The far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene risked stoking the wrath of New Yorkers for a second time this week, calling their city “disgusting”, “filthy”, “repulsive” and a “terrible place”.
“I compared it to what I called Gotham City,” the Georgia Republican told Fox News. “The streets are filthy, they’re covered with people basically dying on drugs. They can’t even stand up. They’re falling over. There’s so much crime in the city. I can’t comprehend how people live there.”
The blogger Aaron Rupar responded: “Imagine if [the New York progressive] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went on MSNBC and said this about a town in Marjorie Taylor Greene‘s district. Republicans would try to expel her from Congress.”
Mehdi Hasan, the MSNBC host, said: “No Democratic politician from the coasts could ever go visit a Republican-led city in the south and then go on a liberal media outlet and call it repulsive, smelly and disgusting. No way.”
Greene’s comments, Hasan said, were “a reminder of the double standards, and asymmetry, in our politics and our media”.
Greene is a conspiracy theorist and controversialist who has made antisemitic and racist claims and was barred from committees by Democrats after threatening fellow members of Congress. She was restored to key assignments by Kevin McCarthy when the Republican became House speaker in January, dependent on far-right support.
Greene visited New York on Tuesday, to protest in support of Donald Trump as the former president – and former New Yorker – pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts related to his hush money payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Greene attempted to speak in a park outside the courthouse in downtown Manhattan. She was jostled and drowned out by whistles blown by counter-protesters.
“It was absolute chaos,” she told Tucker Carlson on Wednesday. “And that’s what the mayor of New York City wanted to happen to me.”
Eric Adams had warned Greene to “be on your best behavior”.
“He threatened me and basically put on a dog whistle for violence against me,” Greene claimed, also claiming the protest against her was “against the law, by the way, Tucker.
“You see, they didn’t want me to be able to protest and use my first amendment right. And they wanted violence. I think they wanted that to happen, because they want to repeat January 6 all over again, want all of us Trump supporters, Maga, basically Republicans and just good Americans to look like criminals, and that’s what they do in communist countries.”
On 6 January 2021, supporters Trump told to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat stormed the US Capitol. Nine deaths are now linked to the riot, including law enforcement suicides. More than a thousand arrests have been made and hundreds of convictions won, some for seditious conspiracy. With other Republicans, Greene has visited January 6 rioters in jail.
On Fox News, Greene called Democrats “fascists … in hysterics” over Trump. But she wasn’t finished with New York.
Carlson, whose network is based in midtown Manhattan but who built a home studio in Maine, said: “Mayor Adams describe New York as quote his ‘home’. How did his home look? Pretty neat and tidy?”
Greene made her comparison to Gotham City – where Batman lives – and added: “It was repulsive, it smells bad. And I just, I think it’s a terrible place.”
Perhaps thinking of his bosses in midtown, at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, Carlson said: “Yeah, with some nice people. I will say that.”
