Rep. Al Green Shares Why He Disrupted Trump’s Address to Congress

We communicate with Democratic Congressmember Al Inexperienced of Texas a day after he was censured by the Home of Representatives for disrupting President Donald Trump’s joint deal with to Congress on Tuesday evening. His dramatic protest got here close to the beginning of Trump’s record-long speech. In immediately iconic pictures, Inexperienced rose and shook his strolling cane on the president on the podium, telling him “You haven’t any mandate” to chop important authorities packages. Inexperienced was ejected from the chamber. This comes as Democrats proceed to scramble for a unified response to the onslaught of radical actions by the Trump administration, with celebration management reportedly urging restraint and decorum whereas some members are taking a extra confrontational strategy. “We now dwell in a authorities that’s of the plutocrats, by the plutocrats, for the plutocrats,” Congressmember Inexperienced tells Democracy Now! “We now have to battle to guard those that can’t defend themselves.” Inexperienced has repeatedly known as to question Trump and says he’s at present making ready one other such effort, calling impeachment “a treatment for a runaway president who believes that there aren’t any guardrails.”

TRANSCRIPT

This can be a rush transcript. Copy might not be in its remaining kind.

AMY GOODMAN: He didn’t obey. We start right now’s present with Democratic Congressmember Al Inexperienced of Texas, who was censured by the Home Thursday for disrupting President Donald Trump’s joint deal with to Congress Tuesday evening. The dramatic protest got here close to the beginning of Trump’s record-long 100-minute speech, when Congressmember Inexperienced rose and spoke out, shaking his strolling cane, as Republican Home Speaker Mike Johnson known as on him to take a seat down.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Likewise, small enterprise optimism noticed its single-largest —

REP. AL GREEN: [inaudible]

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — one-month acquire ever recorded, a 41-point soar.

REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEMBER 1: Sit down!

REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEMBER 2: Order!

SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: Members are directed to uphold and keep decorum within the Home and to stop any additional disruptions. That’s your warning.

SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: He has no mandate to chop Medicaid!

SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: Members are partaking in willful and persevering with breach of decorum, and the chair is ready to direct the sergeant-at-arms to revive order to the joint session. Mr. Inexperienced, take your seat. Take your seat, sir.

REP. AL GREEN: He has no mandate to chop Medicaid!

SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: Take your seat. Discovering that members proceed to interact in willful and concerted disruption of correct decorum, the chair now directs the sergeant-at-arms to revive order, take away this gentleman from the chamber.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Al Inexperienced’s interruption of President Trump’s deal with Tuesday evening got here amidst experiences that Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries had urged Democrats to not disrupt the deal with. Ten Democrats joined Republicans in favor of the decision to censure Inexperienced, which stated he had, quote, “repeatedly violated the foundations of decorum.”

In the meantime, about two different dozen Democrats surrounded Inexperienced within the chamber and sang the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” as Home Speaker Johnson learn the censure decision and banged his gavel earlier than he in the end needed to name the session into recess.

SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: The Home will come to order. The Home will come to order. … The Home will come to order. Shhhh. By its adoption of Home Decision 189, the Home has resolved that Consultant Al Inexperienced be censured, that Consultant Al Inexperienced forthwith current himself within the properly of the Home of Representatives for the pronouncement of censure, and that Consultant Al Inexperienced be censured with public studying of this decision by the speaker.

CONGRESSMEMBERS: [singing] … sometime
Oh, deep in my coronary heart
I do consider

SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: The Home will come to order. The Home will come to order.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Home Speaker Mike Johnson attempting to name the Home to order as congressmembers surrounded Al Inexperienced after his censure on Thursday, a day and a half after Trump’s speech, singing “We Shall Overcome.”

Congressmember Al Inexperienced has repeatedly known as to question Trump within the president’s first and second phrases. For almost 20 years, he has represented his district in Houston, Texas, which is residence to many low-income and Black residents.

It’s nice to have you ever with us, Congressmember Al Inexperienced. Thanks for becoming a member of us. Why did you interrupt President Trump’s speech?

REP. AL GREEN: Thanks for having me, Ms. Goodman.

President Trump indicated that he had a mandate, and I needed to let him know that he didn’t have a mandate to finish or to intestine or to eviscerate or to chop Social Safety, in addition to Medicaid, however my focus was on Medicaid. And I stated to him, “You don’t have a mandate to chop Medicaid.” Medicaid is required by people who find themselves not of means.

