Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - EMERGENCY POD: Paul Pelosi Attacked

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

Ryan and Emily discuss the breaking news that Nancy Pelosi's husband was attacked by a man wielding a hammer inside their San Francisco home today.YouTube: https://youtu.be/TmOTjWU21EgTo become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Ryan Grim: https://badnews.substack.com/ Emily Jashinsky: https://thefederalist.com/author/emilyjashinsky/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. I also want to address the Tonys. On a recent episode of Checking In with Michelle Williams, I open up about feeling snubbed by the Tony Awards. Do I? I was never mad. I was disappointed because I had high hopes. To hear this and more on disappointment and protecting your peace,

listen to Checking In with Michelle williams from the black effect podcast network on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts you say you'd never give in to a meltdown never let kids toys take over the house and never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You'd say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late.

And never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, no, it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. Early Friday morning, news broke that there had been an attack at the Pelosi San Francisco home on the speaker, Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, as the news has progressed throughout the day. We've learned more, of course, as is to be expected, but Ryan actually just tuned into the entire press conference that happened midday here on the East Coast. What did we learn, Ryan, about the attack on Paul Pelosi from that press conference?

So we learned that the weapon was a hammer, and I'll get into this in a moment. So the San Francisco police chief, William Scott, said that at 2.27 a.m., officers responded to a wellness check, which we're getting more details. We don't know if that came from some of the maybe there was in-home surveillance technology that alerted the police. Maybe Paul was able to call from his phone, or maybe there was enough noise that a neighbor called something in. We didn't get those details from the press conference, but we do know that police got out there. When police arrived on the scene, they saw Paul Pelosi with a hammer in his hand and the suspect, David DePape, or DePappy, it's been said different ways, 42 year old man uh also with the hammer in his hand when the as soon as the police arrived uh the de pappy then attacked

pelosi with the hammer paul uh paul pelosi with the hammer uh and police you know immediately intervened uh but injuries were severe enough that he was taken to the hospital. Paul Pelosi, both were taken to the hospital, in fact, but Paul Pelosi was taken to the hospital and they said he's expected to make a full recovery. When you see language like that, expected to make a full recovery, that implies that there was at one point a chance that it looked like there might not be a full recovery, a hammer to the head, if that's where it landed, can be fatal. And the San Francisco police chief said that, in fact, DePapi is going to be charged with attempted homicide, along with a slew of other charges.

So since then, there's been a kind of outpouring of support, including from, you know, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said he was horrified and disgusted. I think, I don't know if you, do you have, do you have his, oh, here, I have his comment right here. He said, I'm horrified and disgusted by the reports that Paul Pelosi was assaulted in his and Speaker Pelosi's home last night. Grateful to hear that Paul is on track to make a full recovery and that law enforcement, including our stellar Capitol Police, are on the case. Nancy Pelosi was back in Washington, D.C. with her security. The Speaker has public security.

Back in San Francisco, the attacker, according to reports ahead of the press conference, said, where is Nancy? And told police that he was waiting for Nancy Pelosi to come home. So that's what we know as of now. What do we know about potential political motivations other than the fact that he seemed to have been looking for Nancy Pelosi, the attacker, seemed to be looking for Nancy Pelosi. What do we know about this person? I know that there are pretty new reports about who he might be. I mean, we have his name, obviously, but who he might be on a personal level, what his interests, motivations could be in this crime.

Right. People are immediately going to be searching through all of his social media as has become the habit after any of these attacks or mass shootings, trying to define what his politics might be. According to the Wall Street Journal, they wrote, the suspected attacker has espoused extreme right-wing views on social media, including conspiracy theories about COVID-19, according to one of the law enforcement officials. Making sure that was the Wall Street Journal. Yes, yes, it was. So at this point,

it seems like extreme right-wing views on social media. There's also, there was this, did you see the hot mic moment at the end of the press conference? I didn't see that. This is views on social media there's also there was this did you see the hot mic moment at the uh at the end of the press conference i didn't see that this is circulating on on social media and is obviously just completely unverified uh from a reporter but a reporter is talking to his editor on a phone while the press conference is still running saying is this the nudist guy like it sounded it sounded like this was someone who was familiar to local reporters uh and then says so should we look into that and then there's and then he answers a

question from the from the editor uh he said then the reporter says nope but it's unclear what the unclear what the question was uh question could have been do you know anything more about this guy or something or it could have been anyway so Anyway, so it seems like we're going to learn more about him soon because it seems like the local press does have a bead on who this person is. This isn't the first. Now, this is the first violent attack on on pelosi's if you remember back in i think what was it around january 2021 uh her her mansion a row house mansion in in san francisco was vandalized with i think there was like a pig's head left out in front of it something like that obviously uh in what 2017 uh steve scalise uh was was shot by a former volunteer for uh bernie sanders uh he served

he survived that attack though it appeared for a long time that he might not uh in what 2011 uh gabby giffords was was shot by a kind of somebody with kind of deep mental health problems didn't seem like that you could even divine much of a political motive to that. It was a shot, something like 19 people at an event where Gabby Giffords was meeting constituents, killing, I think, six of them and badly, badly wounding Giffords to the point that she stepped down from Congress and is operating with significantly reduced capacity as a result of it. But this is another and a bratching up of political violence in the country. What was your reaction when you started seeing this news circulating? Well, and one more quick thing to add.

