Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) is slamming Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), saying she should not “have the privilege of any committees.”
Greene has come under fire after a report revealed that past Facebook posts appeared to show her supporting the execution of top Democrats, before she ran for Congress. A video also resurfaced of her heckling a Parkland shooting survivor in March of 2019.
Kinzinger bluntly said during a CNN “New Day” interview Thursday, “Let’s be clear: She is not a Republican.”
“She may be like this new definition of Republican, but that’s kind of a RINO thing, a Republican in name only is what she is,” he continued, adding, “I don’t think she should have the privilege of any committees.”
Kinzinger added:
“We all know friends that have kind of lost a sense of reality because they’ve been pulled into this dark underworld of conspiracies. That’s where it is incumbent on leaders and everybody, frankly, to expose that darkness. To bring light to darkness, to begin to disinfect that.”
He later questioned if people like Greene will “become the majority of the party for the long-term.”
Kinzinger added, “We’ve got to quit being a party of personality and get back to being a party of principles first.”
Greene is set to join the House Education and Labor Committee. She has faced a call from Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), a member of the committee, to be removed from the panel and a call from Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) to resign.
Watch Kinzinger’s interview below:
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is "not a Republican," @RepKinzinger says. "She may be like this new definition of Republican, but that's kind of a RINO thing, a Republican in name only is what she is … I don't think she should have the privilege of any committees." pic.twitter.com/jqKIqTHI1J
— CNN This Morning with Audie Cornish (@CNNThisMorning) January 28, 2021
Kinzinger also said during the CNN interview that the Republican Party “needs to take a step back,” adding, “This is not the party I joined.”
See Kinzinger’s comments below:
"Our party needs to take a step back … This is not the party I joined," GOP @RepKinzinger says. "I know as a party we need to restore the integrity and really work to rebuild the trust of the American people that I think we lost."https://t.co/tqBAcHwhXP pic.twitter.com/rwoAqNl3ee
— CNN This Morning with Audie Cornish (@CNNThisMorning) January 28, 2021
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said during an MSNBC interview late Wednesday, “This term, there are legitimate white supremacist sympathizers that sit at the heart and at the core of the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives.”
She added, “It increasingly seems, unfortunately, that, in the House Republican caucus, Kevin McCarthy answers to these QAnon members of Congress, not the other way around, and that is something that frankly needs to be said.” The New York Democrat pointed to Greene.
“There are no consequences in the Republican caucus for violence. There’s no consequences for racism, no consequences for misogyny, no consequences for insurrection. And no consequences means that they condone it,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “It means that that silence is acceptance.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) spokesperson told Axios that the lawmaker believes Greene’s past comments are “deeply disturbing” and he “plans to have a conversation with the Congresswoman about them.”
