Marianna Sotomayor
\nMSM
\n Greene aggressively confronted Democratic Rep.\u00a0Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday and falsely accused her of supporting \u201cterrorists,\u201d leading the New York congresswoman\u2019s office to call on leadership to ensure that Congress remains \u201ca safe, civil place for all Members and staff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two Washington Post reporters witnessed Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) exit the House chamber late Wednesday afternoon ahead of Greene (Ga.), who shouted \u201cHey Alexandria\u201d twice in an effort to get her attention. When Ocasio-Cortez did not stop walking, Greene picked up her pace and began shouting at her and asking why she supports antifa, a loosely knit group of far-left activists, and Black Lives Matter, falsely labeling them \u201cterrorist\u201d groups. Greene also shouted that Ocasio-Cortez was failing to defend her \u201cradical socialist\u201d beliefs by declining to publicly debate the freshman from Georgia.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t care about the American people,\u201d Greene shouted. \u201cWhy do you support terrorists and antifa?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ocasio-Cortez did not stop to answer Greene, only turning around once and throwing her hands in the air in an exasperated motion. The two reporters were not close enough to hear what the New York congresswoman said, and her office declined to discuss her specific response.<\/p>\n
\u201cRepresentative Greene tried to begin an argument with Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and when Rep. Ocasio-Cortez tried to walk away, Congresswoman Greene began screaming and called Rep. Ocasio-Cortez a terrorist sympathizer,\u201d Ocasio-Cortez spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said in a statement. \u201cWe hope leadership and the Sergeant at Arms will take real steps to make Congress a safe, civil place for all Members and staff \u2014 especially as many offices are discussing reopening. One Member has already been forced to relocate her office due to Congresswoman Greene\u2019s attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before walking away, Greene said that the encounter was intended to hold Democrats accountable for their policy proposals.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a chicken, she doesn\u2019t want to debate the Green New Deal,\u201d she said to a small group of reporters and onlookers near the entrance to the chamber. \u201cThese members are cowards. They need to defend their legislation to the people. That\u2019s pathetic.\u201d<\/p>\n
[Rep. Greene\u2019s fundraising haul alarms detractors, who warn she represents a dangerous side of American politics]<\/i><\/p>\n
Greene has been a controversial figure since her 2020 campaign, and Democrats voted to strip her of her committee assignments earlier this year because of extremist statements. Greene has made a number of incendiary and false statements in recent years, among them that Black people \u201care held slaves to the Democratic Party,\u201d that Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) \u2014 the first two Muslim women elected to Congress \u2014 represented \u201can Islamic invasion into our government offices,\u201d and that Jewish megadonor George Soros collaborated with Nazis.<\/p>\n
She has also expressed support for the radical ideology of QAnon, a sprawling set of false claims that have coalesced into an extremist ideology that has radicalized its followers, some of whom participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n
Her behavior toward Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday was similar to her effort to confront young gun-control activist David Hogg \u2014 who survived the 2018 mass shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school \u2014 as he walked around the Capitol grounds amid a lobbying push in 2019 for new gun laws. Greene shot cellphone video of the incident.<\/p>\n
Greene has also been an outspoken defender of former president Donald Trump and his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Earlier Wednesday, House Republicans\u00a0voted to remove<\/a>\u00a0Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from her leadership position for repeatedly speaking out against Trump\u2019s falsehoods, saying she had become a distraction from the party\u2019s efforts to win back the House in the 2022 midterm elections.<\/p>\n [After losing committee assignments, Marjorie Taylor Greene says she has been \u2018freed\u2019 to push the GOP further right]<\/i><\/p>\n This is not the first confrontation Greene has had with a Democratic member of Congress that has caused them to raise safety concerns.<\/p>\n Earlier this year Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) accused Greene and her staff for\u00a0accosting her<\/a>\u00a0in a tunnel beneath a House office building after she asked Greene to wear a mask \u201cout of concern for the health of my staff, other members of Congress, and their congressional staff.