WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas wasn’t the first lawmaker ever to blurt out a shout of protest during a presidential address to Congress.
But he’s perhaps the only one in recent memory to actually be ejected from the hall, as he was Tuesday night by the Speaker of the House.
Green said afterward it was worth it to make his point — even if he is punished by House leaders, who later called for the congressman to be censured.
“The president was saying he had a mandate, and I was making it clear that he has no mandate to cut Medicaid,” Green told reporters, referring to the health care program used by 80 million Americans.
“It’s worth it to let people know that there are some of us who are going to stand up against this president.”
Green’s outburst came at the start of President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress and immediately set the tone. The night was already uneasy. Stone-faced Democrats, now the minority party, had been sitting silently on one side of the chamber, unruly and riotous Republicans on the other.
As Green rose to speak, shaking his walking cane at the president, the Republicans drowned him out with muscular chants of “USA! USA!”
Johnson eyed the situation from his perch on the dais behind Trump, appearing hesitant to interrupt the president’s address. But the speaker was shaking his head and clearly desiring decorum in the chamber. Vice President JD Vance motioned with his thumb to throw Green out.
The speaker issued a warning for order, banging the gavel. “Take your seat, sir!” But the long-serving congressman remained standing. And then Johnson ordered the Sergeant at Arms to restore order by removing Green from the chamber. As Green exited, one man sitting on the aisle on the Republican side waved his hand dismissively toward Green as if to say “good riddance.”
Rarely has a lawmaker been so swiftly and severely disciplined for improper behavior.
Outside of the chamber, Green told reporters: “I’ll accept the punishment. But it’s worth it to let people know that there’s some of us who are going to stand up to against this president’s desire to cut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.”
Johnson said afterward that Green should be censured by the House — among the more severe reprimands his colleagues could mete out.
“He’s made history in a terrible way,” Johnson told reporters afterward.
“If they want to make a 77-year-old heckling congressman the face of their resistance, if that’s the Democrat Party, so be it,” Johnson said. “But we will not tolerate it on the House floor.”
In past years, several lawmakers have raised their voices to shout at presidents – from GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s shouts against President Joe Biden and the “You lie!” outburst from Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C. against President Barack Obama.
Of course, during Trump’s first term, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not raise her voice, but silently ripped up the president’s speech on the dais, once he had finished delivering it.
Green, 77, has been a pivotal lawmaker since he was first elected to Congress in 2004, often standing as he did Tuesday night, alone. He has been the representative for Texas 9th congressional district, the southwest portion of the Houston area, for 20 years, after assuming office in 2005.
He introduced articles of impeachment against Trump in 2017, maneuvering around party leadership. And he did it again in 2019, shortly before the House led by Pelosi actually did move forward with separate impeachment proceedings over Trump withholding funding for Ukraine as it battled Russia.
Last year, Green stunned his own colleagues when he dashed from his hospital bed where he was recovering from surgery to vote against the Republican effort to impeach Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. With his arrival, the vote failed, though Republicans recouped and impeached Mayorkas days later.
In 2021, Green was arrested outside the U.S. Capitol alongside state Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City, while protesting a state voting restrictions bill.
Green warned Tuesday against Republican efforts in their budget proposal to change Medicaid, which is the program he said many people in his Houston-area district rely on for health care. He also warned against cuts to Medicare, the program for seniors, and the Social Security retirement program.
“This is about the people being punished by virtue of losing their health care,” Green said.
“This is the richest country in the world,” he said. “And health care is about to become wealth care, and we can’t let that happen.”
Green has said he is working on new articles of impeachment against Trump.
“This president is unfit,” Green said. “He should not hold the office.”
Other Black Democrats took visible stands against Trump and his claims during the speech. U.S. Reps. Maxine Waters of California and Kweisi Mfume of Maryland did not attend at all. U.S. Reps. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, Maxwell Frost of Florida, and Ayana Pressley of Massachusetts walked out during the hour-and-forty-minute speech.
“I could not stand one more second, could not tolerate one more second,” Pressley told her followers on social media and condemned: “This man who pardoned the Jan. 6 insurrectionists who desecrated the very chamber that we are sitting in in this moment, this man who has no respect for Congress, does not respect this as a coequal branch of government, who has put us into a Constitutional crisis, this man with his hateful rhetoric and his even more harmful policies.”
— Katharine Wilson of The Texas Tribune contributed to this report. Her original piece can be found here. Black News & Views also contributed to this report.
