Democrats Slammed for Party’s Tepid Response to Black Rep. Al Green’s Ejection During Trump’s Speech to Congress

Many Democrats are expressing frustration after outward protests of Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress were left largely to a 77-year-old congressman from Texas.

Rep. Al Green, a longtime critic of the president, was removed from the House floor Tuesday night after he disrupted President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress. Democrats cheered, but no one stood with Green –– a missed opportunity, say some party members.

Green, who voted to impeach Trump dating to his previous term in office, yelled and shook his cane at the president in the opening minutes of his speech.

His disruptions continued, and eventually, House Speaker Mike Johnson admonished the congressman by reading from the chamber’s rules.

“Members are directed to uphold and maintain decorum in the House and to cease any further disruptions,” Johnson said, an admonishment aimed at Green.

After Green refused to sit and allow Trump to continue, Johnson called for the House sergeant at arms to remove him from the chamber as Republicans serenaded him with “Nah nah nah nah, goodbye.”

Green was escorted out, alone, with no interference from his party.

“Walking out in solidarity would have sent a stronger message to democratic supporters and friends of America around the world,” wrote one X user.

“They should have all stood around him and protected him in a group too large to move. SOLIDARITY,” added another.

Green told reporters after his removal that he considers himself “a person of conscience” and believes Trump “has done things that I think we cannot allow to continue.”

“This whole budget that he has is one that is going to cause Medicaid to be cut, and when he said he had a mandate, it triggered something,” Green told NBC News. “It really did. Because he doesn’t have a mandate, and he doesn’t have a mandate to cut health care from poor people.”

The Democrats as a whole took a more subtle approach to their protest. Members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus wore pink to protest Trump’s policies on women and families. Other Democrats wore blue and yellow ties in support of Ukraine, days after the president and Vice President JD Vance verbally tussled with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a jarringly hostile Oval Office meeting.

Others wore stickers accusing Elon Musk of “stealing Social Security.” Musk, the world’s richest man, recently called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.”

Then there were the black paddles, which various members of the Democratic caucus held up in silent protest featuring phrases and slogans like “SAVE MEDICAID,” “PROTECT VETERANS,” and “MUSK STEALS.”

MSNBC host Symone Sanders-Townsend, a former Democratic strategist, wondered in an X post during the aggressively partisan speech, “Why are Democrats just sitting there? The signs are not landing. It is giving bingo. Sigh.”

Sanders-Townsend said Democrats “are not taking back the house with these visuals,” and argued, “Democratic leadership did not do their members any favors by stifling their desires to speak out.”

House Democratic leaders had urged members during a closed-door party meeting earlier Tuesday to show proper decorum ahead of Trump’s joint address, three House Democrats who attended the meeting told NBC News.

Minority Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts had specifically asked members not to use “props” to protest the speech, while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a nine-term New York Democrat, encouraged members to stay on message and keep the spotlight focused on the people affected by Trump’s policies and not themselves.

Others on social media noted that while Green was expelled, Republican congresswomen Marjorite Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, who loudly jeered President Joe Biden during one of his State of the Union speeches, were allowed to stay.

“Say what you will about President Biden, but he got heckled PLENTY during his speeches, but he wasn’t as much a fragile snowflake to eject anyone,” wrote one commenter. “But trumplethinskin had Al Green kicked out. So much for ‘freedom of speech.’ Make some more f***ing noise!!!