Pelosi slams Republican leadership for response to Marjorie Taylor Greene: ‘What could they be thinking?’

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday slammed House Republican leaders for not doing more to rebuke GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia over her shocking rhetoric and past statements, saying the focus must be on leadership.

“What I’m concerned about is the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, who is willing to overlook, ignore those statements,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference, days after CNN reported Greene repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians — including Pelosi — in 2018 and 2019 before being elected to Congress. The statements were part a CNN KFile review of hundreds of posts and comments from Greene’s Facebook page.

Greene is also facing criticism for a video of her confronting Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg before she was elected to Congress went viral Wednesday. And last week, other students who survived the Parkland, Florida, school shooting and families of the victims are calling for Greene’s resignation, after comments surfaced that showed her agreeing with people who said the 2018 shooting was a “false flag” operation, remarks Pelosi called special attention to Thursday. The California Democrat also criticized Greene’s placement on the House Committee on Education and Labor.

“Assigning her to the Education Committee when she has mocked the killing of little children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, when she has mocked the killing of teenagers in high school at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school — what could they be thinking?” Pelosi asked Thursday. “Or is thinking too generous a word for what they might be doing? It’s absolutely appalling, and I think the focus has to be on the Republican leadership of this House of Representatives for the disregard they have for the death of those children.”

Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez of California said he plans to offer a privileged resolution for the expulsion of Greene from the House, which would require a two-thirds majority to pass. And Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida said she is exploring the possibility of a resolution that would strip Greene of her committee assignments if House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy doesn’t remove her.

The Florida Democrat is currently gauging the support of colleagues on the issue and will likely introduce the resolution next week, a source familiar told CNN. The source told CNN it’s unclear at this time whether the resolution will be privileged.

“Expelling is tough. Removing committee assignments, however, is not hard. Republicans did it to Steve King for racist comments. This is worse,” a House Democratic aide told CNN regarding the possibility of removing Greene from her committee assignments.

When asked about efforts to remove her from the House or committees, Greene blamed Democrats and the media. “They are coming after me because they know I represent the people, not the politicians. They are coming after me because, like President Trump, I will always defend conservative values. They want to take me out because I represent the people. And they absolutely hate it,” she said.

Meanwhile, many House Republicans have been silent in the wake of CNN’s reporting, but some members of leadership have released statement criticizing the remarks.

House GOP Whip Steve Scalise said in a statement to CNN, “I’ve consistently condemned the use of violent rhetoric in politics on both sides, and this is no exception. There is no place for comments like that in our political discourse.”

“These comments are deeply disturbing, and Leader McCarthy plans to have a conversation with the Congresswoman about them,” Mark Bednar, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, said in a statement Wednesday evening.

After CNN reached out to Greene for its initial reporting earlier this week, her personal Twitter account posted a statement in which she did not deny that she liked posts and replied to comments but claimed that many people have run her Facebook page.

“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. Especially the ones that CNN is about to spread across the internet,” she wrote.

Greene did not specify whether she or a member of her team were behind the posts reviewed by CNN’s KFile.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.