[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 149 (Thursday, September 11, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H4258-H4261]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               DARK DAYS

  (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Green 
of Texas was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.)
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, still I rise.
  I rise, Mr. Speaker, as a liberated Democrat.
  I rise, Mr. Speaker, unbought, unbossed, unafraid.
  I rise, Mr. Speaker, as the only Member of the House of 
Representatives to be removed from a joint session of Congress and, 
thereafter, to be censured. I have been censured, Mr. Speaker, but I 
have not been silenced. Censured, but not silenced.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in agreement with the President. This is, 
indeed, a dark day. Yesterday was a dark day--dark days because of 
lives that have been lost. This day, the USA Today has published an 
article styled: ``24 years after 9/11, alliances fractured,'' referring 
to what happened on 9/11, the lives that were lost to terrorism.
  Then, Mr. Speaker, there is another article that I would call to your 
attention in The Washington Times. It is styled: Growing leftwing 
violence blamed for deadly shooting.
  Mr. Speaker, I wish to address violence. I wish to address violence, 
and I wish to start by indicating that, yesterday, I published a tweet. 
This tweet, Mr. Speaker, indicated, in essence, that this is the time 
for all persons of good will to take a stand against violence and that 
persons should do this because Dr. King was right, and his words are 
right today:
  ``We must all learn to live together as brothers,'' he said. I would 
add: and sisters.
  We must all learn to live together as brothers and sisters, or we 
will perish together as fools.
  I did not know Mr. Kirk. I don't believe I have ever met him. I meet 
a lot of people, so I may have, but I don't believe that I have.
  Here is what I know about him: He was a human being. He was a child 
of the same creator who created me. He had every right to express his 
views. He had every right to differ with me and anybody else as much as 
he wanted to. He had every right to be where he was and to speak on the 
issues of importance to him in ways that I might not agree with, but he 
had a right to do this.
  He had a right to life. He had a right to say these things in venues 
across the length and breadth of this country and, I would say, across 
the globe. These were his rights.
  He had the right to be where he was and to do what he was doing.
  I don't know him as a person who has said things that I would always 
agree with, but I want his wife and his children to know that I am 
saddened by his demise.

                              {time}  1200

  I am saddened by the fact that he was assassinated. I am saddened by 
it. It is painful. I regret that it happened, and if I could have 
prevented it, I would have.
  I don't believe that we should have a country that somehow would have 
people lose their lives, be assassinated, and then people gloat and 
celebrate an assassination.
  I ask today: What did Mr. Kirk and the victims of 9/11 and the 
persons who have died in churches while praying, persons who were 
killed as they were praying in various religious institutions, children 
who have been murdered in schools, what did they all have in common? 
The one thing that they all had in common, and there may be others, is 
that they were innocent people. They were innocent people. They were 
innocent people going about their business. None of them were breaking 
the law.
  This is bigger than any one of us or any group of us. It is bigger 
than any person's religiosity. It is bigger than where you happen to be 
at a given time. This is about the right to life and the right to speak 
freely. It is about what the Constitution affords all of us in this 
country and about the necessity for every one of us to protect these 
constitutional rights.
  This is about people who have been fortunate enough to have been born 
in the United States of America or people who have come to the United 
States of America. It is about people who just happen to be passing 
through.
  It is about the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, 
and especially life, because without life, you cannot have the liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness.
  All of these people have in common the fact that they were innocent 
and the fact that they have lost their lives, some to terrorism, 
persons who came to this country to impose and inflict terrorism upon 
people, and some from terrorists within the country, some from people 
who were just crazed, some from people who were persons who should not 
have had the opportunity to have the type of weaponry that they had. 
But they were all persons who were innocent. They were all persons who 
had this right to life that I stand for.
  Today, I believe it appropriate that I first say a prayer, and then 
after the prayer, I will make some comments about current 
circumstances.
  I don't ask everyone to pray with me. You pray with me if you desire. 
If you choose to do other things, then do those other things, but I 
pray this prayer for my country.
  Most Gracious Creator, we know You by many names, but we also know 
that by any name You are the creator of all that was, is, and ever 
shall be. By any name, You created air, the breath of life. By any 
name, You created water, the elixir of life. By any name, You created 
the star that we call Sun, the light and warmth of life. By any name, 
You created the terra firma that we call Earth, the foundation and the 
home of life. And by any name, I beg that You would understand and pray 
that You would give me the courage to not only speak truth to power, to 
speak it in a righteous way, to have the courage to do all that I can 
to protect all of

[[Page H4259]]

