Climate Activists Heckle Amy Klobuchar Off Stage At Campus Event

Climate Activists Heckle Amy Klobuchar Off Stage At Campus Event

Alexa Schwerha on May 12, 2023

Climate activists forced Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar off the stage during a Thursday night event at George Washington University, according to video posted by the organizing group Climate Defiance.

The event, sponsored by Politics and Prose bookstore, featured a discussion between journalist Dana Bash and Klobuchar about her new book, “The Joy of Politics,” according to the event page. Protesters climbed onto the stage and unveiled two large banners demanding an end to fossil fuels and questioning “which side” Klobuchar was on, after which the senator left the stage, video shows.

“Be a climate leader. Live your values,” the protesters chanted as they took over the stage. They sat in front of the event speakers with their arms locked.

The protest reportedly lasted seven minutes before the group was escorted from the room by campus police, according to GWU’s student newspaper The GW Hatchet. Several members of the audience shouted questions about whether Klobuchar would promise to stop drilling in her represented state and if she supports the Green New Deal before the sit-in began.

“It’s something we really do have to do more on,” Klobuchar said after returning to the event, according to the Hatchet. “They are right.”

Climate Defiance is an organization that uses “mass-turnout, peaceful direct action to force our politicians to take action at the scope and speed necessary to avert the worst impacts of this crisis,” according to its website. The group took credit for blockading the White House Correspondents dinner in April and promised to “continue to engage in disruptive, nonviolent direct action until our political leaders, up to the President, meet this moment with the urgency it deserves.”

The group also “blockaded” a government SUV carrying John Podesta, a presidential senior advisor, on May 10 to demand “no new drilling,” according to its Twitter.

Klobuchar, GWU and Climate Defiance did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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