Rep. Al Green had a clear message for Donald Trump during Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.
During the evening’s event at the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the Texas congressman protested Trump’s recent controversy that earlier saw the president share a racist Lion King parody video to his Truth Social account that depicted President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.
As Trump approached the podium to speak, Green held up a sign that read, “Black people aren’t apes!” in all capital letters.
Shannon Stapleton-Pool/Getty
Entertainment Weekly viewed the moment as it unfolded live on ABC’s broadcast of the State of the Union address, with reporter Rachel Scott commenting on Green’s statement in real time.
“Look at this, congressman Al Green holding up a sign, I believe I’m looking at it right now, it said something in references to apes. ‘Black people are not apes,’ in reference to that post the president had on his social media account,” Scott said live on the air. “That, clearly a sign of protest there.”
EW has reached out to the White House for a response.
Earlier in February, Trump refused to apologize for posting the video, despite widespread criticism from figures on both sides of the political aisle.
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“No, I didn’t make a mistake,” he told reporters on Air Force One, days after the video was initially shared (and later removed from his Truth Social account).
The clip was set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” song, with accompanying footage showing Trump’s face edited onto the body of a lion. Joe Biden was additionally depicted as a primate, while Kamala Harris was shown as a turtle.
EW previously learned that the video was posted erroneously by a White House staffer, and it was eventually deleted from Trump’s page.
“I mean, I look at a lot of thousands of things. I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine,” the president eventually said of the video. “I guess it was a takeoff on The Lion King, and certainly it was a very strong post in terms of voter fraud.” (Trump has made numerous false claims about election fraud, particularly related to the 2020 election he lost to Biden.)
Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty
“Nobody knew that that was in the end,” he added. “If they would have seen it and probably they would have had the sense to take it down.”
EW’s sister publication, PEOPLE, also received a statement on the matter from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, in which she said, “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
See Green’s sign in the image at the top of this post.