Representative Al Green of Texas, a Democrat, has spoken with Newsweek about why he introduced articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump this week, saying he felt the need to act now before “tanks are rolling down the street,” with plans to introduce further articles at a later date.
Newsweek reached out to the White House and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries by email outside of normal business hours on Saturday.
Why It Matters
Green sparked national interest when he abruptly left in the middle of Trump’s State of the Union address on March 4, rising and responding to Trump’s claims that he had a mandate to pursue his legislative agenda by shouting, “You have no mandate.” House Speaker Mike Johnson cut Green off and ordered him removed from the chamber.
The House of Representatives—including around 10 Democrats—then voted to censure Green for his protest, describing his actions as a “breach of proper conduct” and accused him of creating “numerous disruptions.” After the vote, Green offered no apology, saying only, “Friends, I would do it again.”
What To Know
On May 15, Green filed articles of impeachment with the House of Representatives, calling for Trump’s removal from office and declaring him “unfit to be president.”
Green focused heavily on the administration’s clashes with the judiciary, saying Trump is “condoning the undermining of the judicial independence of the federal judiciary, disregarding the separation of powers, violating the due process clause…denigrating federal judges, [and] condoning the flouting of orders of United States Federal Courts, including orders of the United States Supreme Court.”
He cited the clash between the administration and U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who last month said he found “probable cause” to hold the administration in contempt of court, as just one such example of the administration flouting judicial authority, and told Newsweek that now is the time to act before the president’s use of power grows too flagrant.
“You don’t wait until tanks are rolling down the streets of American cities,” Green said during an interview. “It’s too late then. You don’t wait until you have what everybody will recognize as a constitutional crisis, because that can be the forerunner to tanks moving down the streets of American cities.
“So, we have this unique opportunity to use impeachment as a deterrent to stop him and prevent what could become more than we have seen in this country in terms of power emanating from a presidency that is out of control,” Green said.
Green noted that Trump still contests the 2020 U.S. presidential election, despite numerous court rulings that affirmed Joe Biden won that contest, which leads him to conclude Trump is “a person in office who can only see an election as fair when he wins…it’s important to start there.”
“This is a great point of departure, because we now have a person in office who believes that he is above the law,” Green said. “He has an authoritarian mentality. He disrespects the courts. He disrespects the separation of powers.”
“He tweets and says things about judges that are almost unbelievable, emanating from the chief magistrate of the country, from the president of the United States from an office that carries with it a certain amount of dignity, a certain amount of respectability, a certain amount of majesty,” Green continued, adding, “He disrespects the office.”
When asked if he thinks the president would exert such overt authority over American citizens, Green referred to comments Trump has made since taking office that he “loves” the idea of sending American lawbreakers to overseas prisons, such as El Salvador’s megaprison.
Trump said: “If we could take some of our 20-time wise guys that push people into subways and hit people over the back of the head and purposely run people over in cars, if he would take them, I would be honored to give them. I don’t know what the law says on that,” adding, “I’m all for it. If they can house these horrible criminals for a lot less money than it costs us, I’m all for it.”
Green then related his experiences growing up in the segregated South, saying, “I know what hate is like, and I know what it can do…I’ve heard persons who called me the ugliest of names, I have seen what it looks like on the face of people who were angry with their hoods off and doing some of the things that were causing harm to people…so I know what it looks like to be a victim of invidious discrimination, of hate.”
“We can devolve to a point where people will be literally picked up. We had the scholar picked up, persons with masks on, took her away, came up in plain clothes,” Green said, referring to when Department of Homeland Security officers detained Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk.
Speaking about how he might react in such a situation,” Green said: “My visceral reaction…surely would not have been, ‘Oh, these law enforcement officers come to have a conversation with me, they may think that I’ve committed an infraction, so I probably should cooperate with them.’ I would be very much afraid of persons approaching me like this.”
“This is where we’re headed…this is where we are, and we are headed toward things that I hope my articles of impeachment will prevent,” Green said. “My articles of impeachment, which will come to a vote, there will be a vote on them, and if there’s only one person voting for them, I will not in any way be deterred, because people have an opportunity to know that these articles exist, and they have an opportunity to see what the judiciary is saying.”
Green’s Unplanned Protest at Trump’s State of the Union
Green also addressed his protest at Trump’s State of the Union, saying he did not intend to make a big scene, but instead merely walk out in protest, but he could not listen to the president insist upon a mandate.
