US President Donald Trump said today that Democrats who heckled him during a speech to Congress behaved so badly they deserve to lose the next congressional election.
On Tuesday evening local time in a speech to a joint session of Congress, Trump touted his radical policies as he celebrated his drive to dismantle much of the federal bureaucracy and said his administration was "just getting started."
Republican Party members applauded almost every line, but protests also began mid-speech, with one Democratic congressman ejected because he refused to stop heckling Trump and shaking his walking stick at the president.
Other Democrats silently held up placards reading "False" and "That's a lie!"
Photo: WIN MCNAMEE
In a post Wednesday on his Truth Social platform, Trump said: "The Democrats should lose the Midterms based on their behavior at last night's Joint Address to Congress."
"They didn't even have the common courtesy to stand, smile, or applaud," he wrote, adding that Republicans should campaign on this behavior in the next midterm election in 2026.
Earlier the White House accused Democrats of being the "party of insanity and hate," citing their boisterous protests as Trump spoke.
"The Democrats exposed themselves as the party of insanity and hate," Trump's spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
At one moment in Trump's speech, numerous Democrats yelled "January 6!," referring to his supporters' violent attack on the Capitol after he refused to concede his 2020 election loss.
"The behaviour of Democrats last night was completely disgraceful and demonstrated how severely out of touch they are with the American public," Leavitt said.
"It was the most shameful moment in the history of presidential addresses in that beautiful chamber.
"In what was supposed to be a unifying moment for our country, Democrat members of Congress instead screamed at the president of the United States."
- AFP
