Nancy Pelosi and husband Paul dine at New York City restaurant Balthazar three months after attack

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul appeared relaxed last weekend as they dined out at one of New York City’s hottest restaurants, Balthazar.

It marked one of the few times that the pair have been seen out in public together since Paul was attacked with a hammer by deranged conspiracy theorist David DePape at their home in San Francisco last October. 

In a recent interview with CNN‘s Chris Wallace on his HBO Max show Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? the former speaker visibly welled up with emotion as she spoke about the vicious assault on her husband.  

However, Paul, 82, and Nancy, 82, were all smiles when they were pictured at Balthazar in a photo shared by restaurant owner and James Corden’s nemesis, Keith McNally. 

The couple were with head maitre d’ and assistant general manager Zouheir Louhaichy in the snap. 

One comment on the Instagram post read: ‘She sat across from us and was very friendly and polite. It looked like her daughter and grandchildren with them. Nice to see her husband recovered.’

After dining at Balthazar, the pair went on to see Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. The play tells the story of multiple generations of a Jewish family in Austria, prior and after World War II. 

Pelosi was pictured by Broadway World talking with the cast of the show after the performance.  

Nancy told how her husband is ‘doing ok,’ in her interview with Wallace.

‘It’s going to take a little while for him to be back to normal,’ she explained. DePape, 42, allegedly broke into the Pelosi’s San Francisco home and attacked Paul, causing a fractured skull and injuries to his right arm and hands. He required surgery, such was the extent of the brutal attack. 

Nancy acknowledged that Paul’s recovery from head injuries is going to be a long process and requires caution. 

‘Anyone who’s had a head injury knows that you have to be very careful,’ she said.

‘You have to be careful about movement. You have to be careful about light, you have to be careful about sound and it just takes a while, probably another three or four months, according to the doctors, for him to be really himself,’ she explained. 

DePape allegedly bludgeoned Paul with a hammer before he was arrested. 

He is purported to have told investigators how he wanted to ‘hold Nancy hostage,’ interrogate her, and ‘break her kneecaps’ if he felt she was lying to him.

Nancy stated how she felt ‘very sad’ the attack occurred because Paul was home alone at the time with DePape allegedly looking for her specifically. 

‘DePape was searching for me, and my dear husband, who’s not even that political, actually, paid the price,’ she recounted.

Despite his injuries, the octogenarian couple have been seen out and about in public. 

Last month the couple attended the Kennedy Center Honors. Although wearing a tuxedo, Paul could be seen wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a glove on his uninjured left hand. 

He was also present this week as he attended a White House event honoring the NBA champions Golden State Warriors.

‘He’s been out a bit because the doctor said he has to have something to look forward to, and so again, one day at a time,’ Nancy Pelosi said to CNN. 

DePape has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges, including attempted murder, attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault of an immediate family member of a federal official and remains in jail.

Immigration officials revealed after the attack that DePape was in the country illegally, after overstaying his visa from Canada. 

Pelosi displayed similar emotions during her first television interview since the attack in November when she told CNN how her husband had had part of his skull removed and reshaped during surgery – describing it as a ‘pretty serious operation’.

Holding back tears at times, Pelosi told Anderson Cooper that she was ‘traumatized’ by the fact that her husband was injured as a result of her actions.

‘This for me is really the hard part because Paul was not the target, and he’s the one who is paying the price,’ she said.

‘I’ve been a target for a long time. Because I’m very effective. I’m a great master of the legislation.

‘I love doing that. That is what I love to do, is to write legislation, and – on the policy side.

‘So they have to put a stop to me, right, because they know that I’m about having our members succeed.’

Pelosi told Cooper her husband was hit with a hammer in the head, ‘on the top in two places.’

Read Related Also: Macy’s rival Belk to close Selma, Alabama store after 18 years in business

She added: ‘And that’s pretty awful. That’s pretty awful.

‘But the good news was: the healthcare professionals at San Francisco General, they told us it had not pierced his brain, which was – could be deadly or worse.’

She said the hammer cracked his skull.

‘It had cracked. What they have to do is take off the skull, reshape it and put it back so it isn’t scratched or pierce the brain. So it’s pretty serious operation.’

Pelosi told of the moment she learnt of the attack, admitting she was ‘scared’ when she heard the doorbell and five bangs at her Washington DC apartment door – assuming that whoever was there was mistaken, and had got the wrong place. 

‘I look up, I see it’s 5am, they must be at the wrong apartment,’ she said.

‘So I run to the door, and I’m very scared. 

‘I see the Capitol Police and they say, ‘We have to come in to talk to you.”

Pelosi said she immediately thought about her grandchildren and children, and initially did not suspect the news would be about her husband.

‘I never thought it would be Paul because, you know, I knew he wouldn’t be out and about, shall we say,’ she said.

‘And so they [Capitol Police] came in. At that time, we didn’t even know where he was. 

‘All we knew is there had been an assault on him in our home’. 

Pelosi’s interview with Chris Wallace is streaming on HBO Max and will air on CNN Sunday at 7pm.