Several Republican lawmakers at the State of the Union address were caught on camera trying to physically remove Democratic Rep. Al Green’s protest sign from his hands. One American studies professor says why she believes the country has “plunged into such a dark abyss.”

Green had been holding up a sign in silent protest during President Donald Trump’s address on Tuesday night. The Texas Democrat could be seen raising the sign as the president entered the House chamber, and again during the beginning of the president’s speech, before he was escorted out by the sergeant-at-arms.

“Black people aren’t apes!” Green’s sign read. It was a reference to a video Trump shared on his Truth Social platform earlier this month that featured a racist depiction of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes.

When Green held up the sign as Trump entered the chamber, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) — who was walking next to Trump — could be seen raising his hand to block the sign before he grabbed it and pulled it down.

Green also stood and raised his sign as others in the audience stood to clap and welcome the president to the podium. At one point, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) could be seen walking several feet toward Green before he reached over and tried to snatch the sign out of the Democrat’s hand. Green dodged him.

Then, as Green was being removed from the House chamber, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) could be seen grabbing and pulling at the sign as the Democrat made his exit.

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Rep. Troy Nehls is captured trying to grab Rep. Al Green's sign as the Texas Democrat was being escorted out of the House chamber during President Donald Trump's State of the Union address.

Other Republican elected officials, such as Reps. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) and John McGuire (R-Va.) and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), also attempted to block Green’s sign from the cameras.

Green shared his reasons for bringing the sign to the address later that night.

“If you tolerate this level of racism, you perpetuate it,” he told reporters, NBC News reported, referencing the racist depiction of the Obamas. “I refuse to tolerate it. I don’t want to see it normalized.”

“I need [Trump] to know that there’s some people that have the courage to tell him things that he doesn’t want to hear and that nobody else will tell him,” Green later continued. “On some issues, it’s better to stand alone than not stand at all.”

Last year, Green was removed from the House chamber during Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress when he protested the GOP’s budget plan by yelling: “You have no mandate to cut Medicaid.”

Kari J. Winter, a professor of American studies at the University at Buffalo — whose expertise includes gender, feminism, race and class — said she admires Green’s courage.

“I mourn for my country, which has plunged into such a dark abyss that it takes courage to say that Black people are human,” she told HuffPost.

Winter said that the sign-snatching attempts during the State of the Union on Tuesday show that Republicans don’t support free speech on issues they don’t agree with.

“Since 2016 the Republican mantra has been ‘free speech for me, not for thee,’” she said. “In other words, they are vehemently opposed to freedom of speech.”

Many Republicans have a double standard when it comes to advocating for free speech, experts say.

Winter argued that in addition to opposing freedom of speech, many on the right “also detest our other First Amendment rights: freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and freedom of petition.”

“They are so afraid of our First Amendment rights that they have established and provided almost infinite funding to a domestic terror organization that is assaulting, arresting, imprisoning and killing American citizens for exercising our First Amendment rights,” she said, a reference to federal immigration agents who fatally shot two Americans last month.

Tabitha Bonilla, an associate professor of political science and human development and social policy at Northwestern University, said that the sign-snatching incidents on Tuesday night highlight a double standard in the Republican Party.

“They want the ability to say what they want, post what they want, without challenge or consequence,” she told HuffPost. “But when people step up to object, Republican leadership is quick to verbally disparage those who disagree and not the disagreement itself (as Trump did directly in his speech).”

“If you want the freedom to post dehumanizing images of people online, then you have to let other people have their reactions to that,” she said. “Otherwise, you don’t believe in free speech.”

Experts say it reveals a lot that GOP lawmakers thought it was appropriate to grab Green’s sign.

Bonilla said it’s “always inappropriate to respond with physical force to verbal messages.”

“The behavior is not new, and to me, it represents the efforts by this Republican Congress and Party leadership to win and retain power by suppression,” she said, referencing an incident in which Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) snatched a sign from the hands of Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) before Trump delivered his address to Congress last year. Stansbury had held up a paper that said “This is NOT normal.”

“The behavior is not democratic and is counter to the principles that Americans value about the right to speech and the ability to dissent,” Bonilla continued.

WIN MCNAMEE via Getty Images

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) holds as a sign reading "This is not normal" as Trump enters the House chamber to deliver an address to a joint session of Congress on March 4, 2025.

“A basic tool of totalitarianism is to cast shame on the victims of state violence while glorifying the perpetrators of state violence,” Winter said. “MAGA revels in this topsy-turvy state of moral confusion. I’m guessing that they keep turning up the volume on their outrage to try to drown out the still small voice of their conscience.”

“Whether motivated by moral cowardice or their own white supremacy, many Republicans have a history of viciously attacking people who protest against racism and fascism,” she later continued.

Winter emphasized that anyone “grounded in basic morality” would know that there’s “nothing remotely objectionable” about what Green’s sign said.

“The Republicans who tried to snatch the sign away appeared as scared as the emperor’s collaborators in the no-clothes parable,” she said. “What if their wannabe emperor reads the sign? What will happen to Republican officials when voters tell them, ‘hey y’all, we can see that your orange dude is naked.’”

Nehls garnered backlash for another reason, in addition to grabbing Green’s sign, on Tuesday night. He arrived at the State of the Union sporting neckwear that featured imagery of Trump’s face. He was also seen asking Trump to sign his tie as the president was leaving the House chamber. People on social media slammed his overtures as “cringe” and “pathetic.”

Winter said Nehls “took his place in a long line of fawning sycophants who prostrate themselves at the feet of tyrannical power.”

“Such abject self-degradation is not only cringe, it’s antithetical to the spirit of American democracy,” she said.