Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) shot back at critics upset over her saying Capitol rioters would have been armed and “won” if she and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon had planned it.
The conservative firebrand released a statement Monday standing by her “sarcastic joke” after the White House condemned Greene for the comments she made at a New York Young Republican Club event.
“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. “Every day, I receive violent threats against my life simply because Democrats & the media have lied and smeared my character for the past 2 years. Including threats resulting in actual arrests with criminal charges & threats against my home in an attempt to have me killed.”
Greene, who has decried the treatment of January 6 defendants, made headlines for what she said at the event while talking about her first days as a congresswoman in the run-up to the riot.
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.
1/5 pic.twitter.com/Nh9rfknEl2
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) December 12, 2022
“I come to Washington, I swear in on January 3, I get accused of giving insurrection tours which I thought was hilarious because I couldn’t even find the bathroom in the Capitol. True story,” she said, according to CNN. “Then January 6 happens, and next thing you know, I organized the whole thing along with Steve Bannon here. And I gotta tell you something: If Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would have been armed. Yeah. See, that’s the whole joke isn’t it?”
She added: “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 we organized that? I don’t think so.”
The U.S. Capitol was breached on January 6, 2021, briefly interrupting Congress as its members met to certify President Joe Biden’s presidential victory. There is evidence that some people in the crowd were carrying weapons, including firearms, and hundreds of people have been charged in connection to the riot.
The White House issued a strong rebuke of Greene on Monday.
“It goes against our fundamental values as a country for a Member of Congress to wish that the carnage of January 6th had been even worse, and to boast that she would have succeeded in an armed insurrection against the United States government,” Deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement, according to The Washington Post. “This violent rhetoric is a slap in the face to the Capitol Police, the DC Metropolitan Police, the National Guard, and the families who lost loved ones as a result of the attack on the Capitol.”
“All leaders have a responsibility to condemn these dangerous, abhorrent remarks and stand up for our Constitution and the rule of law,” Bates also said.
In her statement, Greene accused the Democrats of “trying to weaponize a sarcastic joke” and vowed to continue standing up for herself.
The congresswoman quipped that Democrats only “support” the Second Amendment “when armed Antifa larpers want to defend perverts at drag queen story time or when leftist Hollywood celebs and politicians are protected by armed bodyguards.” After a swipe about content moderation on Twitter, she concluded, “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.”