On Friday, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) confirmed that her husband, Paul Pelosi, was "violently assaulted" during a break-in at their San Francisco home. The motivation behind the break-in is not yet known, and Pelosi's husband is expected to make a full recovery.
But before the ink on the presses was even dry, right-wing Twitter exploded with glee over the news.
Several accounts mocked the Pelosis for their misfortune by connecting their policies to a "crime wave" of which they are now a casualty — even though crime is actually decreasing in San Francisco (and in fact most categories of crime were down from pre-pandemic levels even before the well-publicized recall of the city's pro-decarceration district attorney.)
\u201cPaul Pelosi, victim of Democrat crime wave.\u201d— BorisB (@BorisB) 1666962826
\u201cBREAKING::\nPaul Pelosi was \u201cviolently assaulted\u201d in his SFO home by an intruder this morning. Hey Nancy; NOW do you think there\u2019s a crime problem?? Assasilant arrested, motive unknown. Want to bet he is a repeat offender out on bail?\u201d— SteveEarly (@SteveEarly) 1666962026
\u201cAttention Paul Pelosi and Nancy Pelosi: Crime does not discriminate!\u201d— TheLeoTerrell (@TheLeoTerrell) 1666963039
\u201cIt's hard to feel sorry for Paul Pelosi and @SpeakerPelosi when they've championed the movement of lawlessness for so long.\u201d— Shameless Investor (@Shameless Investor) 1666962167
Even anchors on Fox News echoed similar sentiments, with Bill Hemmer saying "crime hits everybody" and "can happen anywhere," which is why it's "such a significant part of this election story" — even while acknowledging he didn't yet have any facts on the assailant or motive.
\u201cFox News instantly plugs the Pelosi home invasion and assault on Paul Pelosi into its GOP talking points, saying this shows that "crime hits everybody" and "this can happen anywhere, crime is random and that's why it's such a significant part of this election story." We'll see.\u201d— Matthew Gertz (@Matthew Gertz) 1666962493
Meanwhile, some other right-wing accounts on Twitter speculated that it might not be random at all.
One account speculated the assault was a deliberately engineered "distraction" to change the narrative going into the midterm elections next month, and another even baselessly theorized the attacker was a prostitute Paul Pelosi let in for a service job that "went bad."
\u201cPaul Pelosi assaulted during home intrusion? Sounds like a very convenient distraction on the heels of this upcoming midterms...\u201d— Jim Benson (@Jim Benson) 1666961738
\u201cThis is cover fire. The house of the Speaker is not protected even in her absence? Doesn\u2019t smell right to me. I think Paul Pelosi allowed this person in, maybe a prostitute, and it went bad.\u201d— Hotep (TC) Chopstick (@Hotep (TC) Chopstick) 1666961682
