If President Biden’s strategy of giving his political rivals, this time a far-Right freshman House Republican, the silent treatment seems familiar, that’s because he’s deployed it before.
During the post-election transition period, Biden tried to avoid mentioning former President Donald Trump by name in an effort to downplay his predecessor’s 2020 election result challenges. And now his aides are using a similar tactic to try muting inflammatory Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
But just as questions were raised about the effectiveness of ignoring Trump before his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the same concerns are being expressed about Greene, particularly regarding her influence on the far Right as Washington, D.C., stays on high-security alert with thousands of National Guard troops positioned around the city.
While questions remain about whether Biden’s avoidant approach will help or hinder the situation, Northeastern University’s political science chairman Costas Panagopoulos said Biden’s attitude to the issue is in stark contrast to Trump’s, who shared Greene’s voter base and thrived off of the drama.
“Biden is clearly trying to go in a different direction, focusing on policy action and trying to find common ground with Republicans on Capitol Hill,” he told the Washington Examiner. “The Biden team is trying to avoid entanglements that can be counterproductive to their agenda, especially so early on in their administration.”
On Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked for Biden’s reaction to reports Greene, who subscribes to QAnon conspiracy theories, “liked” a 2019 social media post unearthed this week suggesting “a bullet to the head” would be a “quicker” way to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from power. And that was not the first time she’s talked about Pelosi in violent terms.
In a separate 2018 comment, Greene implored people calling for former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be hung over the Iran nuclear deal to be “patient.”
But on Wednesday, Psaki declined to weigh in on the controversy that’s embroiling Capitol Hill, especially for congressional Republicans attempting to calibrate the party after Trump.
“We don’t. And I’m not going to speak further about her, I think, in this briefing room,” Psaki told an inquiring reporter.
On Friday, she added: “We don’t want to elevate conspiracy theories further in the briefing room, so I’m going to leave it at that.”
Greene’s social media accounts have caused problems for the Republican Party since she announced her candidacy for Georgia’s then-vacant 14th Congressional District, in the deep-red northwestern part of the Peach State.
During the former construction executive’s primary against neurosurgeon John Cowan last summer, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy condemned Greene’s statements that QAnon was “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out.”
He also denounced her remarks describing Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan wins in 2018 as “an Islamic invasion of our government” and comparing Black Lives Matter activists to the neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members who demonstrated in Charlottesville, Virginia, during the deadly 2017 riots there.
But McCarthy has never disavowed Greene, and the House Republicans’ campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee, has embraced her.
In fact, Trump went on to predict that Greene was “a future Republican star.” And Georgia Republican then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler courted Greene’s endorsement in her 21-candidate Nov. 3 general election, which included fellow Trump ally, former Rep. Doug Collins.
But since her Nov. 3 election and the Jan. 6 Capitol sacking, Greene’s rhetoric, and that of some of her freshman classmates, has come under review from the likes of Twitter and McCarthy.
Twitter suspended Greene’s account for 12 hours this month after she pushed election fraud claims, arguing Loeffler and former Georgia Republican Sen. David Perdue lost their Jan. 5 runoffs due to weak state leadership. And McCarthy spokesman Mark Bednar said this week the top House Republican planned “to have a conversation” with Greene about her “deeply disturbing” comments. In a Friday email touting his first-term lawmakers, McCarthy notably didn’t list Greene.
McCarthy has been urged, too, to strip Greene of her House Education and Budget Committee assignments, a move he made in 2019 after former Iowa Rep. Steve King queried how “white nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization” became “offensive” language.
Greene defended herself against this week’s allegations by stating, “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,” Greene said. “They are taking old Facebook posts from random users to try to cancel me and silence my voice.”
But that was before 2019 footage of Greene emerged this week in which she can be seen and heard grilling Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg about his gun rights views. That, in turn, had followed the uncovering last week of a 2018 Facebook comment in which she said the tragedy was a “false flag planned shooting.”
Unconvinced McCarthy can rein in Greene, who’s angered congressional colleagues, too, for refusing to wear a mask on the Hill, Democrats are looking to have Greene removed from the Education Committee, and even expelled from the House.
“What I’m concerned about is the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives was willing to overlook and ignore those statements,” Pelosi said Thursday. “What could they be thinking? Or is ‘thinking’ too generous of a word for what they might be doing?”
