A Message to the Cabinet

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. Still I rise with my cane in hand. So feared, this cane, by many of my colleagues across the aisle. It is feared to the extent that they would conclude that it might be more than a cane. Yet, that is simply what it is, Mr. Speaker.

I rise with my cane in hand because it is the staff and rod that comforts me. I rise with my cane in hand because, quite frankly, I just believe I have the right to have a cane.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on several different topics. As a result, I will move from one podium to another to present these various topics.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the issue of fidelity to sycophancy emanating from the Presidency--fidelity to sycophancy emanating from the Presidency.

I just recently saw--and many of you saw it, as well--Members of the Cabinet, persons meeting with the President in the Oval Office. I never thought I would see persons holding such high and lofty positions pledging fealty not to the Presidency as much as to sycophancy--fealty. It was just unbelievable. The only time I saw anything similar to this was when I was in Communist China and I was with a group of very young children, babies who were maybe 5 or 6 years old at most, and they were all seated in a line. They all behaved in a similar fashion when called upon.

I saw persons with lofty positions, each of them there, I thought, to give the President a report about conditions related to their various areas of expertise and the departments that they are associated with. That is what I thought.

Silly me. They were there to pledge their fealty on national TV to the President of the United States of America. It was a sad sight to see each person telling the President how great you are.

Dear brothers and sisters--and I say ``brothers and sisters'' because I think we are all related, one race, the human race. Dear friends, Mr. Secretary of State, Madam Attorney General, don't let him steal your self-respect. Don't let him take your decency, as it relates to your humanity, from you. You are allowing him to reduce you to a less-than.

I will speak for you. Mr. President, you are demeaning the humanity of the people who are in service to this country. I will speak for them and tell you that, if I were in that room, I would walk out. I would not sit there and allow you to demean me in that fashion.

At some point, you have to grow the spine, those of you who were in that room. Grow the spine. Grow the will, and grow the determination to stand up. Be the person your family expects you to be. Be the person the country wants you to be and needs you to be. Don't become a rubber stamp for this President. He doesn't deserve that level of loyalty.

Finally, on this topic, at some point, each of you in that room will have to account for what you have done. I don't mean in a violent way. I just mean that, at some point on the infinite continuum that we call time, you are going to have to account for those times.

The question won't be: How loyal were you to the President? It will be whether you stood on principle when you had an opportunity to deal with the great issues of your time related to this country. There will be a day of reckoning for you. It will not be in terms of harm to you physically but in terms of your reputational risk being codified so that those who look through the fists of time will see what you did and did not do at this time. Acknowledging a Bold Stand

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, proud to have this opportunity to speak in this almost sacred place, proud to have the opportunity to address a topic of paramount importance to the American people, and proud to acknowledge a colleague who has taken a very bold stand. This is a colleague who has engaged in a form of protestation that will not always be received initially with the kind of respect that it merits.

Yet, as I have said before, dear friends, when you engage in protestation, when you protest and you ``get in the way,'' as the Honorable John Lewis put it--when you protest and you get in the way, there will be consequences. You must be prepared to suffer the consequences when you get in the way, when you protest. You must. You don't have to like the consequences, but you have to be prepared to suffer the consequences when you get in the way.

Today, I will acknowledge my colleague, a Member of Congress, who filed Articles of Impeachment. I am proud of him. I salute him. I applaud him for what he has done. He too is laying the groundwork for impeachment.

I said some time ago now that this President would be impeached again. I said some time ago that I was going to bring Articles of Impeachment, and I am proud to know that there are others who are now joining in this effort to impeach this President. I am very proud of what this Congressperson has done.

Representative Thanedar, your Articles of Impeachment, H. Res. 353, are historic. I am going to mention them as such because do not expect the networks--maybe there might be one or two that will say something positive and bring you on, but don't expect it because they give you all of the rationale for impeachment, but they don't want to see it happen.

Unfortunately, there are people like you who have to put principle above politics. I have your Articles of Impeachment in my hand, principle above politics. Understand, my dear brother, that when you put principle above politics, you are doing what the American people want you to do because the American people, at this time when we are confronting a crisis related to our democracy, the hue and cry is not for you to always win.

