Flake calls Greene’s behavior ‘repulsive’ and ‘reprehensible’
Former Sen. Jeff Flake blasted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene after she claimed the Democrats and the media were more outraged over her than the gunman who attacked a Republican baseball practice in 2017.
Flake, an Arizona Republican, was on the field when suspect James Hodgkinson injured two U.S. Capitol police officers, a congressional aide, and Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. Hodgkinson was shot and killed at the scene. The Republicans had gathered to practice before an annual baseball game that takes place between both parties to raise funds for charity.
“I don’t remember anyone suggesting that it was a false flag event. But that’s what you said about the Parkland shooting,” Flake wrote Monday on Twitter in response to Taylor Greene, R-Ga. “I hope you will apologize to the parents who lost children there.”
Taylor Greene has come under fire for her Facebook comments claiming the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, was a “false flag event,” a term used by conspiracy theorists to suggest it was staged or carried out by forces other than who was blamed.
Video has surfaced of Taylor Greene, a member of the House Education and Labor Committee, following Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg and heckling him while they were both in Washington, D.C.
Flake said he is appalled by Taylor Greene’s behavior.
“I just thought it was repulsive, reprehensible, to particularly if you’re a parent who lost a child to hear members of Congress saying that somehow that was a staged event,” Flake told The Arizona Republic.
“She shouldn’t bring up things that she knows nothing about or that she’s trying to mischaracterize or to suggest that, you know, (Sen.) Bernie Sanders, because this person had somehow liked Bernie Sanders, that he was responsible,” Flake said.
Hodgkinson, the baseball-field gunman, had volunteered on Sanders’ presidential campaign and had frequently expressed anti-President Donald Trump and anti-Republican sentiment on his social media accounts.
Flake’s comments come as Taylor
Greene, who in the past has expressed support for the debunked pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory, is under increasing pressure.
Some House Democrats are pushing to remove Taylor Greene from her committees or even expel her from Congress. Some top Republicans also have started speaking out about her.
“Loony lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the Republican Party and our country,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a written statement. “Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.’s airplane is not living in reality. This has nothing to do with the challenges facing American families or the robust debates on substance that can strengthen our party.”
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, also a Republican, said Sunday on CNN that he rejects Taylor Greene’s “calls to violence or conspiracy.”
“If it’s accurate, what’s happening is absolutely unacceptable, and (House Minority) Leader (Kevin) McCarthy will deal with it,” Ducey said on “State of the Union.”
Flake said Republicans are meeting Wednesday to decide if Taylor Greene will be removed from her committees.
“I think that would be appropriate,” he said. “I do think that there ought to be discipline.”
Flake and Ducey’s criticism of Taylor Greene reflects a widening rift in the GOP. Pro-Trump Arizona Republican Party activists last month voted to formally censure Ducey, Flake and Cindy McCain, the widow of long-serving Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
“The real cancer for the Republican Party is weak Republicans who only know how to lose gracefully,” Taylor Greene tweeted in apparent response to McConnell’s statement. “This is why we are losing our country.”
Taylor Greene did not appear to respond to Flake after his latest tweet, but this isn’t the first time Flake and Taylor Greene have tangled on social media.
In August, Flake quote-tweeted one of Trump’s tweets congratulating Taylor Greene.
“If the GOP wants to be a relevant political force in the future, it cannot endorse those who embrace QAnon and other conspiracy theories,” Flake wrote.