House Democrats temporarily banned Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi from speaking on the House floor before overruling the initial ban in a party-line vote.
The vote came Tuesday evening after House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the California Democrat’s comments violated House rules.
“Characterizing an action as racist is not in order,” Hoyer ruled after the chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver stormed off saying he was “abandoning the chair.” The ruling meant Pelosi could not speak on the House floor until the whole House voted to overturn the daylong ban.
BREAKING NEWS —> Speaker Pelosi just broke the rules of the House, and is no longer permitted to speak on the floor of the House for the rest of the day.
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) July 16, 2019
The House Democrats voted unanimously to allow Pelosi to speak again on the House floor.
The chaos began when Pelosi gave an impassioned speech about tweets by Trump she called “racist.”
“There’s no excuse for any response to those words but a swift and strong unified condemnation. Every single member of this institution, Democratic and Republican, should join us in condemning the president’s racist tweets,” Pelosi said as her voice continued rising. “To do anything less would be a shocking rejection of our values, and a shameful abdication of our oath of office to protect the American people.”
The chairman at the time, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, reprimanded her for the “personality-based” attack before “abandoning the chair.”
“The chair will remind all members please, please do not make … personality-based comments,” Cleaver said.
He came back later to announce he was “abandoning the chair.”
“I came in here to try to do this in a fair way. I kept warning both sides,” the Missouri Democrat said. “We don’t ever, ever want to pass up, it seems, an opportunity to escalate and that’s what this is. I dare anybody to look at any of the footage and see if there is any unfairness. But unfairness is not enough. Because we just want to just fight.”
“I abandon the chair,” he said before walking off.
Pelosi was speaking on a resolution: “Condemning President Trump’s racist comments directed at Members of Congress.”
The resolution followed tweets by Trump telling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and Rep. Ayanna Pressley to “go back” to their home countries.
So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019
….it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019
The four progressive congresswomen held a press conference on Monday condemning the attack.
UPDATE:
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy condemned Pelosi for comments that “violated the House’s rules of decorum.”
“Six long months of disunity and intra-party quarreling has brought us to where we are today, in which even Majority Leader Hoyer agrees Pelosi’s comments violated the House’s rules of decorum. How can Democrats expect the American people to trust their ability to govern if they can’t even get a simple legislative proposal on the floor without their Leadership devolving into pandemonium and lawlessness?” McCarthy said.
