if our athletes, then certainly the most important people in our lives – our children – should have protection.”
Later, speaking to Tucker Carlson on Fox News, she said: “I’m speaking the truth … We can’t talk about all these issues because the media has told us they’re prohibited.
“You can’t talk about vaccines. You can’t talk about elections. You can’t talk about Paul Pelosi now. You can’t talk about Nancy Pelosi, and you can’t talk about the elections, and you can’t talk about Covid. And I’m talking about all those things because I still believe we have a little bit of the first amendment left.”
Arizona was one of the states in which Donald Trump tried to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020, wielding the lie that Democrats benefited from electoral fraud.
Trump has endorsed Lake and Lake has endorsed his lie. A week ahead of midterms election day, Lake leads her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs, by more than three points.
