WASHINGTON (AP) – Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell Monday denounced newly elected Deputy Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling the far-right Georgia Republican’s embrace of conspiracy theories and “crazy lies” a “cancer for the Republican Party.”
“Someone who has suggested that perhaps no plane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrific school shootings had been staged beforehand and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.’s plane is not living in reality,” said McConnell, R -Ky. , referring to a handful of conspiracy theories that Greene has published in the past. “This has nothing to do with the challenges facing American families or the robust debates over content that can bolster our party.”
McConnell’s explicit condemnation adds to pressure on House Republicans to take action against Greene, even as she claims renewed support from former President Donald Trump. It comes as House Democrats moved Monday to rid Greene of her commission duties as Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Refuses to do this herself.
“I hope and expect the Republicans to do the right thing and hold Rep. Greene accountable, and we don’t need to consider this resolution,” said D-Md, majority leader of the House Steny Hoyer. “But we are willing to do this if we need to.”
So far, however, GOP leaders in the House have been reluctant to criticize Trump supporters, such as Greene, over concerns they could alienate the former president’s most ardent voters, underscoring a bitter rift over how the out-of-the-box power party would have to navigate the two years until the next congressional election.
Greene responded to McConnell late Monday with a message on Twitter, suggesting that “the real cancer for the Republican Party is the weak Republicans who only know how to lose gracefully.”
“That’s why we are losing our country,” she wrote.
McConnell’s statement criticizing Greene was first reported by The Hill newspaper.
The Democrats’ willingness to act against a member of the opposing party underscores their desire to confront far-right politicians, such as Greene, who are closely associated with a number of former Trump supporters, including extremist groups involved in the violent uprising in the Capitol.
“If Republicans don’t want to control their own police, the House must step in,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., Who is sponsoring the move to remove Greene from her posts on the House’s education and budget committees.
Greene’s views were already in the spotlight before she joined Parliament last month.
The Georgian Republican has expressed support for QAnon’s conspiracy theories, which focus on the disproved belief that top Democrats are involved in child trafficking, Satan worship and cannibalism. Last year, Facebook videos surfaced showing that she had expressed racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim views. Top Republicans denounced her at the time, hoping to prevent her from capturing the GOP nomination in her trusty red congressional district in northwestern Georgia.
But after she won her primaries, they largely accepted her. Since then, even more of her previous comments, posts, and videos have surfaced, although many of them have recently been removed after drawing attention.
She “found” Facebook posts advocating violence against Democrats and the FBI. One of them suggested shooting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the head. In response to a message highlighting the prospect of the hanging of former President Barack Obama, Greene replied that “the stage is being set.”
In an undated video posted online, Greene advanced a conspiracy theory falsely suggesting that the 2017 mass shooting that killed 58 people at a country music festival in Las Vegas could have been a false flag operation to create support for the gun control legislation.
“How do you get enthusiastic gun owners and those who support the Second Amendment to give up their guns and go along with the anti-gun laws?” Greene said in the video. “You scare them, you victimize them and you change their mindset and then you may be able to pass anti-gun legislation. Is that what happened in Las Vegas? “
She also ‘liked’ a Facebook post that challenged the veracity of a 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Another video captured her confrontation in Parkland, Florida, school shooting survivor David Hogg.
After her election, she seized Trump’s false claims that the election had been stolen and cheered on his supporters the day before the Capitol was stormed.
“It is our moment in 1776!” she posted on the conservative-friendly social media platform Parler.
Last week, Pelosi House pressed Republicans to take action.
“Assigning her to the education committee, while she mocked killing little children” in Newtown, “what could they think, or is too generous a word for what they could do?” Pelosi said about Republican leaders. “It’s absolutely awful.”
In a tweet over the weekend, Greene sounded a defiant tone. She also said she spoke to Trump and was “grateful for his support.”
“I will never flinch and will face the never-ending bloodthirsty crowd,” she tweeted.
McCarthy is said to have a private meeting with Greene this week. A spokesman for the Republican leader declined to comment on Monday.
While it is uncertain whether he will take action against Greene, McCarthy has previously punished members of the House Republican caucus. Former Representative Steve King, R-Iowa, was stripped of all his committee duties after expressing his support for white supremacists in 2019.
Wasserman Schultz acknowledged Monday that it had long been left to leaders to remove members of their own party’s Congress from their committee assignments. But she said the Republicans’ reluctance to take action left the Democrats little choice.
“Rep. Greene’s atrocious behavior, both before her election and during her tenure, has fueled domestic terrorism, endangered the lives of her colleagues and disgraced the entire House of Representatives,” said Wasserman Schultz. her actions and statements and her belligerent refusal to reject them should not allow her to participate in the important work of these two influential committees. “