We now dwell in a authorities that’s of the plutocrats, by the plutocrats, for the plutocrats. They’ve Medicaid. They’ve medical doctors. We now have to face for people who find themselves not as lucky as others. I’ve good healthcare. I would like my constituents to have the identical healthcare I’ve. Many gained’t have it, however I’m going to guard what they do have.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, President Trump has stated he isn’t going after Social Safety, but they’re firing 1000’s of Social Safety Administration employees. On the difficulty of Medicaid, you aren’t alone in representing so many people who find themselves on Medicaid. In reality, many MAGA Republican congressmembers are in precisely the identical state of affairs. Are you seeing behind the scenes that they’re deeply involved about these huge cuts to pay for large tax cuts for the richest People?

REP. AL GREEN: I’ve not seen a scintilla of proof indicating that there’s any consternation as regards to the cuts. The state of Texas, Ms. Goodman, was provided $100 billion to assist people who find themselves sick and with out means, to increase Medicaid underneath the Inexpensive Care Act. Texas turned down $100 billion to assist the poor, as a result of Texas would finally should pay 10%, the federal government would pay 90%. I guarantee you I’m involved, however lots of my colleagues are usually not. We now have to battle to guard those that can’t defend themselves.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you — I believe it was 10 Democratic congressmembers joined with the Republicans in censuring you yesterday. I’m questioning, as somebody who has survived segregation your self — in a number of years, you’ll be 80. You’ve survived Jim Crow, the place decorum was seen as a method to dampen protest. What message do you have got for all of those that censured you and stated you broke the decorum of the Legislature?

REP. AL GREEN: Nicely, there’s a lot to be stated about what you’ve simply known as to my consideration. Let me begin with this. The president of the USA of America, at that joint session, pointed over to Democrats and known as them “lunatics.” That was a breach of decorum. The president makes use of his incivility to make the most of our civility. I refuse to permit him to do that. The president has to know that he has to exhibit some extent of civility and respect decorum himself, however he doesn’t.

Now, as regards to my colleagues, I instructed them I used to be going to vote “current,” in order to not strain anybody to vote in any explicit method, as a result of I voted my conscience. I did what conscience known as upon me to do and my convictions demanded that I do once I spoke to the president. I’d do it once more. I remorse that I’ve been censured. There’s discuss now of eradicating me from my committee with the Honorable Maxine Waters, the Monetary Companies Committee. My guess is this isn’t over. However I’ll stand on what I’ve performed. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve performed.

And while you talked about John Lewis on the genesis of this interview, it triggered tears to properly in my eyes. I knew him. I do know his story. He instructed me that he thought he was going to die on that bridge. And he instructed me about peaceable protest. And the one factor that stands out in my thoughts is, while you do it, be ready to endure the results. Dr. King went to the Birmingham jail as a result of he was ready to endure the results. I’m ready to endure the results. I don’t say I agree, however I’ll endure regardless of the penalties are, as a result of I signify individuals who can’t signify themselves.

AMY GOODMAN: So, simply to reiterate what you’re speaking about, right now is the sixtieth anniversary of Bloody Sunday —

REP. AL GREEN: Sure.

AMY GOODMAN: — March 7, 1965, when John Lewis, your colleague in Congress — earlier than that, civil rights chief — led a whole bunch of voting rights activists from Selma, attempting to go to Montgomery. They had been strolling over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they usually had been overwhelmed down by Alabama state troopers, John Lewis having his cranium fractured.

REP. AL GREEN: Sure.

AMY GOODMAN: It will be a turning level within the civil rights motion. 5 months later, President Johnson would signal the Voting Rights Act into legislation. Congressmember Inexperienced, do you suppose this can be a Bloody Sunday second proper now, the low level earlier than a excessive level?

REP. AL GREEN: I hope that we’ve got reached the depths of this, however I’m undecided, given the conduct of this president. This president doesn’t appear to know that there are individuals who don’t dwell in the identical degree of life that he lives in. He lives within the suites. There say some individuals who dwell within the streets. And we’ve got to concern ourselves with them, as properly.

