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Congress Decides Fate of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene; Interview with Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT); House Voting on Removing GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) from Committees. Aired 6-7p ET
Aired February 04, 2021 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[18:00:27]
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM. We're following breaking news.
We're following a very, very significant vote that's about to happen momentarily in the House of Representatives on whether to punish a Republican known for embracing QAnon, various conspiracies, lots of controversy, and plenty of lies.
The Democratic-led House is expected to strip Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments after the GOP leadership failed to do so.
Let's go straight to Capitol Hill. Our congressional correspondent, Ryan Nobles, is watching all this unfold.
We have heard a lot of powerful debate going back and forth on Representative Greene. So, explain to our viewers where things stand right now, Ryan.
RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, at this moment, Wolf, we're just awaiting the vote on the House floor that will determine the fate of Marjorie Taylor Greene.
This is a vote of the entire House. A simple majority will be enough to remove her from both the Education and Labor Committee, as well as the Budget Committee. And this vote comes after a lengthy amount of debate from both Republicans and Democrats, making their case as to why she should stay on those committees and why, from the Democrats' perspective, she should be pulled off those committees.
And the most dramatic moment happened just a few minutes ago, where the House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, came to the House floor with a big picture of a tweet that was once sent out by Marjorie Taylor Greene. Listen to what he had to say.
So, this is Hoyer walking the tweet across the House floor, showing it to his colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle, to emphasize the type of rhetoric that had come from Marjorie Taylor Greene in her time leading up to becoming a member of Congress. Now, in that tweet is a picture of an A.R.-15 and three members of the
progressive wing of the Democratic Party, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ilhan Omar, the so-called Squad, as they are known.
And just tweet reads: "AR-15, the -- "An AR-15 is" -- and talks about the Squad in that tweet. Hoyer then passionately defended the three of them, saying they are not just members of the Squad. Take a listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. STENY HOYER (D-MD): For more health care for people, for more income for people. How awful.
And they're not the Squad. They're Ilhan, they're Alexandria, and they're Rashida. They are people. They are our colleagues. And, yes, you may have disagreements, but I don't know anybody, including Steve King, who you precluded from going on committees, for much less.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBLES: So, again, the tweet said "AR-15: The Squad's Worst Nightmare."
And Hoyer making it clear that the Squad members are members of Congress, they are human beings, and they are colleagues of the people that sit on that House floor.
We can tell you the vote has just begun. It's under way on the House floor. It is -- will pass with only a simple majority. We expect that Democrats -- there will be enough votes to remove her from these two committees.
The big question is, how many Republicans will cross party lines and vote to remove Greene from her committee? We have already seen a couple of key Republicans who have expressed disdain for Greene's prior comments to becoming a member of Congress, saying that they don't support them. But they are instead talking about the process, so a member of the majority party coming in and telling a member of the minority party they can no longer sit on committees.
So, we're waiting to see, Wolf, just how many Republicans will vote, but it seems pretty clear at this point that the House of Representatives ready to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene from the committees that she currently sits on -- Wolf.
BLITZER: And we see the roll call up on our screen. It's just beginning. We're going to continue to follow it right now.
So far, the Democrats voting yea, the Republicans voting nay. We will watch it very, very closely.
Ryan, stay with us.
I want to bring in our chief political correspondent, Dana Bash, as well as former Senator CNN political commentator, one of our newest political commentators, Doug Jones.
[18:05:05]
Dana, any minute now, we will know whether Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has actually been removed from her committee assignments.
So, what message will that send if her colleagues strip her of that responsibility?
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, after that incredibly powerful moment, which I have to say, I have watched the House of Representatives for many, many years. I don't remember ever seeing anybody, much less the majority leader, take a poster-sized photo and physically walk it over to the other side to make sure that they're seeing what he's talking about.
But even separate from that, the question is going to be now, how many Republicans break ranks? It doesn't seem to be a question about whether or not this is going to happen. The Democrats have the majority. And it's hard to imagine any -- many, if not any, Democrats not voting yes on this.
But what I was referring to was Steny Hoyer, after that moment, he said something along the lines of, we're doing our jobs for you.
And that's an important thing, as we're watching this vote, to underscore, is that, traditionally, this kind of thing, deciding which members get on which committees, is done by their party leadership. Kevin McCarthy is the Republican leader. He declined to deal with this, despite a lot of pressure to take her off of committees, specifically the Education Committee.
And that is why the Democrats say that they are, in Hoyer's words, doing their job for them. I don't expect, according to Republicans I have spoken to, even many who are very, very angry about Marjorie Taylor Greene, don't want her on those committees, I don't expect more than a handful of Republicans to break ranks, because they're listening to the process arguments about the fact it should have been the Republican leader, not the Democrats, to deal with this.
BLITZER: Yes, they're also arguing, the Republicans, that she said all these awful, horrible things before she became a U.S. representative, not while she was a U.S. representative.
And, as a result, they're saying she shouldn't be removed from these committees.
Let me play a clip of what she said earlier today, when she went on the House floor. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I was allowed to believe things that weren't true, and I would ask questions about them and talk about them. And that is absolutely what I regret. You see, school shootings are absolutely real; 9/11 absolutely
happened. Big media companies can take teeny, tiny pieces of words that I have said, that you have said, any of us, and can portray us into someone that we're not.
I never once said during my entire campaign QAnon. I never once said any of the things that I am being accused of today during my campaign. I never said any of these things since I have been elected for Congress.