For those who believe that you only fight when you win, you are not going to win the hearts and minds of the American people. The American people want to know if you will fight even though you may not win. Will you fight? Will you fight and put everything on the line? That is what the American people are interested in when we hold these positions of public trust.

Don't despair when people say to you: This is not the time.

As Dr. King said: ``The time is always right to do what is right.''

``The time is always right to do what is right.'' You did the right thing, and because I am confident and believe in what you have done, I am signing on to your Articles of Impeachment. Add my name to your Articles of Impeachment. I am proud of what you have done because you have put principle above politics. A Preview of Impeachment Process

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. I rise at this moment in time to preview my Articles of Impeachment. This is to preview. This is not to present but to preview my Articles of Impeachment. Before giving this preview, I will thank a couple of people. There are many who I should thank, but there are a couple who I will thank. I thank a couple of people for what they have done in assisting me with these Articles of Impeachment.

My dear friend, John Bonifaz, who has been with me from the genesis of this when we brought Articles of Impeachment against President Trump previously, laid the foundation for it. When people said it can only be done if certain things exist and then later on retracted all of that when they were ready to move forward or had to move forward, to be quite candid with you, because the momentum had shifted, and it built up to the extent that you had notables like the Honorable John Lewis supporting the Articles of Impeachment that I drafted and placed before this House. Other Members who were holding positions of leadership in the House of Representatives signed onto the Articles of Impeachment.

The tide had turned, and there was little choice but to go along with what the people wanted--not what we were doing at the time but what the people wanted and the people were demanding.

I am very proud to thank John for what he has done to assist, but there is also another person who provided me with some very sage advice, someone who I have great respect for and have admired over the decades: Ralph Nader.

Many of you may not know the name, but Mr. Nader was a crusader for justice of the highest magnitude. He took stands when others wouldn't even speak the words that he stood on. I am proud to thank him for what he has done to assist in helping me to draw conclusions about these Articles of Impeachment.

Let's preview the impeachment process and the Articles of Impeachment that I intend to introduce. I said I would, and I will.

First, let's start with: What is impeachment? I think that because this is something that people hear about and a good many people will conclude that Articles of Impeachment must contain something related to a constitutional crisis, there is no necessity for a constitutional crisis to impeach--none. You can, but most of the Articles of Impeachment have not related to a constitutional crisis.

The first person to ever have been impeached was a judge, and it wasn't because there was a constitutional crisis. It was because of his behavior on the bench and because he was consuming alcohol at a time when he should have been taking his lofty position and adjudicating appropriately.

There was no constitutional crisis. Not only do you not need a constitutional crisis, but you don't have to be convicted of a crime. There doesn't have to be a codified criminal statute that has been violated. None of that is necessary for impeachment. There is no need to commit a crime.

The best example is my colleague who used to sit right over there on this row at the end of this row. My colleague who sat there, who I was here with for more than a decade, the Honorable Alcee Hastings. He was a Federal judge. He was tried and found not guilty of alleged offenses.

After he was tried and found not guilty of alleged offenses, his colleagues put together a committee, and they drew a different conclusion about his behavior. They took their conclusion to the Senate of the United States of America, to the House of Representatives, and my dear friend and brother was impeached. He was impeached and removed from office.

Yet, because I am a believer, I often say there is a God. He was thereafter elected to the Congress of the United States of America.

The point is, however, notwithstanding him having been found not guilty, the Senate found reason to impeach him.

He was impeached for something that he had been found not guilty of by a jury of his peers. Pursuant to the Constitution of the United States of America, you don't have to be found guilty of a crime to be impeached.

Now, along this very line, I would say this in terms of being found guilty. That means that if you had been found guilty of crimes, you can be brought before this body. If you fall within what the Constitution allows for impeachment, you can be brought before this body by way of impeachment.

