Congresswoman Lauren Boebert made serious efforts to derail President Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, heckling him as he spoke. But she was met with booing on the House floor, and some hostile words online.
Boebert made two attempts to interrupt, the first as Biden talked about veterans. When he mentioned his son Beau, who died of cancer likely developed due to hazardous exposure during his military service, Biden mentioned “a cancer that would put [soldiers] in a flag-draped coffin.” At that point, Boebert screamed: “You put them in, 13 of them!” a reference to soldiers who died last year in the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Prior to Biden starting his speech, Boebert tried to get a “Build the wall” chant going. That time, things fizzled out after someone from the Democratic party told her to “sit down,” according to Daily Beast reporter Matt Fuller.
On Wednesday morning, many were suggesting Boebert’s expulsion from Congress. “Raise your hand if you think Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene should be expelled from Congress as soon as possible!” one person wrote.
Others compared Boebert, along with Marjorie Taylor Greene (who was photographed yelling alongside Boebert), to Statler and Waldorf, the hecklers from The Muppets.
Together, Boebert and Greene were dubbed “Dumb & Dumber” online. But, on Wednesday morning, Boebert doubled down.
“The left is pissed because I called out Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan that left 13 of America’s finest in a flag-draped coffin,” she tweeted. “They are mad because a speech was ‘interrupted’. Ask the the families who lost their loved ones how interrupted their lives are now.”
Meanwhile, the White House press secretary isn’t putting much stock in the moment. During an appearance on Wednesday morning’s “Way Too Early” on MSNBC, Jen Psaki largely brushed off Boebert and Greene.
“That was the moment in the speech where the president was talking about his unity agenda, and talking about priorities that we should all be able to agree on,” Psaki pointed out.
She later added, “And they were heckling around that time and that moment. I think that says a lot more about them than it does about how important these priorities are, and how much the vast majority of people who are sitting there watching in that chamber last night could work together to solve exactly those problems. And others too, probably.”
Check out more reactions to Boebert’s heckling below.