President Obama Shuts Down Heckler During LGBT Pride Month Speech

Want to mess with President Obama? Not in his house, you won’t.

Obama shut down a heckler in the White House yesterday while speaking at an event for LGBT Pride Month, with Vice President/ hype man Joe Biden standing by his side.

When the heckler’s voice rang out from the crowd, Obama responded, “Hey, listen, you’re in my house...” inspiring the assembled crowd to break into applause.

After several calls for calm, Obama eventually gave his off-camera secret service agents the nod, indicating that it was time for the heckler to be escorted off premises.

The protester was later identified as Jennicet Gutiérrez, who is transgender. Gutiérrez is a founding member of FAMILA TQLM, a group that advocates for LGBTQ immigrants in America.

Obama continued for the event’s remaining attendees, “As a general rule, I am just fine with a few hecklers, but not when I'm up in the House." "My attitude is if you're eating the hors d'oeuvres, know what I'm saying, and drinking the booze..." he added.

It is indeed rare for the President to be heckled on White House grounds, given the screening process that goes into all guests of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

However, Obama is no stranger to hecklers out in the real world, particularly from immigration activists. CNN notes he has been targeted in San Francisco, Chicago and Las Vegas in the last two years by hecklers on this very issue.

Obama’s latest response is just the most recent example of the President “letting his hair down,” as author and poet Ishmael Reed put it to the New York Times.

Reed, however, was commenting on Obama’s use of the “n-word” during his appearance on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast on Monday. The President invoked the slur to punctuate a point about the state of race relations in America.

If real-talk and podcast appearances will dominate Obama’s final months in office, we have an interesting pre-election period ahead of us.