A video by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene fawning over David Hogg, an arms control activist and survivor of the Parkland shooting, appeared online on Wednesday. | Erin Scott-Pool / Getty Images
TALLAHASSEE – A video by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) Fawning David Hogg, a gun control activist and survivor of the Parkland shooting, appeared online years ago on Wednesday, fueling a new wave of outrage on the story of the Georgia Republican questioning a dark chapter in Florida that left 17 dead.
Greene, in the video, which apparently was filmed just a few weeks after the shooting in Parkland in 2018, calls Hogg a “coward” because he turns away from her and complains that Hogg was able to meet with senators. “He had 30 appointments in which he went and was able to speak to senators. I don’t have to talk to anyone, ”said Greene, adding“ Guess what? I own a gun. I am an American citizen. And I have nothing. But this guy with his funding George Soros and his big liberal funding has it all. “
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was one of the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, put the video on Twitter as part of his campaign to highlight Greene’s positions on the subject.
“She will face your lies,” he said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “She is a fraud. It has no place being the corridors of Congress. I intend to bring her evidence of my daughter’s murder. “
The video also shows Greene following Hogg down the street as he walks towards the United States Capitol. Greene asks why Hogg supports “red flag laws” – measures that allow the police to ask a judge to let them take someone’s weapons if the person is seen as a potential danger. The then Gov of Florida. Rick Scott, a Republican, signed a measure that included a red flag law after the deaths in Parkland.
Guttenberg has been confronting the freshman lawmaker online last week, after social media posts that emerged two years ago show that Greene is supporting the conspiracy theories that the shooting in Parkland was staged. He eventually promised to meet Greene face to face so he could show her proof that his 14-year-old daughter Jaime was shot dead. The congresswoman has already become a political lightning rod for embracing the QAnon conspiracy theory and for a long series of racist comments before being elected in a conservative district in November.
Congresswoman Lucy McBath (D-Fla.) Distributed the video in November 2019. In the interview, Guttenberg said he knew the video was made before Greene was elected to Congress last year, but said he had not heard of it until Tuesday afternoon.
The discovery of Greene’s previous comments has already caused a firestorm between Democrats and their allies for Republicans. A super PAC targeting Senator Marco Rubio – “Retire Rubio” – questioned why the senator was not condemning Greene’s “harassment” to Hogg.
Neither Rubio’s nor Scott’s office responded to requests for comment on Greene’s video and his denunciation of red flag laws.
On Wednesday, Hogg gave his opinion on the video, saying on Twitter that “after surviving armed violence, that’s just 1/10 of 1% of the harassment that gun control advocates have to face.”
He added: “Do you think we want to do this? @mtgreenee. F — no – I prefer to be a college student, but me and the others can’t and you know why? Bc corrupt politicians like you have caused survivors of armed violence to end armed violence because you can’t do your damn job. “
When asked about the comment on Greene’s video, her office pointed to a statement the Georgia representative released last week on Twitter where she called “gun free zones” a failure and blamed the shooting in Parkland on the school’s resource officer, Scot Peterson. While the shooting was taking place, Peterson protected himself and stepped back, according to the state commission created after the crime to investigate the event.
Rep. Ted Deutch, a South Florida Democrat whose district includes high school, tweeted on Wednesday afternoon that the pain and trauma that the attack left in the community still echoes today. “I encouraged survivors to come to DC to confront members of Congress about their cowardice and failure to act,” he said. “I know that they will come back to face these cruel and despicable lies.”
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, a Democrat, said that Hogg showed “Bravery in your work to reform weapons of common sense”. She called Greene’s behavior “a coward” and said “it is a political and improper coup for a member of Congress”.