Marjorie Taylor Greene Mocked For Challenging AOC To Debate Over Green New Deal

In a series of tweets Wednesday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., publicly challenged Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to a debate over the Green New Deal.

Greene's challenge comes about two weeks after Ocasio-Cortez stated that the size of President Joe Biden's recent $2 trillion climate-focused infrastructure package is "disappointing. It's not enough."

Greene said the debate “would be informative for the American People," and that she and Ocasio-Cortez could each pick a moderator. Ocasio-Cortez has not responded to Greene.

The debate proposal comes as Greene, considered among the most controversial new House members, has faded slightly from the public eye in recent weeks. She made headlines earlier in the year for endorsing violence, harassing school shooting survivors and proliferating antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Ocasio-Cortez sponsored the Green New Deal in 2019, pitching it as both a bulwark against the climate crisis and a necessary future-proofing of the economy.

“The Green New Deal Resolution is about more than just solar panels and wind turbines, it establishes the foundation for a successful and sustainable 21st century economy,” Ocasio-Cortez notes on her official website.

While the Green New Deal was simply a congressional resolution and not a piece of legislation, its framing can be seen in Biden’s sweeping $2 trillion infrastructure proposal.

“I'm proposing a plan for the nation that rewards work, not just rewards wealth. It's going to create the strongest, most resilient, innovative economy in the world," Biden said. "It's a once-in-a-generation investment in America, unlike anything we've seen or done since we built the interstate highway system and the space race decades ago."

While Ocasio-Cortez has remained mum on the challenge, Greene has not relented.

Responses from users ranged from general derision to predicting Greene would badly lose any debate she participated in.

Greene, 46, won her 2020 election in one of Georgia’s most conservative districts with 74% of the vote while running unopposed.

Much of the derision comes from Greene’s scandal-ridden history. She was removed from her committee assignments over online support for violence against her political opponents. Greene spent weeks in the national hot seat for incidents like harassing Parkland school shooting survivor and political activist David Hogg.

She also suggested that California’s wildfires were the result of Jewish space lasers. When pressure built for her to be formally sanctioned, Republican congressional leadership declined to punish her and she released a defiant “message to the mob.”

Democrats have mostly been unresponsive to Greene's comments. She recently introduced a bill that would reduce the salary of Dr. Anthony Fauci to $0, calling it the “Fire Fauci Act." The move generated little interest and essentially had no chance to be passed.