She repeatedly interrupted President Barack Obama by screaming during his national security speech Thursday, but don't call her a "heckler."
"I don't call it heckling, I call it speaking out because the president is not implementing policies that we need to see changed," Code Pink Founder Medea Benjamin said on CNN's "Newsroom" Friday.
Benjamin disrupted the president multiple times, before she was escorted from the room, to express dissatisfaction with the administration's drones policy and its failure to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She was so insistent that the president addressed her multiple times from the podium, while speaking at the National Defense University. He repeatedly asked her to let him finish, but also said he was "willing to cut the young lady who interrupted me some slack because it's worth being passionate about."
Benjamin said she interjected when she did because she "didn't hear what many of us thought we were going to hear" and defended her attendance. She said she received an invitation for the event and therefore should not be considered a heckler.
Benjamin, who co-founded the progressive group Code Pink, is a regular at rallies and events protesting the use of armed drones to target terrorists and the existence of Gitmo, which Obama pledged to close when he was elected president.
Obama reiterated that call for closure during his speech Thursday and elaborated on his criteria for the use of drones, which have increased significantly during his presidency.
But Benjamin is not yet satisfied.
"The time for words is over. It's time for action," she said. "He is the commander-in-chief. He can do this on his own."