These were words of the past. And these things do not represent me. They do not represent my district. And they do not represent my values.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: She said, Doug, she said all these awful things in 2018 and 2019. You heard part of what she said on the House floor earlier in the day, but she couldn't even bring herself to apologize to the American people, to her voters, to her district, to the Democrats for saying these dangerous things in recent years.
So, what does that say to you? Doug Jones, can you hear me?
DOUG JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Oh, yes, I'm sorry, I didn't know if you were talking to me or Dana.
BLITZER: Yes.
JONES: Wolf, I apologize.
Look, elections have consequences, but so do words. And words carry forward a lot longer, sometimes, than elections do. Those words, you don't have some kind of election conversion here. Those words were 2018, 2019. Those words carry forward through her election, until she got elected.
And Democrats shouldn't be going alone on this. This is not about Republican politics. It's not about Democratic politics. This is about the institution of Congress. And they need to strip this woman of her committees. Let her prove herself as a member of Congress. Let her live out the words that she's trying to live by now, and then they can always put her back on there if she does in fact come around.
But, right now, I just don't think they can see to let this pass. Remember, even in my election in 2017, there were Senate Democrats talking about stripping Roy Moore of a seat and not seating him for things that occurred before the election had he been elected.
Fortunately, that didn't happen.
BLITZER: And you were elected senator from your state down in Alabama.
While I have you, Doug, let's talk a little bit about her allegation today. She blames the news media for distorting what she was saying.
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We didn't distort what she was saying. We had it precisely what she was saying, and she was saying specifically all these awful things. There's no evidence there was a plane at the Pentagon on 9/11, for example. She was talking about the Clintons going ahead and ordering the assassination of John F. Kennedy Jr.
She was saying awful things about Jews having space lasers that could start wildfires out in California, so they supposedly could make money. These are not things that the media made up. These are the things she said.
JONES: Yes, absolutely.
I mean, look, that's the Donald Trump playbook these days. And, unfortunately, we're going to see that play out more and more. We see fake news and everything else continue to happen.
The fact is, people have to look at the facts. And I think we're in a challenged way right now in the society to how people on both sides of the aisle and all walks of life look at the facts. And you guys have done that. And you have not been the only ones. Everyone has reported verbatim what this lady said in her campaign, before the campaign, on Twitter, the thing that Steny Hoyer had blown up.
She can't deny that. It is there. And it's there for all to see. We have just got -- it's just kind of getting old listening to just blame the media for distortions. It's not the distortions. She's going to have to live by her own words. And, hopefully, the House will do the right thing.
BLITZER: We're looking at the roll call, Ryan, and you can see right now, 63 Democrats voting in favor of this resolution that would strip her of her committee assignments, 59 Republicans so far voting against. We don't see any Democrats voting nay, no Republicans voting yea, at least not yet.
But that could happen before the voting is over with, right?
NOBLES: Yes, we do expect that there will at least be a handful of Republicans, probably less than 10, maybe somewhere in the five range, that will vote to strip her of her committees.
One name we're watching closely is Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. He was on CNN today suggesting that unless he saw a full- throated apology and contrition from Marjorie Taylor Greene, that he was going to vote to strip her from her committees and that he also had wished that Kevin McCarthy and the House leadership had already done it.
I just want to make one other point, Wolf, about Taylor Greene's suggestion that she somehow completely rejected these conspiracy theories way back in 2018, no longer embraced them and moved on.
I covered the Georgia Senate run-off, as you know, and she was heavily involved in that, campaigning with the Republican candidates there, because that's her home state. And I caught up with her in December and interviewed her about the conspiracies surrounding QAnon and some of these other things that she was going to be -- that she had espoused as she headed into Congress.
Now, she had already been elected at this point. And I specifically asked her about QAnon, and her response was that we shouldn't be criticizing people who are good Americans that are just looking up things on the Internet.
So, this idea that she had completely rejected it, said that it was false, and misinformation and it was in the rearview mirror was just not true. She was still supporting people with that belief structure. It was still a part of her identity and who she is. So, this idea that somehow she -- in many ways, she's trying to rewrite history, because that's just not factual in any way, shape or form.
BLITZER: We see one Republican has voted in favor of this resolution to strip her of her committee assignments. We will find out who that one Republican is.
But you can see right now, it's the Democrats in favor, the Republicans opposed.
Dana, this isn't simply about the words of this congresswoman. It's about the direction, I suspect, of the Republican Party right now. House Republicans are being forced to make their stance known publicly tonight, and for so many of these Republican members, this is extremely awkward.
BASH: Very awkward.
It is definitely about the direction of the Republican Party, because this vote is being done by Democrats. And, again, the reason why is because they say that -- and it is true -- that Kevin McCarthy, who would normally be responsible for members of his caucus and whether or not they should or should not sit on committees, decided not to do this.
But even though that is the reality facing all of these Republicans, we are likely going to see even some of the high-profile Republicans who voted for impeachment of President Trump to not go -- to not defy their party this time around, using the process argument, and the fact that this has never happened before, at least that we can find.
And when I say this, a -- the United States House of Representatives taking the vote that we're seeing right now to strip a member of Congress of their party assignments, and the vote being taken by one party, which is in the majority -- that's the Democratic Party -- in order to strip the minority party member of her assignments.
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And that is a lot of the -- a lot of the members are going to hang their no-votes on that argument.
