Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has sparked a backlash after appearing to suggest that Democrats “can control the weather.”
“Yes they can control the weather,” the Georgia Republican wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday evening. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”
Her comments come after Hurricane Helene swept across the Southeastern U.S. after making landfall in Florida last week, inflicting damage from Florida’s Gulf Coast to the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia.
Yes they can control the weather.
It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.
— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) October 4, 2024
In another post on X, Greene, who is an ally of former President Donald Trump, shared a map of the region with a majority of counties colored red, indicating they vote Republican, and fewer in blue.
“This is a map of hurricane affected areas with an overlay of electoral map by political party shows how hurricane devastation could affect the election,” she wrote.
This is a map of hurricane affected areas with an overlay of electoral map by political party shows how hurricane devastation could affect the election. pic.twitter.com/XIbNZjuC1q
— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) October 3, 2024
Newsweek has contacted Greene’s office for comment via email outside business hours.
Many took to social media to criticize and mock Greene for the remarks.
The congresswoman has a history of promoting conspiracy theories. In 2021, she was stripped of her committee assignments by the House Democratic majority over her embrace of conspiracy theories, racist remarks and her past endorsement of violence against leading Democrats.
Russell Foster, a former Democratic congressional candidate in Texas, wrote: “If we control the weather then why the hell do we have such droughts around the world & wildfires getting worse each year? They could just turn the rain on & refill the billions of gallons of water America is needing right now & stop the fires. Marjorie Taylor Greene is dumb AF.”
Harry Sisson, a Democrat content creator, told Greene: “You are dumber than a bag of rocks.”
“We know you’re the dumbest member of Congress. You don’t have to remind us of it every day,” the Republicans Against Trump account wrote in response to one of Greene’s posts.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Another X user, a self-described Democrat, wrote: “She’s talking about with a sharpie, right?” They were apparently referring to when Trump showed off a map altered with a black Sharpie marker to extend Hurricane Dorian’s projected path in 2019.
But some suggested Greene was right, with one person responding with a post about cloud seeding. Cloud seeding, a method pioneered in the 1940s, involves dispersing particles into clouds to help produce rain. But experts say that it produces only small increases in precipitation, and not devastating downpours.
One person, Matt Culley, board secretary at The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association, wrote: “They take a tiny bit of truth (cloud seeding) and sensationalize it. Trying to imply hurricanes can be man made lol.”