'I won't be silent': McGovern defiant after he's ruled out of order in Congress

A day after U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern was ruled out of order on the House floor for reading the charges against former President Donald Trump, the Worcester Democrat said he was plainly stating the facts.

"They asked me to withdraw my words. I was not going to withdraw the words. I stand by them," McGovern said in an interview Thursday. "They chose to basically cancel me, or try to silence me. They can try to shut me up, but I won't be silent. I was speaking the truth and if they have trouble with the truth, well, that's their problem."

McGovern said House Republicans in the majority are not held to the same standard.

On Wednesday, House members were debating a procedural move on digital cryptocurrency legislation when McGovern accused House Republicans of blocking bipartisan collaboration and appeasing "the most extreme members" of their party.

He then tore into Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, for taking trips to Manhattan to show support for Trump during his ongoing trial there. McGovern said on the floor that Republicans had "no time to work with Democrats, but plenty of time to put on weird matching cult uniforms and stand behind President Trump with their bright red ties like pathetic props."

In Manhattan, Trump faces 34 charges of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who says she had sex with Trump in 2006, which he denies. Both sides have rested their cases.

Rep. Jerry L. Carl, R-Alabama, who was presiding over the House floor, reminded members that they should refrain from attacking presumptive presidential nominees.

McGovern and Carl then went back and forth on the proper rules before McGovern summarized Trump's charges on the floor.

"We have a presumptive nominee for president facing 88 felony counts and we’re being prevented from even acknowledging it,” McGovern said. “A candidate for president of the United States is on trial for sending a hush money payment to a porn star to avoid a sex scandal during his 2016 campaign and then fraudulently disguising those payments in violation of the law.”

Republicans quickly moved to push back against McGovern. The House halted for over an hour. McGovern was eventually ruled out of order and prohibited from speaking on the floor for the remainder of the day. Republicans demanded his comments be “taken down” from the Congressional Record.

The House’s Rules and Manual, based on Thomas Jefferson's procedural manual, applies the British parliamentary ban on “irreverently or seditiously against the king" to personal references against the president, and extends that ban to presumptive major-party nominees.

McGovern said he was merely stating the facts of Trump's charges and argues that the U.S. is in unprecedented times due to Trump's myriad legal issues, which include charges of attempting to steal the 2020 election.

"The point I made was Donald Trump might want to be king, but he's not a king," McGovern said. "We're in unprecedented times, so adhering to a strict interpretation of a rule that was written hundreds of years ago doesn't make a lot of sense to me."

McGovern said he did not go on the floor with the intention of his words being taken down. He said his words have never before been stricken from the Congressional Record.

“Apparently there are people on the other side of the aisle who want to try to silence Jim McGovern because he waxes the floor with them every time he speaks,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, said during a press conference Thursday. “That makes them uncomfortable and they just can’t handle it.”

McGovern said that if House Republicans are going to enforce the rules on him, they should do so evenly for all members. He referenced a May 16 House Oversight Committee markup session, when Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia butted heads with Texas Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett and New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after making a comment about Crockett's "fake eyelashes."

Republicans have turned the House into a "circus," McGovern said, saying that Greene's initial comment was not ruled out of order by the committee chair. He said the current Congress, which has seen several speaker battles between Republicans, has been the least productive in history.

"They're letting the patients run the hospital," McGovern said. "Marjorie Taylor Greene can say whatever she wants, and she's not alone, and say the most derogatory, offensive things and there's no consequence."

McGovern said Republicans made a mistake striking his speech from the records.

"By using these hardball tactics to try to shut me up, they ended up amplifying what I said," McGovern said, noting that the action has received wide coverage.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: McGovern: 'I was speaking the truth' on House floor on Trump charges