“I don’t know,” Mr. Trump said suggestively. “You hear the same things I do.”
Mr. Pelosi, 82, 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, Kari Lake, made the attack a punchline at a campaign event on Monday, noting that while Ms. Pelosi has security around her, “apparently her house doesn’t have a lot of protection.” She smiled as her supporters howled with laughter.
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 behavior has turned those more extreme members into influencers on the right, who carry more clout in Congress.
The intruder who attacked Mr. Pelosi had wanted to take Ms. 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, few Republicans made such moves.
Former Vice President Mike Pence followed the old model, saying that the attack was an “outrage” and noting that “there can be no tolerance for violence against public officials or their families.” But what would have once been a run-of-the-mill statement stood out for being one of the few that was unqualified in its condemnation of the attacker, who Mr. Pence said should be prosecuted.
