(Image source: The White House)
BY ZACH TOOMBS
You're watching multisource politics video news analysis from Newsy.
A routine campaign stop for President Barack Obama in Los Angeles was interrupted by a heckler Monday night. The man called the president the Antichrist before being carried out by the Secret Service.
CBS has the footage.
HECKLER: “Jesus Christ is the son of God! Jesus Christ is the son of God!”
OBAMA: “I agree.”
HECKLER: “You are the Antichrist!”
The UK’s The Telegraph has more footage of Secret Service agents hauling the heckler out.
“Jesus Christ is the son of God! Barack Obama is the Antichrist! Barack Obama is the Antichrist!”
The folks at Morning Joe point out Mr. Obama seemed more worried about what he thought was the heckler’s jacket than he was about the heckler’s comments, possibly because of a security concern.
OBAMA: “First of all, I agree -- Jesus Christ is the Lord. I believe in that. I do have a question though. I think the young man may have left his jacket. So... make sure that he gets his jacket. Oh, that’s yours! Hold on, hold on, hold on. It’s hers!”
WILLIE GEIST: “So it turned out it was a woman’s jacket. Now, let’s think about this for a minute. There could have been a security concern there. A guy leaves behind his jacket -- you don’t know what’s in the jacket.”
LA Weekly takes a more humorous view of the incident, writing:
”Somebody spent $250 to go to the House of Blues last night and tell President Obama that ‘Jesus Christ is God!’ … What did the guy think Obama was going to say? No, it's all about Mohammad, homeboy?”
Coincidentally, before the outburst -- Lawrence O’Donnell dedicated a segment of his MSNBC program to a New York Times op-ed on politics and the antichrist.
Matthew Sutton, who wrote that Times op-ed, weighs in as O’Donnell’s guest.
“He really is a 21st century kind of leader, which raises certain suspicions among a certain group of the population -- people who are, again, afraid of government authority, afraid of government power, and especially international authority and international power. And so, for them, I think Obama, and McCain was really tapping into this millennial fear of what was coming next.”
The campaign stop ended on a lighter note when, according to LA Weekly, another member of the crowd shouted to Mr. Obama “Don’t forget about medical marijuana,” and the president smirked and replied, “Thanks for that.”
Transcript by Newsy.
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