U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said in a debate Sunday she regrets nothing about the controversies that caused her to lose her committee assignments and become a far-right icon in national politics.
“I stand by the words that I say,” Greene, a Republican, said during Sunday’s Atlanta Press Club debate. “They’re just offensive to Washington, D.C., and the swamp creatures there because the words that I speak are the same as Americans back home — the same as people in Georgia’s 14th district, and the words I speak are the truth.”
Her Democratic challenger in the general election, Marcus Flowers, said the controversies are the reason why he decided to run against Greene. But he also repeated several times that he wants people to vote for him, not just someone who is “not Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
“This is about so much more than just having a representative who doesn’t represent our district, but it’s about our democracy,” he said.
Despite how polarizing of a political figure Greene is, she is still the heavy favorite to win a second term in her deeply conservative northwest Georgia district. The district is overwhelmingly Republican, and although Flowers raises money from across the country from people who want to see Greene unseated, there is little indication her voters will abandon her.
Sunday’s debate quickly grew contentious, with Greene and Flowers bickering and talking over each other throughout the 30-minute event.
There was some attempt to drill down on policy. The moderators asked Greene to talk about what she was able to accomplish during her time in Washington, specifically for her district. She mentioned grant funding for law enforcement and disaster relief dollars that were contained in legislation she didn’t sponsor and that also included money for other areas of the country.
Flowers said that he decided to run against Greene after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which he holds her partially responsible for inciting because she was among the Republicans who supported false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from then-President Donald Trump. Asked Sunday whether Joe Biden won the election, Greene would only say he is the president now.
However, Greene took issue with Flowers’ attempts to tie her to the violence of that day.
“I was a victim of the January 6 riot just as much as any other member of Congress,” she said. “That was the third day I had on the job. I had nothing to do with what happened there that day, and I will not have you accuse me of that.”
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