But it doesn't answer the question as to which way the party is going. It doesn't answer the question as to why the Republican leadership in the House is not being so much more forceful in getting her to say a lot more than she said today. And the reason is because she doesn't want to.
And the reason she doesn't want to is because this is how she's making money. This is how she's fund-raising. And this is where her support is, and a lot of the members know that, although they don't ascribe to so many of these conspiracy theories, unfortunately, because of the misinformation their constituents are getting, they do.
So, the question is, where does it end? Where does it stop? And it's supposed to stop at the top, and, right now, that isn't happening.
BLITZER: Doug Jones, we're looking at the roll call right now, a little more than a minute of time remaining, although they always give members some extra time to go ahead any vote.
But, right now, we see it's strictly along party lines except for one Republican. I don't know who that Republican is, one Republican going with the Democrats, voting to strip her of those committee assignments.
Doug, let's talk a little bit about the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives right now. What do you think? What do you think of the way Kevin McCarthy is handling this?
JONES: I don't think he -- I think he's handling it in a really partisan way. And unfortunately, we just don't have a lot of profiles in courage up there that look at the real facts anymore.
You're going to see that play out some in the Senate with the impeachment trial. You're seeing it played out here. I think -- look, I have known so many of those folks in the House on both sides of the aisle, and I think they're absolutely appalled.
And I think that, deep down, they would love to have this woman not eve in Congress. I really believe that. I could be wrong.
BLITZER: All right.
JONES: But I certainly believe they think that she should be punished.
But, I mean, Wolf, I'm telling you, one of the things that we're seeing, too, is not just partisan politics. We're seeing gerrymandered politics, safe Republicans who do not have to answer, except for a very small base of their voters.
BLITZER: Right.
JONES: And if we could work on that gerrymandering issue, we could get things changed.
BLITZER: We have been told now that that one Republican voting with the Democrats to strip her of her committee assignments is Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. He said it earlier in the day. Unless he heard a full-throated emotional apology from this woman, he was definitely going to vote in favor of stripping her of those committee assignments.
Everybody, stand by.
Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut is joining us. He's a member of the House Intelligence Committee.
So, what's your reaction so far? What's the message that's being sent, Congressman?
REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT): Well, Wolf, it's not a huge surprise here. the Republicans, rather than sort of full throat condemning the language, the rhetoric, the anti-Semitism, the calls for violence, are doing what they always do, which is what about? What about? Well, what about this thing that a Democrat said? What about this?
Now, anybody who actually looks at the comparison knows that Marjorie Taylor Greene is in a class all by herself in terms of spewing hate and divisive rhetoric. And, by the way, you said it.
Adam Kinzinger was looking for that heartfelt apology on the floor. I listened to her on the floor today, because I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. But she equated on the floor of the House of Representatives the media, the press, with QAnon in that speech. And she clothed herself in biblical imagery and talked about Jesus Christ and everything.
What we needed to hear was: People make mistakes. I made a mistake. I'm terribly, terribly sorry for that.
We didn't hear any of that.
BLITZER: Yes. I mean, and she should apologize to all those individuals who she smeared with all those false lies and those conspiracies.
Do you think this congresswoman's remarks today had anything even close to an apology?
HIMES: Look, she talked about -- she talked about things the way you talk about something you have done wrong when you get caught.
You can tell the difference of somebody -- I mean, it had sort of this hostage video-like quality to it. It didn't have a lot of conviction. And you look back over the course of the last week or so, the last seven to 10 days, and even when she was caught up in this massive controversy, she was raising money. She was doubling down, saying that: I, and I alone, stand with Americans, and they're after me because they're not -- they don't appreciate -- she was divisive right up to the moment that she gave sort of a grudging -- a grudging non- apology on the floor of the House of Representatives.
It's a sad moment, Wolf. It really is a sad moment. We have a lot of big things to do here. And that we are having to deal with somebody who believes in Jewish space lasers starting forest fires and is anti- Semitic and denies -- this is hard for somebody from Connecticut -- who denies school shootings and that kind of thing, instead of doing the nation's business, is just a real painful moment.
[18:20:13]
BLITZER: She didn't only deny those school shootings in Connecticut and Florida. She was harassing a teenager who was walking through Congress, through to the congressional -- the Capitol Complex, and she was going after that individual, that young teenager. It was awful.
Did she call him up? Did she apologize? Did she apologize to anybody else? No, she clearly did not.
What does it say to you, Congressman, that the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, says Democrats are setting what he calls a dangerous new standard with this resolution, saying she should be stripped of her committee assignments for what she said before she was elected to Congress?
HIMES: Well, again, somebody who attacks a survival of -- a survivor of a school shooting, when that individual is here to do advocacy and to tell the story of the horror that he experienced on that day, the idea of her going on the Education Committee of the United States Congress is just a step too far.
Now, there's people talking about expulsion. There's people talking about censure. I think, if you're talking about those things, if you're talking about expulsion, you do need to take a step back and say, wait a minute, do we really want to get in the business of expelling people from the Congress of the United States who won an election based on what they said and what they think?
That's a fair conversation, and, frankly, it's not clear to me that we should be doing that in a society that values people's right to believe what they believe, however insane it may be. But the notion that Marjorie Taylor Greene would be on the Education Committee, helping to steer policy around education, when she verbally assaulted a survivor of a school shooting, that's just a step too far for too many of my colleagues.
