The guest of a Florida congressman was arrested after being escorted from President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.
According to NBC News, Steve Nikoui, the father of Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, a Marine killed in Afghanistan, was a guest of Florida Rep. Brian Mast.
After Biden stated, “America is safer today than when I took office,” Nikoui yelled, “Abbey Gate!” in an apparent reference to a 2021 suicide bombing at Kabul Airport’s Abbey Gate, where Nikoui and 12 other U.S. service members were killed.
A Capitol Police spokesperson told Axios that officers warned Nikoui to stop, and when he did not, he was removed and arrested. Nikoui was charged with a local misdemeanor charge of “crowding, obstructing or incommoding.”
Rep. Mast celebrated Nikoui’s actions on X:
“For the last three SOTU speeches, Joe Biden REFUSED to say the names of the 13 U.S. service members who were killed by his disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. I couldn’t support this effort more. Say their names!”