Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Monday she was only joking when she boasted that extremists would have been armed and would have “won” the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol if she had led the attempted insurrection. The far right-wing firebrand said critics should “learn how sarcasm works” after she was hit with a torrent of criticism for her seemingly dead-serious remarks at a New York Republican fundraiser over the weekend. “My comments were making fun of Joe Biden and the Democrats, who have continuously made me a political target since Jan. 6,” Greene said in a statement. “I will never back do...
In a speech at a New York GOP event over the weekend, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) boasted that she and Steve Bannon would have "won" the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol had they been in charge of it — a remark she later tried to walk back and claim was "sarcasm."
On CNN Monday, former Gov. John Kasich (R-OH), a longtime critic of former President Donald Trump, laid into Greene for her behavior.
"How much sway will she have when Republicans take control of the House in January?" said anchor Wolf Blitzer.
"You know, I think she'll have influence because she's pretty close to [Kevin] McCarthy and trying to get him elected [Speaker]," said Kasich. "In terms of joking about January 6th, you know, my blood still curdles over the thought of what they did down there at that Capitol, and there are no grounds on which to make a joke."
"To hear the cheering and everything, you know, I don't know. I really don't know how to explain that," said Kasich. "Maybe too much eggnog is all I can think about. But you know, it's outrageous and her activities have been — in my opinion — have been irresponsible."
McCarthy has already pledged to restore Greene's House committee assignments in the new majority. She had previously been stripped of those assignments by a vote of the full House barely a month into her first term in office, after a series of social media posts surfaced of her appearing to endorse the killing of prominent Democratic officials.
During an appearance on CNN, Rodgers reacted to news of fresh subpoenas sent out by Smith since taking over the investigation last month by saying it indicates that he is moving quickly and aggressively.
"They were moving at full speed even before Jack Smith came on board," she noted.
Host Jake Tapper had her then read her a quote from Trump lawyers who have been confidently predicting their client will not face any charges either for his role in inciting the deadly January 6th Capitol riots or stashing top-secret government documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
However, Rodgers believed these lawyers shouldn't be anything close to cocky.
"We've seen a lot of evidence publicly and the special counsel and his team are busy collecting more," she said. "I think he will be indicted."
Rodgers went on to say that Trump's decision to keep top-secret intelligence documents at his private resort appeared to be the easier case to make, although she said he could face charges such as obstruction of Congress as well.
On CNN Monday, longtime Mitch McConnell adviser and Republican D.C. insider Scott Jennings slammed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) for her boast that if she and Steve Bannon had been leading the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, they would have "won" — in part because they would have been better "armed" than the people who actually showed up.
Greene, who is set to regain her revoked House committee assignments when Republicans are sworn into the House majority, later tried to claim her comment was "sarcasm" — an excuse that Jennings did not buy.
"Your response and reaction to the official comment, and now, I was just kidding?" said anchor Victor Blackwell.
"Yeah. Only Marjorie Taylor Greene, in an effort to disavow something, could make it worse," said Jennings. "Let's take her at her word that it was sarcasm. This is a terrible joke. We would have won what? What would you have won on that particular day? I mean, none of this makes any sense."
Greene's comments, continued Jennings, were "at best, tasteless, and at worst, sort of a further threat, you know, like hey, this could have been justified."
"I find this whole episode to be incredibly problematic," said Jennings. "And it's problematic for Republicans, who I'm sure are being asked about it everywhere they go today. This is not the kind of distraction, of course, that Kevin McCarthy needs as he tries to lock down the votes to become the next Speaker, and so, you know, here we go again with one of these people I'm sure will be a thorn in McCarthy's side for the next two years."
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) on Monday criticized Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) for boasting over the weekend that she would have "won" an armed insurrection if she'd been the organizer of the January 6 Capitol riots.
Writing on Twitter, Raskin shredded Green for her statement, which he said was inappropriate even if she were really just making a joke about it.
