In the News

Lawmakers representing communities affected by two of the worst school shootings in U.S. history said Monday that Congress must act to repudiate U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who’s denied the truth about the massacres at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High and Sandy Hook Elementary.

U.S. Reps. Ted Deutch, Jahana Hayes and Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a video news conference that Greene should be expelled from Congress or resign. If that doesn’t happen, they’d like to see her censured.

The three Democrats also said that the House should strip Greene of her committee assignments, with Wasserman Schultz on Monday introducing a measure to do just that. They castigated Republican leaders for failing to condemn Greene and giving her a spot on the House Education Committee.

Greene’s “pattern of appalling behavior, both before her election and during her term, has helped fuel domestic terrorism, endangered the lives of her colleagues, and brought shame on the entire House of Representatives,” Wasserman Schultz said.

Family members of school massacre victims have condemned Greene, who is causing a political problem for other Republicans who are trying to figure out whether to condemn or embrace her — or close their eyes and hope it somehow all goes away.

Deutch represents Parkland, where 17 people were killed in the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, and Wasserman Schultz represents an adjacent district. Hayes represents Newtown, Conn., where 26 people were killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

Greene has endorsed false claims that the Stoneman Douglas and Sandy Hook massacres were fake, or false flag operations, possibly aimed at trying to build support for gun control. Last week, a video surfaced showing Greene haranguing David Hogg, a year after the massacre at his Parkland school.

“For Greene to call it fake, or a false flag, then stalk and harass one of the students who survived it, is not just repulsive, but inexcusable conduct from a member of Congress,” Wasserman Schultz said. “Her refusal to disavow these outrageous claims cannot be rewarded with a post on an Education Committee whose mandate is to provide a safe, fact-based learning environment for our children. And clearly, Marjorie Taylor Greene cannot be trusted.”

Greene’s views about the school shootings are just part of what Deutch, Hayes and Wasserman Schultz condemned.

She’s also made anti-Semitic and Islamophobic statements, supported a comment suggesting a “bullet to the head” of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and killing other national leaders and FBI agents, released a picture showing herself holding an assault rifle next to the pictures of three progressive members of the House, and suggested that Jewish laser beams from space were responsible for sparking one of the worst wildfires in California history.

On Friday, both Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Republican Jewish Coalition denounced Greene and said congressional leaders needed to take action. “It is unacceptable for Members of Congress to spread baseless hate against the Jewish people,” the conference said. “She routinely traffics in unfounded conspiracy theories that are often anti-Semitic in nature.”

She has been a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, though last week the New York Times reported her spokesman said she now rejects QAnon. “She doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

Greene has been deleting her social media posts, but there’s no indication she expects to leave Congress. Over the weekend she said she’d “never apologize” and said she talked with the nation’s top Republican, former President Donald Trump — and has his support.

In other tweets, she showed a picture of the hashtag “#StandwithMTG” image in the snow with the Washington Monument in the background and lashed back at her critics: “What would the list of the anti-Trump pedos and associates look like? It would likely contain all of the people currently frothing with MTG hate.”

Greene represents an enormous dilemma for the Republican Party. If party leaders repudiate her, they risk angering Trump and his supporters who form the base of the party. Angering the base could result in primary challenges. If they do nothing, they said a message that they countenance her views and behavior, something that could alienate a broader swath of voters.

Deutch said House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy “appears to have sold his party out to [the] extremist conspiracy theory wing of that party.” McCarthy’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment on Monday.

There’s no realistic path for expulsion, which requires a two-thirds vote, meaning it would require support from many Republicans.

“If she had honor, of course, she would resign,” Wasserman Schultz added. “If she possessed shame, censure and an apology might suffice. Expulsion is a fitting punishment, but it takes a two-thirds vote of the House, and that would require support from enough Republicans who aren’t morally bankrupt, which is unlikely.”

