Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has claimed that she was attacked by a woman and her adult son in a restaurant.
“I was attacked in a restaurant tonight by an insane [woman] and screamed at by her adult son,” Ms Greene wrote on Twitter just before 10.30pm on Monday night. “They had no respect for the restaurant or the staff or the other people dining or people like me who simply have different political views.”
She continued: “They are self righteous, insane, and completely out of control. I was sitting at my table, working with my staff, and never even noticed these people until they turned into demons. People used to respect others even if they had different views. But not anymore. Our country is gone.”
Ms Greene was heavily criticised by some on the platform.
“Were you ‘attacked’ or did someone just yell at you because, I don’t know, you called for the country they love to be split up?” Brian Krassenstein wrote. “If you were physically attacked then that’s horrible. If someone yelled at you then aren’t they permitted to do that according to the GOP who thinks free speech even includes people tweeting horrible things in other’s places of business?”
Earlier this month, Ms Greene suggested that the US needs a “national divorce” – splitting it up into red states and blue states.
“From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done,” Ms Greene tweeted.
Appearing on Fox News last week, she claimed that the US is moving towards a civil war and that a split is needed before that happens.
“The last thing I ever want to see in America is a civil war. No one wants that — at least everyone I know would never want that — but it’s going that direction, and we have to do something about it,” she said. “Our ideas, our policies and our ways of life have become so far apart that it’s just coming to that point.”
Utah Republican Governor Spencer Cox said the suggestion that the US be split apart was “evil” and “destructive.”
“We don’t need a divorce, we need marriage counseling. And we need elected leaders that don’t profit by tearing us apart,” Mr Cox tweeted. “We can disagree without hate. Healthy conflict was critical to our nation’s founding and survival.”
Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor, told The Salt Lake Tribune that “I think Abraham Lincoln dealt with that kind of insanity”.
“We’re not going to divide the country. It’s united we stand and divided we fall,” he added, suggesting that Ms Greene’s idea was a fundraising ploy. “There are some people in my party and the other party that say things to try and get a headline and get people to send them money. And that happens to be in today’s ‘loony left,’ or I should say ‘loony right.’”
On Wednesday, Ms Greene hit back, telling the Washington Examiner that “Mitt Romney is so bad I couldn’t even vote for him for president against Barack Obama”.
Several Twitter users responded to Ms Greene’s restaurant attack claim by sharing video footage of her following Parkland school shooting survivor and anti-gun violence activist David Hogg around as he was on Capitol Hill to speak to lawmakers.
The footage is from March 2019, before her election to Congress, and Ms Greene can be heard in the video making a number of false claims as she asks him questions about gun rights while walking towards the US Capitol, CNN notes.
“This you stalking and harassing David Hogg, a student?” Kaivan Shroff wrote in response to Ms Greene’s tweet about the supposed restaurant episode.
“First Amendment does not equal freedom from consequences for your speech,” Michael Marshall Smith wrote.
Actor Kiff VandenHeuvel told Ms Greene: “I am sorry you experienced this tonight. It’s unfair and unkind. Since 2015, we have been in a constant state of experiencing the temperature of this country rising, and YOU have contributed significantly to that increase in temperature.”
“Our country isn’t gone. Our country has gotten more rude, more base, less thoughtful and we stopped listening. Make a change. You have the power to heal some of this divide, you are an elected official. We don’t need more ‘firebrands’, we need leadership. Lead with ideas, not volume. Own this,” he added.
