MEAWW.COM / NEWS / HUMAN INTEREST

AOC alleges Kevin McCarthy 'answers to QAnon-backers in Congress', claims 'White supremacists' took over GOP

The lawmaker brought the charge against the top Republican in the chamber after California Rep. Jimmy Gomez intended to bring a House resolution to call for Marjorie Taylor Greene's expulsion

Donald Trump might have exited the scene but his legacy remains. Supporters of the former president who left office on January 20 after his defeat to President Joe Biden continue to steal headlines for the wrong reasons and that has come to haunt the Republican Party. New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has slammed the GOP in the wake of the controversy centered around Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and gone to the extent of saying that House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy is controlled by the Congress’ QAnon-supporting members and that the GOP has seen an influx of “legitimate White supremacists” into its caucus in the House.

Ocasio-Cortez or “AOC” as she is fondly called, came on MSNBC on Wednesday, January 27, and when she was asked about Greene’s behavior, she slammed McCarthy suggesting he looked feeble and his promise to have a word with Greene was not sufficient. 

'McCarthy answers to QAnon members, not other way around'

“It increasingly seems, unfortunately, that in the House Republican caucus, Kevin McCarthy answers to these QAnon members of congress, not the other way around,” the firebrand Democratic leader told host Chris Hayes.

“I’ve seen Kevin McCarthy pull someone aside before for a talking to. And that representative that I saw him do that to was representative Ted Yoho of Florida,” she added. Yoho courted controversy last year by allegedly using abusive words against AOC in front of the media. According to AOC: “What Kevin McCarthy did was that he pulled him aside to essentially excuse his behavior, to allow it, and to abet it.”

The 31-year-old accused McCarthy of showing unwillingness and being unable to rein in his own party members and allowed a racist and misogynistic culture to flourish because it benefited politically. “What is he going to tell them? Keep it up?” AOC asked targeting the Republican House minority leader. “Because there are no consequences in the Republican caucus for violence. There's no consequences for racism. No consequences for misogyny. No consequences for insurrection. And no consequence means that they condone it. It means that silence is acceptance, and they want it because they know that it is a core animating political energy for them,” she added. 

McCarthy asked GOP House members to 'cut the crap out'

McCarthy, however, privately appealed to his colleagues in the House to stop engaging in divisive fights over the second impeachment of Trump and focus on the Democrats instead. According to two sources that were familiar with his call with his members, the California Congressman said “cut the crap out”, CNN reported. He said he has spoken personally with individual members and cautioned that the GOP’s inner tussle will only benefit the Dems and hurt the red party’s chances of regaining a majority in the chamber in the 2022 midterm elections. The GOP has the presidency and the Senate and failed to flip the House in the 2020 elections. 
 
Greene, who won her first term in the Congress last November, made headlines owing to a video showing her confronting David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland shooting (2018) and gun-control activist, ahead of her election to the Congress, going viral. The video also surfaced amid uproar over reports that revealed controversial comments that Greene, a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory that favors Trump and the Second Amendment, made in the past few years. 

In the video from March 2019 showing Greene taking on Hogg, it is seen that the Georgia lawmaker follows the latter as he walks towards the Capitol. As Hogg walked away without talking to Greene, the GOP lawmaker was seen making false claims while throwing at him a volley of questions related to gun rights and how he was able to meet the senators. Greene called Hogg a coward in the video and said his activism was financially backed by billionaire philanthropist George Soros who is often targeted by the far-right conspiracy theorists.

AOC's words came after California Democratic Representative Jimmy Gomez announced on Wednesday that he planned to bring a resolution in the House eyeing the expulsion of Greene on charges of inciting violence. However, with the Dems having a narrow majority in the chamber, the resolution is certain to fail since two-thirds majority is required to expel a member from the House.