Congressman Al Green -- the Democrat who was escorted out of the House of Representatives for interrupting President Donald Trump's address to Congress Tuesday -- says he's firing back at POTUS ... announcing plans to file articles of impeachment.
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00:00My intentionality was to walk out.
00:04I gathered my coat, I had my cane, and I was going to make my departure.
00:10But as I was doing so, the president had just made his statement about having not a landslide,
00:19but having a mandate, a mandate.
00:23And I was caught up in the moment.
00:25I didn't go to do what I did.
00:28I was caught up in the moment.
00:29And I turned and I said to him, you don't have a mandate to cut Medicaid.
00:35And the speaker gave me an admonishment.
00:39I continued, and he gave me another admonition.
00:42And I continued, and then I was ordered to be escorted out of the chamber.
00:46And I complied.
00:47And the people who escorted me out were very kind.
00:50I hold no animus toward the speaker.
00:53He did what the rules require.
00:55The president that evening called the Democratic members of Congress lunatics on national TV.
01:03The president called them lunatics.
01:06He did so, and he has not been reprimanded.
01:10He won't be censured.
01:12He uses incivility to take advantage of our civility.
01:17Well, I was walking out because I didn't want to suffer the incivility of the president.
01:22I'm sure you've seen the part of the president's speech where, I mean, talk about decorum.
01:28And you're right, as you say, you don't hold any ill will against Speaker Johnson, and
01:32he was doing what he had to for decorum.
01:35But there came a point during the speech where the president of the United States looked
01:38at a senator, a sitting senator, and referred to her as Pocahontas.
01:43I know who the senator is.
01:45I have such great respect for her.
01:48And this was the president using his incivility against civility.
01:55And he does this quite often.
01:58He spoke of all of the members who were Democrats as lunatics.
02:04President of the United States, joint session of Congress on national TV.
02:08There is talk that the Freedom Caucus may not be done with this and that they may try
02:13and strip you of committee assignments.
02:17What's your reaction to that?
02:19Well, I had a reporter to approach me and call this to my attention.
02:26I am here to serve the people of the 9th Congressional District.
02:30I believe that I have taken this oath that I have taken, and I pledge to do that.
02:37I would hope that they wouldn't.
02:39I would not agree with it.
02:41But if they do, it'll give me more time to work on my articles of impeachment.
02:47You're seriously considering introducing articles of impeachment?
02:50I am absolutely going to do it.
02:54This level of incivility emanating from the presidency, much of it in policy, is something
03:00we cannot tolerate.
03:02If President Barack Hussein Obama had behaved in this fashion, he would have been impeached.
03:09There is no question in my mind.
03:11So I believe that this president cannot escape this one thing that each member of Congress
03:19has.
03:20Four and 35 of us, we have it.
03:22He is a Goliath, but there are 435 Davids in Congress.
03:26I'm one of them, and I'm going to bring articles of impeachment.
03:29And the articles would be based on his speech to the joint session?
03:33The articles will be based upon things that have already occurred, in an indirect sense,
03:41but not directly based on that.
03:43What he said to the members and to the senator was unacceptable, and that's incivility.
03:51So I think we have to, at some point, use righteous incivility.
03:55We cannot allow him to just continue to step on us like that and not have some reasonable,
04:01righteous retort.