You can be brought before the Congress if you have committed 34 felonies. If you have committed 34 felonies, you can be brought before the Congress for impeachment if you happen to hold one of the offices presented to us by way of the Constitution of the United States of America such that you might be impeached.

Thirty-four felonies, you can be impeached for that, but I am not going to talk about those felonies today.

I want you to understand something that Gerald Ford said about impeachment, the former President of the United States of America, because there are some people who have read the Federalist Papers. I have read them. I have read the words of Hamilton, the words of Jay, the words of Madison. I have read them.

They now have come to these lofty conclusions about what impeachment is. I am going to tell you the truth of what it is, and I defy any one of these constitutional scholars to contradict with evidence that supports something antithetical to what I am saying.

Gerald Ford got it right, the President. He got it right. He said-- and I am paraphrasing; these are not his exact words--impeachment is whatever a given Congress, whenever they vote--218, a majority vote of a given Congress--whenever a given Congress will vote in the majority for Articles of Impeachment on a given date, that will be an impeached person because impeachment is whatever a majority of Congress says it is on a given date.

Now, that was more close to what he said, whatever a given Congress says it is on a given date, and a given Congress would mean the majority of the people voting for impeachment.

There is no appeal. It is a political question by definition. As a political question by definition, it doesn't go to another court if someone differs or the Supreme Court. It goes to the Senate, and the Senate has the trial.

This is why Andrew Johnson could be impeached in 1868, Article 10 of the Articles of Impeachment against him, for speaking ill of Congress. You can be impeached for saying bad things about Congress. Andrew Johnson was.

Let's get one thing straight. All of you constitutional scholars who want to convince people that there is some lofty definition that you have studied for some number of years, and now you have come to conclusions that most people can't understand, my dear brothers and sisters, impeachment is whatever a majority of Congress says it is at a given time, on a given date. That is impeachment.

If Congress chooses to impeach because of the tie that you are wearing at a given time--I wear this tie; there are some people who don't appreciate it as much as I do--you can be impeached. Now, Members of Congress cannot be impeached. We are not included in the definition of persons who may be impeached.

Now, let's talk about impeachment that I plan to file. These impeachment articles have been drafted. I have gone over them. They have been in my hands for now some time. The finished product was actually in my hands for probably a week or so. I wanted to do some additional things, so I checked, and I have changed and added a few things, but I have had these impeachment articles.

There is a target-rich environment when dealing with this President when it comes to impeachment. Knowing where to start is the issue, not is there a place to start, but knowing where to start is the issue.

I will be introducing these Articles of Impeachment, and I am just going to go straight to one of the articles or maybe the article. I have options. I may delete some things when I introduce. I just want to mention this option because it is the one that people talk about in words other than what I will present.

They talk about this impeachment. They say that he is a threat to democracy. They say that he disrespects the Constitution. They say these things, but I am not sure that everybody who says these things is truly interested in the consequences related to what the President should suffer for doing these things.

I am not sure that they want to see the consequences. I think that there are some people who literally just enjoy saying the President is destroying democracy, the President does not honor the constitutional provision related to respecting a person's right to a trial, a fair trial, which brings along with it the whole notion that you just can't pick a person up off the street, send them to a foreign country with an indefinite sentence, just lock them up--pick them up off the street, take them to a foreign country, lock them up, indefinite amount of time.

There has to be some sense of reality associated with what we do, and I want to talk about that sense of reality.

This President is defying court orders, including orders from the Supreme Court of the United States of America. He is defiant. You heard him say now in two venues--I am going to speak about them briefly in just a moment. He said in two venues that he is not going to honor the necessity for a person to have what we call due process. In two venues, he said it.

Now, the President didn't come out and say, I am not going to honor due process, no. He has said what a reasonable and prudent person can conclude as his indication of not going to honor due process of the law, which is something the Constitution requires if you are going to take life, liberty, or property from a person. A person has to have due process. If you are going to take a person and lock them up, they have to be able to say, Hey, you have the wrong guy. They ought to be able to say it to someone other than the arresting person. They ought to be able to say it to someone who has authority over the arresting person. They ought to be able to go to a disinterested third party--we call that the judiciary of this country--some member of the judiciary or some judge, go before a judge and say, Judge, you have the wrong person.

