Former President Obama confronted a heckler who interrupted him while he was discussing the attack on Paul Pelosi at a campaign rally in Detroit Saturday ahead of the midterm elections.
Obama, 61, was stumping for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other Democrats when he blamed violent political rhetoric for the attack on the House Speaker’s husband.
Pelosi, 82, was attacked with a hammer Friday by a suspect that broke into his San Francisco home searching for the Democratic leader, police said.
Homeless suspect David DePape, 42, is tied to conspiracy theory blogs and had posted racist and transphobic remarks online along with spreading false information concerning the COVID pandemic and the 2020 election.
“We got politicians who work to fire up division to attempt to make us offended and afraid of each other for their very own advantage, and all of it gets amped up, overrated 24/7 by social media,” the 2 term president said on the rally.
“And sometimes it will possibly turned dangerous,” Obama said, before pausing to supply a “prayer” for his “friend” Pelosi.
“Mr. President,” a protestor then interrupted with ensuing comments that weren’t heard on the microphone.
“Sir, that is what I mean,” responded Obama.
“Sir, we’ve got a — there’s a process that we arrange in our democracy. At once, I’m talking, you’ll have a likelihood to speak sometime soon,” he continued.
“We don’t should interrupt one another. We don’t should shout one another down.”
Obama was interrupted about seven minutes later by one other heckler, footage showed.
“Do we have now one other person yelling at me? Is that what you’re doing?,” he asked.
The Democrat said the political bipartisan climate was less civil than we he first ran for president in 2008.
“Lately nearly every Republican politician seems obsessive about two things: owning the libs, ‘aw man we’re gonna own the libs,’ and getting Donald Trump’s approval.”