House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has fired back at GOP Reps Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene for heckling President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address.
During her weekly press conference on Thursday, Ms Pelosi was asked about the pair’s conduct by a reporter who compared them to South Carolina representative Joe Wilson, a Republican who gained a measure of infamy after shouting “You lie!” at then-president Barack Obama during one of his addresses to Congress.
Mr Wilson, who still represents South Carolina’s 2nd District, was the subject of a resolution of disapproval passed by the House in the days after his interruption of the then-president.
Asked about her reaction to Ms Greene and Ms Boebert, Ms Pelosi replied: “Let me just say this. I agree with what Senator Lindsey Graham said – shut up – that’s what he said to them,” she said. “I think they should just shut up”.
The two Republican congresswomen drew opprobrium from their colleagues Tuesday night for a string of interruptions to Mr Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress.
As the president spoke on the need to “secure the border and fix the immigration system”, the pair loudly chanted “Build the wall”, referring to the barrier along the US-Mexico border that was championed by former president Donald Trump but has been scaled back under Mr Biden.
But it was Ms Boebert who found herself shouted down with boos and cries of “shame” after she loudly heckled Mr Biden as he recalled the death of his eldest son, Beau Biden, from brain cancer, which may have been caused by burn pits he encountered while serving as an Army National Guard officer in Iraq.
The Colorado congresswoman, who would have received the text of Mr Biden’s remarks before he addressed the joint session, interrupted the president as he spoke of the flag-draped coffins of fallen American service members with a shouted taunt about the 13 who died during the US evacuation from Afghanistan.
“You put them in there, 13 of them,” she said, drawing groans, boos, and a grimace from Vice President Kamala Harris, who sat behind Mr Biden on the House of Representatives dais.
This article was amended on 4 March 2022. It previously included a reference to ‘two Georgia congresswomen’, however Ms Boebert does not represent Georgia, but Colorado.