And, apparently, there will be a few Republicans who agree with that point of view.
BLITZER: What does it say to you that, at least so far -- well, there's a second Republican now -- we will find out shortly who that second Republican is -- what does it say to you that almost all of the Republicans are going to vote to keep her on those committees?
HIMES: Well, it says to me something that we know to be true, Wolf, which is that the power of the QAnon wing of the Republican Party, the power of Donald Trump and all that he did to support conspiracy theories and lies, is still really dramatic.
Unless you have the courage of an Adam Kinzinger or of a Liz Cheney, you're terrified. This -- the Republican Conference is made up of a lot of people -- there's some true believers. There's some true believers, but most people are really terrified. And if you look at what they did this week, they were -- there was a
choice being set up here. Are you the party of the Cheneys, the establishment, Liz Cheney, or are you the party of QAnon and Marjorie Taylor Greene? Their answer to that was, yes, we're going to try to do it all.
And, at the end of the day, I'm not sure that's going to work in the long run, because they're -- I will say it right here right now. There are a lot of very good Republicans who are horrified by the QAnon/Trump cult worship that has become so powerful in their party.
BLITZER: Congressman Himes, thanks so much for joining us.
HIMES: Thank you, Wolf.
BLITZER: Take a look at the vote.
There's no time left, but they're giving extra time, as they always do, 151 in favor. All but two are Democrats. 149 Democrats, two Republicans, 141 now Republicans voting against this resolution.
Ryan Nobles, you're our congressional correspondent. Do we know who the second Republican is yet?
NOBLES: No, we don't. We're trying to figure that out right now. We have our colleagues inside the House gallery to try and figure that out. Sometimes, it's -- the votes come in so rapidly that they don't necessarily line up on the tote board as quickly as they're cast.
But we are looking at the names of certain members of Congress. That list of 10 members who voted to impeach President Trump, they're among those that we're tracking. We're also tracking people that have been specifically critical of Marjorie Taylor Greene during all of this.
Wolf, I think what's interesting, and we haven't really talked about it yet today during this conversation, is the juxtaposition by what we're seeing now, as opposed to what we saw last night, right?
So, we have kind of framed this story as Liz Cheney, the number three ranking Republican, who was under fire by the pro-Trump wing of the party because of her impeachment vote, she was on the verge of being removed from her leadership post. And last night, in a secret ballot, she comfortably held on to that position.
Now, here we are today, in a situation where a pro-Trump member of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene, under fire by Democrats, and her Republican colleagues are largely rushing to her defense.
And so that means there's going to be a significant number of Republicans who voted for Liz Cheney and are also going to vote to support Marjorie Taylor Greene. And the biggest difference between these two votes is that one was secret, and one is public.
And you have to wonder if there are a number of Republican members of Congress who are a little bit leery about the party continuing to trail so closely behind President Trump but are afraid to say so publicly.
[18:25:01]
I think these two votes really illustrate that. I mean, they're not direct parallels. There's not an exact comparison between the two, but it is pretty indicative. And the way we're seeing it play out right now is pretty remarkable.
BLITZER: Ryan, if all 435 members of the House were present, and I know there's a couple empty seats right now, you would need 218 to get the majority, assuming everybody votes.
What is the estimate that they will need now, the Democrats, in order to pass this resolution?
NOBLES: That's a great question, Wolf. And I'm going to plead ignorance. I don't know that off the top of my head, because you're right, it depends as to how many people are actually here and present.
And the other thing we have to take into account, too, it's difficult to judge the actual number that it takes to get over that threshold because we are in COVID times.
BLITZER: Right.
NOBLES: And so, you have the opportunity to vote by proxy, whether or not those members get their proxy votes in on time, whether or not they go through the whole process.
So, I don't know the exact number that we need to get over that threshold, and we may not know until they physically gavel the vote closed.
BLITZER: Yes, we will see if some representatives decide not to vote at all, vote present, if you will.
Dana, what about -- assuming she's kicked off the Budget Committee, the Education and Labor Committee, what happens to her? What does she do for the next two years as a representative in the House?
BASH: She represents the people of her district.
I mean, that's a little bit lost on all of this, because we're so focused on the committees. And the senator can speak to this. I mean, it is not a given that a member of Congress is on committees. Steve King, who has been referred to, who is now a former Congressman, longtime Congressman from Iowa, he was stripped of his committee assignments by his Republican leadership for saying racist and bigoted things.
And we had situations where Democrats were stripped of their committees, whether they were in trouble with the law or other reasons. And so we certainly have seen that before.
But one thing I just wanted to mention as we talk about -- and Ryan pointed out that he actually spoke to the congresswoman when she was a congresswoman-elect, and she definitely did not disavow QAnon.
But even more broadly, when you talk about where the Republican Party is, and some of these incredibly violent statements that she made, yes, it was before she ran, but just one example.
She talked about Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, and suggesting that taking her out politically could be quicker if it was done with a bullet to the head. She didn't apologize for that in her speech today. She didn't deny it. She didn't denounce it. She didn't say anything of the sort.
And think about what we're talking about. Think about where this vote is happening. This vote is happening in a House of Representatives where many of these members were cowered and huddled with masks on in order to -- not just masks from COVID, but gas masks on, because there were rioters banging down the doors, based on lies.
And here you have the House of Representatives trying to make sure, at a minimum, that one of the elected officials who has told so many of these lies doesn't get put in a position, as Congressman Himes said, where she's making policy.