Your creation. I ask You to give me the strength as I speak today to 
talk about the circumstances that have created concerns that have to be 
addressed. I beg that You would give me the strength in Your name, by 
whatever name I make this appeal.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, allow me to address CNN. Yes, I am a Congressperson 
who believes that you have to speak truth not only to power but also 
truth about power.
  I want to address CNN. I understand that when you do this, you are 
not likely to get an invitation to be on their airwaves. I understand 
it. They have the power to mute by simply denying you access, but I 
just thank God for C-SPAN, unfiltered C-SPAN. C-SPAN does not mute. C-
SPAN does not conclude that because you are a person who will speak 
truth to power and about power that you shouldn't have access to the 
airwaves.
  I am going to talk about C-SPAN now because it was on C-SPAN this day 
that I heard one of their reporters indicate that we should, not in 
these exact words perhaps, but that we should tone down the language, 
and indicate that we should probably be concerned about certain words, 
two were mentioned.
  We should be concerned about saying ``fascism,'' language that is 
incitive is the way it was put--perhaps not in these exact words, but 
incitive language, language that would cause people to do ugly things, 
incitive language, ``fascism.''
  Then, this reporter mentioned another word, allegedly a word that 
would create, what I would call, some spark within a person that might 
drive a person to say something or do something that would be harmful, 
incitive language. Well, that word was ``racism.''
  Now, this reporter mentioned fascism and racism on CNN. Yes, I am 
going to continue to demean CNN for what they have done. I know that 
this reporter meant well.
  By the way, I have respect for the reporter, but I know what is 
happening at CNN and how CNN has become a status quo news source. To 
maintain the status quo, CNN will do things that, quite frankly, don't 
allow us to make the change necessary to benefit all Americans.
  This reporter mentioned these two words, ``fascism'' and ``racism,'' 
as incitive terms. Interesting to note, the reporter did not say 
``anti-Semitism.'' By the way, I fight anti-Semitism every day of my 
life. I am antithetical to it, and I am going to fight it. I think we 
have to end anti-Semitism. I am going to fight to end anti-Semitism, 
but on CNN, ``anti-Semitism'' is a word that you can use to address the 
anti-Semite and to deal with those persons who are perpetrating and 
perpetuating anti-Semitism, but you can't use ``racism'' on CNN.
  ``Racism'' is an incitive word. CNN would have us end anti-Semitism 
and allow us to address it in all of its forms. These are all forms of 
invidious discrimination. It is all right to address anti-Semitism, but 
not racism.
  If you are going to talk about racism, you have to use softer 
language because the word ``racism'' is incitive, according to CNN.

