Rep. Lauren Boebert Turns Outburst At State Of The Union Into Fundraising Opportunity
DENVER (CBS4) - Congresswoman Lauren Boebert sent an apparent fundraising email to supporters after heckling President Joe Biden during the State of the Union. She yelled at the president as he talked about veterans, including his late son Beau, getting cancer and dying.
Boebert interrupted him shouting, "You put them in, 13 of them."
In an email to supporters, Boebert said, "When Biden talked about flag draped coffins I couldn't help but call him out for causing the deaths of 13 brave members of our military who lost their lives because of his gross incompetence during the withdrawal from Afghanistan."
CBS4 Republican Analyst Dick Wadhams says, if she couldn't stay quiet, she shouldn't have attended the address.
"Congresswoman Boebert was very inappropriate."
Boebert is hardly the only disrupter in Washington D.C. Former President Donald Trump, Wadhams says, pushed the limits of inappropriateness, but he says, Trump wasn't the first and Republicans, he says, aren't the only ones guilty of it.
He recalled how Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped up Trump's State of the Union address; Former President Barack Obama criticized some rural voters for "clinging to their guns and religion;" and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referenced Trump supporters as "deplorables."
"It doesn't stop, Shaun, until both parties do some policing of this activity."
CBS4 Democratic Analyst Mike Dino says 'good luck' in a closely divided Congress.
"It is hard for leadership on both sides to scold their members because if they lose one or two they can't pass anything."
Dino says social media encourages style over substance.
"These fireflies tend to get the attention because they are buzzing around, showing off their lantern all the time."
Dino says Boebert's bomb throwing approach doesn't do her constituents any favors.
"It would be very constructive for her to transition away from this class clown immature act that she's putting on."
That's unlikely when she raises money after attention-grabbing behavior, says Wadhams. Both he and Dino expect more agitators like her to win in November.
Wadhams says, "As the extremes take more control, the less will get done and the atmosphere will be even more poisoned."
Colorado Republican Congressman Ken Buck also took Boebert to task. He says, while she reacted the way she did due to "genuine outrage and a perception that President Biden was being given a pass on his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan," the State of the Union was not the place.
"I am a firm believer in decorum, and I believe that we have seen a lack of it as our politics have become increasingly toxic during recent years. The State of the Union is not a time for theater, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi treated it by ripping up President Trump's speech while directly behind him for the cameras. Congress is not a focus group, as both parties have acted while booing and chanting during presidential addresses for years now. It is also not a time for heckling, as Lauren unfortunately did last night."
Boebert declined a request for an interview.