"If you and Bannon organized the violent insurrection against our government on 1/6 you’d be going to jail with everyone else convicted of seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to interfere with a federal proceeding," he wrote. "These are crimes, not stupid laugh lines."
Raskin is a member of the January 6 House Select Committee, which is due to release a report next week that is widely expected to make criminal referrals to the United States Department of Justice regarding potential crimes committed not only by Trump, but also allies such as attorney John Eastman, the author of the infamous "coup memo" that outlined how Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally reject certified election results.
Trump ally Steve Bannon, while not convicted of any crime related to organizing the riots, has been found guilty of being in criminal contempt of Congress over his refusal to comply with House Select Committee subpoenas.
Following the orders handed down by a federal appellate court this Monday, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon dismissed a lawsuit brought by Donald Trump to halt the FBI's investigation into classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
"The case, which only lasted a little over three months, was remarkable in the way it showed how this South Florida federal judge entertained the former president’s novel legal theories—all in the service of attempting to slow down a potential criminal indictment that threatens his return to power," The Daily Beast reported. "From her private chambers in Fort Pierce, Florida, Cannon dismissed the case by acknowledging she lacked jurisdiction to ever entertain it."
Speaking to The Daily Beast, Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson said that the case ended "in what should be humiliation for Judge Cannon."
“She was resoundingly slapped down by her conservative colleagues who explained that it’s not just that she had a creative interpretation of the law. It’s that she inserted herself into a case where she didn’t belong—and essentially acted as another advocate for the former president of the United States," Levinson said.
“Her decisions just completely lacked judicial restraint. That’s way out of the bounds of what’s acceptable. And she made political decisions with no legal basis,” Levinson added. “This is about as bad as it can get for a judge who seeks jurisdiction when she shouldn’t, which is to have like-minded appellate judges say, ‘What were you even thinking here?’”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) confirmed on Monday that she had made remarks about how to plan an "armed" insurrection against the government but insisted that the comments had been a joke.
At a gala for Young Republicans over the weekend, Greene said that Trump supporters would have "won" on Jan. 6 if she and Steve Bannon had planned the attempted insurrection.
"I will tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would've been armed," she told the crowd.
But on Monday, Greene downplayed her remarks as "sarcasm" after receiving criticism from the White House.
"The White House needs to learn how sarcasm works. My comments were making fun of Joe Biden and the Democrats, who have continuously made me a political target since January 6th," Greene said in a statement. "Every day, I receive violent threats against my life simply because Democrats and the media have lied and smeared my character for the past two years."
"Rather than trying to weaponize a sarcastic joke I made, they should be going after people like Yoel Roth who silenced a sitting President and allowed child pornography to run rampant on Twitter," she added. "I will never back down from my support of the Second Amendment. And I will never allow the White House, Democrats, or the media to continue to accuse me of something I had nothing to do with."
A pair of newly created progressive organizations undertook a multimillion-dollar midterm election push against Donald Trump's election lies.
Pro-Democracy Center and Pro-Democracy Campaign each operated in states across the country during the midterm election cycle to support organizations pushing to expand voting in Arizona and Michigan, boosted voter outreach programs in Florida and Pennsylvania and backed campaigns to press local officials to expand access to early voting, reported Politico.
“It was very clear that there was a mobilized constituency that cared about democracy, but it was on the wrong side,” said progressive operative David Donnelly, who organized the groups, “and there wasn’t as big of a response to what we needed to have to defeat it.”
Donnelly declined to reveal the source of the groups' funding, but they directed $32 million to 126 groups across 16 states and sent another $16 million from donors directly to partner groups, compared to the $45 million spent last year by the Trump-aligned Conservative Partnership Institute to push fraud conspiracies.
The progressive group intentionally operated behind the scenes, and typically partnered with existing groups to meet their fundraising needs and helped fill out their staffing.
“What struck me immediately was that [PDC] had an analysis about how to construct a protective of democracy and elections strategy that very much aligned with ours. It is about states, it is about state power and political infrastructure,” said Doran Schrantz, the executive director of Faith in Minnesota, which received $1 million from the groups. “Not ‘we have a policy issue that we want to pass in D.C., can you rattle up some people to support that policy issue,’ which is a very different way of thinking about building infrastructure.”
