WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson has claimed that he could have booted more Democrats from the House chamber Tuesday night for their “shameful” behavior during President Trump’s record-long State of the Union address.
Throughout Trump’s remarks, multiple Democrats, including “Squad” Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) — the latter of whom sported a “F— ICE” pin on her lapel — repeatedly jeered the president.
Tlaib, in particular, was visibly sneering and audibly grumbling before the duo departed prior to Trump wrapping up the speech.
“It was a very shameful display. There was a couple of times, there’s a couple of House members that I probably could have ejected from the chamber because of their behavior,” Johnson (R-La.) told Newsmax following the address.
“But the president handled it so well, and I decided not to do that because, you know, I thought it would be better for the American people to see that, to see the shame that they were bringing upon themselves, and they just continued to do it.”
Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) was ejected by the House sergeant-at-arms after parading around with a “Black people aren’t apes” sign and refusing to sit throughout the address.
The sign was motivated by a since-deleted Truth Social post Trump made eaerlier this month that included a video depicting former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as apes.
The clip appeared following an apparent screen recording of a video raising doubts about the 2020 election and Trump has claimed he wasn’t aware of the ape meme’s existence when he posted it.
Green was also kicked out of the House chamber during Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress last year for shouting at the president and waving his cane.
“They stood at the wrong times and they refused to stand when they should have,” Johnson summed up Democrats’ behavior Tuesday night. “They stood and applauded themselves for voting against the working families’ tax cuts.”
“I mean, that video is going to be very valuable to us in the future, and on the contrary, they refused to stand when the president said answer this simple question – the first job of the government in the country is to defend Americans and not illegal aliens,” the speaker added. “They sat on their hands for that.”
At times, Trump himself called out the opposition over a range of issues, including the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown and resistance to his prized One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“You should be ashamed of yourself! Not standing up, you should be ashamed of yourself,” Trump scolded at one point after Democrats declined to stand when he called on them to protect American citizens over illegal immigrants.
During his post-State of the Union interview, Johnson also underscored the stakes of the midterm elections, warning: “If we lost the midterms — heaven forbid — if we lost the majority in the House, it would be the end of the Trump presidency in a real effect.”