It's almost hard to believe. This is so surreal that this is happening right now.
BLITZER: But do you think, Doug Jones, that this could actually strengthen her politically, fund-raising, if she is stripped of her committee assignments, if she's taken off these committees, and she argues she's the victim of this smear from the Democrats?
JONES: Yes. Sadly, yes.
There is that base of not only voters and supporters, but also financial supporters, who are going to rally around. Unfortunately, that's just the fact that we're living in right now.
And Dana made a very good point about what she's actually said. I mean, that is borderline criminal. I mean, they're -- an aggressive prosecutor could prosecute some of the statements that she has made.
And the fact that she's not walked those back, this is an incredible time that we're looking at, in light of January 6. And for those statements to be made, I guarantee you that somebody could look at that and say, wait a minute, this goes beyond the pale. This crosses the line into criminal activity.
And that's why I think the Democrats really have no choice but to move forward, since the Republican Caucus doesn't seem to want to do that, and just placate a base that's just -- I still believe is a relatively small base, but a base nonetheless.
BLITZER: You know...
NOBLES: Wolf...
BLITZER: Yes, Ryan. NOBLES: Wolf, if I can make a point about that...
[18:30:01]
BLITZER: Go ahead, Ryan.
NOBLES: -- to Dana's point and to the senator's point, there are Democratic members that truly fear for their safety and based because of this rhetoric that they've seen from Congresswoman Green.
And I want to illustrate for you a moment that I witnessed here in the halls of the Capitol just yesterday. You know, we saw that Marjorie Taylor Greene was on the House floor. We ran down to try and get comment from her as she exited the House floor. She left through one of the side doors and went to get on an elevator.
As she was waiting to get on that elevator, guess who was coming up the elevator waiting to get off? The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, you know, they were feet away from each other.
And to Dana's point, she has talked about putting the bullet in the head of the House speaker, and they were just feet apart from each other. Of course, the House speaker has an enormous amount of protective detail around her, but this is in the backs of the minds of all these members of Congress as they walk these halls, that they have had a member, a fellow colleague that has espoused this kind of rhetoric before she came to this body. So that's part of why they want to hold her accountable for those actions.
You know, she can try and dismiss it and say it was just talk on the internet, that it was something to rile up her supporters, but those words have meaning. And just think of it in your own work life. If you went to work with someone that you knew was on Facebook, calling for your execution a few months before you went to work with that person, I think most people would be scared and rightly so.
So I think that is a big part of this motivation for the Democrats taking this dramatic step of reaching across the aisle to pull someone off a committee. You know, they have been criticized that this could set a dangerous precedent, but Democrats have said over and over again that this situation is unique. They have never seen another member say this kind of -- use this kind of rhetoric when talking about their fellow members and that's why they felt it was necessary.
And that's why they also feel that there won't be some sort of retribution down the road if Republicans become the members of the majority. They're not just going to start picking people off committees arbitrarily because they do believe that this is such a unique situation.
BLITZER: Totally unique. Dana, I'm sure if this vote were held in secret, a lot more than just two Republicans, at least so far, would be voting in favor of removing her from those committees. But a lot of those Republicans right now, they're scared, right?
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: They are. And, you know, the senator knows what it's like to be somebody who is representing a place where there are more of the other party registered than of your own, and when I'm talking about that, I'm mentioning it because, yes, this is being done in public.
And there is a political -- this is also how it's done, but there is a political benefit, Democrats believe, to doing this. And that is Republicans who still exist, who are in suburban districts, potential swing districts, they are going to get ads run right away, I'm sure, and probably over and over again, saying that they supported Marjorie Taylor Greene and QAnon.
And you're already seeing, you know, emails and press releases saying -- having not the word -- not the letter R for Republican after the name, but Q, and that's going to continue over and over again. And they're going to use this vote against so many of those Republicans.
BLITZER: We're told, by the way, that Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican of Pennsylvania, he's the second Republican to vote in favor of stripping her from her committee assignments, Adam Kinzinger, the first Republican to do so. We'll see if any other Republicans join Congressman Fitzpatrick and Congressman Kinzinger.
It's a tough, Doug Jones. You were a senator, a Democratic senator from Alabama, but for these Republicans, especially, this is a very tough vote, right?
FMR. SEN. DOUG JONES (D-AL): It's a tough political vote, Wolf. But you know what? Sometimes right versus wrong should override a political vote. This is an issue of right versus wrong. This is an issue of democracy. This is an issue about the institutions of the House of Representatives and respect for your fellow man, not just your fellow colleague, but your fellow man.
To say those words and to know that there could be anyone out there listening that could act on those words if they are followers of QAnon or whatever, that's what this is about. And so, yes, it is a tough political vote.
Again, I go back to some of the gerrymandered districts that we've got here that makes it a tough political vote, but there should come a time in every public servant's life when it's overridden by what's right and what's wrong.
[18:35:00]
And their moral compass should take over. I just think if the moral compass of everybody in that chamber right now would take over, this vote would be overwhelming.
BLITZER: Almost always, Dana, and you covered Congress for a long time, once a member, either a Democrat or a Republican, is stripped of his or her committee assignments, in the next election, if they run again, and sometimes they do -- Steve King of Iowa did run, he lost. But if they run again, they're removed, right?
BASH: If they run again, they're removed from the committees again? BLITZER: They don't win the election, they're removed from Congress, if they seek re-election after having been stripped of their committee assignments?