She hoped their work would continue into the 2024 campaign to expand voting access and push for more equitable congressional redistricting.
“We should be on offense in 2024, and ready to go, to continue to undergird and expand voting rights, especially in the states,” Schrantz said.
Christian nationalist U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's remarks at the New York Young Republican Club's Saturday night gala have elicited massive response – and condemnation – from many after she insisted had she been "in charge" of the January 6, 2021 insurrection the rioters "would've been armed" and they "would have won."
“I want to tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, we would’ve been armed,” Greene, a Republican from Georgia, told the group (video below). Some of the rioters and attendees were armed.
In addition to Greene and Bannon, Donald Trump, Jr. and far-right agitator Jack Posobiec were also in attendance, as was disgraced former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
The Southern Poverty Law Center described the New York Young Republican Club's gala attendees as a "collection of radical right figures including white nationalists and ultranationalist European leaders" and noted the "group’s president declared 'total war' on perceived enemies."
Some are questioning how Greene can retain her congressional seat given the oath of office she swore to, which in part reads: “I, __, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Former Democratic U.S. Senator from California Barbara Boxer tweeted: "If you’re in Congress and swore to protect the Constitution & you’re asked if you had anything to do with 1/6 insurrection, you say something like: I would NEVER partake in violence against America. You wouldn’t say something like: if I did it I would’ve been armed!"
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) quoting Greene, tweeted that winning is "overturning an election," and "Being armed = using force to do it."
Congresswoman Greene "represents today’s Republican party and defines a coup as 'winning,'" she stressed.
"This is un-American and dangerous," Escobar added. "And Republican silence is complicity."
Veteran journalist and SiriusXM Progress host Michelangelo Signorile called Greene's remarks, "Treason out loud."
"Marjorie Taylor Greene tells extremist confab that if she organized Jan 6 'we would've won' and 'we would've been armed.' Take it as a plan for the next assault on democracy, which Trump is right now inciting," he warned.
Gun violence prevention activist Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action observed this is a "Member of Congress fantasizing about killing her colleagues."
Former Obama White House Senior Advisor David Axelrod, now the director of the non-partisan University of Chicago Institute of Politics, quoted Greene and called her one of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy's "new top apparatchiks."
Watch the video via Kyle Mazza below or at this link.
The Georgia Republican spoke over the weekend at the New York Young Republican Club's 110th Annual Gala, saying that if she and Steve Bannon had actually organized the Capitol riot that participants would have been armed and the insurrection would have succeeded.
"She brought up a number of topics, some of them very disgusting and pornographic, and then the topic of Jan. 6, and past accusations that she gave Capitol tours to Donald Trump's supporters in the days leading up to the insurrection," Brzezinski said. "Greene then reportedly said, quote, 'Then Jan. 6 happened and next thing you know I organized a whole thing along with Steve Bannon.' Greene went on to say, 'I will tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I organized that, we would have won, not to mention it would have been armed.'"
"As Joe said, her comments matter because of her influence with the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus and the group's ability to block Kevin McCarthy's bid to become speaker of the House," she added.
Greene has been working closely with McCarthy to rally support for his election as speaker, and that has given her even more power and influence within the House GOP caucus.
"She is now one of Kevin McCarthy's most important allies in becoming speaker, and this is a woman who had said, you know, if she had been in charge of the Jan. 6 riots, they would have won, and they would have been armed," Scarborough said. "That's Kevin McCarthy's Republican Party."
Reacting to a video clip of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) boasting that she and former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon would have done a better job leading the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan 6th, two CNN analysts stated she should be compelled to testify before a grand jury looking into the insurrection.
In a video released over the weekend, a smirking Taylor Greene can be seen telling a laughing crowd, "Then Jan. 6 happened. And next thing you know, I organized the whole thing, along with Steve Bannon here. And I will tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed."
