WASHINGTON — Action in the House of Representatives paused for more than an hour Wednesday after Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., listed the criminal charges against former President Donald Trump.
“We have a presumptive nominee for president who is facing 88 felonies, and we’re being prevented from even acknowledging them,” McGovern said during a House debate, suggesting that House Republicans had banned honest discussion of Trump’s trials. “A candidate for president of the United States is on trial for sending a hush money payment to a porn star during his 2016 campaign to avoid a sex scandal and then fraudulently disguising those payments in violation of the law.”
House Republicans quickly pushed back against McGovern’s words, with the back-and-forth leading to a lengthy delay as House staffers figured out how to proceed. His comments were eventually retired.
The situation began when McGovern, the top Democrat on the GOP, referred to Republican members of Congress who had attended Trump’s hush money trial in New York. “Maybe they want to distract from the fact that their candidate for president has been indicted more times than he has been elected,” he said.
Rep. Jerry Carl, R-Ala., who chaired the debate, reminded McGovern to “refrain from dealing with personalities” toward the presumed presidential candidates.
McGovern shot back, asking if it was “unparliamentary to state a fact.”
McGovern: I was admonished for declaring that the former president is on trial in court. It’s the truth. Is it unparliamentary to state a fact? pic.twitter.com/31dClGDzsn
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 22, 2024
He then asked why a Republican member could call the Trump trial a “sham” in the House of Representatives last week and not face the same admonition from the Speaker. During a May 15 speech, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, repeatedly referred to the “sham trial of the former president in New York,” which he said “rests on an unreliable witness presided over by a biased judge.”
While Carl said he wouldn’t comment on that, McGovern began reviewing Trump’s legal situation.
“He is also accused of conspiring to overturn the election,” he said of Trump. ‘He is also accused of stealing classified information, and a jury has already found him liable for rape and in civil court. And yet, in this Republican-controlled House, it’s fine to talk about the trial, but you have to call it a ‘sham’.”
At that point, Rep. Erin Houchin, R-Ind., intervened and asked that McGovern’s “words should be deleted.” Representatives can make such a request if they believe one of their colleagues has used disorderly language.
After more than an hour as staffers huddled on the floor, Carl ruled McGovern’s “offensive words” were out of order, citing previous statements by House speakers.
In particular, Carl pointed to rules that prohibit members from using “personally offensive” language about the president.
“The accusation that the president committed a crime or even that the president did something illegal is inappropriate,” Carl said.
Although Trump is no longer in power, Carl added that precedents have provided the same treatment as presidents for presumed nominees.
Because his words were stricken from the record, McGovern was not allowed to speak on the floor for the rest of the day.
“They can silence me in the House of Representatives, but not here,” McGovern later told reporters outside the Capitol. “And you know what, there’s nothing I’ve said that I regret. There is nothing I have said that is incorrect. I have not characterized the trials.”
A similar situation occurred in 2019 when Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called Trump’s tweets “racist” during the floor debate. When her words were delivered out of order, Democrats voted to keep them from being dropped from the record and to allow her to continue speaking on the floor that day.
“This is a cult,” McGovern said of Republicans. “I mean, they’re taking extreme measures to protect Trump, you know. And in any way. And they are incredibly sensitive.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