This is NBC's Bay Area affiliate confirmed with hospital sources that Paul Pelosi is actually undergoing brain surgery. So that I think gives us more indication of the level of severity. It is interesting for that press conference that the attack didn't start until police arrived, that Paul Pelosi had the hammer in his hand. Please show up. And that's how all of this goes down. That's a very interesting thing. Well, yeah, they both had hammers.

Right. Both of them have hammers. both of them had hammers and then right there and there was reporting that that he that he had attempted to tie up paul pelosi so that he could wait you know a hostage situation then wait for pelosi to come home uh so you know just from reading between the lines of what happened it sounds like that was his that was his plan his target was hostage situation then wait for pelosi to come home uh so you know just from reading between the lines of what happened it sounds like that was his that was his plan his target was nancy pelosi he wanted to just uh you know hold paul pelosi until then but then when the police come in he realizes he's done for like that this is over he's not going to get nancy pelosi and at that point he can either surrender um or he can do the sociopathic thing, which is try to kill the husband of the person that he's trying to kill. You know, brain surgery, hopefully it's just to relieve swelling from, you know, if you get hit in the head and your brain swells, that can cause death itself.

And so sometimes they go in there to relieve that swelling because obviously there isn't any room for your brain to go if it needs to swell because your skull is right there. So what they can do is relieve some of that pressure so that sounds sounds uh sounds quite bad uh you know that that he needs this level of treatment and another one we actually forgot to mention on that string of sort of political politically violent attacks is rand paul's neighbor um i've seen that kind of circled on on twitter a bit people reminding uh when that happened that rand pa Paul was attacked by his neighbor, and that did happen. He was, he also, I believe, hospitalized. But, you know, often in these situations, it's difficult to divine or even to fit the political motivations into this sort of

like neat binary box that we try to do sometimes. That may or may not turn out to be the case here. I'm in the camp that, you know, you don't blame Bernie Sanders for what happened to Steve Scalise. And this is on the person who did it. I think we will all agree that our political rhetoric right now is wildly overheated, but that's on both sides. And individual political actors are not responsible for the actions of often mentally ill people and just deranged, violent people who take matters into their own hands without any specific instruction to do anything of the like. That said, Ryan, I want to ask a question to you, which is sometimes I'm thinking specifically of the Gabby Giffords incident and the Scalise

incident to some extent, but I don't think it was as much as with Gabby Giffords incident. And the Scalise incident to some effect, but to some extent, but not, I don't think it was as much as with Gabby Giffords. Members returned to Congress after something like this. And there's a, at least a fleeting moment of heightened camaraderie and a fleeting moment of sort of, we're going to put our heads together and do something. And we have to, you know, we have to do this for the good of the country. Whether that actually, you know, leads to, catalyzes any serious change is another question, but there's at least sort of an impulse to do it at any given moment. Do you expect to see that this time around? They're not going to be back in Congress until after the elections, and after that, they'll be fighting over the elections. I think that the fact that both Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell have put out thoughtful statements, McCarthy reached out to Pelosi to express his sympathy and his prayers for her, suggest that there are still bonds of humanity between the two parties. People may think that's a bare minimum, but there are certainly political systems around the world in which that doesn't exist, in which opponents are attacked or killed by supporters of the other side, and there isn't a denunciation and sometimes even

a cheering on. If you look at what's going on, say, in India, in their politics right now, you're seeing it crest to a place that's so far beyond where we are now. So there is still a lot of room to go. And so perhaps this could be a wake up call, you know, for some political leaders to stop talking about the other party in such dehumanized and existential terms. I, you know,

I think you can find no doubt. You can find examples of Democrats doing it. Like, you know, Joe Biden talking about semi-fascists uh uh hillary clinton talking about uh deplorables uh and maybe it's maybe you've you feel it more from one side or another but it it does feel like uh the the rhetoric out of places like fox news and oen and places like that are beginning are suggesting that like that the democrats are just uh you know less than human you know

serpent type people uh you know that are just a plague upon humanity uh whereas the democratic kind of rhetoric toward republicans is is uh condescending belittling, rude, but feels different in a way. On the other hand, the talk about we're going to lose our country, our democracy is going to be gone if these fascists take over, that does veer into more existential rhetoric. What's your sense on it? Yeah, I don't think putting semi in front of fascist is doing as much work as maybe they hope it is to separate this wide swath of the country that Democrats want to classify in those severe terms. I mean, that's war language. That's language that can catalyze people to do a lot of really terrible things. And I thought the same about the former President Trump's talk about the election. It's that you have a Kevin McCarthy equivalent reaching out to the Nancy Pelosi equivalent. And it does feel more and more like we veer into that territory as a country ourselves, which is we have had horrible moments in American history.

