“Morning Joe” host Mika Brzezinski sat as the program’s main anchor Monday and quickly dove into Friday’s violent attack against Paul Pelosi in his San Francisco home.
Positing that the assailant David DePape, who was in search of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is a “deranged, right-wing fanatic” who fell victim to the manipulation and conspiracy theories of Donald Trump’s sect of the Republican party, Brzezinski proceeded to debunk arguments from the weekend that distanced his intention with the rhetoric of the Right.
She additionally called out political figures like Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for peddling theories that incite violence from their most vulnerable constituents.
“Deranged right-wing fanatics, Trump-media allies and some of the most powerful people in the world were feverishly trying to stir up conspiracy theories that distracted from the central political headline of this story: that years of Republican propaganda and Trump-fueled fascism led 42-year-old David DePape to break into Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home, seemingly with the intent to harm her,” Brzezinski said, adding that DePape is likely to be charged with attempted murder as early as Monday.
Reports show that DePape berated Paul Pelosi before fracturing his skull with a hammer, asking where his wife was with cries of “Where’s Nancy?” – not unlike those heard during the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol.
“A connection? What connection? I don’t see a connection,” the host said, sarcastically expressing faux surprise. “Why would there be a connection? I mean, he was just deranged, right? In an isolated way. And by the way, voters, look over here, crime is up. ‘Look away from the parallels to Jan. 6,’ Trumpists shout. A review of David DePape’s accounts show that he was part of a far-right world of hate, antisemitism and conspiracy theories involving anti-vax hysteria and voter fraud. Ignore the fact that these right-wing screeds line up with the biggest lies propagated by Trump and Trumpists.”
After showing reels of clips from Jan. 6, evidence of lies spread by politicians like Greene and McCarthy and reels of Trump pushing other conspiracy theories at various rallies over the years, Brzezinski boiled her point down to its conclusion.
“There was no mischaracterization of what happened,” she said. “Are we to insist that this attack was not the direct result of the dangerous, violent rhetoric we have heard from Donald Trump’s Republican party over the last six years? The deranged man who violently assaulted Paul Pelosi got his idea from somewhere. Are we supposed to ignore the fact that threats against the House Speaker have been specific for quite some time?”
She continued: “There are many weak, deranged minds in this country, like the man who attacked Paul Pelosi. But Republicans have been hiding behind that word ‘deranged’ as if it were some isolated incident, and you should only look at that, don’t look at anything else, even if it’s screaming out at you. And yet you can see where DePape’s ideas came from.”
“Deranged people can fall prey to a cult leader like Donald Trump – and they have.”
Watch Brzezinski’s full “Morning Joe” segment in the video above.