                              {time}  1210

  Well, CNN is saying to the world, they want to end anti-Semitism, as 
I do, but they are saying they want to manage racism. CNN manages 
racism by not allowing it to be addressed and confronted to the same 
extent as they would allow anti-Semitism to be addressed.
  Again, I am antithetical to, I am going to fight anti-Semitism, but I 
am also going to fight racism. I am not going to kneel. I am not going 
to cower. I am not going to back off. Racism has to be fought. It has 
to be dealt with because it, too, exists in this country.
  We cannot pretend that racism doesn't exist. If we are going to 
acknowledge invidious discrimination, we have to acknowledge it in all 
of its forms, and I would hope that CNN would get a better 
understanding of what it is doing by managing racism and doing what it 
can to eliminate anti-Semitism.
  It is my belief that people of good will can fight both racism and 
anti-Semitism, and if we are going to do it, we have got to speak truth 
about power. We have got to speak truth to those people who have 
already concluded that the loss of Mr. Kirk, the conservative activist, 
as is stated in The Washington Times, already concluded that this was 
some leftwing person, and then they used plural language and say 
``they,'' the leftwing.
  If it was a leftwing person--I don't put any special boundaries 
around that person--whoever it is, ought to be punished to the fullest 
extent that the law allows. It doesn't matter what their party 
affiliation is. But what does matter is you shouldn't jump to 
conclusions. We don't have the empirical evidence of what happened, 
last I heard. Maybe it has been announced just recently. I am talking 
about the authorities. For people to come to the floor of the House and 
make statements about how leftwing people have caused this to manifest 
itself, Mr. Kirk's demise, without any evidence of it, and for CNN to 
infer in some way that ``racism'' is a term that may have promoted what 
happened to this man; they are wrong. They are wrong to do it. Members 
of Congress who do it are wrong.
  To blame the harm that was caused to some person who is said to be on 
the left or on the right, that is wrong. You can't blame people in a 
wholesale fashion for things that happen to some individual person. 
Left or right, you can't blame everyone.
  You can blame the person who did this. If you want to talk about 
language that precipitates this kind of behavior, language that may in 
some way influence people, then you are going to have to start at the 
top. You are going to have to start at the top. You are going to have 
to start with a President of the United States who told police 
officers: You don't have to be nice when you are arresting people. The 
President of the United States told people at one of his rallies that 
they could assault someone who was there and not to worry about it. The 
President of the United States says ugly things about people. The 
President of the United States came right here, and right at that 
podium just below the Speaker called Democrats lunatics. It was the 
same night that I was evicted from the joint session of Congress, the 
only person ever to be evicted. The President was right there at that 
podium. That President at the podium said that the Democrats were 
lunatics. Is that incitive language?
  I say to CNN, here is what is interesting about it. You allow the 
President's language to be spoken, but you won't allow people to come 
on your station and talk about the racism that exists, and it does.
  If we are going to talk about how these things are developed, speak 
in terms of individuals. The President of the United States of America 
has decided that the Department of Defense will be the Department of 
War now, taking us a quantum leap backwards in time to when it was 
previously the Department of War, but we had the good sense to 
understand that it would be better to be a Department of Defense than 
to be warmongers.
  The same President who says he wants the Nobel Peace Prize changes 
the Department of Defense to the Department of War. The same President 
who has promoted what is happening to the Palestinians in Gaza; who has 
gone so far as to say: Let's just buy that property or take it and make 
it some sort of resort. The same President who went so far as to say to 
Mr. Netanyahu: Yes, you can go on, you can do what you need to do. It 
was not in those exact words, but that was the implication. This is the 
same President who wants the Nobel Peace Prize.
  I cannot believe that the Nobel Committee, the Nobel authorities 
would ever give a person who has behaved as this President has--who 
wants a Department of War, who has sanctioned the collective punishment 
against the Palestinians, sanctioned the ethnic cleansing against the 
Palestinians, sanctioned ethnic cleansing, collective punishment--the 
Nobel Peace Prize.
  I know you are waiting for me to say the other word. Yes, I am going 
to say it. This President has sanctioned the most heinous of crimes 
against humanity, and those are crimes against humanity that are being 
committed on the Palestinians. He has sanctioned the most heinous 
crimes against humanity, and he wants the Nobel Peace Prize. I say to 
the President, you are not deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize.

[[Page H4260]]

  To those people who want to blame the leftwing for things, if a 
leftwing person has done something, I am not opposed to that person 
being blamed. I will blame that person. However, don't blame all people 
who happen to be on what you call the leftwing for what is happening. 
Don't do that. Explain what the person has done.
  I came to this floor. I am here in this House now, and I am giving 
you explicit things. Tell me what the so-called leftwing has done. They 
speak in these broad, general terms about people without giving the 
explicit evidence of the thing that they claim that they have done. 
Speak with specificities. Have the courage to speak with specificities. 
They don't have the courage to speak with specificities. They just want 
to use a broad brush.
  Yes, I am going to say it, the President doesn't deserve the Nobel 
Peace Prize because he has sanctioned genocide in Gaza. The world sees 
it, and this Congress sees it, with not one resolution to condemn the 
genocide taking place in Gaza, not one. There won't be one. There won't 
be one. Not one.

