After Texas Democratic Representative Al Green (D-TX) was escorted out of President Donald Trump‘s address to Congress last week after disrupting Trump’s speech and calling for the protection of Medicaid, Green was censured by the House of Representatives in a largely Republican vote that was joined by ten Democrats. [Green was removed on the orders of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).]
Some observers of American politics wondered why Green was censured for his disruption when his House colleague Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was not met with similar punitive action after she interrupted President Joe Biden‘s State of the Union address in 2024.
(Greene, who was already breaking House rules against wearing campaign attire in the chamber, demanded mid-speech that Biden say the name of Laken Riley, the young woman who was tragically murdered in Georgia by an undocumented migrant.)
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), an avowed Trump antagonist, addressed the difference between the two situations in an interview this weekend, suggesting that unlike Marjorie Taylor Greene the Texan Green had to be removed to spare the President — because Donald Trump, Raskin asserted, “couldn’t handle it.”
Raskin: Heckling, interruption, which is what Marjorie Taylor Greene repeatedly did to Joe Biden. Of course, Biden dealt with that like a man and just responded to it. Donald Trump couldn’t handle it because he doesn’t have the verbal dexterity to respond. And so they had to have… pic.twitter.com/AmdWqPquB0
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 9, 2025
Raskin said: “Heckling, interruption, which is what Marjorie Taylor Greene repeatedly did to Joe Biden. Of course, Biden dealt with that like a man and just responded to it. Donald Trump couldn’t handle it because he doesn’t have the verbal dexterity to respond. And so they had to have Al Green removed.”
A Marjorie Taylor Greene supporter in the comments countered with a different point about why the two Congress members may have been treated differently, saying that after their initial outbursts, their respective behavior was different. Greene, he said, “sat down and shut up.”
“MTG sat down and shut up,” wrote the responder, “Weird AL never shut up or sat down. He felt it was his moral duty to rudely continue interrupting the POTUS. He was wrong. He won’t admit he acted like an [expletive]. So he was justifiably censured. His TDS knows no bounds.”
NOTE: Rep. Greene also interrupted Biden at other SOTU speeches without meeting censure. Laken Riley’s parents were guests of Trump at his speech.