Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wants to know when one of her Democratic colleagues will act like an “adult” and debate policy differences.
In a tweet Thursday, Greene shared a clip of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) speaking on CNN’s “AC 360” about how House Republicans have handled committee assignments in the new Congress.
“George Santos claimed that his grandparents were in the Holocaust, that was a lie, a disgusting lie. Marjorie Taylor Greene regularly trafficking in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Paul Gosar inciting — these are individuals, Marjorie Taylor Greene included — inciting violence against specific members in the body,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
She continued:
“[House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)] has appointed all three of them to House committees — not just one but multiple. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was engaging in 9/11 conspiracy theories, Kevin McCarthy appointed her to the homeland security committee. So there is really no consistency here. And it needs to be very well known that this targeting of Ilhan Omar is because the Republican base finds it easy. The Republican base finds it politically self rewarding.”
Greene took issue with the New York congresswoman’s comments about her and wrote, “[Ocasio Cortez] I have repeatedly asked you to debate me, but you have been a coward and can’t even respond. But you go on [CNN] and lie about me.”
“When are you going to be an adult and actually debate me on policy instead of run your mouth like a teenage girl?” she asked.
.@RepAOC I have repeatedly asked you to debate me, but you have been a coward and can’t even respond.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene?? (@RepMTG) February 3, 2023
But you go on @CNN and lie about me.
When are you going to be an adult and actually debate me on policy instead of run your mouth like a teenage girl? pic.twitter.com/XIl7LQNu9r
A few hours later, Ocasio-Cortez responded to Greene as she wrote, “Hey there! In case you forgot, we sit on the same committee, which debated for the first time this week.”
“I don’t blame you if you forgot. You spent almost no time there. In the few minutes you did show up, you claimed one elementary school got *$5 billion dollars* to teach CRT,” she added.
Hey there! In case you forgot, we sit on the same committee, which debated for the first time this week.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 3, 2023
I don’t blame you if you forgot. You spent almost no time there. In the few minutes you did show up, you claimed one elementary school got *$5 billion dollars* to teach CRT? https://t.co/pPwI4Irz9c
The exchange comes after the House voted along party lines to strip Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) of her assignment to the foreign affairs committee.
Greene’s accusation that her colleague lied about her stems partly from a 2018 Facebook post. She claimed the Rothschilds, a wealthy Jewish family, had somehow benefited from wildfires in California.
She wrote, “Oddly there have been all these people who have said they saw what looked like lasers or blue beams of light causing the fires, and pictures and videos.” Greene noted California’s Pacific Gas and Electric had a partnership with solar energy company Solaren for space generators and wrote it “wouldn’t look so good for PG&E, Rothschild Inc., Solaren” if their generators started the wildfires.
But some have used shorthand while talking about the post to say Greene was talking about “Jewish space lasers.”
Earlier Thursday, Greene took issue with the shorthand used to talk about her post.
“There’s people that think that I said a phrase called ‘Jewish space lasers,’ a phrase that I never said,” Greene insisted.
Marjorie Taylor Greene: “There’s people that think that I said a phrase called ‘Jewish space lasers,’ a phrase that I never said. As a matter of fact, it was created and invented in a story that a bunch of people read in the news…I don’t hold any beliefs like that at all.” pic.twitter.com/pYNMRIPe2y
— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) February 2, 2023
She added, “As a matter of fact, it was created and invented in a story that a bunch of people read in the news. And they believe that about me. But, in fact, that’s something I never said. And I don’t hold any beliefs like that at all.”
