WASHINGTON — A day after the House voted to kick her off her two committees, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., attacked Democrats, the media and some Republicans her and her previous incendiary comments — but made clear that she refuses to be silenced.
At a press conference outside the Capitol on Friday, Greene said the vote Thursday evening to remove her from the House Budget Committee and House Education and Labor Committee wasn’t fair to her constituents.
“Free speech really matters, and yesterday, when the Democrats and 11 of my Republican colleagues, decided to strip me of my committee assignments — Education and Labor and the Budget Committee — you know what they did? They actually stripped my district of their voice,” Greene told reporters.
“I’m fine with being kicked off committees because it’d be a waste of my time,” Greene said, asserting that her and her district’s conservative values would not be heard by her Democratic colleagues on the panels.
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Committee work would be fruitless under the “tyrannically controlled government,” in which President Joe Biden is advancing some aspects of his policy agenda through executive orders and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is “leading the Democrats to do whatever they want,” Greene said, adding, “They don’t care what Republicans have to say.”
The freshman lawmaker said she plans to use her free time talking to people across the country to build support from those who want to “put America first” regardless of party.
When asked by NBC News’ Garrett Haake what her role would be going forward, Greene said she would vote for conservative policies on issues like abortion, gun rights, the border and the economy, “holding the Republican Party accountable and pushing them to the right.”
Greene also praised former President Donald Trump, saying that “the party is his” and “it doesn’t belong to anyone else.” The decision by 11 Republicans to vote with Democrats to remove her from the committees Thursday was a “big betrayal” that opened the door for Democrats to go after other Republicans in the same way, which “could cost us the majority in 2022,” she said, adding that people were “furious.”
“So, I hope my Republican colleagues really think about what they’ve done,” Greene said.
The vote Thursday came after videos and past comments of Greene surfaced in which she expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, embraced calls for violence against top Democrats and suggested the Sandy Hook and Parkland school shootings were staged. Democrats proposed taking action against Greene after GOP leaders decided not to punish her.
At the press conference, Green was asked about her remark in 2019 that Pelosi is guilty of treason, “a crime punishable by death.” Greene did not apologize for the remark, instead demanding the CNN reporter who had asked the question apologize for stories about Russian “collusion,” which Greene claimed were fake — a reference to the special counsel investigation into the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Asked if she was sorry for some of her inflammatory comments, Greene said, “I’m sorry for saying all those things that are wrong and offensive, and I sincerely mean that. And I’m happy to say that. I think it’s good to say, say when we’ve done something wrong.”
Greene, however, said she wasn’t sorry for confronting David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland shooting, outside the Capitol, which was recorded and posted online.
“David Hogg was an adult when I talked to him,” she said Friday. “I’m not sorry for telling him we shouldn’t” push for restrictive gun laws.
Greene has repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of mass shootings. In another video, she suggested that the mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017 may have been staged by gun control activists.
Asked about previously liking a Facebook comment that called for the execution of Pelosi, Greene said the question was just like when the press continuously asked Trump to denounce white supremacy.
“Here’s the thing, when you want to keep telling the same story over and over, but you don’t want to tell the truth, that’s your problem. And that’s how we end press conferences,” she said before walking away from the podium.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
