What should have taken just minutes took House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy five feet-dragging days, but he finally admonished toxic conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-GA) for her contemptible remarks comparing mask wearing to the Holocaust (see @DefeatByTweet tweet below).
Greene spewed her vile comments last week, when she told the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody, "You know, we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany. And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about."
McCarthy's statement today said, in part: "Marjorie is wrong, and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling. … Let me be clear: the House Republican Conference condemns this language."
After McCarthy finally made his statement, Reps Steve Scalise and Elise Stefanik came out of the woodwork to make statements of their own. From CNN:
The No. 2 House Republican, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, also responded to Greene's comments for the first time on Tuesday.
"Rep. Scalise does not agree with these comments and condemns these comparisons to the Holocaust," Scalise spokesperson Lauren Fine said in a written statement that also attacked Democrats.
Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the newly elected No. 3 House Republican, also responded to the controversy in a tweet that didn't include Greene's name.
"Equating mask wearing and vaccines to the Holocaust belittles the most significant human atrocities ever committed. We must all work together to educate our fellow Americans on the unthinkable horrors of the Holocaust. #NeverAgain," Stefanik wrote Tuesday morning, following McCarthy and Scalise's remarks.
Image by DonkeyHotey / Flickr
