WASHINGTON — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., suggested at a recent Republican fundraiser in Alabama that Southerners could threaten President Joe Biden’s “police state friends” with guns if they show up at their homes asking about their coronavirus vaccination status.
The late-July event in Dothan was closed to the media, but a video clip of some of her comments leaked, according to the Alabama Political Reporter.
“You lucky people here in Alabama might get a knock on your door, because I hear Alabama might be one of the most unvaccinated states,” Greene told the crowd, prompting cheers and applause over the state’s low vaccination rate. “Well Joe Biden wants to come talk to you guys. He’s gonna be sending one of his police state friends to your front door to knock on the door, take down your name, your address, your family members’ names, your phone numbers, your cell phone numbers, probably ask for your Social Security number and whether you’ve taken the vaccine or not.”
June 15, 202101:41
She continued, “What they don’t know is in the South, we all love our Second Amendment rights, and we’re not real big on strangers showing up on our front door, are we? They might not like the welcome they get.”
It wasn’t clear whether Greene was referring to the administration’s Covid surge response teams or grassroots volunteers encouraging vaccinations. The teams, made up of experts from FEMA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other federal agencies, aim to help states with low vaccination rates “prevent, detect and respond” to the spread of the delta variant.
The Georgia Republican did not return a request from NBC News for comment.
The remarks from Greene, who has compared mask mandates to the Holocaust and was stripped of her committee assignments for promoting various conspiracy theories, mirrored other conservative rhetoric on Biden’s plan.
At the event, Greene also denounced Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, referring to a conspiracy theory spread by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and other conservatives that suggests the National Institutes of Health helped fund “gain of function research” at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that morphed into the coronavirus — an accusation that Fauci has said is false.
“That is his baby,” Greene said, referring to Fauci. “That is his experiment, and he’s getting to watch it in the real world, like on a live television show where he has a front row seat. He gets to watch what happens.”
In remarks last month, Greene made another Nazi-era comparison regarding the coronavirus response, saying people who knock on doors encouraging vaccinations are “medical brown shirts,” referring to the paramilitary organization that helped facilitate the rise of the Nazis and Hitler.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
