Most House Republicans were silent on Wednesday after CNN’s KFile reported that Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019 before being elected to Congress.
“These comments are deeply disturbing, and Leader McCarthy plans to have a conversation with the Congresswoman about them,” Mark Bednar, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, said in a statement Wednesday evening. Axios was first to report his comments and the California Republican’s plans to speak with the congresswoman.
House GOP Whip Steve Scalise said in a statement to CNN, “I’ve consistently condemned the use of violent rhetoric in politics on both sides, and this is no exception. There is no place for comments like that in our political discourse.”
A spokesperson for Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, told CNN in a statement, “Rep. Cheney has spoken out in the past about hateful comments from members of both parties and she finds these recent posts repugnant.”
Greene has a track record of incendiary rhetoric, including past comments using Islamophobic and anti-Semitic tropes. She also has ties to the baseless and thoroughly debunked QAnon conspiracy theory. The CNN KFile report once again puts Republican leaders in a position of deciding how to respond – and so far most are declining to weigh in.
Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a frequent critic of former President Trump who has urged Republicans to denounce QAnon, responded critically to the CNN KFile report, tweeting, “She is not a Republican. There are many who claim the title of Republican and have nothing in common with our core values. They are RINOS. She is a RINO.”
In one post from January 2019, Greene liked a comment that said “a bullet to the head would be quicker” to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In other posts, Greene liked comments about executing FBI agents who, in her eyes, were part of the “deep state” working against former President Donald Trump.
After CNN reached out to Greene, her personal Twitter account posted a statement in which she did not deny that she liked posts and replied to comments but claimed that many people have run her Facebook page.
“Over the years, I’ve had teams of people manage my pages. Many posts have been liked. Many posts have been shared. Some did not represent my views. Especially the ones that CNN is about to spread across the internet,” she wrote.
Greene did not specify whether she or a member of her team were behind the posts reviewed by CNN’s KFile.
A number of Democrats have spoken out against Taylor Greene in the wake of the report, suggesting that the congresswoman poses a threat as a result of her rhetoric.
Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton tweeted in response, “This woman should be on a watch list. Not in Congress.”
House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, tweeted, “And they wonder why we don’t want Members carrying guns onto the House Floor.”
Taylor Greene has also faced a backlash over recently resurfaced comments about the Parkland school shooting.
Students who survived the Parkland, Florida, school shooting and families of the victims have called for Taylor Greene’s resignation after comments surfaced that showed her agreeing with people who said the 2018 shooting was a “false flag” operation.
Taylor Greene tweeted on Tuesday that she was “very excited” to join the House Education and Labor Committee after Ranking Member Virginia Foxx announced her appointment to the committee.
CNN has reached to the chair and ranking member of the House Education and Labor committee about Greene’s appointment with no response so far.
Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens, who serves on the Education and Labor committee, called for Greene’s removal in a statement provided to CNN.
“I am deeply disturbed by the unearthing of Rep. Greene’s denial of the Parkland school shooting and the video showing her publicly taunting a teenage survivor of the massacre. The GOP conference committed an offensive error in placing her on the committee.”
Stevens said, “I respectfully ask the GOP conference to withdraw her appointment to the Education and Labor committee as her appointment does not represent the deep care and concern that all Members of Congress should show towards American children. Her hurtful antics are a distraction to addressing the challenges our nation faces and are threatening to children across the country. I will always be a fierce advocate for American children and will fight to make our schools safer. I am praying for Rep. Greene and I hope the GOP conference moves swiftly to right this wrong.”
This story has been updated with additional comments Wednesday.
CNN’s Manu Raju, Alex Rogers, Em Steck, Andrew Kaczynski and Dakin Andone contributed to this report.