‘Teach Him, Barack!’ Rally Crowd Goes Wild as Obama Scolds Heckler ‘Right Now I’m Talking!’
Former President Barack Obama was interrupted by multiple hecklers and a very animated crowd several times during his speech at Michigan High School on Saturday, scolding one for his lack of “basic civility” in interrupting.
As Obama was talking about heated rhetoric and the political environment in the wake of the attack on Paul Pelosi, a man could be heard yelling “Mr. President” loudly from the audience, interrupting and apparently trying to shout a question or challenge.
“Sir, sir! Come on,” said Obama. “This is what I mean—”
That response was then interrupted by the rally crowd first booing and then chanting ‘Obama! Obama!” at the heckler.
“Hey, so this is what I’m saying! Whoa,” said Obama over the noise. “There is a process that we’ve set up in our democracy.”
“Right now I’m talking, you’ll have a chance to talk sometime,” he said, as his voice was overwhelmed again by the wild cheering from the crowd.”
The crowd’s shouting continued as Obama managed to say, “That’s not a great way to do this.”
“It’s not, you wouldn’t do that at a workplace. If you wouldn’t just interrupt people in the middle of a conversation — It’s not how we do things,” said Obama. “Basic civility and courtesy works!”
On the live stream from the American Federation of Teachers on YouTube the loud shouting and comments from the crowd that can be heard included shouts like “Teach him Barack! Teach him!” along with various shouts at the heckler to “get out” or “get him out!”
The crowd noise escalated, with actual “get him!” shouts as Obama, from the podium, attempted once more to restore order.
“Hey, hold up, hold up!” he said raising his hand for calm. He then had to almost yell “Hooold up!”
The crowd then cheered that as he said, “This is … hey, listen everybody.”
“Not only is this an example of what I’m talking about, it’s an example of how we get distracted,” he said. He brought up the dog from the Disney film “UP!” being distracted repeatedly.
“Squirrel!” he said. “That’s us with politics. We get distracted instead of focusing on what’s important!”
Only a short time later there was another distraction from another heckler.
Watch the clip above via AFTHQ on YouTube.
