Trump mocks Pelosi family as he rallies conservative support in California

Seeking to nail down the support of California Republicans in the GOP primary, former President Donald Trump on Friday mocked Rep. Nancy Pelosi and her husband, who an assailant brutally attacked in the family’s San Francisco home last October.

“We’ll stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi, who ruined San Francisco — how’s her husband doing, anybody know?” Trump said to a raucous crowd of California Republicans at a state party convention. “And she’s against building a wall at our border, even though she has a wall around her house — which obviously didn’t do a very good job.”

The comments amount to some of Trump’s most brazen yet regarding the attack on Paul Pelosi, whose skull was fractured after an attack in which authorities said an assailant beat him with a hammer. Trump had previously stoked far-right conspiracies that surrounded the event, while also once calling the attack a “sad situation.”

Hundreds of conservatives listening Friday cheered Trump as he rattled off criticisms of several of the state’s most prominent Democrats, putting a California spin on his typical campaign message.

“Together we will reverse the decline of America and we will end the desecration of your once great state California,” Trump told the crowd. “This is not a great state anymore. This is a dumping ground. You're a dumping ground.”

While Trump has no real chance of winning the state in a general election, California still holds the biggest pot of delegates in the Republican primary — all up for grabs on March 5, which the former president noted as a date he will likely sit in court as he faces charges related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

Notably missing from the former president’s remarks was any comment about former Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who died on Thursday night after trailblazing a path as one of the state’s most prominent politicians. On his hitlist Friday, though, were Vice President Kamala Harris; Rep. Adam Schiff, who led Trump’s first impeachment in the House; Rep. Eric Swalwell and Rep. Maxine Waters, whose words Trump said would garner him “an electric chair times fifteen" if he spoke them.

Trump gave a somewhat mixed appraisal of the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, saying that he “got along” with the Californian while president despite not liking his positions.

“Gavin has become crooked Joe Biden’s top surrogate,” Trump said, suggesting without evidence that the governor’s support for the president came under the pretext that Biden would not “make it.”

At this weekend’s meeting of the state’s Republican Party in Anaheim, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, businessperson Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) also all had speaking slots on the schedule.

All three of them, among other candidates, had slung it out on a debate stage in Southern California earlier this week, an event Trump skipped.

The Republican competitors will have a tough task to match Trump’s level of excitement from members of the state party. As he is elsewhere, Trump is dominating in Republican primary polling in the state.