Greene’s apology for anti-Semitic remark expedient, not sincere
Marjorie Taylor Greene has been called on to apologize many times before.
For promoting the dangerous QAnon conspiracy theory; for harassing a school shooting victim; for statements so racist, antiSemitic and offensive that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell earlier called her “looney lies” a “cancer” on the GOP.
In the past, the Georgia Republican has not only ignored it all, but became a fundraising juggernaut based on claims Washington was trying to “cancel” her.
But on Monday came a surprising change of tone from the congresswoman. After a tour of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Greene called an evening press conference to apologize for the “offensive” comments she made last month comparing maskwearing rules to the murder of 6 million Jewish people by the Nazi regime.
In May, Greene lashed out at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a requirement that House members wear face masks until all members were fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
“You know, we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany, and this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about,” Greene said then.
Asked later by WDUN host Martha Zoller,
Greene denied ever bringing up the Holocaust. “People love to twist and turn all my words. I never compared it to the Holocaust.
“And it wasn’t about masks. I was all about vaccine passports.”
But standing in front of the U.S. Capitol Monday evening, Greene changed course.
“I should own it. I made a mistake.”
The dramatic turnabout for a no-apologies renegade was a politically expedient move. She is facing the threat of a censure resolution in the House brought by a Jewish Democratic lawmaker.
But it wasn’t a blanket apology. CNN reported that she she refused to back off her comments at a Dalton town hall comparing Democrats to Nazis. Local Jewish leaders say they were caught unaware by Greene’s mea culpa. Several state Republican officials said they didn’t have anything to do with it.
We’re told credit belongs to another GOP figure: House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy. He previously called her remarks “appalling” and condemned her narrative.
On conservative outlets Monday she made no mention of her museum visit or contrition. Nor did she post anything about her mea culpa on her Twitter account.
Instead, she tweeted an interview earlier in the day pushing debunked election-fraud conspiracies and saying she does not care about an earlier Democratic petition to expel her from Congress.
“I really don’t care about that . . . and neither does my district‚” she said told conservative host David Brody.
“That’s just leftists, probably ANTIFA cardcarrying members and BLM domestic terrorists signed that, and it doesn’t mean anything.”