Lauren Boebert accused of racism and ableism over her criticism of Al Green

The extremist Republican US House member Lauren Boebert has been accused of racism, ableism and hypocrisy in one fell swoop after criticizing a Black Democrat for “shaking his pimp cane” at Donald Trump during the president’s recent speech to Congress.

“Al Green was given multiple opportunities to stand down, to sit down, to behave, to show decorum,” Boebert told Real America’s Voice, a far-right outlet, while discussing the Texas Democratic congressman’s ejection from the House chamber for shouting about Trump’s threats to social benefits spending on 6 March.

Boebert added:“For him to go and shake his pimp cane at President Trump was absolutely abhorrent.”

The Tennessee Holler, a progressive outlet, said simply: “Effortless racism.”

One Bluesky user said: “It’s not a pimp cane. It’s a cane. Al Green is a politician who uses a tool to help him walk, just like many of his constituents who are dependent on Medicaid assistance. Lauren Boebert is being ableist with her statements.”

Green, 77, said he heckled the president as a way of standing up “for those who need Medicaid, Medicare and social security”.

Democrats would never abandon the fight to make sure every American has a safe, healthy, and financially secure life,” Green said.

Later, he said: “I heard the speaker when he said that I should cease. I did not, and I did not with intentionality. It was not done out of a burst of emotion.”

House Republicans censured him, with support from 10 Democrats.

Boebert also invited accusations of hypocrisy by comparing Green’s actions to her own during the 2022 State of the Union address when Joe Biden was president.

Boebert said: “You had some folks on the left trying to come out early and defend [Green’s] behavior and compare it to an image of Marjorie Taylor Greene and myself, who were chanting ‘Build the wall’ while all other Republicans were chanting the same phrase, and they just got that one image and acted like we completely disrupted the State of the Union.”

Then, Greene and Boebert’s chanting and heckling led one Democrat to tell them to “sit down”. Later, when Biden referred to the coffins of US service members killed in Afghanistan, Boebert prompted loud boos when she shouted: “You put them in – 13 of them!”

Boebert earned rebukes from her own party. Mike Braun, an Indiana senator, said: “It’s something that I think that there’s a place. That’s not the place to do that.”

With her attack on Green, Boebert also drew criticism for speaking about breaches of public decorum in light of her own auditorium ejection, in Denver in 2023 – for vaping, dancing, singing and groping her date during the Beetlejuice musical.

Boebert first denied behaving inappropriately. After surveillance video surfaced, also showing her giving ushers the middle finger while being escorted out, she apologized.

“Whether it was the excitement of seeing a much-anticipated production or the natural anxiety of being in a new environment,” she said, “I genuinely did not recall vaping that evening when I discussed the night’s events with my campaign team while confirming my enthusiasm for the musical.”