there are chilling new details about his alleged plan to take the house speaker nancy pelosi hostage and break her kneecaps. we re standing by for a live update from san francisco officials. also tonight, the final frantic eight days of campaigning before the crucial midterm elections. tensions ratcheted higher as federal officials now warn of a heightened threat to the election from violent extremists here in the united states. the homeland security secretary mayorkas joins me this hour. plus, growing misery in ukraine right now as russia steps up its attacks on vital infrastructure. much of the capital city is without water tonight and officials warn they re running out of equipment to repair the country s devastated power grid. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. let s get straight to our top story tonight. the suspect in the paul pelosi attack now facing federal charges. prosecutors
no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the united states will find you and take you out. there are hundreds of unaccounted for people minimum. it was all water surrounding us. it was very scary. dramatic warning from china after sources confirm that nancy pelosi will visit taiwan during her trip to asia. there is no reason for beijing to turn a potential visit consistent with long standing u.s. policy into some sort of crisis of conflict. it is tuesday, august 2, 9:00 a.m. in london, 4:00 a.m. in washington. joe biden claiming a major win in the war on terror after a drone strike killed ayman al zawahiri. the 71-year-old took over as leader of the terror group after u.s. navy s.e.a.l.s killed bin laden in 2011. he was involved in planning the 9/11 attacks and as well as the u.s. embassy bombings in kenya and tanzania. the drone strike happened sunday morning local time in that afghanistan after months of surveillance and planning, two hell
reporter: according to the affidavit the suspect hit pelosi in the head hard enough to knock him out when police arrived after a small str struggle over the hammer ensued. this is intentional. it is not random. reporter: the fbi says depape wanted to wait in the house for pelosi for days. he was focused on pelosi as the, quote, leader of the pack of lies told by the democratic party. he told investigators he was going to hold nancy hostage and talk to her. if nancy were to tell depape the truth, he would ler go. if she lied, she was going to, quote, break her kneecaps. he went on to say that he was certain nancy would not have told the truth. at one point the suspect let paul pelosi into the bathroom, where he managed to call 911 and ran to open the front door once police arrived. police say pelosi grabbed depape s hammer right after opening the door. police told them to drop the hammer and that s when depape told the police pelosi s husband would be, quote, taking the punishment
preceded the assault on her husband at his home in san francisco. donald trump jr. even mocked the assault. how much blame do you place on the republican party leaders right now for amplifying dangerous rhetoric? well, i think dangerous rhetoric is something that divides our country, regrettably, and that division itself can be a threat that our adversaries, nation states exploit, russia, iran, china, and the spread of disinformation. they try to fill that divide with disinformation and misinformation. i thought that leader mcconnell spoke very powerfully in condemning the attack against mr. pelosi. those were very important words from one of our nation s leaders. i know you ve got to run. one final question. how worried are you about the increase in anti-semitic incidents here in the united states? we re very concerned, wolf. we ve seen a rise in anti-semitic rhetoric and we ve seen a rise in violent acts born
excuse the attack are spinning new conspiracies, fueled by partial information and outright false reporting. listen to this police dispatch call of the incident. he stated that he doesn t know who the man is. his name is david and that he is a friend. he sounded somewhat confused. reporter: a law enforcement source told the los angeles times, investigators believe he was giving coded information while trying to de-escalate the situation. right wing litter tweets lit up with the word friend, suggesting pelosi knew his attacker, which the san francisco police chief told cnn is not true. as a matter of fact, the evidence indicates the exact opposite. reporter: then a local fox news station incorrectly reported then retracted information, saying the attacker was in his underwear. again, false. but it s led to popular far right figures, like former trump officials, and even trump s son to insinuate pelosi and his attack were were romantically