Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Saturday hit House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) over his silence following an attack carried out on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) husband, Paul Pelosi, in their San Fransisco home.
“Last year, a GOP Congressman shared a depiction of himself killing me. When the House rose to censure, @GOPLeader defended him,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a tweet.
“Yesterday, a man sharing that member’s rhetoric tried to assassinate the Speaker and her spouse. What has @GOPLeader said? Nothing. This is who he is,” she continued.
Paul Pelosi was attacked in the early morning on Friday at the home he shares with the Speaker in San Fransisco.
San Francisco Police Department Chief Bill Scott said at a press conference later in the day that officers had been sent to the home for a priority well-being check and found Paul Pelosi and the suspect both holding on to a hammer. The suspect was able to pull the hammer away from Paul Pelosi and hit him with it.
The Speaker’s husband was hospitalized and underwent surgery for a fractured skull and serious injuries to his hands and right arm, according to Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill.
“His doctors expect a full recovery,” Hammill added.
A source briefed on the situation told The Hill that the intruder confronted Paul Pelosi before he attacked him, asking, “Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?”
McCarthy, for his part, has yet to publicly condemn the attack.
However, a spokesperson for the minority leader said that “he reached out to the Speaker to check in on Paul,” and is praying for the 82-year-old’s recovery.
The Hill has reached out to McCarthy’s office for comment on Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet and for further comment on the attack.
Other high-profile leaders in the GOP have come out and condemned the attack including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
The top Senate Republican on Friday said that he was “horrified and disgusted” by the news.
Former Vice President Mike Pence tweeted that the attack on Paul Pelosi was an “outrage.”
“This is an outrage and our hearts are with the entire Pelosi family. We pray Paul will make a full recovery,” Pence said. “There can be no tolerance for violence against public officials or their families. This man should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) was censured and removed from committee assignments last year after he posted an edited anime video of himself killing the progressive lawmaker and swinging swords at President Biden. At the time, the vote was almost entirely along party lines.
Only two Republicans — Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), who both serve on the House Jan. 6 Committee — voted with Democrats.
McCarthy said at the time that he didn’t condone violence, but argued that the video did not merit the censure.
“It is sad,” Ocasio-Cortez said last year. “It is a sad day in which a member who leads a political party in the United States of America cannot bring themselves to say that issuing a depiction of murdering a member of Congress is wrong.”