Brooke Sumner, go back all the way to the founding of the country. It's not as though people have always been sort of holding hands and singing kumbaya. But it does feel like in recent American history, we're getting into some dangerous territory in Washington, D.C., just in terms of the way people have these conversations and think of one another and whether they're able. I'm not like yearning for the days of the smoke-filled back rooms, far from it, but at least being able to shake the hand of the person you're arguing with is generally important. Yeah, that's a good point. When President Brooks caned Charles Sumner in the Senate back in, what, 1856 or whenever that was, you certainly did not have the leaders of the planter class reaching out to the leaders of the Republican Party, pushing for abolition, saying, we wish Sumner well. There were certainly some who extended some basic decency,

but in general, there was cheering on of the attack. know famously famously preston brooks was mailed you know a bunch of canes by by constituents to thank him because he broke his cane beating uh beating him and in fact he was censored he resigned uh before they could have a vote he then um he there was then a special election in his district to see who would replace him because he had just resigned. He ran, ran unopposed and won. So you're right. We still have a ways to fall, that you were making, when you treat the other side as though they are literally a threat to democracy, which you can make on, that's a spectrum, of course, right? Like threats to democracy exist on a spectrum. And when you're talking about it, like, I don't want people to shake the hands of people who are like slaveholders, you know, that's, that's a, that's a pretty obvious, um, another thing where it's like, this is a great, you know, we should be able to shake hands with the people who disagree with us and, and work to do the business of the people. Um, that isn't to say that you should be wonderful and kind and, uh, you know, bend over backwards to appease and accommodate evil. Um, but that's, yeah. And that, and we see the other side no go ahead yeah well yeah that's

what i was gonna say is that i think we are getting to a point where you mentioned the sort of like less than human uh lizard people stereotype that creeps into like alt-right circles and i mean i haven't seen that on fox i think you know sometimes stuff like that creeps into the mainstream just red or blue, wherever you are. But you're right, dehumanizing or war-like language, fascism, democracy is under siege, that kind of thing. It makes ordinary people feel like they have to take dramatic action. And when you sort of get to that level, then of course, you're going to see more of this. Yeah. And I can understand the tension of the 1850s because like you said, you don't want to compromise with evil.

There were absolutely fundamental differences about the structure of the world that they lived in. One side said, this thing that you all are basing your entire economy around where you own other people is is evil and you look back and you see what john brown did and you're like i don't think i could have done that but i'm not going to judge him uh for what he for what he tried to do and that that makes sense looking back on it but today democrats and republicans like agree on like 95 of the major things, major questions facing the country. They disagree on tax rates. If they want to fight over what books are in the public library or in the school library.

There are things that they disagree over, but they are not things that can't just be worked out. Structurally, fundamentally, they agree on pretty much everything. things that just that can't just be worked out like they're like structurally fundamentally they agree on pretty much everything like i'm sure outside of the country uh watching it people like what what do you what do you guys mean that you're so different you democrats and republicans we see you as mostly the same um and to go around like killing people over that, I think is absurd. And politicians, I think, have a role to play in dialing that down. I mean, sweat, and tears that has gotten us to a place in this country where just about every person and the stigma to disagree with this is rightfully very high, agrees in equal, agrees in equal dignity, right? Like you're not going to have the principles of, say, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the principles of it in terms of equality. There's a very high stigma in this country to disagreeing with that because we've rightfully come so far that we believe in the equality and the dignity of people based on, regardless of where they are sexually, racially, anything like that.

That in the scope of human history is a massive achievement. And in this country, it was achieved in a short period of time. That's not to say we don't have a ways to go. It is to say, though, Ryan, that on some of these existential questions, you know, there should be more common ground. But people who engage with this type of violence are often like deeply, deeply mentally ill, not representative of anything broader. And so that is yet to be determined in this case, and we'll see, but I am really curious if it will galvanize any sort of differences or a softening of some hearts in Congress. Right. Right. And all societies have unwell people and the way that they act out and the

way they express that and project it, I think is somewhat related to how unwell the overall society is. And so in that sense, in some ways, we're all responsible for everything here. So, which isn't to take responsibility off of David, the paper, who sounds like a deranged sociopath for attacking an old man in his home like what more like what what more cowardly thing um can you do uh you know wishing uh wishing paul pelosi you know a complete and full and swift recovery absolutely and we'll keep following the story i also want to address the tony's on a recent episode of Checking In with Michelle Williams, I open up about feeling snubbed by the Tony Awards. Do I?

I was never mad. I was disappointed because I had high hopes. To hear this and more on disappointment and protecting your peace, listen to Checking In with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You say you'd never give in to a meltdown. Never let kids' toys take over the house.

And never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You'd say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, no, it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car

and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.