Steve Nikoui, the 51-year-old father of slain US Marine Lance Corporal Kareem Nikoui, was identified as the heckler during US President Joe Biden's third State of the Union address Thursday night, Mar. 7.
Biden was in the middle of his sentence, claiming that the United States was "safer today than when [he] took office," when the heckler interrupted him from the gallery of the House of Representatives chamber.
"Remember Abbey Gate!" Nikoui - a Gold Star parent - yelled down at the President.
The heckler was handcuffed and escorted out of the House chamber by Capitol Police. He was eventually charged with crowding, obstructing, or incommoding Congress, a misdemeanor that typically results in the offender's release after paying a $50 fine.
What is Abbey Gate?
LCpl. Nikoui was one of 13 US service members who were killed by a suicide bomber while supporting the evacuation of US and other foreign personnel during the Fall of Kabul in August 2021.
Two other Gold Star fathers told the New York Post in an interview before Biden's speech that the president should expect harsh words over the disaster.
"There's been other people that have confirmed that information that Biden knew - damn good and well - that Afghanistan was going to fall," said Mark Schmitz, the father of Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, calling the withdrawal "a totally epic screw-up."
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) told The Post that he has offered up private meetings with several Gold Star families at the White House but has been rebuffed.
"They have every right to say, 'Where is that explanation?'" Issa said of the Gold Star families. "'Where is that apology? Where is the legitimate investigation so it doesn't happen to somebody else's family?'"
He added that he also understood the anger the Gold Star families wanted to express to Biden, and he and his Congressional colleagues were "honored" to have them attend the State of the Union.
Public polling also showed Biden's approval rating plummeting beginning in August 2021 and never returning to a net positive.
Two federal reports have since faulted the Biden administration for its "abrupt and uncoordinated" pullout, giving locals the impression that Washington "was simply handing Afghanistan over to a Taliban government-in-waiting."
For Gold Star families, however, the reports disappointingly failed to assign responsibility for the deaths of their loved ones.
"It's despicable," Schmitz added. "I'm not holding my breath at all that we're gonna get [it]."
Biden did not refer to the Afghanistan pullout at any point during his 68-minute speech.
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Johnson: GOP Hecklers a Response to Biden's 'Overly Partisan' SOTU
Aside from Nikoui, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) also went in a shoutfest against Biden regarding the murder of Laken Riley, a nursing student police said was killed by a man who had illegally crossed the US border.
Riley's parents declined an invite to Capitol Hill for the State of the Union.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that Republican lawmakers and audience hecklers were merely responding to what the party called an "overly partisan speech."
"People got very emotional tonight because it was an overly partisan speech and it was ... full of information that is just objectively not true," he said. "And so you saw the visceral reaction, I think, from people in the chamber and I suspect that a lot of people at home were feeling that same frustration."
Before the speech, Johnson told Congressional colleagues to maintain proper decorum during the State of the Union speech, a request after last year's speech saw a large amount of heckling from GOP lawmakers, The Hill reported.
Except for Taylor Greene's remarks, Johnson said that he felt that his pleas were "mostly" followed for this year's address.
"We emphasized decorum, I think mostly that was respected tonight, and that was a good thing for the country," he added.
During Biden's speech, Johnson was visibly scoffing at some of the president's statements. The sentiments were shared across the Republican Party.
"It really was a terrible tone the whole speech, it was certainly divisive," Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) said. "He claimed when he ran the first time he'd be the uniter in chief. He's been anything but, he certainly continues to be the divider in chief."
