Clyburn says GOP is free to ‘play childish games’ in response to Gosar censure vote

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Wednesday addressed Republicans’ threats to retaliate against Democrats’ resolution to censure Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) by removing Democrats from committee assignments if the GOP wins control of the House in 2022.

“Well, if they take back the House, they’re free to do that,” Clyburn said on CNN’s “New Day.” “But if they really want to be representatives of what America is all about, they will take each case and deal with it the same way we’re doing.” 

Clyburn said he is confident that the American people will not “stand for” the GOP taking a retaliatory approach.

“If they want to play childish games, then that’s for them. I don’t think the American people is going to stand for that. I certainly will not,” the South Carolina congressman said.  

Members of Congress should behave in a way that children can look up to us, @WhipClyburn says ahead of a vote to censure GOP Rep. Gosar. “When someone sends out a tweet … of him or her murdering somebody on the House floor, that, to me, goes far beyond the pale.” pic.twitter.com/8XcePq9kWn

— New Day (@NewDay) November 17, 2021

Clyburn’s comments come as Gosar faces the possibility of censure for posting an anime video on his Twitter account that showed a character killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and attacking President Biden. 

Clyburn said that someone who posts a video depicting that sort of violence against another representative “should not even be a member of this body,” suggesting that Democrats should have pushed to expel Gosar from the House entirely.

“I think it would have been the right thing to do to move to expel him,” Clyburn said. “But it is not what we have decided to do as a collective body because we think, quite frankly, the Republican conference has some responsibility here. They have been totally silent on this. What is that about? I just don’t understand how we can as members of Congress expect for the public to respect us when we don’t demonstrate that respect ourselves.”

As of Wednesday, only two Republicans, Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), have signaled that they will vote to censure Gosar.  

The Arizona congressman defended the video in a closed-door GOP conference meeting Tuesday, reportedly saying that he did not intend to promote violence when he shared the video.