Marjorie Taylor Greene draws ire for saying New Yorkers don’t understand homeland security

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Marjorie Taylor Greene has shown her spectacular lack of knowledge of US geography and history in a single breath.

The Georgia congresswoman was criticising House minority leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday for not kicking Republicans who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill off their committee assignments.

Singling out the New York GOP members Nicole Malliotakis and John Katko, she told reporters: “What’s a guy up in New York have to do with Homeland Security? Shouldn’t it be someone down along the border?”

Social media was quick to point out that New York state shares a border with Canada, and that New York City knew better than most the dangers presented by security threats after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“There’s this really major event that happened in NYC in 2001. Perhaps she heard of it,” wrote New York Times Washington correspondent Maggie Haberman.

Writer Adam Weinstein said: “Careful, nobody tell her where Republicans held their first post-9/11 RNC.”

Political journalist Grace Segers wrote: “The Department of Homeland Security was literally created in response to 9/11.”

Politico reporter Andrew Desiderio wrote: “1. New York is a border state 2. DHS was created because of an attack on...New York.”

Ms Taylor Greene has declared that the 13 Republicans who voted for the $1 trillion infrastructure bill are “traitors”.

One of the GOP House members, Fred Upton, said he and his family had received death threats.