With falsehoods and ridicule about Pelosi attack, Republicans mimic Trump

WASHINGTON – Speaking on a conservative radio talk show on Tuesday, former president Donald Trump amplified a conspiracy theory about the grisly attack on House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Mr Paul Pelosi, that falsely suggested that Mr Pelosi may not have been the victim of a genuine attack.

“Weird things going on in that household in the last couple of weeks,” Mr Trump said on the Chris Stigall show, winking at a lie that has flourished in right-wing media and is increasingly being given credence by Republicans.

“The glass, it seems, was broken from the inside to the out. So it wasn’t a break-in; it was a break out,” said Mr Trump.

There is evidence that show Mr Pelosi, 82,

was attacked on Friday with a hammer

by a suspect who federal prosecutors say invaded the Pelosis’ San Francisco home,

bent on kidnapping Mrs Pelosi and shattering her kneecaps.

But Mr Trump, a longtime trafficker in conspiracy theories who propelled his political rise with the lie that former president Barack Obama was not born in the United States, has never let such facts get in his way.

The reaction to the assault on Mr Pelosi among Republicans – who have circulated conspiracy theories about it, dismissed it as an act of random violence and made the Pelosis the punchline of a dark joke – underscores how thoroughly the GOP has internalised his example. It suggested that Republicans have come to conclude that, like Mr Trump, they will pay no political price for attacks on their opponents, however mean-spirited, inflammatory or false.

If anything, some Republicans seem to believe they will be rewarded by their right-wing base for such coarseness – or even suffer political consequences if they do not join in and show that they are in on the joke.

“LOL,” Representative Claudia Tenney, who is up for reelection in a competitive district, tweeted on Friday night, circulating a photograph that showed a group of young, white men holding oversized hammers beside a gay Pride flag.

On Sunday, Representative Clay Higgins, who is in line to helm a Homeland Security subcommittee if his party wins control of the House next week, also amplified a groundless and homophobic conspiracy theory hatched on the right about the attack. He tweeted, but later removed, a picture of Mrs Pelosi with her hands covering her eyes, with the caption: “That moment you realise the nudist hippie male prostitute LSD guy was the reason your husband didn’t make it to your fundraiser.”

On Tuesday, Mr Trump said he thought the federal complaint detailing the break-in and the attack was not telling the entire story.

“I don’t know,” he said suggestively. “You hear the same things I do.”

Mr Pelosi remained in intensive care with a fractured skull, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In Arizona, the Republican candidate for governor, Ms Kari Lake, made the attack a punchline at a campaign event on Monday, noting that while Mrs Pelosi has security around her, “apparently her house doesn’t have a lot of protection”. She smiled as her supporters howled with laughter.

Rewarding bad behaviour

Republican leaders have condemned the violence against Mr Pelosi and have not shared the conspiracy theories or sinister memes, but they have not publicly condemned those who have done so or done anything to try to tamp down on the stream of lies. And over the past few years, they have consistently demonstrated to their colleagues in Congress that there are no consequences for making vitriolic or even violent statements.

If anything, such behaviour has turned those more extreme members into influencers on the right, who carry more clout in Congress.

The intruder who attacked Mr Pelosi wanted to take Mrs Pelosi, whom he saw as “the ‘leader of the pack’ of lies told by the Democratic Party”, hostage and break her kneecaps. He entered her San Francisco home with rope, zip ties and a hammer, according to the federal complaint against him.

There was a time when such an event would have led to unequivocal denunciation by the leaders of both parties, sometimes followed by a pause in the day-to-day mudslinging of a campaign – if only to ensure that no candidate would make a remark that could be construed as in any way offensive to the victim.

This time, Republicans made no such moves.

“They don’t have any fear of reprisal,” said Mr Douglas Heye, a former Republican leadership aide on Capitol Hill. “That’s because our politics have become so tribal that anything that is about owning the other side is somehow seen as a political message, even though it’s not.” NYTIMES