U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is accusing House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) of condoning white supremacism and other extremist viewpoints and the activists who carry them out, in particular freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), also known as the QAnon Congresswoman.
“It increasingly seems, unfortunately, that in the House Republican caucus, Kevin McCarthy answers to these QAnon members of Congress, not the other way around,” Rep. Ocasio-Cortez told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Wednesday night. “You know, he said he was gonna pull Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene aside after you know her, her comments to Parkland activists, and comments saying that Muslim Americans should not fully and freely serve in the House, that they must be forced to swear on a Bible, etc.”
The Democratic Congresswoman from New York was referring to video that resurfaced earlier Wednesday showing Greene harassing, bullying, and berating, David Hogg, the Parkland School massacre survivor turned gun control activist. He was just 18 or 19 years old when Greene attacked him on the streets of Washington, D.C.
Responding to a report Leader McCarthy was planning to talk to Rep. Greene about her attacks, including supporting calls for the execution of top Democrats like Speaker Nancy Pelosi, AOC essentially scoffed – based on her own personal experience.
“I’ve seen Kevin McCarthy pull someone aside before for ‘talking to’ and that representative, that I last saw him do that to was Representative Ted Yoho of Florida.
Yoho infamously verbally accosted AOC on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. She decided to give a speech on the House floor after he delivered a very non-apologetic statement.
“What Kevin McCarthy did was that he pulled him aside to essentially excuse his behavior, to allow it, and to abet it,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And actually, Kevin McCarthy’s lack of holding his own caucus accountable is one major reason why I went to the floor. Last year, to hold yourself accountable myself. And so when I hear that representative McCarthy is going to pull a member aside was made, white supremacists sympathizing comments, the thing that I think is, what is he going to tell them? ‘Keep it up’? Because 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. It means that that silence is acceptance and they want it, because they know that it is a core animating political energy for them. And this is extremely dangerous, an extremely dangerous threshold that we have crossed.”
Watch:
(Rush transcript)