Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) on Tuesday delivered a blistering rebuke of President Trump for likening the House impeachment inquiry to a lynching, saying that the comparison made Trump “no better than those who burn crosses” and “wear hoods and white robes.”

Speaking from the House floor, Green decried Trump for failing to understand the United States’s dark history of extrajudicial mob killings, pointing out that thousands of African Americans have been lynched since America’s inception. 

{mosads}“How dare the president compare lynching to impeachment. How dare he do this,” Green said. “Does he not know the history of lynching in this country? Does he not know that thousands of African Americans were lynched? Mob violence. Does he not know this is the equivalent of murder? How dare the president compare a lawful constitutional process to mob violence and lynching.”

Green, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, went on to argue that if Trump continues to “weaponize racism and bigotry, this makes you no better than those who were screaming ‘blood and soil,'” and “Jews will not replace us,” an apparent reference to the violent 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. 

“It makes you no better than those who burn crosses. It makes you no better than those who wear hoods and white robes,” he added, before condemning Trump for “denigrating” and “berating” decency in the country. 

Trump sparked a firestorm early Wednesday morning after describing the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry as a “lynching.” 

“So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights,” Trump tweeted. “All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here — a lynching. But we will WIN!”

The remarks prompted swift condemnations from several Democratic and GOP lawmakers, with many pointing to the U.S.’s history of lynching. More than 4,700 lynchings occurred in the U.S. between 1882 and 1968, with a majority of the victims being black, according to the NAACP. 

Green has been one of the most outspoken proponents of impeachment and has cited Trump’s racially offensive remarks as reason for taking such a step. The Texas congressman unsuccessfully brought an impeachment resolution to the House floor in July after Trump told a group of minority congresswomen to “go back” to their countries. 

At the time, Green argued that Trump was “unfit to defend the ideals that have made America great” and “unfit to ensure domestic tranquillity.”