Democrat Rep. Al Green of Texas isn’t fazed by the backlash he received after interrupting President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress earlier this week.
“If circumstances remain the same, I would have to do it again,” Green said in an interview on CNN Newsroom on Saturday.
Green made headlines on Tuesday when he was escorted from the floor of the House of Representatives after repeatedly interrupting the first congressional address of Trump’s second term. Green said he interrupted the president’s speech to protest proposed cuts to Medicaid.
“People will suffer and die if we lose Medicaid,” Green said.
Green’s colleagues in the House censured him on Thursday, and senior GOP lawmakers have called for the elder statesman’s committee assignments to be revoked.
Green reprised his protest along with fellow Democrats on Thursday, singing “We Shall Overcome” as Speaker Mike Johnson read the censure resolution aloud.
“What was done was a response to incivility. The president has a way of using incivility to take advantage of our civility. It was a peaceful protest,” Green said during the interview. “I’m prepared to suffer the consequences.”
He added that he didn’t want to see Congressional protests stop “because people will suffer” if elected representatives don’t make their voices heard.
Host Fredricka Whitfield then played a sequence of other politicians interrupting the president’s yearly address to Congress, including MAGA stalwart Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who screamed “LIAR! LIAR!” at former President Joe Biden.
Green said that while he accepted the reprimand for his actions, it “doesn’t mean I agree with the consequences.” Drawing on his experience growing up as a “son of the segregated South,” Green said that he felt his treatment by congressional authorities amounted to “quite candidly, a double standard” and that it represented “a form of invidious discrimination.”
Some commentators have pointed out the racial overtones in recent comments from GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert, who accused Green on Thursday of “shaking his pimp cane” at Trump during the speech. Boebert herself repeatedly interrupted Biden during a 2022 congressional address.