“I was torn between going and engaging in some form of protest and not going at all as my form of protest. So I sat with my staff, and I communicate with my staff quite a bit, and I polled the staff in terms of whether I should go or not go,” Green explained, saying he ultimately decided to go but leave early as the president was speaking as a form of peaceful protest in the vein of his heroes Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.
“So I decided, well, I’ll just make my departure as he’s speaking, and as I collected my portable items: I collected my coat. I collected my coat. I collected my cane, and as I’m collecting and gathering myself, the president starts to talk about his mandate,” Green said.
“I knew of a mandate that was given to the committee that has oversight, that has jurisdiction of Medicaid, and I knew that there was this mandate to cut $880 billion from this committee, so he’s saying this, and honestly, something just came over me,” Green said. “I did not go there to do what I did. It was spontaneity.”
“I spontaneously responded with, ‘Mr. President,’ and the cane was pointed at him to demean him. The cane was in my hand because I was about to leave, and I just said, ‘Mr. President, you don’t have a mandate to cut Medicaid,’” Green said.
“My colleagues across the aisle became very much discombobulated, and they started to scream and make loud noises, and because I wanted to make sure he heard me at that point, I said, again, ‘Mr. President, you don’t have a mandate to cut Medicaid, Social Security or Medicare,’ maybe not in that order, but that’s what I said, and they got louder, and so I wanted to again, push my position, and I did, and the speaker called me to order, and there was an order given for me to be removed.”
Green said that the people who removed him from the chamber were “very respectful” and that he has “no quarrel with them, no animus toward the speaker,” and said that “as I think about it now, I would do it again without the spontaneity.”
“To be quite candid with you, because it was not just the right thing to do,” Green said. “It was the righteous thing to do. I’m talking about protecting and saving lives, and there is no mandate to do the things that they want to do to Medicaid.”
“And since I have done it, yes, people from across the globe, and some from across the country and some from across the globe have contacted us and called to my attention that this was the right thing to do,” Green added. “I don’t know that there’s a consensus, what the consensus is, but I hear from people, as I’m going through airports coming into Houston today, people were telling me that they appreciate my standing up for Medicaid.”
“I don’t expect the status quo media to say Al Green did the right thing, and Al Green should be celebrated for what he did. They’re not going to do that. I don’t expect it.”
What People Are Saying
Representative Al Green of Texas told Newsweek when asked about Democrats disagreeing on how to protest President Donald Trump’s actions said: “I am Al Green, an unbought, unbossed, unafraid, liberated Democrat. I will speak truth to power, which is pretty easy to do. You simply say, ‘Power, we have a problem. Let’s solve it. I will do that, but I’ll also speak truth about power and say, power, we have a problem, and you’re it.’
“That’s what I’m saying to the president. ‘You are said to be the most powerful human on Earth, and you are the problem.’ Now, I don’t expect everyone to do what I do. I believe that there are many roads, many means by which one can leave Houston, Texas, and get to Washington D.C. Some can take trains. Others can take cars, and others can take planes, might even walk or cycle, but we all have the same goal in mind, and some of us may get there ahead of others. We’re not all going to get there at the same time, but I think we’ll get there together.”
President Donald Trump at a rally in April addressed previous articles of impeachment introduced against him, saying: “Today they did it again. Some guy that I’ve never heard of…is he a congressman? This guy, he said …’ladies and gentlemen, I am going to start the impeachment of Donald Trump.’ What the hell did I do? Here we go again.”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement about the previous articles of impeachment: “House Democrats have demonstrated once again they are willing to abuse the Constitution in their effort to impede the agenda of the American people. Their latest sham impeachment charade against President Trump is another embarrassing political stunt. Today, House Republicans will move promptly to discard it.”
“While Democrats are throwing fits, impeding law enforcement, playing political games, and demonstrating how far out of touch they are—Republicans are working to deliver lower taxes for families, restore American energy dominance, strengthen border security, restore peace through strength, and make government work more efficiently and effectively. The contrast has never been more clear,” Johnson said.
What Happens Next
Green’s articles of impeachment will have a floor vote, but even if they don’t pass, that will not be the end of his efforts. He told Newsweek that he is already working on additional articles of impeachment which address other matters.
“I’ve just given you the sense of how he is behaving as it relates to the courts,” Green said, referring to his first articles. “There are other things.”
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