Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was found to have broken the rules of the U.S. House of Representatives by calling President Donald Trump “racist” on the floor Tuesday, but Democrats voted to keep her remarks in the record and restore her speaking privileges.
Pelosi had delivered a statement calling the president racist as a prelude to voting on a House resolution to that effect. Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) raised a point of order, objecting that Pelosi’s statement was a violation of House rules.
It transpired that Collins was correct:
Regardless of the content of Trump’s racist statement, Democrats are going to have a hard time not taking down Pelosi’s words.
Jefferson’s Manual literally says you can’t refer to a statement by the President as racist on the House floor. pic.twitter.com/CeIJA24TS9
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) July 16, 2019
On the kerfuffle on the flr involving Pelosi…When words are taken down, the member accused of using inappropriate language must be seated in the House chamber and wait for the ruling
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 16, 2019
Well this is unprecedented. Rep. Emanuel cleaver abandoned the chair as he was presiding over the chamber.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 16, 2019
Now Hoyer is in the chair, noting that @SpeakerPelosi’s words were out of order.
The house is voting to take down pelosis words. This vote is likely to be party line, and likely to fail.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 16, 2019
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
Democrats, in a party-line vote, ensured that Pelosi’s words would not be taken down, and that she would not, as required, lose her speaking privileges for the day because she left the chamber during the debate on her violation.
The vote on the resolution will proceed anyway.
Earlier this year, Pelosi and the Democrats passed a resolution on antisemitism that failed to condemn anti-Jewish hatred specifically, or Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) directly.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
This post has been corrected to note that the Republican who made the point of order was Doug Collins, not Chris Collins.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.