Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green Boots Reporters from Town Hall
Published Date: 1/29/2021
Source: Bloomberg Quicktake: Now
A reporter and photojournalist were kicked out of a public town hall event and threatened with arrest for trying to ask a question of U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene is a freshman Republican lawmaker who has again come under heavy criticism for supporting social media posts that advocated violence against Democratic officials. The journalists from WRCB-TV were removed from the public town hall event in Dalton, Georgia on Wednesday and threatened with arrest by a sheriff's deputy. Greene was sworn in to office earlier this month to represent northwest Georgia's 14th Congressional District. Throughout her campaign last year, she sought to tightly control news media coverage, often not allowing certain news organizations to attend events and giving interviews only sparingly. A die-hard supporter of former President Donald Trump, Greene has a long history of incendiary social media posts — including ones in which she expressed racist views and support for QAnon conspiracy theories, which focus on the debunked belief that top Democrats are involved in child sex trafficking, Satan worship and cannibalism. Most of her pronouncements were reported publicly before she won her Republican primary in August and the general election in November. Greene has also spread false claims about the integrity of November's presidential election — repeating Trump's baseless allegations of fraud — and railed against public health requirements implemented to slow the spread of the coronavirus. In social media posts reported by Media Matters for America, a liberal watchdog group, Greene pushed conspiracy theories or "liked" posts that challenged the veracity of mass shootings at schools in Newtown, Connecticut, and Parkland, Florida. The Whitfield County Sheriff's Office declined to comment. A spokesman for Greene defended the action, saying the town hall was for constituents only, not reporters. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2TwO8Gm Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world. To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit http://www.bloomberg.com/qt/live, or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app. Have a story to tell? Fill out this survey for a chance to have it featured on Bloomberg Quicktake: https://cor.us/surveys/27AF30 Connect with us on… YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Bloomberg Breaking News on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BloombergQuickTakeNews Twitter: https://twitter.com/quicktake Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quicktake Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quicktake