Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) had his “offensive words” about former President Donald Trump‘s New York criminal cases struck from the congressional record on Wednesday after Republicans became angry over his remarks, the second time in as many weeks that House proceedings have taken a chaotic turn.
The Rules Committee ranking member delivered opening remarks during debate on a set of GOP bills on cryptocurrency and noncitizen voting, arguing that Republicans were using these bills to “distract from Donald Trump” and his trial in New York.
“They don’t want to talk about the fact that the leader of their party is on trial for covering up hush money payments to a pornography star for political gain, not to mention three other criminal felony prosecutions he’s facing,” McGovern said.
Rep. Jerry Carl (R-AL), who was serving as speaker pro tempore to oversee the debates, responded that he would “like to remind members to refrain from engaging in personalities towards presumed nominees for the office of the president.”
McGovern then went on to say it was “unbelievable” that he was admonished for giving remarks that were “not my opinion — it’s just the truth,” yet Republicans who called the trial a “sham” on the House floor were not criticized.
While McGovern and Carl debated to determine if the Massachusetts Democrat broke the rules, he criticized the operations of the GOP-led chamber.
“It’s OK to say the jury is rigged, but — it’s OK to say the court is corrupt but not Trump is corrupting the rule of law,” McGovern said.
“In this Republican-controlled House, it’s OK to talk about the trial, but you have to call it a sham,” McGovern added.
Rep. Erin Houchin (R-IN) demanded that McGovern’s words be struck from the congressional record, leading to over an hour of pause in deliberation while Carl, McGovern, and Houchin all stood with their teams.
Carl later issued that the prohibition on House members insulting sitting presidents also extends to presumptive presidential nominees. Members may critique a candidate’s position, but it is a “breach of order” to refer to a candidate in “personally offensive” terms, “whether by actually accusing or by merely insulting.”
Later, outside the House chamber, McGovern told reporters that this was an example of a “double standard.”
“They go to extreme measures to protect Trump, you know, in any which way they can, and they’re awfully sensitive,” McGovern said of Republicans. “I mean, again, read what I said. I didn’t say he was guilty of anything. I just talked about what he was charged with, and that set off this firestorm. That’s too bad.”
“I think they’ll keep on trying to find ways to silence people like me because I must be hitting a nerve,” McGovern added.
When asked if he would make the comments again, he said, “Don’t be surprised.”
However, Houchin pushed back against McGovern’s explanation of the incident on the House floor, calling it an “unfair characterization.”
“He did much more than list out what the counts were,” Houchin said. “That’s an unfair characterization of what he did in the chamber. It did violate decorum, absolutely, which is why I moved to take his words down.”
“It’s one thing for Republicans to say that it’s a sham trial. He — that’s not saying anything about engaging in personalities of a person, to which Mr. McGovern absolutely did,” Houchin added.
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This is the latest squabble between Republicans and Democrats during House proceedings. Last week, a House Oversight hearing descended into chaos, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) lobbing insults and trading barbs with Reps. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
At one point, Greene said, “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up your reading” to Crockett, angering Ocasio-Cortez, who demanded the Georgia Republican to apologize and have the words struck from the record.
