Former President Barack Obama confronted a heckler while campaigning in Detroit, Michigan for Democratic candidates in the upcoming midterm elections.
About 10 minutes into his speech on Saturday the heckler interrupted Obama while he was denouncing Friday’s attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, and the rise of violent political rhetoric.
“This is what I mean, we are having a conversation,” Obama told the heckler. “Right now, I’m talking, you’ll have a chance to talk sometime later. We like each other, we don’t have to shout each other down. It’s not a good way to do business. You wouldn’t do that in the workplace. We wouldn’t just interrupt people having a conversation. It’s not how we do things.”
The man was later escorted out of the venue.
A second man interrupted the former president minutes later who, at that time, was lamenting the lack of respect in political discourse compared to when he ran for president in 2008 against John McCain.
McCain famously defended Obama as a “decent family man” when a Minnesota woman said she cannot trust him because he’s an “Arab.”
Obama campaigned in Detroit to help turn out Democratic voters for incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) who is up for re-election against the election-denying, anti-abortion extremist Republican Tudor Dixon.
“American democracy is on the ballot,” Obama said. “With few notable exceptions, most Republican politicians right now are not even pretending that the rules apply to them. They seem to be ok with just making stuff up.”
“This election requires every single one of us to do our part,” the former president added. “I understand why you might be worried about the course of the country. Sometimes it’s tempting just to tune out, watch football, watch “Dancing With The Stars.” I’m here to tell you tuning out is not an option.”
