New York: A Democratic Party member of the House of Representatives who disrupted President Donald Trump’s address was escorted out of the chamber by the sergeant-at-arms staff while a small group staged a walkout.
Some of his party colleagues wore T-shirts with “Resist” emblazoned on them during the President’s speech on Tuesday.
They turned their backs on Trump and walked out.
Al Green, an African American who represents a constituency in red Texas, shouted and waved his walking stick, defying Speaker Mike Johnson, who threatened to oust disrupters during the speech on Tuesday.
The staff surrounded him in the aisle, and he followed them out.
The protests came although Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democratic Party in the House, wanted to avoid a showdown and had asked his colleagues to act “dignified” during the speech.
“It is important to have a strong, determined and dignified Democratic presence in the chamber,” he wrote to the Democrat members of the House.
This was in contrast to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who very ostentatiously tore up Trump’s State of the Union speech in 2020 while standing behind him on the dais.
But Jeffries added, “The House as an institution belongs to the American people, and as their representatives, we will not be run off the block or bullied.”
Trump asked the Democrats to join in cheering his policies advancing the US rather than protesting.
Even if he called for curing cancer, they would not clap, he said.
Outside the chamber, Green told reporters that his ouster was “worth it to let people know that there are some people who are going to stand up” to Trump.
At several points during the speech, some Democrats held up placards that read “False” when they disagreed with his assertions.
The leftist Congressional Progressive Caucus organised the protests, with some members holding up signs against Trump and Elon Musk, the billionaire who is heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that the President praised.
(IANS)