And as regards to that march, could I simply share this piece of knowledge? Frank M. Johnson was a federal choose who issued the order to half the way in which to trigger these officers to depart the Edmund Pettus Bridge and to permit them to march on. I point out him as a result of his place in historical past has not been acknowledged. He was a white Southerner who was a George Wallace up to date, however he had the center — he had the center and the braveness to take a stand that triggered him to should have safety 24 hours a day. They bombed his mother’s residence.

We now have to have that form of braveness now. We’ve obtained to take a stand towards what this president is doing along with his incivility. We’re going to should exhibit. We’re going to should protest. I don’t need us to should harken again to the ’60s, however we’re being handled is although we’re within the ’60s. We now have to do greater than merely say that we would like laws. We’ve obtained to exhibit, and we’ve obtained to protest and be ready to endure the results.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Inexperienced, in 2017, you turned the primary congressmember to name for President Trump’s impeachment from the ground of the Home of Representatives. You’re doing this once more?

REP. AL GREEN: I’m. And I’m at present nearing the top of the primary draft. I consider that he has performed issues that might advantage impeachment. For edification functions, if we needed to question a president for talking unwell of Congress, because the president did, we are able to do it. How do I do know? As a result of in 1868, Andrew Johnson was impeached for talking unwell of the Home of Representatives. Impeachment is just not all that the students would have us consider it’s. It’s what Gerald Ford stated when he was within the Home: no matter a given Congress concludes that it’s on a given time — at a given time. When you may get 218 members, assuming that you’ve a full complement of members voting, to vote for it, then that’s impeachment. It truly is that straightforward. It’s been performed to presidents earlier than. And, after all, we knew about Clinton, and we find out about others.

However the level that we’ve got to make is, impeachment is a treatment for a runaway president who believes that there aren’t any guardrails, who believes that the Supreme Court docket has positioned him above the legislation, and who’s now very shut to a degree the place he won’t honor court docket orders. When he does that, Ms. Goodman, he at that time will grow to be a dictator. We’re this shut. When he goes over that line, that second, that scintilla of a second, he’ll grow to be a dictator, and we will probably be underneath a dictatorship. I refuse to attend till that occurs earlier than I act, so I’ll act in protection of the Structure and for the folks of this nation.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Inexperienced, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you to speak about your buddy, the previous Houston mayor and up to date congressmember, Sylvester Turner, who died Wednesday on the age of 70 after he had attended President Trump’s speech the evening earlier than. I wish to play Sylvester Turner’s final public message, addressing the potential cuts to Medicaid.

REP. SYLVESTER TURNER: That is Angela Hernandez, my visitor tonight for the State of the Union. Angela is right here to advocate on the significance of Medicaid.

ANGELA HERNANDEZ: Hello. I’m Angela. I’m from Houston, District 18. My daughter is Baislee Garcia. She’s 2 years outdated. She has a uncommon genetic dysfunction, chromosome 8p inversion/duplication/deletion. It causes a number of developmental and medical challenges, so shedding Medicaid can be devastating to us.

REP. SYLVESTER TURNER: So, please let folks know: Don’t mess with Medicaid.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Sylvester Turner, a newly minted congressmember, longtime Houston mayor’s final message earlier than he died on Wednesday. Your remaining ideas, Congressman Inexperienced?

REP. AL GREEN: Twenty-five years he served within the state Home, eight years as mayor of town of Houston. He was a public servant par excellence. He cared about folks, and he made a distinction within the lives of individuals. I’ll miss him. When Bishop Dixon known as me and instructed me that he had transpired, I fell to my knees and I cried, actually — not an exaggeration — as a result of he had simply been with me on the ground of the Home, and I couldn’t consider that this might occur on this method. So, I miss him, however I would like his household and his pals to know that he served us properly. They’ve my deepest sympathies, and my prayers are going to be that others of us will take up the mantle, the torch that he has carried all of his life. He was an incredible public servant.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Al Inexperienced, I wish to thanks a lot for being with us, Texas Democrat —

REP. AL GREEN: Thanks.

AMY GOODMAN: — who was censured by the Home yesterday for disrupting President Trump’s first presidential deal with because the second-time president. In 2017, Congressmember Inexperienced turned the primary congressmember to name for President Trump’s impeachment from the ground of the Home of Representatives.

Arising subsequent, as Home Republicans push for $2 trillion in federal spending cuts, greater than $4 trillion in tax cuts for the richest People, we’ll communicate to Bishop William Barber. Again in 30 seconds.