Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
This is what happens when you try to heckle President Barack Obama: you get shut down and kicked out.
Yesterday evening, The White House hosted an LGBT Pride Month reception in the East Room and, during Obama’s opening remarks, a guest heckled the President about halting all deportations. But the President wasn’t having any of that, shutting them down assertively, but not too aggressively.
“Okay, you know what—no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no,” the President said according to a White House pool report. “No, no, no, no. No, no. No. Shame on you. You shouldn’t be doing this.”
The heckler’s comments were inaudible, but NPR reports that it was from a pro-immigration person who was later identified as a Jennicet Gutiérrez, a transgender woman who is living in the U.S. illegally.
According to Familia: TQLM, the immigration advocacy group that first identified Gutiérrez, she was asking Obama to “release all LGBTQ immigrants from detention and stop all deportations.”
“Listen, you’re in my house,” Obama said. “You don’t—come on. It’s not—you know what, it’s not respectful when you get invited to somebody … You’re not going to—you’re not going to get a good response from me by interrupting me like this.”
Gutiérrez was escorted out at the behest of Obama. “So as a general rule, I am just fine with a few hecklers,” he said, “but not when I’m up in the house.”