WASHINGTON — The Republican who yelled, “You lie!” during former President Barack Obama’s address to Congress in 2009 voted to censure Rep. Al Green (D-TX) for following his footsteps and disrupting President Donald Trump’s address this week.
“You voted for it?” Raw Story asked Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) after this morning’s vote.
“Oh, yeah,” Wilson told Raw Story. “It was an intentional disruption, and he didn’t stop. And even when he was corrected, had to be taken out. Mine was an unintended town hall moment.”
For Democrats, the hypocrisy was palpable in Trump’s Washington.
A lot has changed in the nation’s capital since 2009, partly because Wilson’s outburst opened up Pandora's box when it comes to presidential addresses to Congress.
Since Wilson shouted “You lie!” former Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore up Trump’s State of the Union address for all to see after the president finished delivering it in 2020, while Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and others heckled former President Joe Biden each time he addressed Congress.
Critics said Green’s yelling that Trump “has no mandate to cut Medicaid” earlier this week wasn't far from Wilson's outburst 16 years ago, but the 13-term congressman brushed any comparison aside.
“Some people argue that this is, like, the natural extension of what you did?” Raw Story pressed.
“No, no, no. It’s not,” Wilson said. “Mine was not intentional. There was no forethought with mine. The only forethought I had is that I knew that particular issue.”
After disregarding decorum, breaking House rules, embarrassing then-Speaker John Boehner and stunning the nation, Wilson was forced to call then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and apologize. That’s the big difference between him and Green, Wilson said.
“I apologized that evening too. They accepted the apology,” Wilson said. “He hasn't apologized.”
Wilson, who joined 214 Republicans and a mere 10 Democrats in voting to censure Green on Thursday, said his vote to censure wasn’t personal.
“I like Congressman Green very much, but to intentionally stand up and not sit down upon request, that made it doubly problematic,” Wilson said.
When Raw Story informed Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) that Wilson voted to censure Green, she was upset, if not surprised.
“Of course he did,” Crockett told Raw Story. “It's hypocrisy at the highest levels.”
It goes beyond Wilson though, according to Crockett.
The Texas congresswoman complained there's a double standard that's more than just Black versus white, it’s Republican versus Democrat.
“We can look at Marjorie Taylor Greene. They talk about decorum, we have a rule that says you can't wear a hat of any kind. She sat there in her MAGA hat this State of the Union. She sat there in Joe Biden’s State of the Union with her MAGA hat on. You're not allowed to wear a hat no matter what,” Crockett said. “No one said anything to her about violating the rules of decorum whatsoever, and that's not even getting on her and Boebert yelling and things like that.”
Crockett said hypocrisy is everywhere with today’s GOP, especially when it comes to self-proclaimed "law and order" Republicans railing against crime in America’s big cities — as the GOP did in the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday — while protecting a convicted felon in the White House.
“We had a hearing yesterday, and they want to talk about immigrants and how they are nothing but criminals that are running around and ruining our cities and things like that, as they're talking to the Boston mayor, who happens to have the safest large city in the country,” Crockett said. “But they have nothing to say about the 34-count convicted felon that they all love to follow.”
As the Democratic Party feuds over how to best combat Trump and regain power, Crockett argues a good starting point is simply holding Republicans to congressional rules.
“So I guess what frustrates me is that — or what frustrates a lot of people — is they say, ‘Democrats don't know how to fight in this fight,’” Crockett told Raw Story. “Because they will go as low as they can and get as dirty as they can, and we won't even say, ‘You know what, if it was good for the goose, then it's good for the gander.’”