GOP Rep. Tom Reed backs sanctions on colleagues who use extreme rhetoric

Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) supports sanctions against colleagues who make extremist remarks, saying he hopes House leadership takes "measures that will send the message that this is unacceptable."

On Tuesday, CNN reported that before being elected last year, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) liked a comment on social media that said "a bullet to the head" would be a quick way to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Greene, an adherent of the QAnon conspiracy, also liked comments about executing FBI agents for being members of the "Deep State" and responded to a person asking if "we get to hang" former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton now by saying the "stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient."

In an interview with ABC News' Powerhouse Politics podcast, Reed said he doesn't know Greene but has "expressed concern about the rhetoric and the information that I'm seeing with her, and I would hope some folks would maybe talk to her." Greene represents the Republican Party as well as her constituents, and her fellow members of the GOP "all have to answer for" her remarks, Reed said. Democrats and Republicans both have to call out "any rhetoric that is of that extreme nature," Reed continued, and Greene's online behavior was "offensive" and "appalling. It cannot be accepted."

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Wednesday morning said he "planned to have a conversation" with Greene. In a statement, Greene said that CNN wants to "cancel me and silence my voice," and called the report about her online comments "a hit piece on me focused on my time before running for political office."

More stories from theweek.com
Don't look now, but vaccines might just end the pandemic
5 irrationally funny cartoons about the GameStop stock market madness
5 brutally funny cartoons about the GOP's Trump problem