The room voted on Thursday to censor Democrat Al Green on his explosion in President Donald Trump’s speech at the Congress on Tuesday evening.
The effort led by the Republicans adopted 224-198 with two present voting members, one of them being green. Ten Democrats voted on resolution to censor Green.
The Texas Democrat was immediately called to the well for a public reading of the resolution by President Mike Johnson. Green and other democrats around it have started singing the anthem of civil rights “that we will overcome”.
After Johnson read the resolution of censorship, a screaming match between the Democrats in the House and the Republicans broke out and is still underway.
Representative Al Green holds his cane in front of President Mike Johnson after a vote to censor him in the House of Chamber in Washington on March 6, 2025.
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Green was expelled from the joint session on Tuesday after interrupting the president’s speech and refused to sit despite the warnings of Johnson.
On Wednesday morning, several members of the GOP conference circulated different resolutions to censor green. The republican representative Dan Newhouse was the first to officially introduce a resolution on the ground of the house.
“The decorum and order are the institutional reasons for how we do business at the United States Congress, and the contempt for this standard during President Trump’s speech by the Gentleman of Texas is unacceptable,” Newhouse said in a statement. “The refusal of a member to join the speaker’s management to stop such behavior, whatever his party, has and will continue to be reprimanded in the people’s house.”
Democrats tried and failed Wednesday evening to block the censorship measure.
The representative of Al Green is withdrawn from the room while President Donald Trump treats a joint session of the Congress at the Capitol in Washington, on March 4, 2025.
Win McNamee / AP
A censorship resolution is an official reprimand of the room for violations of the code of conduct of the chamber. A vote to censor a member of the Chamber has no power beyond a public conviction of the member’s behavior and does not refuse the privileges of the members.
The censorship of the members of the Chamber has been historically rare, but in recent years we have seen members of the two political parties using it as a political tool. Green is the fifth member of the Congress to be censored during this decade.
Wednesday, Green defended his actions, saying: “I would do it again.”
“I am not angry with the speaker. I am not angry with the officers. I am not angry with the members who will bring requests or resolutions. I will undergo the consequences,” he said.
Green’s explosion occurred in the minutes after Trump’s allowance, when the president described his “mandate” electoral victory.
Green, a democrat of 11 mandates representing the Houston region, got up and pointed out his cane, shouting: “You have no mandate to cut Medicaid.”
Johnson slammed his hammer and warned the legislators assembled to maintain the decorum, saying Green on several occasions to take place. While Green continued to protest, Johnson asked that he was kidnapped.
Green is not the only legislator to interrupt a presidential address in the congress. In 2022, the republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert interrupted the speech of President Joe Biden at the time. Greene did it again during the state of the Union State in 2024 of Biden.
Chamber Mike Johnson listens to a press conference at the National Republican Committee after a meeting of the Republican Chamber, March 4, 2025 in Washington.
Tierney L. Cross / Getty images
On Wednesday, on “Good Morning America”, Johnson defended his decision to have Green withdrawn.
“Al Green was trying to interrupt the whole procedure. But look at it, I will just say that. If the Democrats want a member of the 77-year-old congress to be the face of their resistance, heckling the president, then brings it,” he said.
Green told ABC News on Tuesday evening that he “followed the wishes of conscience”.
“There are times when it is better to be alone than not to stand at all,” said Green. He added: “At one point, we will all have to get up.”
