Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene has told David Cameron to “kiss my ass”.
The insult came after the foreign secretary wrote an article calling for the US to commit to funding for Ukraine and drawing comparisons between the West’s treatment of Hitler and Putin.
Exactly what happened – and who is Marjorie Taylor Greene?
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Who is Marjorie Taylor Greene?
Ms Taylor Greene is, according to her bio on X: “Congresswoman for GA-14, Christian, mom, small business owner.”
She was elected to Congress in 2020 and quickly became a powerful – and vocal – player in the Republican Party.
Often known by her initials MTG, she also proclaims herself to be a “proud American, 100% pro-life, pro-gun, pro-Trump”.
She is a staunch ally of Donald Trump, whose political style she emulates.
She has downplayed and justified the 6 January Capitol insurrection, claiming the rioters would have “won” and “been armed” if she had organised it.
After the White House called her comments “dangerous, abhorrent”, Ms Taylor Greene said she had been joking.
In 2021, she was stripped of her committee assignments by House of Representatives managers over racist comments, her embracing of conspiracy theories and her past endorsement of violence against Democratic officials.
She was widely denounced for comparing COVID-19 masks and vaccinations to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.
Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Pic: Reuters
What’s the beef with David Cameron?
Ms Taylor Greene’s comments came after Lord Cameron urged Congress to approve more aid funding for Ukraine.
The $61bn (£49bn) funding package for Ukraine has passed through the Senate but faces a deeply uncertain future in the House of Representatives, where hard-line Republicans oppose the legislation.
Lord Cameron wrote an article for US political website The Hill in which he called on Washington to vote through the package for the sake of global security, saying he was dropping “all diplomatic niceties”.
He said: “I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Hitler in the 1930s. He came back for more, costing us far more lives to stop his aggression.
“I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Putin in 2008, when he invaded Georgia, or the uncertainty of the response in 2014, when he took Crimea and much of the Donbas – before coming back to cost us far more with his aggression in 2022.
“I want us to show the strength displayed since 2022, as the West has helped Ukrainians liberate half the territory seized by Putin, all without the loss of any Nato service personnel.”
Pic: Reuters
During a trip to Sofia in Bulgaria on Wednesday, he also said: “Right now in Congress, the American support for Ukraine is being debated, and I urge those congressmen and women to pass that bill to provide that money, to provide those weapons to Ukraine.
“They are fighting off illegal Putin aggression and they need our support. We should be standing up for freedom, standing up for the right of this country to defend itself and making sure that Putin doesn’t win.”
What was MTG’s response?
Asked about his comments on Wednesday, Ms Taylor Greene told Sky News: “David Cameron needs to worry about his own country and, frankly, he can kiss my ass.”
She suggested that comparing a refusal to vote through the funding with appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s was “rude name-calling and I don’t appreciate that type of language”.
In a post on X later on Wednesday, she said the remarks would not “bully me into funding the war in Ukraine”.
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What has Lord Cameron said since?
Lord Cameron has insisted he is not trying to “lecture” the US over committing to more funding for Ukraine.
Speaking at a press conference in Poland on Thursday, the former prime minister appeared to try and calm any tensions, telling reporters he was “someone who is not wanting in any way to lecture American friends or tell American friends what to do”.
But the foreign secretary doubled down on his appeal for the US to agree to more financial and military aid for Ukraine’s war effort.
“I say it as someone who has a deep and abiding love of the United States, of their democracy, of their belief in freedom, but as someone who really believes in the importance of our alliance,” said Lord Cameron.
He warned there would be “other people watching what the Americans do”, including China and Iran.
“And every country around the world [will watch] to see if we, these western countries, are we reliable allies when we say we are going to back you, when we say you’re right to resist aggression, when we say you are right to defend your country, when we say you are right to defend your border?
“Are we with you, not just today or tomorrow or for months, but are we with you until your aggressor has lost? That’s the question for us… that is what we hope the Americans will vote for in Congress.”