Marjorie Taylor Greene falsely claims Biden was responsible for fentanyl deaths that occurred under Trump
Ms Greene’s spokesman told a reporter to “f*** off” when he asked for a comment on her false statements
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has once again publicly made a false statement, this time claiming brothers who died in connection with their fentanyl addictions were the fault of Joe Biden's border policies despite the men dying during the Trump administration.
Ms Greene told the story of the brothers during a Congressional hearing on 28 February and she blamed Mr Biden's border policies for their deaths.
Caleb, 20, and Kyler Kiessling, 18, died on 29 July 2020 when they accidentally overdosed on fentanyl. The brothers, along with 17-year-old Sophia Harris, took pills they believed to be Percocet, but which actually contained fentanyl.
Rebecca Kiessling, the brothers' mother, testified to Congress and called their deaths "murders.” She also criticised politicians for drug dealers who have crossed the border illegally.
"This should not be politicized. It's not about race. Fentanyl doesn't care about race. You talk about welcoming those crossing our border seeking protection?" she said, according to the Detroit News. "You're welcoming drug dealers across our border. You're giving them protection. You're not protecting our children."
Ms Greene shared the video of her response to the mother and used a Twitter post to attack the Biden administration and China.
"Listen to this mother, who lost two children to fentanyl poisoning, tell the truth about both of her son’s murders because of the Biden administrations refusal to secure our border and stop the Cartel’s from murdering Americans everyday by Chinese fentanyl," she said.
CNN journalist Daniel Dale contacted Ms Greene's office for comment on the fact that the deaths Ms Greene was attributing to the Biden administration actually occurred under former President Donald Trump.
"[Ms Greene's] Spokesman Nick Dyer responded by saying lots of people have died from drugs under Biden and 'do you think they give a f*** about your bulls*** fact checking?'" he wrote in a Twitter post.
He then asked the spokesman to comment on other comments Ms Greene made before Congress, including election lies that Mr Trump actually won Georgia and that the state counted the votes of thousands of dead individuals.
The spokesman was unable to respond to minimal scrutiny, and replied "f*** you."
Ms Greene regularly makes comments that are verifiably false. She recently tweeted that "6 billion" people have crossed the border illegally under the Biden administration. That is an impossible number as it would account for the majority of the world's population. She quickly deleted the tweet and change the number to six million, but even that claim is dubious as the number of successful border crossings is not known.
She has also expressed a desire for secession, calling for a "national divorce" of conservative and liberal states. Ms Greene doubled down on her calls for secession by saying under an ideal system Democratic voters moving to Republican states should have to wait five years to participate in elections.
“What I think would be something that some red states could propose is: well, okay, if Democrat voters choose to flee these blue states where they cannot tolerate the living conditions, they don’t want their children taught these horrible things, and they really change their mind on the types of policies that they support, well once they move to a red state, guess what, maybe you don’t get to vote for five years," she said. “You can live there, and you can work there, but you don’t get to bring your values that you basically created in the blue states you came from by voting for Democrat leaders and Democrat policies.”
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments