By Gabe Ortiz, America’s Voice
One of the most significant moments from Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress did not happen on the dais, but instead in front of it. Just minutes into his unhinged, anti-immigrant and lie-riddled speech, Texas Rep. Al Green stood up with cane in hand to interrupt Trump’s address and state in no certain terms that he had no mandate to cut federal programs essential to the lives of everyday Americans.
During the address, Trump falsely claimed that the American people had delivered him a mandate “like has not been seen in many decades” in last November’s election. But Trump didn’t have one, Rep. Green asserted, and certainly not one to slash Medicaid. “Mr. President, you don’t have a mandate!” he shouted in response. A visibly irritated Trump turned to Speaker Mike Johnson, who warned the Texas Democrat to get back down in his seat or face removal. Undeterred, Rep. Green yelled that Trump had “no mandate to cut Medicaid.”
Meanwhile, his GOP colleagues heckled him, despite just voting for a budget resolution that would do just that. When Johnson again warned Rep. Green, he restated that Trump had no mandate to slash programs. Behind Trump, JD Vance flashed a hand motion to have him removed. Johnson, who did nothing when his caucus heckled and interrupted former President Biden’s addresses in 2023 and in 2024, then ordered the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort him out of the chamber. Voices could be heard jeering as the 77-year-old civil rights advocate was removed. Outside the chamber, Rep. Green told reporters that he did not regret speaking truth to power.
“I’ll accept the punishment,” he said. “It’s worth it to let people know that there’s some of us who are going to stand up to against this president’s desire to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.” And, he may indeed be punished for defending everyday Americans. Johnson said following the speech that Rep. Green may face censure, “among the more severe reprimands his colleagues could mete out,” the AP reports.
Rep. Green is facing punishment – that was spared from his GOP colleagues in 2022 and 2024 – for warning about catastrophic costs to critical programs like Medicaid and SNAP. In between the tired anti-immigrant lies heard throughout Trump’s remarks – no, immigrants are not responsible for the fentanyl, which is largely smuggled in by U.S. citizens; no, immigrants are not “criminals,” they actually commit offenses at lower rates than U.S.-born Americans; no, Trump is not responsible for lower border crossings, they were already down under Biden – was a lie that he was working to protect the benefits of everyday Americans.
But as our recent “At What Cost” campaign has highlighted, Trump and Congressional Republicans plan for unsparing mass deportations by funding cuts to vital programs like Medicaid and food assistance.
“Donald Trump and his MAGA allies in Congress are cutting health care, food assistance and other vital services in order to pay for their indiscriminate mass deportations and family separations that are not only cruel but disrupt our economy and raise prices of groceries, health care, and housing for all of us, while making us less safe,” as the website states. “The Trump administration is diverting DHS resources away from violent criminal and fentanyl traffickers to focus on detaining and deporting law-abiding, working, taxpaying and productive members of our communities who have been in the U.S. for decades.”
USA Today reported earlier this month that the administration is diverting thousands of agents doing critical work to combat fentanyl and human trafficking and shift priority to deporting working immigrant moms and dads.
Missing from the self-aggrandizement and anti-immigrant propaganda from Trump’s speech Tuesday night were the actual plans to help struggling families with skyrocketing food prices that will only get worse under a mass deportation agenda that will purge undocumented farm workers and other essential workers from the country. Nor will his senseless tariff threats against neighboring countries help struggling families. In fact, as Michelangelo Signorile writes, Trump admitted to Americans there will be a “little disturbance … it won’t be that much.”
“He’s telling them to take the pain and promising them it won’t last long,” Signorile wrote. “This might not seem like a lot, but it’s something he never did on the campaign trail. And he spoke last night after the markets tanked and economists warned of a recession—even a massive depression.” Mike also noted that Trump vilified the transgender community, much as he does with immigrants, and those attacks “were meant to distract, changing the subject to rile up the base, and scapegoat a minority—which is classic demagogue fare when people are worried about the economy.”
It takes some gall to tell working families that financial pain “won’t be that much” when he has the world’s richest individual galavanting through the People’s House like he owns the place and firing thousands of dedicated Americans from the federal workforce.
Slashing critical programs to help carry out mass detention and mass deportation will do much more than a “little disturbance.” The mass abduction of millions of long-settled, law-abiding residents and essential workers in agriculture, construction, and health care will devastate working families by tanking the economy, spiking inflation, and raising prices for everyone. Last year, the president of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association said “I don’t think there will be milk” in response to how mass deportation would affect dairy farms. States like Alabama and Georgia have already also shown us the consequences of passing anti-immigrant legislation, too. Trump and Musk won’t feel the pain, but we will.
And that nearly $100 billion that undocumented workers contributed in taxes in 2022, including the more than $25 billion to help fund Social Security for retired and disabled Americans? Gone. And as the past couple weeks have shown us, not even U.S. citizens have been immune from ICE’s indiscriminate raids.
Trump and Republicans are already demanding that we sacrifice critical benefits and precious taxpayer resources combating fentanyl and human trafficking in the name of his anti-immigrant obsession. But with the autocrat, Americans should know that it’s never enough.
“Trump and his allies in Congress are willing to gut Medicaid, force our most vulnerable citizens out of food assistance, devastate our economy, and divert DHS resources away from going after fentanyl traffickers all to pay for his obsession with mass deportations,” America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas responded. “Last night, Trump reiterated his plans for mass deportations, yet failed to admit they will keep targeting long-settled and deeply rooted immigrant contributors, not the ‘worst of the worst’ as promised. Meanwhile, he claimed victory on the border without acknowledging the declining monthly border numbers are merely continuing the trendline from the last six months of the Biden administration. And from ‘invasion’ assertions to blaming migrants for fentanyl, he dusted off his favorite lies to scapegoat immigrants, stoke fear and justify his harmful, cruel, and chaotic policy agenda.”