What happens when you speak at a Tea Party rally and decide to drop a bit of Spanish into your speech? Like we even have to ask. Obviously, there'll be at least someone in the crowd who yells, "Learn English," at you. And that's exactly what happened to Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.
The event was spearheaded by Republican Congressmen Steve King yesterday in Washington, D.C. Originally planned as a news conference, the event quickly turned into a Tea Party rally and attracted speeches from notable Republican congressmen and other conservative figures.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican working on a House immigration bill, spoke briefly in Spanish at the McMorris Rogers event and was heckled by one of the Tea Party protesters, who wandered over and yelled, "Learn English!"
Diaz-Balart is an American-born citizen who speaks English fluently.
Diaz-Balart got off easy at the rally in comparison to Marco Rubio. Florida's junior U.S. senator is working on a bipartisan immigration bill that the Tea Party is none too fond of.
Protesters held signs reading things like, "Marco: Early advocate of Muslim Brotherhood takeover" (according to Buzzfeed) and "Rubio conservative RINO" (according to HuffPo).
"I think he's a sellout. I think he got power-mad," protester Matthew Bishoff told the Huffington Post.
"Today I would vote for Charlie Crist -- at least I know who he is," Floridian Cheryl Griffin told BuzzFeed. "He used us. We did not send him here to do this. He's here to say no and stop it."
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