'The guardrails are completely off': SPLC members warn of 'war' within party at GOP event

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has found herself in yet another controversy — this time, for her comments at the New York Young Republicans Club’s 110th Annual Gala on Saturday, December 10. The far-right MAGA Republican, during her speech, drew applause when she told the crowd that if she and Steve Bannon had organized the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building, “we would have won” because “it would’ve been armed.”

Hannah Gais and Michael Edison Hayden of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) attended that event and described what they observed during an appearance on the Daily Beast’s “Fever Dreams” podcast. Members of the SPLC are likely to encounter hostility at a MAGA event, and Gais and Hayden told “Fever Dreams” host Will Sommer that while they were honest about who they were, they didn’t go out of their way to draw attention to it.

In addition to Greene, attendees at the event included Donald Trump, Jr. and former One America News(OAN) host Jack Posobiec (known for promoting the Pizzagate conspiracy theory). Hayden recalled that the SPLC members agreed “that we would not lie about who we were” but were careful what they said at their table “because that’s the kind of place where we could have gotten busted and thrown out very, very easily.”

“We kept our heads down there…. (and) just took photographs and things,” Hayden told Sommer. Hayden also said of the rhetoric at the event, “The guardrails are completely off.”

READ MORE:'We would have won': Marjorie Taylor Greene says Capitol rioters should have been fully 'armed'

Describing the speeches, Hayden explained, “Every single thing referred to this war that they believe that they’re in. I have to repeatedly say that we are not in their war, they are at war with us. And I think it’s really important to understand that there are people in this country who get together and plot in private and give each other awards who believe that they’re at war with us. So, for that sense, I felt it was very important to document it and to inform the public that it’s happened.”

According to Hayden, him and Gais spent about four hours mingling with the guests and were “very well behaved.” But when they spoke to Posobiec, the Pizzagate conspiracy theorist “started to get agitated” and “started to call me a scumbag and a troll.” And Hayden recalls that when Vish Burra, secretary of the New York Young Republicans Club, “started to push me out,” he “agreed to leave.”

READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene asks GOPers to take pity on Capitol rioters