President Biden is set to deliver his State of the Union address on Thursday night, and the speaker of the House is already trying in advance to reign in lawmakers on the Republican side. "Decorum is the order of the day," Mike Johnson reportedly warned during a closed-door GOP meeting on Wednesday, one attendee tells the Hill, an apparent reference to past SOTUs where things got a little out of hand. "We don't need to be shrill," another lawmaker who attended says. "We need to base things upon policy, upon facts, upon reality of situations. Let [Democrats] do the gaslighting, let them do the blaming."
- Previous incidents: During Biden's speech last year, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene yelled out at one point that the president was a "liar." In 2022, Lauren Boebert joined Greene in heckling him. Back in 2009, Rep. Joe Wilson shouted "You lie!" at then-President Obama as he spoke.
- Dems gone wild: The other side has had its own share of SOTU stunts, including in 2020, when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dramatically tore up a copy of President Trump's State of the Union speech after he finished speaking, per HuffPost.
- Will Johnson's warning be heeded? All signs point to: It's iffy. "Will they do it? Does the Baptist Church have a bus?" GOP Rep. Tim Burchett snarks of some of his colleagues' penchant for shouting out, per the Hill. He adds, "Of course they will, because [Biden is] gonna say some very offensive things, he's gonna attack us." In terms of Greene specifically, Rep. Ralph Norman notes, per Axios: "They're not going to tell her what to do. She captains her own ship."
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