While reporting this afternoon from the floor of the Values Voter Summit, MSNBC reporter Brian Mooar was heckled by several audience members who said he was being rude and disrespectful.
Mooar was giving a live broadcast as Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) was speaking to a crowd of about 2,000. A woman in white gets up and yells something at him, which is inaudible.
“Somebody here is not liking what we’re talking about,” Mooar said as he was about to sign off.
Then, a man came up to him. “You’re being rude,” he said.
Mooar countered: “We were invited guests.”
“Too bad,” the audience member said. “You’re being rude.”
Then another man came over.
“Would you mind? This is about the rudest thing you can do,” he said, trying to take Mooar’s microphone. “You are rude to do this in front of the public.”
At that point several security guards came over and escorted the man out, but left the woman, who continued asking Mooar to leave. “I came here to listen, not to be disrupted,” she said.
Even after someone was escorted out, another angry attendee came up and said something to Mooar that the mic didn’t pick up.
The summit officials “didn’t organize it very well,” said anchor Norah O’Donnell, “because they didn’t seem to put the press in a way that you could do reporting on what’s going on and not be harassed.”
Late Update: MSNBC reports that Mooar received a personal apology from Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, the organization behind the summit. Perkins also said there would be an announcement made telling the audience to be respectful of the press.
Late late update: Yes, Fox was heckled too, to a somewhat creepier extent. Watch:
