Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) called out Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on the House floor Wednesday for her self-described “outrage” at those opposing a GOP-led resolution to censure Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) for needlessly pulling a House building fire alarm in September, considering her past behavior.
Greene pointed to the incarceration of Jan. 6 rioters to try to claim a double standard in light of how Bowman was given probation and a fine after pleading guilty to the misdemeanor charge.
“While regular people who walked into the Capitol—by the way, non-violent offenders, many of them walked in open doors, and some of them also standing out on the lawn, never entering the Capitol—are all being charged for obstructing an official proceeding. But yet Jamaal Bowman says, ‘Oh, it was a mistake,’ and he should get a pass?” she said.
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“This is an outrage and this is a disgrace on this institution and this body,” Greene continued. “For someone that is a former principal who punished his own students for intentionally pulling fire alarms to make up petty excuses and think that his own constituents and the American people will buy his lies is a slap in the face to his voters, the people that he represents, and this entire country and every single one of us that serve in this body.”
McGovern, however, wasn’t buying Greene’s outrage.
“It is really rich to get a lecture from someone about civility who stood on this House floor and screamed and interrupted the president of the United States during his State of the Union,” he said.
Greene’s outburst this past February occurred after Biden had mentioned how some in her party “want Medicare and Social Security to sunset,” adding: “I’m not saying it’s a majority.”
Greene, wearing a fur-lined white coat, could easily be seen and heard yelling “liar” at the president.
McGovern offered another example of what he deemed Greene’s unbecoming behavior, calling her “somebody who continues to circle the wagons and cheer on the insurrectionists who attacked this Capitol violently on Jan. 6.”
“I was the last person off the House floor on that day and I saw what happened, and for people to come down here and defend those actions, it is pathetic and disgusting,” he said.
At this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Greene joined in on a performance art piece lamenting the imprisonment of those arrested or convicted as a result of their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, entering a fake prison cell to pray with an actor in an orange jumpsuit who had actually been a real rioter but had avoided incarceration.
In the weeks after the Jan. 6 insurrection, Greene was removed from her seats on two committees over her promotion of conspiracy theories and her prior support for executing top Democrats, as well her speaking out against a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election.
