GOP chief McCarthy condemns Marjorie Taylor Greene, who compares Covid guidelines to the Holocaust

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Is on the steps of the American Rescue Plan Act on Wednesday, March 10, 2021, in the vote on the US Rescue Plan Act Covid-19 House to see.

Tom Williams | CQ Appeal, Inc. | Getty Images

Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday condemned a member of his own party, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for her recent comments comparing security measures related to Covid to the Holocaust.

“Marjorie is wrong and her deliberate choice to liken the horrors of the Holocaust to wearing masks is appalling,” McCarthy said in a statement.

“The Holocaust is the greatest atrocity in history. The fact that this needs to be discovered today is deeply worrying,” he said.

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Senate Minority Chairman Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Also blew up Greene, calling her comments “outrageous” and “objectionable”.

McConnell’s spokesman pointed out on Twitter that the Senate chairman had previously described Greene’s “crazy lies and conspiracy theories” as “cancer for the Republican Party and our country.”

Over the weekend, Greene had compared the mask mandate on the floor of the chamber to the Holocaust. “We can look back at a time in history when people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens – so much so that they were put on trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany “Greene said, according to NBC News.

Greene tweeted Tuesday morning: “Vaccinated employees receive a vaccination logo, just like the Nazis forced the Jewish people to wear a gold star.”

She responded to a report from a local Tennessee outlet about the Food City supermarket chain’s decision to require fully vaccinated employees to wear a logo on their nameplates.

Greene is a new lawmaker from Georgia who was stripped of her committee duties in February as punishment for enforcing a range of extremist conspiracy theories. According to reports, 2018 also included her claim that forest fires may have been caused by space lasers funded by the Rothschild family, which have been the target of many anti-Semitic conspiracies.

But the statement by McCarthy Tuesday, who previously refused to blame Greene, also tried to blame his Democratic counterparts for rising anti-Semitism.

“At a time when the Jewish people are facing increasing violence and threats, anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party is growing and is being completely ignored by spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi,” said McCarthy.

“Americans must stand together to defeat anti-Semitism and any attempt to belittle the history of the Holocaust,” he said. “Let me be clear: the House Republican Conference condemns this language.”

In a defiant statement on Tuesday, Greene defended her remarks and redoubled her claim that attempts to “shame” people who refuse to obey the rules of Covid are “reminiscent of the great tyrants of history who did the same to those who would not adhere to it “.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., called Greene’s recent comments “obnoxious and objectionable.”

“You should end this hideous language immediately,” said Schumer.

– CNBC’s Jacob Pramuk and Christina Wilkie contributed to this report.