WASHINGTON — Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, was ejected from President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night — the second straight year he has been removed from the House chamber while Trump addressed Congress.
Green was seen on the House floor waving a sign that read “Black People Aren’t Apes.” The gesture was an apparent reference to a video Trump posted on social media this month that depicted former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes.
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As a staff member escorted him to the door minutes into the speech, Green waved his sign at the Republican side of the aisle, where Rep. Troy Nehls, a fellow Texan, tried to snatch it.
“Judging from the expression on his face, he got the message,” Green said of Trump when speaking with reporters after his removal. “He saw it, he got the message.”
“Now, there are people who believe that I should not take a stand such as this,” he added. “There are others who have taken stands, and they, too, have been vilified. Dr. [Martin Luther King] King went to jail for taking a stand. Rosa Parks went to jail for taking a stand. Sometimes you have to take a stand.”
Green also said that he believes others agree with him, but “for some reason, they’re not able to do what I did.”
Green was ejected last year during Trump’s joint address to Congress — speeches during the first year of a president’s term are not labeled as State of the Union addresses — standing and shaking his cane toward Trump during the opening minutes.
“The first time it was spontaneity,” Green told NBC News on Tuesday night. “This time it was with intentionality. I wanted to make sure that I got a message to him. That’s why I took the seat where I was on the aisle, so that I could give it to him personally.”
Green is one of Trump’s most vociferous critics and one of the most prominent proponents of impeaching him, dating to Trump’s previous term in office.
He is in a hotly contested primary in the newly drawn 18th District in Texas, which includes Houston. Green is facing off against Rep. Christian Menefee, who recently won a special election to replace the late Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner.
During the campaign, Green has highlighted his removal from last year’s address, saying in a recent ad: “When I stood up, it wasn’t for attention. It was because some things are worth standing for.”
The primary is March 3.
Trump has not apologized for posting the roughly minutelong video, which focused on false election fraud claims about the 2020 presidential election and at the end suddenly flashed to a clip of the Obamas’ faces superimposed on the heads of cartoon apes. After he faced widespread backlash, some of it from fellow Republicans, Trump removed the video and told reporters at the time that he condemns its racist parts.
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