                              {time}  1220

  Few people are going to come to this floor and say it even exists. We 
are going to manage genocide in Gaza and condemn what is happening in 
Ukraine. How can you condemn what is happening in Ukraine and not 
condemn what is happening in Gaza? You can't do it, not in a righteous 
way, not in a righteous way.
  The Congress of the United States of America ought to be on record 
condemning what is happening to the Palestinians. For those who would 
claim that they have no reason to be, that this is just something that 
we should allow the Israelis and the Palestinians to resolve, here is 
my retort. Your tax dollars, your tax dollars are fueling the genocide 
that is taking place. If you wanted to do something about it, you 
wouldn't fund it. Those planes are our planes. The munitions are our 
munitions.
  Now, someone is going to say that I am somehow creating the fervor, 
the incitive response that may take place because I speak the truth. 
Truth has, in and of itself, an absolute defense. Who can deny? Who 
will deny in good faith that what is happening in Gaza is something 
other than genocide? It is genocide. We have the blood of what is 
happening to those innocent people on our hands.
  I started by talking about innocent people. They are among the 
innocents. We can't care more about some babies than other babies. We 
will allow the killing of Palestinian babies and maybe every now and 
then say something about how wrong this is, but we are not going to say 
that about other babies. We want to make sure that people understand 
that those babies have the right to life, that those babies should grow 
up, and they should have an opportunity to succeed in the world. 
Palestinian babies and children haven't been to school in years now. 
What is going to happen to them?
  We have now allowed Mr. Netanyahu to go into Palestine, into Gaza, 
and go to Gaza City. It is obvious that he is trying to destroy it. 
Yes, he is trying to destroy it. There will be no home for the 
Palestinians. They have already destroyed roads, bridges, schools, 
hospitals. Mr. Netanyahu doesn't want peace. He wants all of Palestine. 
I speak in specificities, all of Palestine. He doesn't want peace.
  In fact, the Knesset just last year took a vote, and the vote was to 
say in explicit terms there will be no Palestinian state from the river 
to the sea, from the river to the sea, not in those exact words. They 
said west of the Jordan. That is the river, and west of the Jordan is 
Gaza. From the river to the sea, west of Jordan, West Bank, from the 
river to the sea.
  If you say ``from the river to the sea,'' you will be sanctioned by 
this Congress. We can't say that. The Knesset in Israel can pass in 
that body legislation saying that there will be no Palestinian state 
from the river to the sea.
  Here is my point. From the river to the sea, Palestine and Israel 
must be free, both of them, two states. I stand for a two-state 
solution. There are others who stand for evicting the Palestinians, 
sending them to some other place. This is their land, their home. They 
have got every right to live where they live, and this war has gone on 
too long, taken too many lives.
  What happened at the genesis of this with the attack on Israel was 
wrong. It was sinful. It was harmful. It was terrorism. It was 
something that merited a response, but it didn't merit collective 
punishment. It didn't merit ethnic cleansing, and it didn't merit 
genocide. Those are crimes against humanity.
  Today, dear friends, I will mourn the death of Mr. Kirk and all of 
the persons who have died in their places of worship, killed at the 
hands of assassins, all of the children who have died in schools. It is 
about all of them and all of the people who died on 9/11.
  Any person who is on the left who has committed a crime against 
another person, violence against another person, I condemn you. Any 
person on the right who has committed a crime against another person, I 
condemn you. I speak with specificities about the incitive commentary 
emanating from the highest office in the United States of America. We 
see it, but we ignore it.
  I refuse to ignore it. I don't believe in committing crimes. I have 
spoken from this very podium, this very area about peaceful protests. I 
have indicated to people, no violence. I am a person who does not 
promote violence. There are people who will say that I promote violence 
by fighting racism. That is not promoting violence. That is ending the 
violence that racism perpetrates on people, and I am going to continue 
to fight racism.
  I have stood right here at this podium and talked about peaceful 
protest and how we must engage in peaceful protest. Peaceful protest is 
what got me to Congress. Most of the people who are minorities in 
Congress, somehow peaceful protest has benefited them.
  If I could cite a single moment in time, it would be at the Edmund 
Pettus Bridge, 1965, on what we now call Bloody Sunday, because at that 
moment when they were trying to cross and they were beaten, this is 
violence we are talking about, with specificity, I might add. Date: 
1965. Place: Edmund Pettus Bridge, Selma, Alabama. People wanted to 
peacefully march.
  My dear brother, John Lewis, told me the story of how he thought he 
was going to die on that bridge, how they were beaten all the way back 
to the church where they started.
  At the moment that happened and the moments that followed, when 
Lyndon Johnson was accorded the opportunity to sign the Voting Rights 
Act of 1965, when he signed that Voting Rights Act of 1965, when he 
signed it. Yes, he signed it with ink. Yes, it was a pen.

                              {time}  1230

  Mr. Speaker, it was written with the blood at the Edmund Pettus 
Bridge. That is why it is called Bloody Sunday. It was on a Sunday that 
it occurred. It is Bloody Sunday.
  Mr. Speaker, I speak in specificities. When he signed it, yes, there 
were only six Members of Congress who were of African ancestry that we 
know of. There may have been some others that we didn't know of because 
of the definition of how someone becomes a person of African ancestry, 
their blood and that sort of thing. We knew there were six. There were 
five persons who were Latinos. There were four persons who were Asian.
  Since the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, section 2 of the 
Voting Rights Act, section 4 of voting right act, section 5 of Voting 
Rights Act. All of these in concert, working together, we acquired more 
than 60 people of African ancestry in this Congress. More than 50 
persons in this Congress are Latinos. More than 20 persons in this 
Congress have Asian heritage.
  It is the Voting Rights Act. Yes, that Voting Rights Act was there to 
deal with racism. It says so in the act. It says race. We can't 
discriminate against people based on race. It also goes into some other 
aspects of discrimination, all of them invidious, but we can't do it.
  We have to say ``racism'' if we are going to talk about the case 
involving race. CNN doesn't want that to be said. If this were anti-
Semitism, we could say that anti-Semitism is being imposed. We could 
fight it and use that language. We can't use ``racism.'' By the way, I 
would support saying ``anti-Semitism.'' I would. I do support saying 
it. We have to be able to say ``racism,'' too.

