Democrat Heckles Gaetz While He Nominates Trump for Speaker: ‘He Tried to Overthrow Our Government!’

Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was heckled by Steve Cohen (D-TN) as he nominated former President Donald Trump to be the next speaker of the House.

Gaetz is one of 20 Republican holdouts refusing to support Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for the position. McCarthy can only afford four defections in his conference, which has 222 members. The House has failed to choose a speaker in 10 roll call votes.

In a floor speech on Thursday, Gaetz nominated Trump for the position after voting for the former president on previous ballots, though Trump had not been nominated ahead of those votes.

“I rise to nominate Donald Trump for the position of speaker of the House,” Gaetz said. “And for all of the vitriol that we hear from the media, there were great moments of bipartisanship under the Trump presidency.”

Gaetz then said Trump did not commence any new wars, which prompted Cohen’s heckling.

“President Trump is, I believe is the first president in my lifetime that didn’t start any new wars,” Gaetz added. “This is an issue that I know unites some elements of the right and left for the benefit of our communities.”

“He tried to overthrow our government!” Cohen shouted.

“Will the House be in order?” the clerk told the chamber.

Though it is not clear on video who heckled Gaetz, reporter Ben Jacobs confirmed it was Cohen.

After the brief interruption, Gaetz resumed.

Trump’s nomination for speaker comes one day before the second anniversary of the 2021 Capitol insurrection, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building and tried in vain to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump had falsely claimed the contest was rigged against him and tried to stay in power by filing several failed lawsuits. He also urged his supporters to march to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Watch above via CNN.