You ought to be able to use the great writ of habeas corpus to get yourself before a judge. You ought not be taken out of the country before you have that opportunity. Then if you are out of the country, the Supreme Court can tell you that you ought to facilitate the return of that person.

That is what the Supreme Court has said, and that is what this President is refusing to do, refusing to honor the Supreme Court's order.

I call that, in Article 1 of my Articles of Impeachment, devolving democracy within the United States into a dictatorship with himself as a de facto dictator.

My friends, truth be told, we are now into a de facto dictatorship with a de facto dictator, not a dictatorship that has been declared by some official body.

When the President of the United States declines to honor orders of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, he becomes the person who decides not only that a person should be pursued under the authority of the executive branch--he has now disregarded the separation of powers. He has now encroached upon the supremacy of the judiciary, a coequal branch of government. He dispenses with the necessity for the judiciary to perform its functions. In so doing, he has become a de facto dictator.

Now, this is not in my impeachment orders, but I have to bring this up because of the impact that he is having. I will talk more about what is in my articles in just a moment, but I want to mention this. It could be in, but I want to mention this.

As a de facto dictator, the President is engaging in de facto ethnic cleansing, the removal without due process. I know it is not the kind of ethnic cleansing that most people are acclimated to. Yes, I understand that this is a nouveau ethnic cleansing, nouveau de facto ethnic cleansing, removing people without due process to another country without the person being able to go before some disinterested third party and saying, You have the wrong person. Making the allegation that the person is a part of some gang of thugs, well, a Federal judge addressed that. A Federal judge addressed that, and here is what the Federal judge said. I have it right here. I have it here. Here is what the Federal judge said: So what? So what? You are a member of a gang so now you are not entitled to due process?

Due process is accorded you not because you are a person who is living the high life, wining and dining with the billionaire class, living in the suites of life, having your galas, engaging in the various cocktail events, known to all the people as an honorable person. Yes, that person deserves due process, but also every person in this country deserves due process if you are going to deprive them of life, liberty, or property. They are required due process under the Constitution of the United States of America.

Now, if you don't respect the Constitution, well, then, you can make these decisions, which is what the President does. If you don't respect the Constitution, you can decide that if you are a member of some gang, I can deport you to some other country, let's just say El Salvador, some other country. I can deport you to that country without due process because you are a gang member. Well, it won't be long before some person who is not a gang member gets deported.

This Federal judge got it right. In essence, he said, So what? If the person is a gang member, they are still entitled to due process.

I almost admire, to some extent, the way this President can persuade people to believe this level of inanity--this level of inanity, not insanity, inanity--how he is able to do this because he is able to convince people that it is more who you are as opposed to what you have done that is more important.

If you are associated with a gang, then you have lost your constitutional rights. That is what he is inculcating in our society. He wants to make that normal. If you allow this to be normal, if we allow this to be normal, if I allow this to be normal, we are disserving the people, in my case, that I represent.

The Constitution doesn't allow this, but this President thinks he is above the law, so he says.

Member of a gang did some other dastardly deeds, as a result he makes the case: This is what people elected me to do, violate the 13th Amendment. Just get them out of the country.

My friends, if you have noticed, most of the people who are being removed from the country, unfortunately, are Latinos. Now, I take a stand for the Latino community because, Mr. President, you, sir, have caused Latinos to become suspect.

I lived at a time when I was suspect in this country, when just being Black in America made you a suspect. Now I talk to people who have no reason to be in fear, but they are because they see what is happening and they see who it is happening to with a great degree of regularity. And because they see it, they are fearful of what can happen to them and they are fearful that if they are not careful, they can be picked up, taken away to another country without due process.

People are paying attention. If you can do this to one person, why can't you do it to another? It looks like you are trying to get a certain group of people out of the country.

