House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday it was “unthinkable” for a mostly-Republican audience to “jeer a person who’s serving the country.”
Pelosi was responding to the boos that followed a video of a gay soldier asking the Republican presidential candidates whether they would reverse the “progress made on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’” at the most recent GOP debate in Florida.
Pelosi also expressed dismay that the Republican presidential hopefuls on stage did not address the crowd’s response.
“None of the people who would be serving as commander in chief [called] a halt [to the booing],” she noted to daytime talk show host Ellen DeGeneres.
Pelosi’s response took a similar tack to that of Vice President Biden, who earlier this week called the booing “reprehensible.”
Pelosi said the conversation should “go on from there,” however.
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was the policy instituted under President Clinton that prevented gay and lesbian service members from serving openly in the U.S. military. President Obama repealed the policy earlier this year.
She said she was proud of the repeal of the legislation, and took some credit for the accomplishment.
“I don’t want to sound partisan, but it took a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president to get it done,” she said.
