WATCH: Biden’s Harrowing Retelling of Pelosi Attack to Open Speech on Threats to Democracy

President Joe Biden opened his speech on threats to democracy with a harrowing retelling of the attack on Paul Pelosi, which also targeted Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

A suspect named David DePape has confessed to breaking into Speaker Pelosi’s San Francisco home early Friday morning and violently attacking her husband Paul while asking for the speaker’s whereabouts.

On Wednesday night, the president delivered a blistering address connecting recent political violence to the election denialism that led to the attack on the Capitol, just steps from where he spoke.

The president opened the speech with a vivid and emotional retelling of the attack on Pelosi that set the table for the remainder of the speech:

Just a few days ago, a little before 2:30 a.m. in the morning, a man smashed the back windows and broke into the home of the speaker of the House of Representatives, the third-highest-ranking official in America. He carried in his backpack zip ties, duct tape, rope and a hammer.

As he told the police, he had come looking for Nancy Pelosi to take her hostage, to interrogate her, to threaten to break her kneecaps. But she wasn’t there. Her husband, my friend Paul Pelosi, was home alone. The assailant tried to take Paul hostage. He woke him up, and he wanted to tie him up. The assailant ended up using a hammer to smash Paul’s skull. Thankfully, by the grace of God, Paul survived.

All this happened after the assault, and it just — it’s hard to even say. It’s hard to even say. After the assailant entered the home asking: “Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?” Those are the very same words used by the mob when they stormed the United States Capitol on January the 6th, when they broke windows, kicked in the doors, brutally attacked law enforcement, roamed the corridors hunting for officials and erected gallows to hang the former vice president, Mike Pence.

Watch above via C-SPAN.