House Republicans won't abide by Speaker Mike Johnson's request to refrain from heckling during President Joe Biden's State of the Union address if they believe he's lying during his speech, Rep. Brian Mast said on Newsmax Thursday.
"I wouldn't even call it heckling," the Florida Republican told Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "This is an opportunity for the president to come and speak. He has the opportunity to speak truthfully, and if he doesn't, he's going to hear about it."
Johnson, R-La., told party members during a closed-door conference meeting Wednesday, while aiming to avoid repeating last year's disruptions, that "decorum is the order of the day," according to lawmakers who were present.
"None of us should say that we were elected to become bashful individuals," Mast said, in response. "We're not going to sit there and cheer him on just by tradition."
Meanwhile, Mast said he does not believe Biden will mention the murder of Laken Riley, who was allegedly killed by an illegal immigrant, as he "doesn't have a history of honoring families of the fallen."
"We can look at that all the way back to the families of the Afghanistan withdrawal," said Mast.
The congressman has invited as his guest Steve Nikoui, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, 1 of the 13 U.S. service members killed in the terrorist attack at the Abbey Gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport during the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Mast was a guest in 2011 at the speech, after being invited by then-President Barack Obama.
"At that point, I was a patient in Walter Reed Army Medical Center," he recalled. "It's a big deal because divested of politics, the individuals on the floor are expressing their gratitude for your service."
Mast added that he expects to hear Biden "washing over the failures that he's bringing to America."
"It's not the American people that have failed," he said. "He's going to try to paint everything as a victory, which is the opposite of what it really is."
Mast also discussed the issue of illegal immigrants being arrested and released in the United States, such as is the case with the person charged in the death of Laken Riley, and challenged Americans to call their local sheriff's department or jail and ask how many illegal immigrants are being held and how many they expect to be released from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds.
"In one of my counties we have about 33," he said. "Last week, we had somebody charged with rape from Washington County, Oregon that was locked up in Martin County, Florida. Washington County, Oregon, would not pay for the extradition."
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