\u201d Greene denied the allegation and accused Bush of \u201clying\u201d and of leading a \u201cterrorist mob\u201d because Bush supported Black Lives Matter.<\/p>\n The incident prompted Bush to ask Democratic leadership if she could move her office away from Greene at a time when the Georgia congresswoman was already under heavy scrutiny for her rhetoric and behavior.<\/p>\n In February, Greene also got into\u00a0a confrontation<\/a>\u00a0with the office of a neighboring congresswoman over transgender rights. After Rep. Marie Newman (D-Ill.) hung a transgender pride flag outside her office in honor of her transgender daughter to push back against Greene\u2019s opposition to legislation that would extend civil rights protections to the LGBTQ community, Greene hung up a poster across the hall that read: \u201cThere are TWO genders. MALE & FEMALE. Trust the Science!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThought we\u2019d put up ours so [Newman] can look at it every time she opens her door,\u201d she said in a video.<\/p>\n Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) called Greene\u2019s poster \u201csickening, pathetic, unimaginably cruel.\u201d<\/p>\n Greene has been a headache for Republican leaders at times, but they have not taken any punitive steps in response to her actions and they decried Democrats voting to take away her committee assignments.<\/p>\n [Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been gunking up the works. She says she\u2019s not backing down.]<\/i><\/p>\n House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) spoke to Greene before she was removed from her committees and after Republicans started to complain about her attempts to delay routine floor actions, but neither those nor other conversations resulted in punishment.<\/p>\n \u201cPast comments from and endorsed by Marjorie Taylor Greene on school shootings, political violence, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories do not represent the values or beliefs of the House Republican Conference,\u201d he said in a statement released during the debate over her committee assignments. \u201cI made this clear to Marjorie when we met. I also made clear that as a member of Congress we have a responsibility to hold ourselves to a higher standard than how she presented herself as a private citizen. Her past comments now have much greater meaning. Marjorie recognized this in our conversation. I hold her to her word, as well as her actions going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n On Thursday morning, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) criticized Greene\u2019s behavior.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile I may not agree with @AOC on issues, I\u2019ve never seen her confront a colleague like this,\u201d he\u00a0wrote on Twitter<\/a>. \u201cThe house was created to debate emotional issues professionally, and it seems some just want attention or cannot handle their emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n Greene responded by mocking the veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n \u201cSince you are short on understanding little Adam, I asked @AOC to debate me,\u201d she\u00a0wrote on Twitter<\/a>. \u201cIn the chamber, to debate her destructive socialist policies. But Sandy doesn\u2019t know how to work with Republicans. Neither do you.\u201d<\/p>\n Greene also mocked Ocasio-Cortez for raising safety concerns regarding Wednesday\u2019s incident.<\/p>\n \u201c@AOC \u2018Ms. Defund The Police\u2019 wants to call the police for security bc she\u2019s afraid of debating with me about her socialist GND,\u201d she\u00a0wrote<\/a>. \u201cAOC is a fraud & a hypocrite. That\u2019s fine Sandy. Since you lack the courage & intelligence to debate me, I\u2019ll debate the person who really wrote it.\u201d<\/p>\n Greene\u00a0continued to accuse<\/a>\u00a0Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and Tlaib of being terrorist sympathizers, calling them the \u201c#JihadSquad.\u201d<\/p>\n Since asking earlier this year to debate Ocasio-Cortez, Greene has\u00a0confronted her<\/a>\u00a0one other time on the House floor, when she approached the New York congresswoman last month to try to schedule a date for a debate over the Green New Deal, a set of environmental policies intended to combat climate change. In a\u00a0video<\/a>\u00a0posted to social media a day later, Greene criticized Ocasio-Cortez for not debating her.<\/p>\n \u201cIf she chickens out, then she shows who she really is: a scared little girl that is pretty stupid and doesn\u2019t know anything about the economy or economics,\u201d Greene said.<\/p>\n Jacqueline Alemany contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n ___ Rep. Greene aggressively confronts Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, causing New York congresswoman to raise security concerns Marianna Sotomayor MSM Greene aggressively confronted Democratic Rep.\u00a0Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday and falsely accused her of supporting \u201cterrorists,\u201d leading the New York congresswoman\u2019s office to call … Continue reading
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