Democrat ruled 'out of order' after listing off Trump's legal woes on the House floor

WASHINGTON — Action on the floor of the House of Representatives paused for more than an hour Wednesday after Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., listed off the criminal charges former President Donald Trump is facing.

“We have a presumptive nominee for president facing 88 felony counts, and we’re being prevented from even acknowledging it,” McGovern said during debate on the House floor, suggesting that House Republicans had prohibited any honest discussion of Trump's trials. “A candidate for president of the United States is on trial for sending a hush money payment to a porn star to avoid a sex scandal during his 2016 campaign, and then fraudulently disguising those payments in violation of the law.”

House Republicans quickly pushed back on McGovern’s words, with the back and forth leading to a lengthy delay as House staff figured out how to proceed. His remarks were eventually ruled to be out of order.

The situation started when McGovern, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, referenced the Republican members of Congress who have attended Donald Trump’s hush money trial in New York. “Maybe they want to distract from the fact that their candidate for president has been indicted more times than he’s been elected,” he said.

Alabama Republican Rep. Jerry Carl, who was in the chair presiding over debate, reminded McGovern to “refrain from engaging in personalities” towards the presumed presidential nominees.

McGovern shot back, asking if it was “unparliamentary to state a fact?”

He then asked why a Republican member last week could call the Trump trial a “sham” on the House floor and not face the same admonishment by the chair. During a May 15 floor speech, Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy repeatedly referenced the “sham trial