Greene: ‘Morons’ expelled her from House committees
WASHINGTON — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene lashed out Friday at “morons” in both parties who voted to kick her off her committees, a day after the House meted out the unprecedented punishment that Democrats said she’d earned by spreading hateful and violent conspiracy theories.
Underscoring the political vise her inflammatory commentary has clamped her party into, all but 11 Republicans voted against the Democratic move on Thursday but none rose to defend her lengthy history of outrageous social media posts.
Greene showed no signs of repentance Friday.
“I woke up early this morning literally laughing thinking about what a bunch of morons the Democrats (+11) are for giving some one like me free time,” she tweeted.
At a news conference later outside the Capitol, Greene accused news organizations of “addicting our nation to hate.” She deflected a question about her past online suggestion that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could be executed for treason, and she warned that Republicans opposing her should remember that Trump — with whom she is closely allied — controls the GOP.
“The party is his,” she said. “It doesn’t belong to anybody else.”
A day earlier on the House floor, Greene tried to dissociate herself from her “words of the past.” Contradicting past social media posts, she said she believes the 9/11 attacks and mass school shootings were real and no longer believes QAnon conspiracy theories, which include lies about Democratic-run pedophile rings.
But she didn’t explicitly apologize for supportive online remarks she’s made on other subjects, as when she mulled Pelosi, D-Calif., being assassinated or the possibility of Jewish-controlled space rays causing wildfires. And she portrayed herself as the victim of unscrupulous “big media companies.”
Greene was on the Education and Labor Committee and the Budget Committee. Democrats were especially aghast about her assignment to the education panel, considering the past doubt she cast on school shootings in Florida and Connecticut.
At one point Thursday, No. 2 Democratic leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland strode to the GOP side of the chamber carrying a poster of a Greene Facebook post from last year. “Squad’s Worst Nightmare,” Greene had written in the post, which showed her holding an AR-15 firearm next to pictures of three of the four Democratic lawmakers, all young women of color, who’ve been nicknamed “The Squad.”
“They are people. They are our colleagues,” Hoyer said. He mimicked Greene’s pose holding the weapon and said, “I have never, ever seen that before.”
News organizations have unearthed countless social media videos and “likes” in which Greene embraced absurd theories such as suspicions that Hillary Clinton was behind the 1999 death of John F. Kennedy Jr. Greene responded, “Stage is being set,” when someone posted a question about hanging Clinton and former President Barack Obama.