Arizona Republican Representative Paul Gosar compared those who criticized him for the anime video he tweeted showing himself killing New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and preparing to attack President Joe Biden to terrorists who have killed 12 people in the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
“For this cartoon, some members of Congress are suggesting that I should be punished in some way,” Mr. Gosar said in a declaration tweeted by journalist Ben Jacobs. “For a cartoon.”
“Although the degree of punishment differs, it is the same sentiment expressed against Charlie Hebdo magazine in France in 2015 which was punished for publishing a cartoon – resulting in an actual massacre of 12 real people,” added Mr. Gosar.
“Indeed, the former Deputy Director of the CIA concluded that those who attacked Charlie Hebdo were ‘trying to shut down a media organization that ridiculed the Prophet Muhammad’.
“And now here in the United States, six years later, the motive of some of my colleagues in Congress is the same: to shut down the media that ridicules those who support the dangerous open border policies of the Biden administration” , Mr. Gosar said. .
The video disappeared from the social media platform on Tuesday, two days after it was posted, when it caused widespread backlash.
Mr Gosar said on Tuesday evening that the video was a “symbolic representation of a struggle over immigration policy”, adding that it “represents the struggle unfolding” in the House over “the soul of the America”.
“I do not espouse violence or harm toward any member of Congress or Mr. Biden,” he said and added that the video was “not intended to depict harm or harm against anyone depicted in animates it”.
Mr. Gosar’s siblings – Jennifer, Dave and Tim Gosar – wrote in The Independent last week that their brother is “ridiculously unfit” to be in Congress and “must be stopped”.
Mr. Gosar’s video features several Republican lawmakers, including Mr. Gosar, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, as the heroes of the Japanese anime show. The attack of the Titans – a show about a small post-apocalyptic society living in a closed city in order to ward off giants called Titans.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s face is superimposed on a Titan that is killed by Mr. Gosar’s character, who also attacks a character with Mr. Biden’s face.
“This man couldn’t add two numbers if he tried,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez told her Instagram followers of Mr Gosar last week.
“Gosar only has tumbleweeds up there,” she tweeted.
“This is sick behavior on the part of Rep. Paul Gosar,” said California Democrat Ted Lieu tweeted November 8. “He tweeted the video showing him killing Rep Ocasio-Cortez on both his official account and his personal account. In any workplace in America, if a co-worker made an animated video killing another co-worker, that person would be fired.
Mrs. Ocasio-Cortez added back when “a creepy member I work with who raises money for neo-nazi groups shared a fantastic video of him killing me and he won’t face any consequences [because] @GOPLeader encourages it with an apology. Fun Monday! Well, back to work because the institutions don’t protect [women of colour]”.
“Remember when [Florida Republican Ted Yoho] accosted me at the Capitol [steps] and called me af—ing b—. Remember when Greene ran after me a few months ago screaming…Remember when she stalked my desk the [first] time [with] insurgents and those trapped inside. Everything at my job and nothing ever happens,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez wrote.
“This guy is just a collection of wet toothpicks anyway,” she added. “White supremacy is for extremely fragile people and sad men like him, whose self-concept is based on the myth that he was born superior because deep down he knows he couldn’t open a jar of pickles or read an entire book on your own.”