Rep. Al Green was ejected from the 2026 State of the Union address for protesting President Donald Trump’s AI-generated social media video featuring Barack and Michelle Obama.
During the Tuesday, February 24, speech to Congress, Green, 78, held a sign that read, “Black People Aren’t Apes!” as Trump, 79, and his associates stepped inside the House of Representatives’ chamber. Green’s protest referred to Trump posting and subsequently deleting a 62-second clip that depicted Barack, 64, and Michelle, 62, as apes in a jungle earlier this month.
Green’s sign, written in underlined black marker against a white background, remained held high despite Majority Leader Steven Scalise attempting to pull it out of sight.
Several other members of Congress, including fellow Texan Troy Nehis, also tried to block Green’s sign from being filmed as part of the annual event’s live TV coverage but were unsuccessful, as the message remained in sight as Trump took the podium.
A few minutes later, Green was escorted out of the room as a chant of “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.” and applause was heard.
Green told members of the media after he left the State of the Union that he would “do it again” if given the chance. In an X video shared by C-SPAN network, he said, “As you know, the president has depicted a former president and first lady as apes. The behavior has been declared racist by a good many people, but I don’t think the president has really received the message that it’s unacceptable. He seems to think that he can do these things with impunity.”
Green continued, “Tonight, I wanted him to have a person confront him and let him know that Black people are not apes, that Black people are not going to tolerate this kind of behavior. I don’t speak for everybody, but I speak for people of good will who understand that if you tolerate this kind of behavior, you perpetuate it. I refuse to tolerate this level of hate that the president is, in fact, putting into policy.”
He added that “we must take a stand against this level of invidious discrimination” and that Green’s drive led him to intentionally make Trump “know it and see it.”
Green told the cameras that he believed his mission was successful. “Judging by the expression on [Trump’s] face, he got the message, he saw it,” he reflected.
A February 6 article by CNN reported that Trump “refused to apologize” for posting the AI video, “blaming a staffer for the mistake.”
While speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, the president’s official aircraft, Trump said at the time, “I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine,” referring to the section that made claims about alleged fraud in voting machines. “It was a very strong post in terms of voter fraud. Nobody knew that that was in the end. If they would have looked, they would have seen it and probably they would have had the sense to take it down.”
Trump concluded, “Somebody slipped and missed a very small part. … I didn’t make a mistake.”
