Whether they love her or hate her, pretty much everyone knows about Nancy Pelosi, the prominent Democratic Congresswoman and former Speaker of the House. Thanks to her decades of political service, Pelosi became a household name, and she only grew even more famous as she publicly sparred with Republican President Donald Trump. Unfortunately, all of this fame comes at a price, and Pelosi has made many enemies who weren’t afraid to strike out at her family.
This was made quite clear when her husband, Paul Pelosi, was attacked by a home invader armed with a hammer. But what even Nancy Pelosi’s biggest fans and haters don’t realize is that her daughter has also been put in the crosshairs thanks to her mother’s career. And thanks to that, Alexandra Pelosi has had a more heartbreaking life than anyone could imagine.
How heartbreaking are we talking, and what are the details of the tragedies the younger Pelosi has faced? Keep reading to find out!
Traumatized by the attack on her father
In many ways, the most tragic thing that happened to Alexandra Pelosi was the brutal attack on her father. Back in 2022, Paul Pelosi was attacked in his own home by David DePape. That attack was worse than most realize: as Alexandra told The Guardian, her father had to go to the hospital and was left with a “traumatic brain injury for the rest of his life.”
The horrific attack on Paul Pelosi effectively left Alexandra very traumatized. As she told CBS News, “I haven’t slept since the night my father was attacked.” One of the only comforts she might have had at the time was the idea that the rest of the country would share her horror at what happened. Unfortunately, it didn’t take very long for Nancy Pelosi’s opponents to turn the attack on Paul into a bad joke.
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Seeing her father’s attack mocked online
Unsurprisingly, Nancy Pelosi’s Republican opponents wasted little time mocking the attack on Paul. As Time Magazine reports, the worst offender of this came from Donald Trump, Jr. As the son and namesake of Republican icon Donald Trump, Junior’s words carry very special weight. Unfortunately, he didn’t consider that before posting a joke in extremely poor taste on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
In his post, Donald Trump, Jr. reposted a picture featuring underwear and a hammer, dubbing it a “Paul Pelosi Halloween costume” (the underwear part referred to a debunked conspiracy theory that Paul was in his underwear when attacked by a hammer-wielding intruder). Apparently feeling cheeky, Junior later added, “Dear fact checkers this has nothing at all to do with anything going on in the news.”
Eventually, Junior removed the tasteless post, but it served as a reminder of just how gleefully Nancy Pelosi’s opponents will always react to anything bad that happens to her or her family. And as for Alexandra Pelosi, she got to witness the grim fact that many people see the tragedy of the attack on her father as nothing more than a punchline.
Surviving the January 6th attack on the Capitol
While tasteless jokes about the attack on Paul Pelosi are bad enough, they pale in comparison to the January 6th attack on our nation’s Capitol. While many downplay this attack as being a simple act of political protest, many who were there have shared harrowing stories about violent intruders out to hurt or kill the politicians they hate. This includes Alexandra Pelosi, who was there with her mother Nancy.
In an interview with The Guardian, Alexandra said, “At some point, the security came over and said we’re leaving. They [the mob] had already broken the window to come in. The security camera shows that the protesters were two minutes from us but we found out that after.” The “we” in this story includes Nancy Pelosi, Alexandra, and Alexandra’s son.
To this day, the idea that she was possibly only two minutes away from getting seriously hurt or killed haunts Alexandra. She is also haunted by the motivations of her attackers, saying in that same interview that “I still haven’t been able to come up with a good answer for Nancy Pelosi’s grandchildren about why people want to hang her from a lamp-post.”
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A preview of Nancy Pelosi’s funeral
The last major trauma Alexandra Pelosi has faced is one that deals directly with Nancy Pelosi’s career. In 2022, Nancy stepped down from her position as Speaker of the House thanks in part to the attack on her husband. You might think that Alexandra would support this decision because it meant that her family had less of a target on their backs. However, she thought the decision was bittersweet because of how important her mother’s career has always been.
In that same interview with The Guardian, “If you’re in politics and you step down, it’s like going to your own funeral because you get to read your own obituary.” In other words, Alexandra has lived through her father nearly getting killed and was there at the Capitol when her mother nearly got killed. And when Nancy finally decided to step down from the most prominent political position she would ever hold, her daughter was left with the hollow feeling that she just previewed her mother’s death.
Talk about a lot for a young woman to process!