“See that’s the whole joke, isn’t it. They say that whole thing was planned and I’m like, are you kidding me? A bunch of conservatives, second amendment supporters, went in the Capitol without guns, and they think that we organized that?” she then added.
According to CNN's John Avlon, her comments should send up red flags for investigators looking into the lead-up and aftermath of the Capitol riot that forced lawmakers to flee for their lives.
"What this congresswoman is saying is they were insufficiently armed, she was playing to the crowd but what she is saying is without accountability, failed insurrections are just practice," he told the "CNN This Morning" hosts.
He then added, "They would have succeeded and would have come armed -- that's a statement with real weight if you're a member of Congress. That's an endorsement of violence."
According to CNN analyst Errol Louis, the Georgia Republican may have opened herself up to be subpoenaed.
"It would have been illegal to bring weapons into the district, as she no doubt knows," he told the panel. "It's the kind of thing where, in the name of being cute in front of the donors or whatever group she's addressing, she could talk herself into a grand jury."
"This is not stuff to take lightly," he continued. "This is a country on the edge in a lot of ways and if she really means this, she should repeat it under oath. I'd love to hear it."
While Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) promised that if she were in charge of Jan. 6, people would have been more armed and dangerous, other speakers at the Young Republicans gala in New York City talked about the next civil war.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremism throughout the United States, cited the speech from the Young republican president Gavin Wax, who told the Upper East side gala, “We want to cross the Rubicon. We want total war. We must be prepared to do battle in every arena. In the media. In the courtroom. At the ballot box. And in the streets."
“This is the only language the left understands. The language of pure and unadulterated power,” Wax also said.
Hatewatch reporters were on hand to observe as white nationalists Peter and Lyndia Brimelow of VDARE met with Steve Bannon and Donald Trump Jr., where they took selfies.
"Republicans publicly lauded members of an Austrian political party founded by World War II-era German Nazi party members," said the SPLC observers. Newsweek opinion editor Josh Hammer joked with "racist political operative Jack Posobiec," the site said. Posobiec was the one who spread the false Pizzagate conspiracy. Newsweek has grown increasingly friendly to extremists over the past several years as Hammer invited Posobiec onto his podcast. Though lately, he's been more supportive of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) over Donald Trump.
"Republican speakers repeatedly voiced an anti-democracy, authoritarian ideology, and extremists in the audience cheered wildly," wrote the SPLC. "White nationalists such as the Brimelows of VDARE and leaders from extreme far-right European parties like Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD), whom German officials placed under surveillance for their ties to extremism, and Austrian Freedom Party (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ), ate and drank in the same room as newly elected Republican congresspeople, such as Long Island and Queens-based George Santos, Georgia-based Mike Collins and Florida-based Cory Mills."
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is making it clear that she would have "won" the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and the attempt to overthrow the election.
“I want to tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, we would’ve been armed,” Greene told a group of New York Republicans over the weekend," said the New York Post.
The comments come after a lawsuit protesting Greene's candidacy citing a provision in the U.S. Constitution that bans officials of Congress who attempted an insurrection from ever serving in office.
"The evidence in this matter is insufficient to establish that Rep. Greene ... 'engaged in insurrection or rebellion' under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution," Judge Charles Beaudrot wrote in his May 2022 ruling. "Therefore, the Court holds that Respondent is qualified to be a candidate for Representative for Georgia's 14th Congressional District."
While some videos of the speech have leaked out since the statements, the threats of an armed uprising against the U.S. government are new as the emboldened Congresswoman is about to join the leaders in the new GOP-led House.
Greene was there with Donald Trump, Jr. and commentator Jack Posobiec, Rudy Giuliani, Bannon, and Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY).
Greene also told the crowd she would not support a “single penny” to help Ukraine fight back the Russian invasion, saying she wanted to use it to wage a war against the drug cartels in Mexico.
“They care about a country called Ukraine whose borders are far away and most of you couldn’t find it on a map,” said Greene.
