In a somewhat entertaining, if also headache-inducing, moment out of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) daily press conference about the government shutdown, and in this case the new mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat member of Congress tried to interrupt the Speaker, doing so by screaming at him as he tried giving his press conference.
As background, the government has been shut down since October 1st, as the Senate has been unable to reach a deal on spending that crosses the 60 vote threshold. As Republicans like Lindsey Graham refuse to end the filibuster, that means the government has remained shut down and will remain so until some deal is struck. Such a deal seems unlikely given the lunacy of what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and others are demanding.
Such was the setup for Speaker Johnson’s press conference outside the Capitol, one of many such conferences he has given during the shutdown. As he tried to comment on potential pathways to getting the government reopened, he was met by a loud verbal barrage launched by one member of the crowd: a Democrat member of Congress.
That was Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), a supposedly moderate Democrat congresswoman. She crashed the speech and started screaming at Speaker Johnson, interrupting him to ridiculously demand that he meet with her and her caucus to end the shutdown, despite the fact that fault lies with her colleagues in the Senate.
Shouting at the speaker from the area where reporters were gathered for the press conference, Rep. Houlahan screamed, “I’m asking a question if you’re ready to have a conversation with the other side.” She continued, in absurd fashion, “You represent all of us. You are the speaker for all of us, sir.”
That led to Speaker Johnson first ignoring, then rebuking her while speaking to one of the reporters who was gathered at the event. He said, unable to hear the question asked by the reporter as Rep. Houlahan kept screaming, “I can’t hear you because we have someone who doesn’t respect the rights of their colleagues.”
She kept yelling and yellling as Speaker Johnson tried to respore order to the event. At one point, for example, she shouted, “You have an obligation not just to speak lies to the American people, you have an obligation to call the leadership of both parties and bring us together, and solve this problem together.” That, in turn, led to House GOP Conference Chair Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) erupting and shouting back, “You have an obligation!”
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Johnson, for his part, eventually responded to Houlahan’s yelling by saying, when she demanded that he meet with ehr, “We did that before the shutdown began. I went to the White House. We went and sat in front of the Resolute Desk. We brought [Schumer and Jeffries] in and we had a discussion.”
Continuing, Speaker Johnson noted that her colleagues chose to keep the government shutdown and harm the American people, saying, “The president said, ‘Please don’t shut the government down, it would all this pain to the American people.’ This has never happened before. It is a clean, non-partisan CR that every Democrat, including you, voted no on.”
She shouted back, still screaming at him about nonsense, “You are absolutely misrepresenting history, sir, and you know that you are, and you’re dividing the American people unnecessarily.” That then led to a tedious back and forth, with Johnson getting her to erupt yet again by joking that she has “regret” for how she voted.
Freaking out and screaming yet again in response, she declared, “No, sir, I do not regret anything. It’s important that we work together and that we unify.” Johnson, ending the back and forth with the woke congresswoman, said, “I appreciate your input. Now somebody give me a question that’s real.” Watch the sparring match here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video