Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar to face House no-confidence vote by video

Arizona Representative Paul Gosar is expected to face a vote of no confidence and the potential loss of a committee mission to the US House of Representatives.
The House is expected to vote on these issues on Wednesday, a congressional adviser told USA TODAY on Tuesday. The move comes after Gosar, a Republican, posted a violent anime-style video that shows him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., with a sword and attempting to injure another fighter overlaid in the face by President Joe Biden.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Said Tuesday that the House would take action against Gosar, “Because he made threats, suggestions to harm a congressman.” It is an insult – not only an endangerment of this member of Congress, but an insult to the institution of the House of Representatives. “
“We cannot let members joke about killing each other and threatening the President of the United States.”
The House will also vote on whether to strip Gosar of his post on the Oversight and Reform Committee, on which Ocasio-Cortez also sits. The resolution would not remove Gosar from its other panel, the Natural Resources Committee.
Many lawmakers have heightened awareness of the security threats they face following the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol. Some have called for action after Gosar first posted the video.
“We must fight its intolerable assaults on the dignity of our bodies and the safety of our colleagues,” said Representative Jamie Raskin, D-Md., wrote on Twitter after the incident.
Gosar responds to the planned vote
In a Tuesday call with Gateway Pundit and other media outlets, Gosar responded by saying: “I have just heard that President Pelosi intends to hold a vote of no confidence against me soon … and to step down. of my committee assignments on a cartoon my staff released last week depicting the actual battle unfolding along the southern border – resulting from Mr. Biden’s open border policy. “
He said Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive representative from New York, symbolized the Democratic Party’s “open frontier position”. Biden’s character is meant to represent the administration’s stance on the US-Mexico border, which Gosar finds too lenient and sees as a threat to US security.
Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez retweeted a quote she gave to Punchbowl News saying that Gosar and other GOP members “are essentially using a national platform to legitimize threats of violence at lower and local levels, to intimidate people into participating in our democracy. I believe this is part of a concerted strategy. “
Gosar rebuffed the negative reaction, calling the review a “gross misrepresentation” of his video.
“It’s a symbolic caricature. It’s not real life, Congressman Gosar cannot fly,” he said in his previous statement. “The hero of the cartoon is chasing the monster, the political monster of the open borders.”
USA TODAY contributed to this report.
Tara Kavaler is a political reporter for The Arizona Republic. She can be contacted by email at [email protected]
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