Colorado GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert is digging her heels in on Wednesday amid an onslaught of bipartisan criticism for heckling President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address while he mentioned his dead son Beau.
‘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,’ Boebert wrote on Twitter.
‘They are mad because a speech was “interrupted”. Ask the the families who lost their loved ones how interrupted their lives are now.’
She previously defended herself late Tuesday evening, writing on the platform that ‘When Biden said flag draped coffins I couldn’t stay silent.’
Boebert earned ‘boos’ from the House chamber on Tuesday night when called out Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal while he was talking about cancer-causing burn pits affecting military service members. He believes such pits led to his late son’s early death at age 46.
The roughly hour-long address was notably punctuated by both bipartisan applause, as well as loud jeering from Boebert and her fellow GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday said Boebert and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene heckling Biden’s State of the Union address ‘says a lot more about them’ than the president’s agenda.
The Colorado Republican doubled down on her controversial commentary during Biden’s State of the Union address in a new tweet on Wednesday morning
Boebert (left) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (right) heckled the president at several points during his big address on Tuesday night
Senate Minority Whip John Thune, the number two Senate Republican behind Leader Mitch McConnell, condemned the pair’s ‘antics’ during a CBS Mornings interview the day after Biden’s speech.
‘I don’t think there’s any place for that. It’s inappropriate. A State of the Union speech, whether you agree with the president or not, is an opportunity to show the American people the respect that the office deserves,’ Thune said.
The South Dakota Republican was cryptic when asked whether his fellow GOP lawmakers would issue a public condemnation.
‘You know, typically the House, you know, will — if there were steps to be taken, the House leadership would probably do that. But I think that there’ll be plenty of condemnation from people, colleagues and whatnot, and just a recognition that those types of antics in a setting like that are inappropriate,’ he said.
‘And I think anybody would agree with that.’
Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell blasted Boebert and Greene as a ‘disgrace’ and called on House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy to condemn them.
‘The president was talking about his dead soldier son. You and [Greene] were a national disgrace tonight. But worse — because you are irrelevant — Kevin McCarthy owns all of this. He won’t condemn you because he is a colossal coward,’ Swalwell wrote on Twitter Tuesday.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki brushed off their behavior and said it says ‘a lot more about them’ than about Biden’s agenda
McCarthy has so far been silent on the matter, though he did give Biden a standing ovation at one point during his speech when he called for betting police funding.
Psaki brushed off Boebert’s protest when asked about it on MSNBC early Tuesday morning.
‘I have to tell you that during that heckling, which, I was watching that on TV with a group of my team, team members and colleagues, and we were all excited and cheering,’ the press secretary said in an early Wednesday morning television interview.
‘And 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.’
The president’s four-pronged unity agenda, which he laid out on Tuesday night, includes efforts to do more for veterans who fall ill after inhaling smoke from toxic burn pits that troops stationed overseas have commonly used to dispose of waste.
‘They come home, many of the world’s fittest and best-trained warriors in the world, never the same,’ Biden grieved before alluding to his own personal experience witnessing the effects.
‘Headaches. Numbness. Dizziness. A cancer that would put them in a flag-draped coffin. I know.’
South Dakota Senator John Thune, the number two Senate Republican, blasted the freshman lawmakers’ ‘antics’
California Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell also jumped into the fray, calling Boebert out as a ‘national disgrace’
It was at that moment Boebert yelled: ‘A cancer that put them in a flag-draped coffin.’
‘You put them in. Thirteen of them!’ she shouted in reference to the 13 US service members who were killed while guarding Kabul airport in Afghanistan last year.
Psaki said on Wednesday morning, ‘There’s no question we should do more to help our nation’s veterans, people who have been hurt by the impacts of burn pits. Of course, we need to do more to work together to cure cancer.’
‘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,’ the press secretary added.
Unlike other points of Biden’s speech, which earned bipartisan applause, Boebert’s outburst elicited only boos from Democrats.
Both Boebert and Georgia Rep. Greene turned their backs on Biden as he entered the House chamber for his State of the Union address.
At another point during the speech, when the president called for comprehensive reform to solve the southwest border crisis and the American immigration system, the firebrand conservatives could be heard chanting ‘Build the wall,’ one of Donald Trump’s signature promises.