BASH: She can.
BLITZER: She can run.
BASH: Yes, absolutely. She can, and likely will run again. I mean, the fact that she is a member is because of the fact that she was elected by her constituents and in the district from which she ran. And the committee assignments have to do with leadership and sort of internal congressional or actually internal party politics. Right now, it's more internal congressional politics or, as the senator said, right and wrong.
BLITZER: We see a third Republican has now voted in favor of removing her from those committee assignments. The vote right now, 207 in favor of removing her, 191 against. No time left, but there's still some representatives out there who are going to vote. We'll watch the final outcome.
Jim Acosta is joining us right now.
You know, Jim, it's interesting. She's been boasting over these past few days, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, of the warmth of the conversation she had with the former president, Donald Trump.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. I mean, she is from the Trump wing of the Republican Party, the Trump fringe of the Republican Party. The Trump party is Marjorie Taylor Greene and vice versa.
I mean, Wolf, one of the things that needs to be said about Marjorie Taylor Greene is how she did not sound apologetic at all today. She was very Trumpian in the way she was talking about all of this, you know, portraying herself as the victim, as if she is the one who has been unfairly treated in all of this.
Never mind the fact, Wolf, if you go through her social media posts, and I was looking at what she's posted on Instagram, a lot of that has not been scrubbed. A lot of these offensive comments that she's made, these conspiratorial comments, are still there in her social media accounts.
And so, you know, I think that she's basically put the Democrats in a position where some accountability has to be had. I mean, obviously, the Republican Party is not going to clean its own House here when it comes to dealing with Marjorie Taylor Greene, and the Democrats have to do something.
WOLF, you and I both know, I have seen you posting about this. It has concerned me a great deal as well. When you drive around Washington, D.C., and see how it has been turned into a fortress, this fencing with armed members of the National Guard standing at their posts, guarding our Congress, guarding other federal office buildings, guarding the White House, all of this has been turned upside down because of people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and like former President Trump, who are clinging to this big lie that he won the election, that he was cheated out of the election, and it is just high time for this country to get away from this fringe conspiracy theory nonsense. It doesn't sound like Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to do any of that.
And so, I mean, what can the Democrats do at this point other than the actions they're taking right now? It sort of, you know, defies, you know, what everybody believes to be normal in this city, that there should be, you know, a simple set of facts and truths that we can all turn to when it comes to just dealing with the problems with this country.
And Donald Trump -- make no mistake, Donald Trump is sitting down at Mar-a-Lago right now watching all of this, watching all of this unfold. I have talked to sources over the last couple days who have said that Trump has been talking to members of Congress up on Capitol Hill, lobbying members of Congress on how to deal with Marjorie Taylor Greene and how to go after Liz Cheney. He's very much involved in all of this still, Wolf, despite the fact he's locked out of his social media accounts and kicked out of the White House.
BLITZER: And it looks like it's over right now. You see 218. That's the magic number. You need 218 in favor of her removal, now, 220 removing her from these committees, 193 opposed. They haven't yet finished.
They're still voting, but it's over for all practical purposes. She's going to be removed from the House Education and Labor Committee, as well as the House Budget Committee. She's going to be a member of the House of Representatives for the next two years, unless she were to resign for whatever reason, but she's going to be a member without being able to serve on any of these committees. This vote, you see five Republicans have now joined the Democrats, 221 to 193.
[18:40:04]
So, it's over, Jim Acosta, for all practical purposes. The Democrats and now six Republicans vote to remove her from this.
And as you well know, this is going to be a setback, at least for the time being, for her and for her good friend and supporter, the former president.
ACOSTA: That's right, Wolf. And one thing that we should note is the small number -- you just noted it, the small number of Republicans who voted for this action, that basically means that you have the lion's share of the Republican caucus and the House of Representatives who essentially decided to turn the other cheek, turn a blind eye to some of these crazy conspiracy theories that we have heard Marjorie Taylor Greene talk about over the last couple years, talking about how, you know, 9/11 -- there wasn't a plane that hit the Pentagon during 9/11, that school shootings were faked and so on.
I mean, just these crazy conspiracy theories, and to think you can only get a handful of Republicans in that House caucus to vote to punish Marjorie Taylor Greene, I think, speaks volumes as to where the Republican Party is right now. Donald Trump has left the seat, he's down at Mar-a-Lago, but Trumpism is alive and well in this country in the form of lawmakers like Marjorie Taylor Greene and in the form of the cowardice that we're seeing in the Republican Party, not having the spine, the backbone to clean their own House when it comes to a member who has been acting as dangerously as Marjorie Taylor Greene has.
BLITZER: And you can see the roll call now, nine Republicans have joined with the Democrats, 226 in favor of removing her from these committees, 195 opposed. There are still 11 members who haven't voted, seven Republicans, four Democrats. We'll see how this shapes up in the end, but you need 218.
Assuming there's a full House -- there isn't a full House. There is a couple vacant seats right now, so it's over for all practical purposes even though the gavel has not come down yet and they have made the official announcement she is going to be removed from this committee.
Phil Mattingly is our White House correspondent. They're watching this pretty closely over at the White House, aren't they, Phil?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they have been aware of what's going on. I think they bought some of it in this in disbelief. But what's been interesting is White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, repeatedly, over the course of the last several days, has been asked about Marjorie Taylor Greene, has been asked about what's going on in Capitol Hill, and she refuses to engage. She has said repeatedly that they don't want to elevate Marjorie Taylor Greene into the forum of the White House briefing room.
