CPAC Welcomes Marjorie Taylor Greene Hours After She Appears at White Nationalist Conference (original) (raw)

On Friday, she shared the stage with an overt white nationalist who giggled about praising Hitler. On Saturday, she's welcome at CPAC, and an early speaker in a lineup that features Donald Trump

Hours after appearing at a white nationalist conference — because that’s apparently something a Republican member of Congress can do these days — Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene received a warm reception at the Conservative Political Action Conference across town.

In this friendly venue, Greene’s message was strikingly similar to what she had to say Friday night. “As Americans, we can no longer stay silent, we can no longer shut up,” Greene said to a round of applause Saturday at CPAC during a panel discussion about being “cancelled.” She then bragged about being suspended from Twitter for pushing Covid misinformation.

“Big Tech has aligned with the government, they’ve aligned with the Democrat communists, and what they want to do is they want to silence Americans who are willing to speak the truth,” she asserted. “If there’s anything worth fighting for, it’s our freedom of speech and all of our rights.”

On Friday, Greene unabashedly exercised her freedom of speech rights as a surprise guest of America First PAC organizer and white nationalist Nick Fuentes. In her speech to that extremist group, Huffington Post reported, the QAnon conspiracy theorist and ‘Big Lie’ proponent called Democrats the “communist party,” claimed they had destroyed “gender” and “pronouns,” and complained about Twitter. Greene referred to those in attendance (at the gathering of white nationalists, remember!) as merely “cancelled Americans.” Some of them later cheered for Vladimir Putin.

Fuentes took the stage afterward, and declared, “God bless Marjorie Taylor Greene.” (Fuentes’ address also included him giggling through a bit of coded praise for Adolf Hitler.)

“You have no idea what a big deal it was for her to come out and do that,” Fuentes said. “You guys know full well the risk. She put herself out on a limb for us tonight, and we here at AFPAC are grateful for her presence here tonight.”

Greene was not the sole Republican elected official who ingratiated themselves with the AFPAC crowd. House Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who spoke at last year’s conference, delivered a pre-recorded address to the group. Arizona State Sen. Wendy Rogers and Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, according to video from think tank research analyst Ben Lorber, appear to have done the same.

Later Saturday, Greene attempted to distance herself from Fuentes, saying she did not know about him and did not endorse white nationalism, but that she went because it was important to address his audience “to get everyone together to save our country.”

Rolling Stone has reached out to CPAC to ask if their leadership find it acceptable that one of their speakers also appeared a day earlier at a conference organized by an overt white nationalist. Thus far, there has been no response.