Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) scrambled Sunday to wriggle out of responsibility for the appointment of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to the House Homeland Security Committee, even as he questioned whether the 9/11 terror attack on the Pentagon was true- actually happened.
“They doubt 9/11. they doubt plane hit the Pentagon,” ABC’s “This Week” host Martha Raddatz pointed out to McCaul. “He later apologized, but he said in 2018. Should he be on that committee? You are on that committee.”
“I’m the chairman of the committee,” McCaul replied. “You know, these conspiracy theories that people put out, I don’t agree with. I have to refute this. This is the worst offense; 9/11 was not a hoax. It was done by al Qaeda. There is no question in my mind.
But the lawmaker emphasized that Greene “has grown up … I know he doesn’t know everything, and he wants to learn and become, I think, more of a team player.”
It is “incumbent against other senior members to try to … bring him and try to teach him that this theory that he has is not accurate,” he added.
“Would you rather see a different option?” Raddatz was amazed.
McCaul shot back: “I’m not the chairman of that committee, and I’m not the speaker.”
House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was recently forced to make some key concessions to right-wing GOP extremists in Congress to win the speakership. They included, according to Greene’s boast, a major committee post that many critics considered inappropriate. He has also been appointed to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, although he still baselessly asserts that the 2020 election was rigged.
Democrats removed Greene from his committee job in 2021 for his racist, antisemitic and violent remarks, including his declaration that he would be armed and would “win” the January 6 uprising.
CNN commentator SE Cupp on Saturday called Greene’s Homeland Security Committee submission “very alarming.” As for the lawmaker’s doubts that 9/11 happened, Cupp said: “I don’t know where” Greene was on 9/11; “I’m in New York City – walking.”
Cupp called it particularly “horrifying” that the election of “deniers, conspiracy theorists, liars, seditionists” would make decisions about national security in the committee.