Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg on Thursday urged House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to denounce Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) after video surfaced of the House member harassing him on his way to the Capitol just weeks after the shooting occurred in 2018.
Fred Guttenberg, the father of one of the 17 people killed during the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018, posted a video on Wednesday of Greene, a private citizen at the time, heckling Hogg and other survivors who were in D.C. advocating for gun reform.
Greene can be heard calling Hogg a “coward” and accusing the Parkland survivors of taking away her Second Amendment rights.
.@mtgreenee, is this you harassing @davidhogg111 weeks after the Parkland shooting, that my daughter was killed in & he was in? Calling him a coward for ignoring your insanity. I will answer all of your questions in person. Get ready to record again.pic.twitter.com/aQjL74x7kh
— Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) January 27, 2021
A day after the video of Greene began going viral, Hogg was asked during an interview on CNN about his message to McCarthy now that Greene has been assigned to the House Education and Labor committee.
“My message to Kevin McCarthy is this, take her committee assignments away,” Hogg said. “Along with that, also, don’t support her when she runs for re-election again and try to get her primaried.”
After calling on McCarthy to denounce Greene, Hogg implored the House minority leader to make clear that if Greene’s incendiary remarks aren’t reflective of the GOP, then McCarthy should hold her accountable for her actions.
“If you say this is not your party, actually call it out and hold her accountable,” Hogg said. “Republicans always act as if they’re the party of decency, respect, but would the party of decency and respect question whether or not school shootings happened? Would they harass the survivors of these shootings for having a different opinion than them? I don’t think so.”
Hogg added that if McCarthy wouldn’t question whether school shootings happen nor would harass survivors of them, then “he needs to actually stand up and do something about this congresswoman.”
TPM reached out to McCarthy for comment.
During a press conference later Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) appeared to take aim at McCarthy’s reluctance thus far to punish Greene, even after the viral video of the Republican House member heckling Hogg. Greene has also come under fire recently for other incendiary comments in newly unearthed social media posts that showed her musing about the execution of Democratic politicians.
“What I’m concerned about is the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives who are willing to overlook, ignore those statements assigning her to the education committee when she has mocked the killing of little children at Sandy Hook elementary school, when she has mocked the killing of teenagers in high school at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school,” Pelosi said.
Watch Hogg’s remarks below:
"Republicans always act as if they're the party of decency and respect. But would the party of decency and respect … harass the survivors of these shootings for having different opinions than them?"
– @davidhogg111 says Kevin McCarthy should stand up to Marjorie Taylor Greene pic.twitter.com/p1w91irLS5— New Day (@NewDay) January 28, 2021
