Over the weekend, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) claimed that she would have done a better job at executing the January 6, 2021, attack on the U. S. Capitol building if she had been one of its organizers.
Greene’s comments, delivered at the New York Young Republican Club’s (NYYRC) annual gala on Saturday, were part of a slew of “one-liners” aimed at “trolling the political left,” according to reporting on the event. Notably, the January 6 attack — conducted by a mob of loyalists to former President Donald Trump in an attempt to disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election — resulted in at least seven deaths and numerous injuries.
Greene, who herself voted against certifying the election results on what was just her third day in Congress, claimed that she had been unjustly blamed for playing a role in the attack, despite the fact that she had joined Trump in pushing incendiary lies about election fraud.
“’Then Jan, 6 happened. And next thing you know, I organized the whole thing, along with [former Trump adviser] Steve Bannon,” Greene said on Saturday.
“I want to tell you something,” Greene went on. “If Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, we would’ve been armed.”
Greene’s comment disregarded that the mob of Trump loyalists was indeed armed when it violently breached the building, and that some members of the mob, including members of the far right paramilitary organization the Oath Keepers, had stashed weapons nearby in anticipation of a prolonged coup attempt that day and in the coming weeks.
While Greene was likely attempting to be humorous, other speakers at the Saturday night gala were far more direct, including NYYRC president Gavin Wax.
“We want total war,” Wax said during his speech at the event. “We must be prepared to do battle in every arena. In the media. In the courtroom. At the ballot box. And in the streets.”
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the gala included a wide array of far right Republican lawmakers, former Trump administration officials and allies (including Bannon and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani), and leaders from white supremacist and fascist organizations — including from right-wing European political parties, such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Austrian Freedom Party. Members of VDARE, a far right organization that pushes the racist and unfounded “great replacement theory,” and Project Veritas, a propaganda organization that defends right-wingers, often by attacking their political opponents with fabricated allegations, were also in attendance.
The Biden administration condemned Greene for her commentary at the gala, with Deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates describing her remarks as a “slap in the face” to law enforcement who were at the Capitol that day.
“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,” Bates said in a statement.
Bates added that “all leaders have a responsibility to condemn these dangerous, abhorrent remarks and stand up for our Constitution and the rule of law.”
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