[[Page H4261]]

  That is what is happening now across this country, especially in 
Texas, where the President of the United States--specificities--had the 
Justice Department to send a letter to the Attorney General of the 
State of Texas, indicating that four districts, all of which had 
minority representation, four districts should be redrawn because the 
State of Texas drew them specifically such that minorities would be 
elected.
  Then the Attorney General from the State of Texas had a retort. He 
refuted what the Justice Department said. He said: No, our lines were 
drawn for partisan advantage.
  That is lawful. If you draw the lines with race in mind, then that is 
unlawful. We can't draw lines to prevent people from acquiring a 
representation based upon race. We can't do that.
  The Attorney General refuted it. That should have ended it; but, no, 
it didn't. Notwithstanding the evidence that the Attorney General 
presented, indicating that they didn't do what the letter from the 
Justice Department alleges, Texas went on.
  What Texas has done is racist. We can't say that on CNN. If we say 
that it is racist on CNN, we become persona non grata. We are not going 
to be back on CNN. If we are there, the host would send little signals 
to let people know that this was something that was imposed and not 
something that was desired.
  CNN is a status quo news network. I am not a status quo 
Representative. I want to change the status quo. I don't want to manage 
the status quo. CNN does. CNN wants to manage racism and eliminate 
anti-Semitism.
  I want my dear friends to know that what Texas has done is racist, 
and I am using specificities. I have called to the attention of the 
public those two letters, and they are available.
  Mr. Speaker, I have to do what I do. I don't ask others to follow me. 
I am uniquely qualified to do what I do. I only ask those others who 
know that I am speaking truth: Don't be the one to try to trip me up. 
Just let me do what I can do. My friends will do as best they can to do 
what they can do. Together, we will get things done.
  We have to be truthful about our circumstances, or we will never end 
them. They will always remain the same.
  I close, my dear friends, my dear brothers and sisters--and I say 
this because, like Dr. King, I believe that there is but one race and 
that is the human race. Like Dr. King, I believe that all persons have 
been created equal, as has been indicated and elucidated in many 
documents that we hold near and dear in this country. I believe in one 
race. That is the human race.
  My dear friends, as a human being, I knew Mr. Kirk. I know the 
humanity that he had. I know the decency that should have been afforded 
him. I know that what happened to him was wrong, and it doesn't matter 
who did it. It was wrong.
  If it turns out it is a leftwing person, as defined by people, that 
is wrong. I am not going to stand for that. Quite frankly, I don't know 
any Democrats that would stand for that. It doesn't matter. We aren't 
going to say the person shouldn't be punished.
  I speak in specificities. I don't come to the floor and paint with a 
broad brush. I don't think all of my colleagues on the other side are 
racist. I don't label all of them as rightwing nuts. If I see someone 
do something, I am going to call them out. I am not going to label 
everybody.
  Mr. Speaker, I knew his humanity. I knew that he had every right to 
say what he was saying. He had every right to say things that I would 
never agree with. He had every right, if ever given the opportunity, to 
vote against me. That is not a reason for anybody to impose violence 
upon him.
  He had every right to do these things and walk away and go back home 
to his family. He should have spent the night either with his family or 
knowing that his family was secure and they knew that he was secure. He 
had every right to raise those babies.
  This was a wrong that was perpetrated. I want to go further and say 
the people who have been killed in their places of worship had every 
right to worship as they chose and to do it in their various places of 
worship.
  Children have the right to go to school. Their parents have the right 
to pick them up at the end of the school day.
  I don't label the attempt on Congresswoman Giffords' life as a 
rightwing plot. I don't do that.
  I believe that people are responsible for their behavior. On a day 
such as this, I don't know that we ought to allow this to go unnoticed 
when there is a headline that reads: Growing leftwing violence blamed 
for deadly shooting.
  I believe in specificities. I believe in the decency that human 
beings should afford each other.
  I am going to continue to do that because Dr. King was and is right. 
We do have to learn to live together, all of us, as brothers and 
sisters, or we will all perish together as fools.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McDowell). Members are reminded to 
refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.

                          ____________________