If you need some evidence to support what I say, well, how about this? The President wants to give people thousands of dollars to bring new birth to America, new lives, to birth babies; thousands of dollars. When you have people who are already here, people who are already participating and paying into the tax system, and persons who are abiding by the law. Now you have literally concluded that, even if they will leave by way of some of the things that you are doing that are antithetical to the Constitution, or you are going to force them to self-deport.

Mr. Speaker, I have many people in my congressional district that are Latinos and, yes, the President is trying his level best to get them to self-deport. It is not just the people who have committed crimes that he is after. You don't have to have studied his behavior very long to see that it is people who are not of a certain ethnicity, not of a certain race that he is concerned with.

If he were true to what he says, he wouldn't be saying: We have got to have more babies and then wanting to put millions of people out of this country who are law-abiding, many of them called Dreamers, who came here not of their own volition, and made a life here. They didn't decide to come, but they are here. They made a life.

I have had to go across the border to bring people back that were deported improperly. These people are here in this country making America a better country by their very presence in the country. Not everybody is going to invent something to make America great. Work hard and treat people right, you could be a good citizen and make America great. You don't have to do the things that are going to be written across the pages of time. You can do the simple things, and these people are doing these things. They have made our lives better.

You want to kick them out by accusing some of them of crimes while never convicting them, by sending a person never convicted to prison in another country, but others by bullying them out. Using your bully pulpit and your agents, all of whom now speak with such a degree of disdain for people, it is just remarkable to hear the way they address the issues.

You have developed cohorts who have all become little bullies. They want to emulate you and your aggressive behavior in indicating what they are going to do to people.

What you give you shall receive. It will come back to you.

The point is, you are removing people simply because of who they are and you want to now increase the population by giving women money-- people, husband and wife, two people money. I suppose two. I don't know. The way I have heard it, I think it just sounds like he is expecting the one gender to carry this load, and it is a challenge if you are doing it just to get money. I would hope that people wouldn't say: Well, I am going to have a child because I can get $5,000. Probably there are very few people who will, but you are changing the dynamics or desire to when you already have people here.

I mention this because this is a form of nouveau de facto ethnic cleansing that the President is engaging in. Articles of Impeachment

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, to the Articles of Impeachment, these articles have two places, maybe three, wherein the President has confessed.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, one place where the President has expressed concerns that ought to cause all Americans to want to see some change, to see him have to be dealt with for what he said and what he is doing.

I have in my hand a passage titled: ``President Trump meets with President of El Salvador.''

There are three different things that I will call to your attention related to impeachment. The first is this meeting in the Oval Office. I am about to read to you something that was published by C-SPAN. If you want the details, you can go to the actual event on C-SPAN and see what I am telling you. This is no secret.

Some of the news media has picked up on it as of late and they are talking about it.

Here is what it says, here is how it reads, here is what it states: During an Oval Office meeting--I am going to paraphrase some of this-- with the President of El Salvador, President Donald Trump and members of his administration argued that they were not required to return deported Salvadoran citizen Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Some things bear repeating. I say this quite often. Seems like there is a lot that bears repeating: not required to return this Salvadoran citizen to the United States, in spite of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of facilitating his return.

The Supreme Court of the United States of America, coequal branch of the government, separation of powers, not required to return him, not facilitating it. That is what the President thinks: not required to do it, doesn't have to facilitate his return, and note that they said facilitate. There is a judge that has explained it in great detail what facilitate means. It is a beautifully written opinion.

It goes on to say that the President--and I am paraphrasing--of El Salvador said he was not authorized to return Mr. Garcia.

Now, they are sitting in the same room, the President of El Salvador, the United States President, seated next to each other, juxtapose right there next to each other for all the world to see, on C-SPAN if you want to see it, and so he says he is not authorized to return Mr. Garcia, who was legally present in the U.S. before being deported in March. That is what C-SPAN says: legally present in the U.S., legally present, deported to El Salvador without due process.

C-SPAN doesn't have due process right here, but that is what happened.

It goes on to say: The Trump administration alleged that he was a member of the MS-13 gang.

Well, I already covered that. Allege all you want about his behavior. It does not negate his right to due process under the law.

