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'You're In My House': Obama Shuts Down Heckler At White House

President Obama was addressing same-sex marriage in a speech in the East Room of the White House when he was interrupted by a pro-immigration campaigner.

Obama seemed less patient than he has been in the past, telling the heckler, who called for a halt to all deportations, to leave.

"Hold on a sec," Obama said. "OK. You know what. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. No, no, no, no.

"Hey, listen, you're in my house," he added, to cheers from the audience.

Here's the video of the exchange, courtesy of C-Span.

Obama then asked that the heckler be escorted out of the event.

"As a general rule, I am just fine with a few hecklers but not when I am up in the house," he said later, to laughter from the crowd. "If you are eating the hors d'oeuvres, know what I'm sayin'? And drinking the booze."

Familia: TQLM, an immigration advocacy group, identified the heckler as Jennicet Gutiérrez, a transgender woman who is in the country illegally. The group said Gutiérrez called on Obama to "release all LGBTQ immigrants from detention and stop all deportations." NPR has not independently confirmed the heckler's identity.

You can watch the president's full remarks here.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Krishnadev Calamur is NPR's deputy Washington editor. In this role, he helps oversee planning of the Washington desk's news coverage. He also edits NPR's Supreme Court coverage. Previously, Calamur was an editor and staff writer at The Atlantic. This is his second stint at NPR, having previously worked on NPR's website from 2008-15. Calamur received an M.A. in journalism from the University of Missouri.
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