GOP candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene posts image of herself with gun next to members of ‘Squad’

Georgia Republican congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene posted an image on social media of herself posing with a gun alongside images of progressive House members, with the photo stirring backlash online.

The edited image posted to Facebook showed Greene holding a rifle next to Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Rashida Tlaid (Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.), who are members of the group of freshmen House lawmakers known as “the Squad.”

Democrats condemned the photo after it was posted this week, calling for Facebook to remove it.

“Posting a photo with an assault rifle next to the faces of three women of color is not advertising. It’s incitement,” Omar tweeted. “There are already death threats in response to this post.”

Posting a photo with an assault rifle next to the faces of three women of color is not advertising. It’s incitement.

There are already death threats in response to this post.

Facebook should remove this violent provocation. https://t.co/VYKzRv6VcB

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) September 4, 2020

Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone responded to Omar’s tweet on Thursday, saying the post had been taken down because it violated community guidelines. 

“Thank you for raising this, Congresswoman. The image violates our policies and we’ve removed it,” he tweeted.

The Greene campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill. 

In the Facebook post, Greene said she was “tired of seeing weak, Establishment Republicans play defense.”

“We need strong conservative Christians to go on offense against these socialists who want to rip our country apart,” Green wrote in the caption of the photo, which included two Muslim lawmakers.

This post on Facebook by Marjorie Taylor Greene, QAnon adherent & likely winner of House seat in Congress, shows her holding a rifle gun & seemingly threatening @AOC @RashidaTlaib @IlhanMN. It has 4.6k likes and comments, and nearly 1,500 shares on Facebook, per CrowdTangle. pic.twitter.com/Lk2c5kK8vb

— Davey Alba (@daveyalba) September 4, 2020

The GOP congressional candidate has made references to the “socialist squad” in previous posts and said in a separate post recently that she was raffling off an AR-15.

Greene, a businesswoman who won the GOP primary runoff in a solidly red district in Georgia last month, has previously been a proponent of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

The theory claims there is a group of U.S. officials and celebrities who are controlling the government to undermine President Trump and run a child sex trafficking ring.

Politico reported in June that Greene has also made other incendiary remarks in recent years, including that Muslims do not belong in government and that there is “an Islamic invasion into our government offices.” 

Trump congratulated Greene on her primary win last month and previously called her a “future Republican star.”

Top Republican lawmakers such as Lindsey Graham (S.C.) have denounced the QAnon theory while Greene herself has distanced herself from the movement.