In a clear break from the momentum on the right Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Monday night blasted freshman House Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green‘s “loony lies and conspiracy theories” as a “cancer for the Republican Party.” The Congresswoman from Georgia wasted little time in shooting back.
Almost no Republican in the House or Senate has criticized Greene’s malicious lies and abusive behavior, and to be clear, the 78-year old McConnell did not mention the Congresswoman from Georgia by name. But his message was clear.
“Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.’s airplane is not living in reality,” McConnell said in a statement given to the conservative news site The Hill. “This has nothing to do with the challenges facing American families or the robust debates on substance that can strengthen our party.”
Leader McConnell in a separate statement given to CNN offered support for embattled House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney, under fire for being one of just ten Republicans in the House to vote to impeach now-former President Donald Trump.
The New York Times called McConnell’s remarks “a rare step by the most powerful Republican in Washington to insert himself into an increasingly ugly intraparty feud.”
On Twitter, Greene shot back, without mentioning McConnell by name, but calling him the “real cancer” and “weak,” while continuing to try to echo Trump’s words whenever she can. “This is why we are losing our country,” she claimed.
Greene is a conspiracy theorist who has espoused racist views. She has been the subject of numerous news outlets’ investigations into her remarks and behaviors over the past few years. She has neither defended them nor denied them, instead using them to claim she is being attacked and for fundraising.