MP Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) holds a press conference in front of the U.S. Capitol on June 14, 2021 after a private visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington to express remorse over earlier statements about Jewish people.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
MP Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Apologized Monday for a series of comments comparing the rules and restrictions related to the coronavirus with the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany.
The regrets came hours after Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill. Announced that he and other lawmakers would pass a resolution to reprimand them for the statements condemned as anti-Semitic by Republicans and Democrats alike.
“I know my words were hurtful and I’m very sorry,” Greene told reporters outside the US Capitol.
Greene said she visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington Monday afternoon and “there is nothing like it”.
“It happened, and you know, over 6 million Jewish people were murdered,” she said.
The apology from the 47-year-old freshman member of Congress marked a complete reversal of her stance weeks earlier.
Comparing a mask mandate on the House floor to the Holocaust on a podcast in May, Greene said, “We can look back at a time in history when people were told to wear a gold star and they definitely became like citizens treated second class – so much so that they were put on trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany, “NBC News reported at the time.
Greene drew a similar comparison on Twitter days later and tweeted: “Vaccinated employees are given a vaccination logo, just like the Nazi Jewish people wear a gold star.”
She responded to a report by a local Tennessee news agency about the Food City supermarket chain that said fully vaccinated employees would have a logo on their nameplates.
Greene quickly came under fire, and House Minority Chairman Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Who had previously dismissed Democratic pressure to blame Greene for a variety of extreme comments and marginal views, and her analogies as “appalling” condemned.
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Said the comments were “outrageous” and “objectionable”.
Greene had aggressively defended the statements at the time, even in the face of heated criticism from other Republicans.
“I’ve never compared it to the Holocaust, only discrimination against Jews in the early Nazi years. Stop feeding left media attacks on me,” Greene complained in a May 25 tweet to one conservative commentator.
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Greene, whose other incendiary comments had already led the Democrats to withdraw her committee duties, was contrite in the press on Monday afternoon.
She began by finding that her father had died in April. He had taught her that “if you make a mistake, you should afford it,” she said.
“I made a mistake and it has really bothered me for a couple of weeks now.”
Greene maintained her belief that forcing people to wear masks or be vaccinated is a form of discrimination, and I am very much against that type of discrimination.
“What I want to say is that I take this statement completely away from what I said before,” about the Holocaust, she said.
