JD Vance: Greene ‘did nothing wrong’ by attending white nationalist conference

Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance (R) defended Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and said she “did nothing wrong” when she attended a white nationalist conference.

“The accusation against Marjorie is pretty simple: that she appeared at a conference where somebody said something bad. And I asked, ‘Did she say something bad at the conference?’ I actually watched her remarks. I agreed with nearly every word that she said,” Vance said on Monday during an Ohio GOP Senate debate when asked why he promoted Greene’s endorsement. 

Vance said the Georgia Republican was his “friend” and that she did “nothing wrong” by appearing at the conference.

“There’s no business in the world that asks you to stab your friends in the back like politics. I absolutely refuse to do it to Marjorie Taylor Greene. She is my friend, and she did nothing wrong,” Vance said. “She said nothing wrong, and I’m absolutely not gonna throw her under the bus or anybody else who’s a friend of mine.”

Last month, Greene defended her attendance at a white nationalist conference, which was organized by white nationalist leader Nick Fuentes. She told CBS News in an interview that she did not know the personal views of Fuentes and said she was there to address the crowd.

“I don’t know what his views are, so I’m not aligned with anything that may be controversial,” Greene said. “I went to his event last night to address his very large following because that is a young, very young, following and a generation I am extremely concerned about.”

But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said there was no place in the Republican Party for participating in the conference, which Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) also attended.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, I don’t know them,” Romney said on CNN late last month. “I’m reminded of the old line from the ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ movie, where one character says, ‘Morons, I have morons on my team.'”