Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) checked Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) after she brought up the removal of a Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee statue while going to bat for an amendment barring the use of funds to remove national monuments.
Greene – who cited George Orwell’s “1984” while rambling about “Communist Democrats” erasing the past – touched on the removal of Confederate symbols in 2020 before noting the recent melting of a Lee statue previously taken down in Charlottesville, the site of the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally.
“This is the Democrats’ and the Biden administration’s effort to erase our history, just as they have done to the statue of Robert E. Lee. This is an outrage,” said Greene, who has stood up for Confederate monuments in the past and was once subject to criticism from Lee’s relative.
Greene’s comments arrived after Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) – amid debate – said the amendment “only pertains to monuments” recognizing the Founding Fathers, Mediaite reported. It led to Pingree citing the amendment’s provision where “none of the funds made available” by the act “may be used to remove any monument” on land under the Department of Interior’s jurisdiction.
Greene replied by declaring that there should be no funds allocated to remove “any monument” before Pingree hit back with a history lesson.
“Just to clear up a couple of things, my colleague mentioned the Founding Fathers. Robert E. Lee was not actually one of the Founding Fathers, he was a general of the Confederacy. That was the city of Charlottesville, that wasn’t a national monument when that statue was removed,” she said.
“And I just have to say I find it rich that the party that has supported book banning in our libraries, rewriting curriculum, not talking about our history over and over again, is the very one that is saying that we have to often keep painful monuments in places where they do damage, where they interfere with people’s ability to enjoy the particular area that they’re in.”
