The public feud between Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Dan Crenshaw is getting ugly. The Trump-loving Republican lawmakers were at each others throats on Monday, with Crenshaw suggesting Greene is either “a Democrat — or just an idiot,” and Greene firing back that Crenshaw is “harassing” her.
The two members’ recent disagreement stemmed from remarks Crenshaw made during a Fox News appearance in which he advocated for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to step in and operate Covid-19 testing sites, which it did during the Trump administration. The U.S. has recently reported record numbers of people infected with the virus, leading to rapidly increasing hospitalizations and overwhelmed emergency rooms.
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Greene, who has frequently shared vaccine disinformation and incurred multiple fines for refusing to wear a mask on the House floor, said that FEMA-run testing is unnecessary “to check for Omicron sneezes, coughs and runny noses,” downplaying the threat the virus poses — especially to the unvaccinated — with its increased transmissibility. Twitter banned Greene on Sunday, citing “repeated violations” of its “COVID-19 misinformation policy” after she tweeted a claim, without evidence, that an “extremely high amount of covid vaccine deaths are ignored and government forced vaccine mandates are increased.” A day later, Greene claimed that Facebook temporarily suspended her account for 24 hours.
Before her Twitter account was shut down, Greene tweeted that Crenshaw “needs to stop calling himself conservative, he’s hurting our brand.” She also posted to her Instagram on Monday, accusing Crenshaw of skipping a vote on a Democratic-supported bill requiring public companies to disclose their commitments to environmental, social (human rights), and good governance standards. The bill passed by a one-vote margin.
Responding to Greene, Crenshaw wrote on his Instagram story, “Hey Marjorie, if suggesting we should follow Trump policy instead of Biden mandates makes you mad, then you might be a Democrat — or just an idiot.” Later, he posted an image to his Instagram of Greene that he claimed was taken while Congress was voting on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). “Isn’t this you?” Crenshaw wrote on the Instagram story, tagging Greene in the photo, which showed her seated at a table with others. “This was the moment you went for a few drinks instead of voting on the NDAA. Before bringing up missed votes, you might want to check your own record.”
In a response posted to Instagram, Greene called the photo a “creepy stalking” picture and accused Crenshaw of “harassing” her to “co-sponsor his Big Tech bill.” She then claimed that instead of stopping social media censorship, the bill “actually gives more protection to online Porn companies.”
“No thanks, Dan!” she added. “We need to get rid of Porn.”
Greene is referring to a draft Republican bill Crenshaw supports that would reform Section 230, which grants tech companies legal immunity for content posted by third parties. Section 230 has been called “one of the most valuable tools for protecting freedom of expression and innovation on the Internet” by The Electronic Frontier Foundation. The bill Crenshaw supports would get rid of that immunity for platforms that discriminate based on “racial, sexual, political affiliation, or ethnic grounds,” a reaction to platforms’ decisions to ban accounts like Greene’s that spread misinformation. But Section 230 also protects platforms that host pornography, which is likely what Greene is alluding to here. Opponents of Section 230 have argued the law is overly broad in its protections of platforms and allows content like revenge porn and child pornography to proliferate online.
Trump didn’t weigh in on the feud but later on Monday he did voice his support for Greene in a statement blasting Twitter as “a disgrace to democracy.” “Everybody should drop off of Twitter and Facebook. They’re boring, have only a Radical Left point of view, and are hated by everyone,” Trump said. “They are a disgrace to our Nation. Keep fighting, Marjorie!”
This recent incident is far from the first confrontation between Greene and Crenshaw, who have been exchanging barbs since Greene entered the national spotlight. Shortly after her election in 2020, Greene accused Crenshaw of having a “loser mindset” when he said that the Republican Party should “accept the final results” of the election while adding the caveat that it “should not be partisan to suggest” an investigation into election irregularities. Crenshaw responded to Greene’s “loser” comment by telling her to “start acting like” a member of Congress, accusing her of “purposely lying” in order to “talk tough.” In December, he criticized the party’s Freedom Caucus, which claims Greene as a member. Although he did not mention specific names, he said the caucus is made of “grifters” and “performance artists.”
“Performance artists are the ones who get all of the attention, the ones you think are more conservative because they know how to say slogans real well,” Crenshaw said at an event hosted by Texas Liberty Alliance PAC. “They know how to recite the lines that they know our voters want to hear.”
Later that same month, Crenshaw told Politico that Greene is “not a serious person.”
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