'I was telling the truth' in the House on accusations against Trump

A day after U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern was ruled out of order in the House for reading accusations against former President Donald Trump, the Worcester Democrat said he was clearly stating the facts.

“They asked me to retract my words. I wasn’t going to retract them. I support them,” McGovern said in an interview Thursday. “They chose to cancel me or try to silence me. They can try to silence me, but I won’t stay silent. I was telling the truth and if they have a hard time with the truth, well , that’s their problem.”

McGovern said Republicans in the majority House of Representatives are not held to the same standards.

‘I was telling the truth’ in the House on accusations against Trump

House members were debating a procedural measure regarding digital cryptocurrency legislation on Wednesday when McGovern accused House Republicans of blocking bipartisan collaboration and appeasing “the most extremist members” of their party .

He then criticized Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, for traveling to Manhattan to show support for Trump during his ongoing trial there. McGovern said on the ground that Republicans had “no time to work with Democrats, but plenty of time to put on weird matching cult uniforms and stand behind President Trump with their bright red ties as pathetic props “.

In Manhattan, Trump faces 34 charges of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had sex with Trump in 2006, which he denies. Both sides ended their arguments.

Rep. Jerry L. Carl, R-Alabama, who presided over the House, reminded members that they should refrain from attacking presumptive presidential candidates.

McGovern and Carl then discussed the proper rules before McGovern summarized Trump’s accusations on the court.

“We have a presumptive presidential candidate facing 88 charges and we’re being prevented from even recognizing him,” McGovern said. “A U.S. presidential candidate is on trial for sending hush money to a porn star to avoid a sex scandal during his 2016 campaign, then fraudulently concealing those payments in violation of the law.

Republicans moved quickly to fight McGovern. The House paused for over an hour. McGovern was ultimately ruled inadmissible and banned from speaking on the field for the remainder of the day. Republicans demanded that his comments be “removed” from the congressional records.

The House rules and manuals, based on Thomas Jefferson’s procedural manual, apply the British parliamentary ban on “irreverently or seditiously against the king” to personal references against the president, and extend that ban to presumptive nominees of major parties.

McGovern said he was simply laying out the facts of Trump’s accusations and argues that the United States is in unprecedented times due to Trump’s myriad legal troubles, which include accusations of attempting to steal the election. 2020.

“What I said is Donald Trump might want to be king, but he’s not king,” McGovern said. “We’re living in unprecedented times, so adhering to a strict interpretation of a rule written hundreds of years ago doesn’t make much sense to me.”

McGovern said he did not go onto the field with the intention of his words being noted. He said his remarks were never expunged from the congressional record.

“Apparently there are people on the other side of the aisle who want to try to silence Jim McGovern because he waxes the floor with them every time he speaks,” the minority leader said Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, during a news conference Thursday. . “It makes them uncomfortable and they just can’t deal with it.”

McGovern said if House Republicans wanted to apply the rules to him, they should do so equally for all members. He referenced a House Oversight Committee markup session on May 16, in which Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia clashed with Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas. New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after making a comment about Crockett’s “fake eyelashes.”

Republicans have turned the House into a “circus,” McGovern said, asserting that Greene’s initial comment had not been ruled out of order by the committee chairman. He said the current Congress, which has seen several presidential battles between Republicans, has been the least productive in history.

“They let the patients run the hospital,” McGovern said. “Marjorie Taylor Greene can say whatever she wants, and she is not alone, and say the most derogatory and offensive things without any consequences.”

McGovern said Republicans made a mistake in removing his speech from the records.

“By using these harsh tactics to try to silence me, they ended up amplifying what I said,” McGovern said, noting that the action received widespread media coverage.