I only regret that you are not sitting and standing right there right now, Mr. President, so that you can hear me say it to you to your face.

He is entitled to due process of the law. Look, if he is a member of MS-13 and he has committed a crime, try him, convict him. Nobody wants to defend members of MS-13, but being a member of a gang does not deprive one of due process of the law.

It goes on to indicate here: ``But previously admitted that the deportation was an administrative error.'' Talk about adding insult to injury.

The administration says we deported this person--not to demean him-- Mr. Garcia, deported him by way of an administrative error. Made a mistake. Deported him by mistake, administrative error, but still you refuse to facilitate his return.

What is wrong with you? Have you no respect for the Constitution? You don't have to respect Mr. Garcia, you don't have to respect me, but I want you to respect my constitutional rights and I want you to respect his constitutional rights because the minute I decide that it is okay for you to disrespect his constitutional rights, I have decided it is okay for you to disrespect my constitutional rights. Respect constitutional rights. Mr. Garcia merits that level of respect.

I also indicate in the Articles of Impeachment that this President demeans the judiciary. I think there is much evidence to support my position, but what I would like to do is give you what I feel are some of the--a piece of the best evidence.

I believe this to be the best evidence. This is on Truth Social. I am told that Mr. Trump is either the owner or one of the owners of Truth Social, and this is a tweet that bears the name Donald J. Trump. I don't think he has ever denied making this tweet, and here is what it says, in part. It says--and he is talking about a Federal judge now: ``This radical left lunatic of a judge''--he is notorious for calling people lunatics.

I was at home looking at TV. I had been escorted out of the Chamber. I was seated right over there, and when I made my comments about the President not having a mandate to cut Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, the Speaker did what was required of him. The officers did what was required. I am not mad at any of them.

When you protest, be prepared to suffer the consequences. You don't have to like them, and I don't, but I wasn't here, so I was at home.

He uses that word ``lunatic,'' and he used it against people sitting right here on this side of the aisle. He called the Members of the Democratic Party lunatics from that podium. Lunatics. He has never been reprimanded. He has never been sanctioned.

This House could issue a resolution of reprimand if we had the guts, if we had the intestinal fortitude.

To quote someone that I have learned to respect over the years, Malcolm X, if you just had the chibblings, you could reprimand him for it. Let him know that there are some lines that he can't cross. Let him know that he can't come in our House and call Members of the Democratic Party lunatics or call a Member of the Senate Pocahontas. Let him know that there are boundaries. You can still get elected.

He uses the word ``lunatic'' here, and I am going to read it again.

``This radical left lunatic of a judge, a troublemaker, an agitator, who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama was not elected President.''

That is the preamble. Now let's go down to the heart of it.

He says: ``This judge, like many of the crooked judges . . .'' I have to say it again; some things bear repeating. ``This judge, like many of the crooked judges I am forced to appear before . . . '' 34 felony convictions, 34. That is not here, so I will read it all again.

``This judge, like many of the crooked judges I am forced to appear before, should be impeached.''

The President of the United States calling for the impeachment of a judge because he doesn't like the decision of the court. What about respect for a coequal branch of government? What about separation of powers? What about honoring the law that you have sworn to uphold?

``This judge, like many of the crooked judges I am forced to appear before, should be impeached. We don't want vicious, violent, demented criminals, many of them deranged murderers in our country. Make America Great Again.''

This is from the President of the United States of America. It would be hard to convince a reasonable and prudent person who hasn't been through all of this that the President would say such a thing.

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court took issue with the President. The Chief Justice took issue with him. He sent a message indicating that we don't impeach judges because we differ with them; we appeal.

He is defying the orders of Federal courts and the Supreme Court of the United States of America. That is what he is doing.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your kindness.

