Despite assuring her audience that she didn’t intend to “compete” with the official Republican response, Michele Bachmann certainly appeared to defy Democratic and Republican leaders who had carefully scripted a night of unity and civil behavior for the State of the Union speech delivered by President Barack Obama.
The Republican from Minnesota’s 6th District prefaced her speech by thanking the Tea Party Express and the Tea Party for inviting her to speak. The only network to air the speech live was CNN. She was interviewed briefly by Brian Williams on NBC following her six minute dissertation.
With the aid of a chart, Bachmann denounced the “unprecedented explosion of government spending and debt” and called upon the president to repeal “ObamaCare.” She went on to say: “Instead of a leaner, smarter government, we bought a bureaucracy that now tells us which light bulbs to buy, and which may put 16,500 IRS agents in charge of policing Obama’s healthcare bill.”
During Obama’s speech, she broke the planned seating order by sitting between two fellow Republican congresswomen instead of Democrats. She also chose not to wear the black and white ribbon in honor of Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of the Tucson massacre.
Check out Bachmann’s Tea Party response on video below: