Lets go outfront. Good evening, i am erin burnett. Outfront. Breaking news. House republicans meeting Behind Closed Doors to debate the fate of liz cheney after she voted to impeach trump. That meeting lasted more than two hours. As her fate is up in the air, one thing the minority leader Kevin Mccarthy made clear already tonight is that he is picking a side. Marjorie Taylor Greenes side, a side of Conspiracy Theories, too fringe for fringe. A woman who days ago said she still truly believes that the election was stolen and fraudulent. A qanon supporter. Mccarthys words tonight, past comments by Marjorie Taylor greene on school shootings, Political Violence, antisemitic Conspiracy Theories do not represent the values or beliefs of the republican conference. Well, that is clearly not true because mccarthys actions speak much louder than words, he is siding with greene. Nowhere in his statement does he mention pulling her from both committees. By the way, theyre plum committees, education and budget. In a statement he says her comments dont represent values or beliefs of House Republicans. Mccarthys decision fails on many levels. First, he emphasizes as member of congress, greene must hold herself to Higher Standards than she did as a regular citizen. Even though theres no standard by which a person who said this should be on key committees and embraced by any legitimate Political Party. The socalled plane that crashed into the pentagon, it is odd theres never any evidence shown for a plane in the pentagon. Theres an islamic invasion into our Government Offices now. Kennedy getting killed in the plane crash, another one of those clinton murders, right . Okay. Mccarthy then has another excuse, and that is when he says, quote, marjorie recognized, his words, that she has a responsibility to hold herself to a higher standard now that shes an elected official. Okay. Mccarthy even added her past comments have much greater meaning, marjorie recognized this in our conversation. I hold her to her word as well as her actions going forward. Even as mccarthy was putting out the statement, greenes words were flying. She spoke to the Washington Examiner and said this is Marjorie Taylor greene, now we have joe biden in the white house and nancy pelosi at 80 million years old as speaker, a senate we dont control any more, mr. Big turtle in charge up there just losing gracefully, losing gracefully. Okay. Those are her words to a higher standard. Calls mcconnell a turtle, pelosi 80 million years old. This is a higher standard in an elected official . She condemned republicans for accepting results of the election, losing gracefully thing. Kevin mccarthy is not holding her to her word for even a few hours and he is not alone. Guess who is on his side. Guess for one quick second. Senator lindsey graham. What a shocker. Tweeting shes entitled to correct the record if it needs to be corrected and explain things that could have been taken out of context. The only way we will know is allow her to speak on what she believed then and now about the matters of controversy. She spoke prolifically, constantly, consistently about what she thought, so theres no question about that. Then she was given a chance to correct the record on the day of the meeting with mccarthy to decide her fate, whether she would be on the committees, greene was given a chance by the most friendly interviewer she could find, sebastian gorka. He gave her the chance to apologize, clear the water, correct the record on all things she said. Accused of saying things about 9 11, the pentagon attack, the school shootings, that youre a qanon supporter. Before we get to what the left is trying to do, i want to give you an opportunity to address accusations about being a Conspiracy Theorist here on america first. Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate that. You know what happens happened on one of those americans that was never supposed to get to congress, elites dont want me here, dont like me as a matter of fact because im absolutely normal. Im just like you and every single other person that goes to work every single day, crosses every t, dots every i, pays taxes, follows the rules, but is fed up with our morally corrupt government, the same government and politicians that have have Us 30 Trillion in debt. They murdered over 62 million babies with our tax dollars. I have never done drugs, never been arrested. Only thing bad i have done is probably gotten a speeding ticket. You know what, just like every other person, yeah, i said things i shouldnt say at some time or another, but i dont think i have anything to apologize for. Nothing to apologize for. Thats a higher standard, right, Congressman Mccarthy . She didnt explain or correct a single thing she said or that gorka mentioned, right . Sticking by the plane didnt go into the paentagon thing. She crosses every t and dots every i, then she must stand by her prolific record of fringe Conspiracy Theories, including advocating Political Violence like hanging a former president. Thats all the stuff shes said in the past and endorsed online. Manu raju is outfront live on capitol hill. Whats the latest you hear from inside the gop meeting thats now going on and on here . Reporter for more than three hours, they have been Behind Closed Doors, had a short break in between. The meeting is not focused on Marjorie Taylor greene. It has been focused on liz cheney. I am told by multiple sources Behind Closed Doors, debating liz cheneys vote to impeach trump. She said she is not apologizing for the vote. She explained why she took the position, about eight minutes, then kicked off into a wide ranging discussion, some members saying she doesnt represent the views of House Republican conference, others defending her. Still an open question about whether she will be subject to a vote tonight to get rid of her from the number three position. Kevin mccarthy, House Republican leader, said privately to members that he supports her in that spot as did steve scalise, number two republican, but mccarthy just told us moments ago he doesnt know if there will be a vote. It is his decision to put it up for vote. Marjorie Taylor Greene has addressed the conference, i am told, from republican sources in the room. She said that the past posts, past statements do not reflect who she is. Thats how she characterized her comments to members moments ago. Appears to be enough to satisfy the likes of Kevin Mccarthy and other republicans who say they will not take action to punish her. Mccarthy proposed moving her off the house education committee, which has come under criticism, suggesting in the past that Parkland Massacre was a staged event. The House Democrats believe she should be off both committees. Mccarthy said she could go to the Small Business committee, but they want her off all committees. This will go to the house floor tomorrow. There will be a vote. Democrats are going to push it through. Most republicans are going to side with Marjorie Taylor greene, saying theres no right for democrats to choose Republican Committee assignments and go after her for comments before she was an elected official. I want to go to charlie dent with gloria borger. Congressman dent, one congressman taking a break from the gop meeting saying it is a meteor shower, describing it as people for the past three hours in there, still there Behind Closed Doors, firing off in all sorts of different directions. He says it is a mess in there. How bad is all of this . Erin, it is really quite bad. I served in the house. We had problems with members in our conference. Often times they were forced to resign. Speaker john boehner, paul ryan, too. They forced people to resign. It is quite bad. Marjorie Taylor Greene will make it much more difficult for republicans in swing and moderate districts to survive. It will be harder for republicans to win a majority in 2022 with her around. She should be removed from the committees and kicked out of the republican conference. Thats how they should deal with this. Everybody knows it. I think Kevin Mccarthy is concerned if he does reprimand and remove her and republicans capture the skbmajority, he wou have a hard time winning the sweeker race, some would not support it. It is incredible. Manu reports that greene told the gop in the closed door meeting her social media statements dont reflect who she is. And obviously there are plenty of them willing to buy that. Yet thats absurd, right . Theyre consistent, her comments. The clintons are behind somehow murdering jfk jr. , that the plane didnt go into the pentagon, that she, like the statement about hanging president obama, 9 11 didnt happen, it goes on and on. This is consistent. This is clearly who she is. Does anyone by this . Well, why wouldnt they go after her point by point. Do you still believe x. Do you still believe y. Do you believe in jewish space lasers or whatever it is. You need to go point by point with this woman. Im afraid what were witnessing here is the complete moral disintegration of the Republican Party before our very eyes, in Leader Mccarthy Complete Abdication of his leadership role. I was talking to a Republican Funder Today who was shocked that mccarthy has let this get so out of hand. Now youre letting democrats vote on a tough vote, a lot of republicans, going to have to vote to determine where a republican can and cannot sit on a committee. This funder took it one step further. He said this could be, i am quoting him, a potentially Career Ending mistake. It is incredible, congressman, as you point out, you put the republicans in this situation in swing districts, then did they side with qanon . To the point gloria is making, mccarthy tries to place blame on democrats. I offered to move her to a different committee, democrats wouldnt agree. I want to point out when mccarthy stripped steve king of his committee assignments, he took them away. Didnt say ill swap for a different one, he took them all away, finally kings supremacy went too far. But not with greene. He is justifying her comments, this is before she was elected he said tonight. Why is he protecting her. He is watching out for his flank. Few years ago he wanted to elevate to speaker was denied largely by members of the Freedom Caucus and hard right, they denied him. I think Kevin Mccarthy since then coopted them or they coopted him. He is in a position if he were to represent Taylor Greene, those folks would turn on him again. I think it is that simple. It is about becoming speaker. The challenge for Kevin Mccarthy is as long as Taylor Greene is around, shes toxic to the republican brand, will make it more difficult for republicans to win swing and marginal seats back that will enable them to be a majority party. He is in a box now. He should simply do the right thing. He knows what the right thing is to do, thats to get rid of her off committees and kick her off the conference. Shouldnt be a hard decision. He is twisting in the wind. Longer he twists, harder he will be on everybody else. He is trying to, congressman, youre saying he should do the right thing, what he is doing, gloria, is trying to see hour this may play out. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put out a statement tonight, it involved mentioning Kevin Mccarthy. She lists his Political Party as q, not r, q. And that Democratic CongressionalCampaign Committee started an ad campaign, tying the gop to the fringe. The big question is whether this will backfire on her. Is she playing into mccarthys hands by making this political . Look, i think theres no other way to make it. This is a woman who is a Conspiracy Theorist who said a lot of deranged things and you can of course expect the democrats to say this because theyre not kicking her off her committees and not kicking her out of congress. This is going to hurt the Republican Party, i would argue, in the long run because as the funder said to me today, mccarthys super pac, goodbye. Big funders are not going to be there. Moderate republicans that charlie dent is talking about are going to be very much an endangered species. Also, hanging out there, one thing we havent mentioned is donald trump. Mccarthy is trying to walk that line as well because trump has embraced her, he likes qanon, he says, because they like him, and he doesnt want to get in the way of that because he wants donald trump to raise money for him and to be there on the Campaign Trail so he can become speaker. Ironically, after all of this, he may not become speaker, even if they win the majority. Congressman, what next . Especially for liz cheney. This is the fate of liz cheney. We are three hours in, still up in the air. Thats whats sad about all this. Liz cheney voted her conscience, and all of the conversation tonight is apparently mostly about her. Right now, republicans need to stand by liz cheney. I think many of them will. She will represent the future of the party at this rate. Thank you both very much. I appreciate it. Congressman dent, gloria borger, thank you. I want to bring in the republican lieutenant governor, jeff duncan of georgia. We have spoken in the past months, you talked about the need for gop 2. 0. Yet here we are. You are from the same state as congresswoman green. What do you think about whats going on in your party right now that mccarthy is backing her . Well, i dont live in representative greenes district but i have an opinion. My opinion is we are headed the wrong direction. If we continue to elect folks that take her approach, were going to continue to lose as republicans. That simple. It is hard to watch. I got to spend ten weeks in the front row seat, watching what Conspiracy Theories and misinformation does, and honestly, cost us two senate seats in georgia. I cant imagine anybody thinks it is a good idea to move the way shes moving through her actions. What i am trying to understand, i know youre a parent as well, you and i talked about that, the challenge you felt with what trump was doing and how he was behaving, explaining that to your boys. You have Marjorie Taylor greene coming out and saying the real cancer for the Republican Party is that they lose gracefully. I was stunned by that. How do you get your head around this, right, that you still have obviously the leadership in washington willing to support and condone that sort of talk. Yeah, look, it is a side show, it distracts the folks trying to keep with us and folks were trying to attract. Look, i am proud to be a republican, proud to be somebody that champions smaller government, lower taxes, National Security, i am proud of that. But when we have sideshows, then we stop talking about things that help us win and thats really what happened in the president s race. We got away from talking about things that make us really strong, from being empathetic, understanding those folks we dont maybe understand their challenges. And i understand you want to see Marjorie Taylor greene as a side show. I guess the challenge that im asking you is it isnt a side show. You have the leader of the Republican Party in Congress Backing her. You have republicans in congress who are unwilling to back liz cheney for voting her conscience. This unfortunately isnt a side show, it seems to go to the core of the entire fate of your party, governor. Look, im here in georgia, im not in washington, d. C. My job is to continue to put conservative policies on display for 11 million georgians, try to convince them our Leadership Style is best for them, their families, their businesses and their future. To me thats the best message for republicans. Let them fight what theyre going to fight in d. C. End of the day, we need strong leaders willing to be inclusive, that are willing to take on big issues, prove our style of leadership works. So let me ask you about a development in georgia. You obviously were front and center with the entire election as you said, you believe trump lost the senate seats. You were in the vast majority, i dont know anyone that doesnt agree with you on that. Protrump lawyer lynn wood played a role pushing baseless election Conspiracy Theories and Election Fraud allegations in georgia. Viewers are seeing them on the screen. He is now under investigation by the georgia Secretary Of State whether he voted illegally, a source tells us, would