He is defying the Federal courts. Once you do this, you become a de facto dictator--you reduce the country to a de facto dictatorship--and for this you must be impeached. The Articles will go into many other aspects of this, but for these things you must be impeached

These Articles of Impeachment I shall bring, I have said that I would and I will, but I want to give everybody notice right now--right now, take note of this--they will not be the only Articles of Impeachment because the President has done various things that merit impeachment, and at least I am going to build a record so that posterity will know how some of us stood during this time of crisis when the President was violating the Constitution. I will be bringing at least one additional occurrence where there will be Articles of Impeachment presented to this House, maybe more than one more, but I am not going to allow this Congress to escape having a record of what this President is doing. Yes, I am going to bring my Articles of Impeachment.

I know that the President, once he hears the things that I have said, he will try to find some way to weasel out. I call that pickpocket politics, when you catch the pickpocket trying to lift something from your person, and then you decide, oh, well, I really wasn't taking that, I am sorry, just bumped into you.

Well, the President always tries to retract. What I am amazed at is that the media will allow him to take the last thing he says as what he really meant. You would never do that for Barack Obama. You would never do that for, God bless him, the last President of the United States, the Honorable Joe Biden. You would never do that.

However, you take the last thing this President says, regardless as to what else he says about how he is going to enforce his tariffs and what he is going to do with them. Once he sees that it is not working and he starts to retreat, he starts to meander back, crawl back, and then you take that as, oh, well, the President really meant this. What he was saying before was to acquire a bargaining position. Well, Canada didn't think so. Canada didn't think it was just a bargaining position when he said he wanted to make Canada the 51st State. Greenland didn't think so.

Why do we want to think that what this man says last is what he meant at first when what he said at first totally contradicts what he said at last? It makes no sense. Therefore, Mr. President, you shall have Articles of Impeachment presented by Al Green, Member of Congress, because I will be fulfilling my constitutional responsibility to do so. Slavery Remembrance Day

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise; proud to be an American with great respect for the country I love, and I ought to be proud of it, proud to be associated with it. I am proud because my ancestors were sacrificed for more than 240 years to lay the foundation for the greatness of this country, the economic foundation. They were sacrificed. They were enslaved. They have never been given the honor and respect that they merit.

We have respected days in this country that I appreciate and respect. We respect Pearl Harbor with a Pearl Harbor remembrance. We respect 9/ 11 with a 9/11 remembrance. We respect the Holocaust; we have a Holocaust remembrance. We need a Slavery Remembrance Day to give honor and respect to people who were brought here in chains, kept in bondage for more than two centuries to lay the economic foundation for this country.

They had a hand in building this Capitol and a hand in building the White House. They built roads and bridges, planted the seeds, and harvested the crops. These are the people who laid the economic foundation. They are the economic foundational mothers and fathers of the United States of America. I am proud to be a descendant, a scion of the economic foundational mothers and fathers.

I hold this because there are people who would silence me if they could. ``Censured, but not silenced.'' My voice is going to be here as long as there is a breath of life in me and I am a Member of this body. I plan to make sure that history records the truth about what is happening during these times, and there will be many who will want to read what is now my manuscript but it will become my book of the times, the challenging times we live in.

Censured, but not silenced. People assumed that I was going to walk out in shame, but I know this: Dr. King went to jail for his protestation. He didn't want to go to jail. He was censured, incarcerated, but not silenced.

Rosa Parks took a seat in a racist Southern town, taken to jail for simply sitting on a seat on the bus that was vacant. She was taken to jail. She didn't want to go to jail. Rosa Parks, censured in a sense, imprisoned, put in jail, but not silenced.

I don't claim to be a Rosa Parks, I don't claim to be a Dr. King, but I do claim to be one of the many people who are willing to be censured, who are willing to have to suffer, but I won't be silent. I will continue this fight.

People expect us to fight even when we can't win. It is not a question of whether you are going to win, it is will you take a principled stand. That is what the times require, a principled stand. Yes, there may be consequences. Don't hurt anyone. Don't destroy any property. Get in the way, as the Honorable John Lewis put it, whom I got to know well. Yes, get in the way. You may get in the way, and you may have to suffer the consequences. You don't have to like them, but there are times when we have to suffer the consequences for the good that we would do. The Honorable John Lewis called it good trouble. I am honored to engage and to have engaged in this good trouble.

Mr. Speaker, I proudly yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source