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The State of the Union address is an opportunity for a president to lay out their policy agenda, laud their own accomplishments and create a sense of national unity.
But there’s often another person or scene that dominates headlines and drags attention away from the speech itself.
Here’s eight of the most memorable reactions and responses over the last 15 years.2022: Boebert heckles Biden
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., left, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., right, scream “Build the Wall” as President Joe Biden delivers his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, Tuesday, March 1, 2022, in Washington. (Evelyn Hockstein/Pool via AP)
Last year’s distraction came from freshman Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who yelled at President Biden while he discussed how burning waste led to cancer and death for many service members — including his son.
“A cancer that would put them in a flag-draped coffin,” Biden said. “I know —”
“You put them in, 13 of them!” Boebert interrupted.
She was referencing an attack in Afghanistan which killed 13 Americans in 2020, but the disruption was met with shock and gasps from both halves of the chamber.
“One of those soldiers was my son, Major Beau Biden,” Biden finished.
Boebert and then-ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) also recited “build the wall!” during an immigration section of Biden’s speech. She refused to apologize afterward.2020: Pelosi tears up Trump’s speech
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., tears her copy of President Donald Trump’s s State of the Union address after he delivered it to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020. Vice President Mike Pence is at left. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Just weeks after the House impeached then-President Donald Trump for the first time, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) marked the end of his speech with a symbolic protest of her own. As Republicans stood to applaud Trump, Pelosi stood and tore her copy of Trump’s speech in half.
She later called it the “courteous thing to do,” given Trump’s actions. Trump later claimed that Pelosi’s actions were “very illegal.”
Republicans denounced the Speaker for tearing up the speech, but nothing came from their calls for her to be censured.2019: Pelosi’s sarcastic clapping
President Donald Trump turns to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., as he delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, as Vice President Mike Pence watches, Tuesday, Feb.
