MTG Says Her ‘We Would Have Won’ Jan. 6 Remark Was a Joke After White House Labels It ‘Violent’

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) addresses supporters during a primary election watch party in Rome, Ga., on May 24, 2022. Jessica McGowan/Getty Images

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said Monday that she was only being sarcastic when she said that, if she and Steve Bannon had organized the Jan. 6 protest at the Capitol “we would’ve been armed” and “we would have won,” a remark that was condemned by the White House as “violent” and a “slap in the face” of law enforcement.

Greene said in a statement on Dec. 12 that her comments were meant in jest and were “making fun of Joe Biden and the Democrats, who have continuously made me a political target since January 6th.”

“The White House needs to learn how sarcasm works,” Greene said, referring to the pushback from the Biden administration that her controversial remarks were met with.

While speaking at a gala for the New York Young Republicans Club on Saturday, Greene poked fun at claims that she and former Trump-era chief strategist Steve Bannon were involved in planning the Jan. 6 protests that led to a crowd storming Congress.

“I will tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed,” Greene said at the event.

“See that’s the whole joke, isn’t it?” she continued. “They say that whole thing was planned and I’m like ‘are you kidding me?’ A whole bunch of conservatives, Second Amendment supporters went into the Capitol without guns and they think that we organized that? I don’t think so.”

Her remark came as the House panel investigating the Jan.6 incident is rumored to be planning to release its final report within a week or so.

White House Response

Greene’s comment drew a sharp rebuke from the Biden administration.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates issued a statement to media outlets calling Greene’s remark “dangerous” and her rhetoric “violent.”

“It goes against our fundamental values as a country for a Member of Congress to wish that the carnage of January 6th had been even worse, and to boast that she would have succeeded in an armed insurrection against the United States government,” Bates stated.

“This violent rhetoric is a slap in the face to the Capitol Police, the DC Metropolitan Police, the National Guard, and the families who lost loved ones as a result of the attack on the Capitol,” he added.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre echoed that position at a Dec. 12 briefing, in which she called Greene’s remark “just antithetical to our values as a country.”

“All leaders have a responsibility to condemn these dangerous, vile remarks and stand for our Constitution and also for the rule of law,” Jean-Pierre added.

For her part, Greene said that not only doesn’t the White House get how sarcasm works, she accused the Biden administration is trying to “weaponize” her remark, claiming also that she receives violent threats against her life every day “simply because Democrats and the media have lied and smeared by character for the past two years.”

“I will never allow the White House, Democrats, or the media to continue to accuse me of something I had nothing to do with,” Greene continued, referring to the Jan. 6 incident.