The U.S. House of Representatives is preparing to go to a vote as early as tomorrow in an effort to censure Arizona Republican House Rep. Paul Gosar after he posted an altered animated video of himself, in which he kills Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and violently attacks President Joe Biden, according to sources who spoke with NBC News.
The report goes on to note that the House will also be considering a motion to remove Gosar from his position on the House Oversight and Reform Committee where AOC also serves.
The House Rules Committee is reportedly set to meet tonight where they will vote on the motion to censure Gosar before sending it on to the full House chamber.
It’s worth noting here that censure in Congress is considered the highest punishment for congresspeople, just under expulsion from their position, and requires a full House vote and a simple majority to pass. NBC notes, “Roughly two dozen lawmakers have been censured by the House since 1832. The most recent was Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., who was censured in a 333-79 vote in 2010 for ethics violations.”
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Gosar’s likely impending censure is thanks to a heavily altered animated video that he shared on his various social media channels, in which he, along with other Republican lawmakers, are portrayed as the hero characters from the Japanese anime series “Attack on Titan.” The faces of both Ocasio-Cortez and President Biden were edited onto the show’s villain characters. The Twitter post shared by Gosar was labeled by the social media platform and eventually completely removed from the site. The same video that was shared to Gosar’s Instagram account was also removed.
Gosar released a statement last week with regard to the edited anime video after finding himself the subject of loads of rightful blowback, but was far less than apologetic, instead going on the defense and claiming that the clip was a metaphor for immigration policy.
“It is a symbolic cartoon. It is not real life. Congressman Gosar cannot fly. The hero of the cartoon goes after the monster, the policy monster of open borders. I will always fight to defend the rule of law, securing our borders, and the America First agenda,” the statement reads.
Upon leaving a GOP conference meeting on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, the GOP congressman did respond to questioning regarding the video.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has also been on the receiving end of quite a lot of criticism following the video, mostly for his silence on the matter. Speaking with CNN earlier this week, McCarthy claims that he spoke with Gosar about the video before it was ultimately taken down.
AOC was recently approached about Gosar’s potential impending censure over the video featuring her face and she lambasted her fellow House rep. for doubling down on his defense of the video.
“He would have apologized by now, but it’s been well over a week,” Ocasio-Cortez clearly stated.
You can read the full report from NBC News here.
Featured image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore, under Creative Commons license 2.0
