An audience member at a town hall hosted by Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) on Tuesday asked the Tea Party congressman who was going to shoot President Barack Obama.
The unidentified town hall attendee’s question got a big laugh from the audience, reports Blake Aued of the Athens Banner-Herald.
But Broun didn’t exactly condemn the remark, according to the newspaper report.
“The thing is, I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president. We’re going to have an election next year,” Broun said in response to the question. “Hopefully, we’ll elect somebody that’s going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.”
Broun had asked the audience who had driven the farthest to be at the meeting and let the winner ask the first question, according to the newspaper. The reporter couldn’t hear the question himself, but Broun’s press secretary confirmed that the question was about when someone was going to shoot the President.
“Obviously, the question was inappropriate, so Congressman Broun moved on,” Broun’s press secretary Jessica Morris told Aued.
You may remember Broun as the member of Congress who skipped the State of the Union Address in favor of live Tweeting about Obama’s “socialism” from his office.
Late Update: The Secret Service does not comment on such cases as a matter of policy, spokesman Max Milien told TPM in an e-mail.
Late, Late Update: Witnesses tell TPM that Broun laughed along with the audience when he heard the question, but his office has issued a statement calling the the question by an elderly man “abhorrent.”
Ryan J. Reilly
Ryan J. Reilly is a D.C.-based reporter for TPM. Prior to joining TPM, he worked for a news website covering the Justice Department and was a researcher for Bloomberg News. His email address is ryan(at)talkingpointsmemo.com.