AP Photo/John McDonnell
House Democratic leaders have reportedly been meeting privately with members who heckled President Donald Trump during his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday.
Trump delivered a lengthy speech that was interrupted early on by Rep. Al Green (D-TX), who yelled that the president did not have a mandate to cut Medicaid. Green was removed from the chamber after refusing to take his seat. The next day, Green made a defiant speech on the House floor and declared, “I would do it again.” On Thursday, the House voted to censure him.
A handful of other lawmakers audibly responded to some of Trump’s remarks, though their reactions were arguably tamer than some Republicans’ reactions to some of former President Joe Biden’s speeches to Congress.
“House Democratic leadership is privately confronting members who disrupted President Trump’s speech to Congress,” Axios reported on Thursday. The publication noted a letter issued by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) before Trump’s speech that implored colleagues to maintain a “dignified Democratic presence” during the address.
Sources told Axios that those who heckled Trump or walked out of the speech in protest “were given a talking to about their tactics. Axios reported:
Roughly a dozen Democratic disruptors — including Reps. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) — were called into a “come to Jesus meeting” on Thursday morning, the senior Dem told Axios.
The top three House Democratic leaders were present: Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.).
A source insisted that the members in question were “not getting yelled at.”
“They are not being talked to like they are children. We are helping them understand why their strategy is a bad idea,” the source said.