- Rep. Al Green heckled Trump’s joint address on Tuesday night.
- The Texas Democrat was eventually booted on the orders of Speaker Mike Johnson.
- Green later told reporters it was “worth it.”
For the first time in recent memory, a lawmaker was thrown out of the House chamber during a president’s address to a joint session of Congress.
It began mere minutes into President Donald Trump’s speech on Tuesday night, when the president spoke about the “mandate” that he’d earned by virtue of his victory in the 2024 election.
Rep. Al Green, a Texas Democrat known for making theatrical gestures, stood up and began heckling Trump, telling him that he had “no mandate” to make cuts to Medicaid.
Democrats have accused Trump and Republicans of pushing for cuts to the program, which serves lower-income Americans, by virtue of a budget resolution that passed the House last week.
Green’s heckling was immediately met with shouting from the Republican side of the aisle, with GOP lawmakers telling the Texas Democrat to sit down and shut up. But Green persisted, eventually leading House Speaker Mike Johnson to direct the House Sergeant at Arms to escort the congressman out of the chamber.
“It’s worth it to let people know that there are some people who are going to stand up” to Trump, Green told reporters outside the chamber. He added that he was unsure if he’d face any formal punishment.
The Texas Democrat announced last month that he would introduce articles of impeachment against Trump, despite a lack of support from the recent of his caucus.
He made a similar move during the president’s first term in office, even forcing three different votes on his impeachment resolution in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
Republican lawmakers such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado frequently heckled former President Joe Biden’s State of the Union addresses, but they were never removed from the chamber.