And I think that kind of goes to the feeling here about what's happening. I think they look at the politics of it and they think, you know, like Democrats in the congressional campaign committees, this is something you can tag Republicans with in the midterm elections in 2022, but they also realize that this is elevating somebody who is a key voice, and right now is raising a lot of money, and as Jim kind of laid out, is more aligned with where the Republican Party is than perhaps a lot of people would like to acknowledge.
BLITZER: With nine -- at least, so, far Republicans, the House of Representatives has voted 227 so far to 196 to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from these committees.
Let's take a quick break. We'll watch it unfold on the floor of the House when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:47:03]
BLITZER: As you can see, the roll call right now, it hasn't been gaveled yet. They still have four members who haven't voted, but 230 in favor of removing Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments. Two committees, the budget committee, the education and labor committee.
Two hundred and thirty in favor, 198 opposed. You see 11 Republicans now, there might be a mis voter, so they have a chance to change if they want to.
But right now, it's -- for all practical purposes, Dana, and you've covered the house for a long time, it's over. They still haven't gaveled. They haven't made it official. They're going to give these three remaining representatives the chance to vote. But pretty soon, we're going to see that gavel, and it's over for her as a member of these committees.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right. And the number I'm looking at on the screen is 11 -- 11 Republican yes votes. I was told, Ryan was told, our other colleagues were told to expect it probably to be about a handful. And the fact that it got that high, which I know people watching are going to look at that number and say 11 isn't high, but when it comes to defying your party, it's higher than the impeachment vote and it's certainly higher than was expected.
And what is noteworthy about that is that those votes came quickly at the end. It was one, and then it was two, then it was three, and then it all added up to 11 very quickly. What that means, and that is significant, because the Republicans who were weighing whether or not to vote yes or no, and I talked to at least one who was genuinely not sure how to vote until the end, waited until the end to see or to kind of see how they felt, and it looks like it got higher than we expected, which is really interesting.
BLITZER: Very interesting indeed. Ten Republicans in the House of Representatives voted in favor of impeachment. Now, 11 so far voting to remove her from these committee assignments.
Democratic Representative Ro Khanna is joining us right now.
So, what's your reaction, Congressman, to this roll call, not official yet, but it looks like it's for all practical purposes over.
REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): Well, Wolf, I'm heartened by the overwhelming vote. Brian Fitzpatrick who represents where I grew up, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Republican, voted to remove the -- remove her from the committee. So I'm really heartened by that.
BLITZER: Eleven Republicans voting in favor of removing her. We'll see what the final number is. Three representatives still not voting. There may be various reasons for that. We'll see it gaveled pretty soon.
Was that what you were expecting that there would be all the Democrats voting in favor and there would be some Republicans joining them?
KHANNA: I did expect that all Democrats would vote in favor. What I didn't expect was the overwhelming Republican vote. And I think what you saw is that Republicans were holding out until the very end.
[18:50:02]
And then they saw that this was going to be an overwhelming vote, and they needed to vote their conscience.
I mean, what Marjorie Taylor Greene did was outrageous -- threatening violence against other members and other individuals. This should be a no-brainer.
BLITZER: The argument that Kevin McCarthy and the Republican leadership are making, yes, she said all these things before she was elected to the House of Representatives. And at least last night, she said in that -- he said in that private meeting that the Republican conference had, she apologized.
We didn't hear a full-throated apology when she was on the House floor today, did you?
KHANNA: No, we didn't. And she has never publicly apologized. She's never said she renounces the violence. And she's parsing words. She's making a moral equivalence between --
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: Hold on, hold on. Let's listen to the roll -- let's listen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The nays 199. The resolution is adopted. Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.
BLITZER: All right. That's it. It's official. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican representative from Georgia, will now be barred from serving on the Education and Labor Committee, as well as the Budget Committee.
It's over. Let's see the final roll call. Let's see how many people actually voted in favor.
We see Liz Cheney speaking right now. Let me just listen for a moment and see what she's saying.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: House Resolution 95.
(INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Without objection, the resolution is agreed to and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.
BLITZER: All right. So, they're going back to some procedural issues right now on the House floor.
Ro Khanna, give me your final reaction.
KHANNA: Well, I think that this was an important step for the country. It makes a clear statement that you can't say that 9/11 didn't take place. You can't say that -- believe in QAnon theories. You can't threaten violence against elected officials and still hope to serve in the United States Congress. There should be a very, very high bar for removing someone from
committees, but this was not a hard call.
BLITZER: It certainly wasn't a hard call for the Democrats.
Dana, it was a hard call nor a lot of Republicans, although we did see a significant number of Republicans join with the Democrats and say this woman has no place on these committees.
BASH: That's right, including according to a list that our colleague Manu Raju sent, a freshman Nicole Malliotakis who voted to remove her. So, it is Marjorie Taylor Greene's fellow Republican freshman who apparently voted to remove her from these committees. She is from New York and, you know, for the most part, except for a few others, most of them voted for the impeachment of the president as well.
You know, I should say, you know, you're looking at those -- we're looking at those members, those Republican members for lots of reasons because they're in moderate districts, because they're in swing districts, because they, you know, are at a certain place politically or even for other reasons.
