# The six-hour queue for seats

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "The six-hour queue for seats," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-six-hour-queue-for-seats/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou on learning that members of Congress arrive six hours early with packed meals to hold a seat for the State of the Union, and that in 2026 the absence of 112 Democrats freed those seats for the cabinet, the sub-cabinet and visitors.*

- **Wait he describes:** Six hours in advance
- **How members wait:** Bringing lunch and dinner, held on the lap
- **2026 absentees:** 112 Democrats, House and Senate
- **Who filled the seats:** Supreme Court, cabinet, sub-cabinet, visitors

One of the few points at which [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) reported learning something new from the coverage of the February 2026 State of the Union address concerned the seating.

## The queue

CNN had been discussing the seats beforehand, he said. There are far fewer of them than there are people entitled to attend. What he had not realised was the practical consequence: members go to the chamber six hours in advance to stake out a seat, and *"they'll bring like lunch and dinner with them. And just hold their food on their lap."*[1]

## The 2026 arithmetic

That year the crush did not materialise. Kiriakou put the number of absent Democrats at 112, counting House members and senators together. The consequence, in his account, was that the free seats went to everyone else: the Supreme Court, the cabinet, visitors, *"even the sub cabinet, all kinds of stuff."*[1]

His verdict on the change was brief, *"It's just not the way it used to be. At all."*[1]

## What it illustrates

The detail arrives in the middle of a longer argument about the Democratic caucus's inability to act as a bloc. Kiriakou and [Ted Rall](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ted-rall) had already criticised the leadership for telling members that boycotting the address was optional, on the ground that a party either all shows up and does the same thing or all stays away. Rall had noted that the seats would be filled anyway; Kiriakou's seating arithmetic is what that observation cashes out to. A boycott that is left to individual conscience, in his telling, does not empty a chamber, it simply hands the empty places to the administration's own guests.

## See also

## See also

- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)
- [Ted Rall](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ted-rall)
- [Get thrown out spicily](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/get-thrown-out-spicily)

## Sources

1. SOTU: A Complete Disaster (2026-02-26), at 15:04. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My6xUH_kOwo&t=904s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-26-deprogram-ted-rall-sotu-a-complete-disaster/

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