U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) announced Thursday she feels “threatened” by U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), claiming his “physical mannerisms are aggressive,” “there’s a lot of concern” about him, and “he’s someone that people should watch,” after video of the two outside the U.S. Capitol Wednesday shows both having a surprisingly lively, collegial debate, and laughing and joking.
CNN aired video of the two lawmakers:
But Thursday, Greene tried to build a case against Bowman, claiming that at a recent New York City protest rally against Donald Trump, Rep. Bowman was “shouting at the top of his lungs, cursing, calling me a horrible – calling me a white supremacist, which I take great offense to. That is like calling a person of color the N word which should never happen. Calling me a white supremacist is equal to that and that is wrong. Jamaal Bowman was down there cursing at me telling me to get the eff out of there. And he was leading the mob.”
After having attempted to paint the New York Democratic Congressman as dangerous, Greene declared, “I think there’s a lot of concern about Jamaal Bowman, so and I am concerned about, I feel threatened by him. He not only let a mob there, but his boisterous lies.”
Greene apparently also took offense that Congressman Bowman urged her and the entire House Republican caucus to save their party after unanimously blocking a Democratic resolution on Wednesday to expel Congressman George Santos (R-NY), after he was indicted on 13 federal criminal felony charges last week. Bowman’s suggestion was in earlier times, political parties were expected to take responsibility for their corrupt members.
“And I’ll tell you another thing he said outside there, he was saying save your party.’ I kept telling him no, ‘save the country.’ It’s not about political parties. We shouldn’t care about political parties. We should care about the country, because no matter what our political beliefs are Jamaal Bowman I don’t know what his political beliefs are. I know what mine are. But we both we both swore an oath to serve the country here in Congress’s representatives.”
She then issued a warning against the New York Democratic lawmaker, declaring, “I am very concerned about Jamaal Bowman, and he’s someone that people should watch.”
But Greene has a documented history of racist remarks. Three years ago, as a candidate, Republicans distanced themselves from her, “after POLITICO uncovered hours of Facebook videos in which she expresses racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic views,” the news outlet reported in June of 2020.
Greene “suggested that Muslims do not belong in government; thinks black people ‘are held slaves to the Democratic Party’; called George Soros, a Jewish Democratic megadonor, a Nazi; and said she would feel ‘proud’ to see a Confederate monument if she were black because it symbolizes progress made since the Civil War.”
“Now,” Politico reported at the time, “GOP lawmakers, aides and operatives fear Greene — a wealthy businesswoman who has already drawn national attention because of her belief in a trove of QAnon ” conspiracy theories — could create an even bigger black eye for the party if she wins the nomination.”
In December of 2021 Greene was accused of using a “racial slur,” according to The Independent, which also reported she “has a history of remarks that have drawn accusations of racism. In the past few weeks, she has accused her Muslim-American colleagues in the US House of Representatives of being ‘Islamic terrorist sympathisers’ and called one member in particular, Rep Ilhan Omar, ‘pro-Al Qaeda.'”
In February of 2022 Greene was highly criticized for speaking “at a white nationalist conference in Orlando,” and then mocked after claiming she was unaware of what it was.
Last fall Greene came under criticism for making remarks that “echoed the ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory long promoted by white nationalists that nonwhite immigrants could eventually displace native-born white Americans,” Spectrum News reported.
In a December, 2021 opinion piece at The Daily Beast, Kali Holloway wrote about Greene and her Republican colleague from Colorado, Rep. Lauren Boebert.
“She and Boebert spew racist talking points and stoke white terror like it’s their jobs, mostly because it is. The GOP ‘big tent’ has a come-one-come-all policy for white racists, white supremacists, and white nationalists from every walk of life. Boebert and Greene are just faithfully representing a voting base that overwhelmingly thinks America’s most pressing problem is that white status-loss leaves white people vulnerable to being treated like Black people.”
Watch a clip of Congresswoman Greene below, and video of her and Congressman Bowman above, or both at this link.