But they are very different votes, but it is interesting that there was some cross-over, and there was also not cross-over. For example, Liz Cheney who h been at the tip of the spear for members who were in support of Donald Trump. She didn't vote to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committees, and she -- I haven't seen a statement from her, but no doubt, she is a creature of the house. Her father served in the House. She is going to likely argue that is precedent to do that, it should be a party situation.
BLITZER: Yes, the final vote, 230 in favor of removing Marjorie Taylor Greene from these committee assignments, 199 opposed. That's the final vote. And we did get the list of the Republicans who voted to remove her, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Eleven representatives, Doug Jones, Republican representatives joined with all the Democrats in voting to remove her, 11.
In this particular case, they went against their party, their party leadership. They decided this was a vote of conscience on their part, just like the ten Republican representatives voted in favor of impeaching the former president. That was a vote of conscience for them as well. Give me your reaction, Doug.
DOUG JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it was clearly a vote of conscience. It sends a strong message, I think, to a lot of people. And what strikes me, wolf, I don't think it had to be this way. I think it's unfortunate that the Republican leadership led this way.
I mean, there is any number of things they could have done. A removal from a committee is not permanent. They could have just simply voted to remove her for a period of six months, eight months, something along those lines.
Give her an opportunity as a member of Congress to do the right thing, to say the right things, to interact with her colleagues and take the issue she needs to take, but also do it in a way that is respecting of your colleagues and respecting of the institution.
[18:55:15]
But they didn't do that. They made it our way or the highway. This is what we stand for, and I think it -- it will backfire on them in the long run.
I think this was a stand of principle on behalf of the Democrats and the 11 Republicans who voted to remove her from these committees.
BLITZER: Ryan Nobles, you spent a lot of time out there covering a lot of these candidates out there in these districts. And now, you are a congressional correspondent. What's going to happen to these 11 Republicans, you think, by and large when they go back to their own districts and presumably, they're going to seek reelection in two years?
RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think it's very interesting, Wolf, kind of the cross-section of members that you see taking the calculated risk of voting in favor of removing her from the committees as opposed to those who chose not to.
You know, a number of members from Upstate New York, for instance, you talk about Representative Malliotakis from Staten Island. You know, that is a part of the country that was hit so dramatically by 9/11, right? I'm sure she and her family were probably watched the towers fall. And so the idea that, you know, a fellow member of Congress would then come and suggest that 9/11 didn't happen or that at least parts of 9/11 didn't happen had to touch her in a pretty dramatic way.
You know, I think there were surprises with these 11 members that voted in favor of pulling her off of these committees.
Keep in mind, Wolf, that there were only ten Republicans that voted to impeach President Trump. So, you know, it's not a significant increase in that number, but it is an increase. And you have to wonder, and I do think that you see Republicans wrestling with this idea of what their future holds.
And it's already really -- you're starting to see that metamorphosis on the side of condemning Marjorie Taylor Greene. You know, Senator Mitch McConnell coming out strongly in favor of Liz Cheney and condemning Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. You've seen a number of senators from very ruby-red states, saying that they believe that her rhetoric was incorrect.
And you have to wonder, you know, if there is a difference between winning a Republican primary and winning an election, right? And, you know, the best test case we have right now is the state that I spent eight weeks in covering the Georgia Senate runoff.
And you saw two Republican candidates who ran very close to President Trump, who refused to reject a lot of the conspiracy theories that he espoused about the election and the fraud that he claimed that was a part of it and they ended up losing and it really wasn't that close of a margin. The wins for the Democrats, they were pretty convincing in a state where Republicans have won for many, many years.
So, you have to wonder if that is in the back of the minds of these Republicans. And then, Wolf, there is maybe just a practical matter of conscience. This is a vote that's going to be on their record for the rest of their careers and they're the ones that need to look each other in the mirror every day after they cast a vote like this.
BLITZER: Were you surprised, Dana, that Liz Cheney, the number 3 House Republican who voted in favor of impeaching the former president, in this particular case went with her party's leadership and decided she was not going to vote to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from these committees?
BASH: I wasn't surprised because I was -- as I was mentioning, she is somebody who grew up understanding what the House is like and she is a creature of the House and as an institution. Having said that, we actually have a statement from Liz Cheney, by way of our colleague Jamie Gangel, and she explains why she voted no.
She says: Republicans are not the party of QAnon conspiracy theorists, white supremacists, Holocaust deniers or neo-Nazis. These views are evil. Representative Taylor has espoused opinions that have no place in our public discourse. It is our responsibility as Republicans to address these issues inside our own conference.
Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats crack majority have no business determining which Republicans sit on committees. This vote today sets a dangerous precedent for this institution that Democrats may regret when Republicans regain the majority.
So she was saying, this is for us to decide. It was not for the Democrats to decide, which as we've been talking about over the last hour, that is the way that the protocol, that is the way committee assignments usually are made, and that is the reason that she said that she voted this way.
But a very, very, very strong statement against QAnon, against conspiracy theorists and everything that goes along with all of the -- forgive me, but crazy statements that Marjorie Taylor Greene has made.
BLITZER: Just to button it up, it's over. She is not going to be on these two committees that she had been assigned to by the Republican leadership, 230 members, representatives in the House of Representatives voted to remove her from these committees including 11 Republicans, 199 opposed, all Republicans. All the Democrats were consistently opposed to her.
She will not be on the education and labor committee. She will not be on the budget committee. She will not be on any committee at all.
Our special coverage continues right now with "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT."
