Guest of far-right House Republican arrested for heckling Biden’s SOTU

President Joe Biden's passionate State of the Union address on Thursday night, March 7 has received rave reviews from many Democrats as well as from some Never Trump conservatives, including MSNBC's Joe Scarborough (who praised it as "the best speech of his presidency by far"). Biden's supporters have been applauding him for hitting point after point during the speech and tackling everything from abortion rights to military aid to Ukraine.

But House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-California) responded to Biden's speech with plenty of eye-rolling, and other MAGA Republicans in attendance did their share of heckling. Moreover, a Biden critic who attended at the invitation of far-right Rep. Brian Mast (R-Florida), Steve Nikoui, was arrested for being disruptive.

Nikoui is the father of a U.S. marine killed during the bombing of the Kabul Airport in Afghanistan in 2021, Kareem M. Nikoui.

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After Biden said that "America is safer today than when I took office," Nikoui shouted "Abbey Gate" and "United States Marines."

According to Capitol Police, Nikoui had a chance to avoid arrest but wouldn't quit yelling.

A Capitol Police spokesperson told Axios, "Tonight at approximately 10:15 p.m., a man disrupted the State of the Union address by yelling. Our officers warned him to stop, and when he did not, the man was removed from the House Galleries and was arrested."

Nikoui, according to the spokesperson, was charged with a misdemeanor.

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Mast commented on Nikoui's arrest on X, formerly Twitter, posting, "The Sergeant at Arms is holding my State of the Union guest for yelling at @POTUS in protest because his son was killed in action at the Abbey Gate due to Biden's incompetence. So much for the right to petition our government for the redress of grievances."

But activist Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime Guttenberg was killed during the Parkland High School massacre in Florida on February 14, 2018, called Mast out in a tweet of his own.

Guttenberg posted, "Hey Brian, during final Trump STU, I yelled only once, 'What about victims of gun violence like my daughter?' I don't recall your concern then for my arrest. I remember when you actually acted with decency towards me after the shooting. Sadly, you are pathetically lost now."

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