US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene called former President Donald Trump the “founding father of the America First movement” at the Republican Party Convention on Monday.
Greene delivered a speech at the party convention on Monday evening after Trump was officially nominated as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate earlier that day.
“Today is a cause for celebration. The American spirit is alive and we have re-nominated the founding father of the America First movement, Donald John Trump, for president,” Greene said.
The phrase “America First” has a complicated history. The America First Committee, founded in 1940, opposed US involvement in World War II. It had hundreds of thousands of members – some of whom were known anti-Semites, according to The Atlantic. “America First” increasingly became associated with anti-Semitic views.
While Greene was greeted with cheers and applause from the crowd at the convention, people on social media expressed confusion and outrage at her comments, with many fact-checking the claim that Trump was the movement’s “founding father” and others pointing out the phrase’s connection to anti-Semitism.
“‘The Founding Father of the America First Movement’ is an absurd title for a man who is not one,” one person posted on X.
Some pointed out that the Ku Klux Klan also used the phrase “America First.”
Read more: Trump nominates JD Vance as vice presidential candidate
In her remarks, Greene also said she was praying for the family of Corey Comperatore, the 50-year-old man who died Saturday after a gunman opened fire on Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania. She then began to criticize Democrats.
“We will honor Corey’s memory by building the country he wanted, the country he wanted for his children, and a government worthy of the American people,” she said. “For far too long, the establishment in Washington has betrayed us. They promised unity and brought division. They promised peace and brought war. They promised normalcy and gave us Transgender Visibility Day on Easter Sunday.”
International Transgender Visibility Day has been celebrated every year on March 31 since 2009. This year it happened to fall on Easter Sunday.
Greene continued: “There are only two genders.”
People reacted to Greene’s speech on social media.
“When you hear Marjorie Taylor Greene talk about transgender people and ‘only two genders,’ you realize that the lack of understanding of the differences between sex and gender runs deep,” one person posted on X.
Get alerts on the most important breaking news Here
