Obama responds to heckler by citing the First Amendment

May 23rd, 2013

During his speech today outlining his new drone policy, the President was shouted down by some hecklers. After doing a reverse-Kanye, and asking the heckler to let him finish, he had this response that invoked the First Amendment:

“Ma’am, let me finish. Let me finish ma’am,” said Obama. “This is part of free speech is you being able to speak but also you listening. And me being able to speak. All right?”

Certainly, a heckler can be removed from a crowd if she is disrupting the order of the President’s speech, but does free speech require someone to “listen?”

Update: Looks like it was protestor extraordinary, Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin who interrupted POTUS.