Update 3-6-25: On Thursday morning the U.S. House of Representatives voted to censure Rep. Al Green for his outburst during President Trump’s State of the Union speech. This is a formal statement of disapproval but does not remove Green from Congress.
Original Story:
It was clear early on in President Donald Trump’s speech addressing a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Tuesday night that Rep. Al Green (D-Houston) wasn’t having it.
Minutes into the speech, as Trump was in the middle of claiming he had won a massive electoral victory that amounted to a mandate from the American people, Green sprang from his seat. “Mr. President, you don’t have a mandate!”
Trump kept his face turned toward the teleprompter to his left, but his eyes shot to the right to take in the 11-term congressman who had shot from his seat on the edge of the Democratic caucus. While Green, who has been known for bucking against House Democrat leadership orders since he was first elected in 2004 and was the first to introduce articles of impeachment against the president back in 2017, shouted and the GOP congressmembers booed and chanted “U-S-A” to drown him out, Trump yanked his thumb like a hitchhiker to indicate he wanted Green removed from the room.
First Vice President J.D. Vance and then House Speaker Mike Johnson made a similar gesture, but Green continued to shout, insisting that the people didn’t give Trump a mandate to cut Medicaid. (Trump has claimed that Medicaid, the program that provides healthcare to those of limited means, is not on the chopping budgetary chopping block, but most analysts say that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to make the federal budget cuts that Republicans have promised without cutting the program.)
After hovering on his perch behind the president trying to split the difference between interrupting Trump and silencing Green, Trump paused and Johnson smacked his gabble on the dais. “Take your seat, sir,” Johnson ordered sharply.
When Green remained standing, Johnson ordered the Sergeant at Arms to restore order to the chamber by removing Green.
A coterie of men in suits clustered around Green and escorted him out of the House chamber, with Green brandishing his cane a final time before moving up the aisle.
The rest of those assembled got to take in the rest of Trump’s 99-minute speech, the longest presidential address in modern history.
Johnson stated afterward that he believes Green should be censured by the House for his actions.
Talking with reporters once he’d been ousted from the chamber, Green stated that he is fine with accepting whatever punishment that is meted out if it helps protect Medicaid, a program that Green says many of his constituents depend on. “This is the richest country in the world,” he said, according to the Associated Press. “And healthcare is about to become wealth care, and we can’t let that happen.”
This is far from the first time we’ve seen a president interrupted by a member of Congress during an address. Back in 2009, South Carolina GOP Rep. Joe Wilson interrupted President Barack Obama,
shouting, “You lie!” Members of both parties decried his actions and Wilson issued a public apology and the House approved a “resolution of disapproval” but there were no other consequences.
More recently, in 2022 Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green and her comrade, Colorado GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert interrupted President Joe Biden during the State of the Union as he was about to speak about his son’s death. Neither were censured and neither apologized.
In both instances, none of the congressmembers were removed.
On Wednesday morning, the House Freedom Caucus and other House Republicans announced plans to push a resolution for Green’s censure through by the end of the day.