Since they don’t expect McCarthy to remove her from her committee assignments, the three lawmakers said the full House should remove Greene from her committees, something that could happen because Democrats are in the majority. (One reason they don’t expect McCarthy to act is he’s the one who put Greene on the Education Committee in the first place, Hayes said.) Greene is also on the Budget Committee.

­Deutch said Republicans should act. “This is a line-in-the-sand moment for the Republican Party. The question is quite simply is whether they will draw the line when a member of the Republican caucus moves far beyond political rhetoric and [disseminates] extremely dangerous misinformation, deeply offensive harassment and refusal to acknowledge truth,” he said.

If McCarthy won’t follow through, Deutch said, “it shows he has no decency.”

Deutch, Hayes and Wasserman Schultz said they were tired of what became common while Trump was president and is playing out now with Greene: Republicans condemning behavior or rhetoric in private but unwilling to say anything publicly. “They’re deathly afraid of the primary they’d draw if they speak up. Now is the time. This is what separates leaders from cowards. The Republicans have a chance right now to decide which one they are. All I’ve seen is cowardice, save for a handful of Republicans so far,” Wasserman Schultz said.

Deutch also said U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, both Florida Republicans, need to explain their views of Greene’s comments about the Stoneman Douglas massacre.

“My constituents are also Marco Rubio’s constituents and Rick Scott’s constituents. Where’s their condemnation of this personal attack on their constituents? Is it really so hard for Republicans to condemn this and to say: ‘That’s offensive. This is dangerous. Knock it off. Don’t say this again,’” Deutch said. “Silence at this point by Kevin McCarthy and by Marco Rubio and by Rick Scott tells us that they stand on the side of conspiracy theorists who attack students and call mass shooting tragedies false flag operations.”

Rubio rejected Greene’s comments about the Stoneman Douglas massacre last week in an interview with conservative journalist Erick Erickson. “Parkland was a real tragedy in which real parents lost real children. Anyone suggesting it was fake is either deranged or a sadist,” Rubio said.

Scott’s spokesman said by email Monday that “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s claims that Parkland was a ‘false flag’ event are disgusting and wrong. This was clearly a horrific murder of 17 innocent lives by a deranged individual. Senator Scott thinks about those lives lost, and the families impacted, every day. Since that horrible day, he has worked closely with many of the victims’ family members as Governor and now as Senator to ensure no child, educator, or family has to experience that again.

On Monday, U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Miami, said on Twitter he found Greene’s conspiracy theories about the Stoneman Douglas massacre were “disturbing.” Earlier, he told the WLRN public radio “Sundial” program that he didn’t support removing Greene from office.

Joining the members of Congress in the video news conference was Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was one of the individuals killed in the Stoneman Douglas massacre. He said Greene is despicable and depraved. “However, the entire Republican establishment refuses to stand up to her, so they now own the lie.”

Separately, appearing Sunday on MSNBC, the mother of one of the Stoneman Douglas victims said she had a video call with Greene on Saturday. She said Greene told her that she didn’t really believe that the Stoneman Douglas or Sandy Hook shootings were false flags or staged.

Linda Beigel Schulman, whose son Scott Beigel was a teacher and coach at the Parkland school, expressed skepticism about Greene’s private statement to her.

“I wanted to be able believe her. So I asked her if she would come on air with me today and make a public statement. I said, you know what, if that’s really, really what you believe, then come on air and tell the public just that. Well, her statement is clear, because here I am with you and she is not here right now,” Schulman said. “Truth is power, and if Congresswoman Greene believes that Parkland and Sandy Hook were in fact real events, she would be willing to say that publicly. And her failure tells me that for Congresswoman Greene, politics trumps truth, because lies and conspiracy theories are more important to her than honesty.”

Schulman said Greene needs to acknowledge the realities of the shootings and “apologize to those form Parkland and Sandy Hook who she has hurt and devastated with her words, because she has definitely devastated all of us.”

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