As Donald Trump entered the House chamber to deliver his State of the Union address, Democratic Representative Al Green made a powerful statement of protest.
The Texas congressman held up a sign reading, “Black people aren’t apes,” a direct response to a controversial video Trump recently shared on Truth Social. The clip depicted former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes. Trump later claimed he had not watched the full video before asking an aide to post it.
Capitol security quickly escorted Rep. Green out of the chamber. It wasn’t the first time he had been removed during one of Trump’s addresses. Last year, he was ejected after vocally objecting to proposed Medicaid cuts during the president’s joint address to Congress.
Green wasn’t alone in making a statement. Several Democratic congresswomen attended the speech dressed in white, honoring the suffragist movement and signaling solidarity around voting rights and women’s rights. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico, who leads the Democratic Women’s Caucus, explained that the choice of white was both symbolic and intentional. She said it was meant to recognize the historic fight for women’s voting rights and to underscore that the struggle continues amid what Democrats see as new threats to those protections.
At the same time, some Democratic lawmakers chose not to attend at all. Party leaders had encouraged members to skip the address rather than risk creating what they viewed as distractions during the speech.
Trump delivered his remarks against the backdrop of historically low approval ratings. A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 60% of Americans disapprove of his job performance, including 47% who strongly disapprove. Just 39% said they approve the lowest approval rating recorded for a president ahead of a second-year State of the Union in modern history.
Public sentiment about the country’s direction appears equally bleak. According to the latest AP-NORC poll, only 29% of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction, while 69% think it’s on the wrong track. That level of pessimism has grown since last year.
Taken together, the protests inside the chamber and the polling numbers outside it paint a picture of a deeply divided country one in which debates over race, rights, and leadership remain front and center as Trump continues his presidency.
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