Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), shortly after being censured by the House for posting an anime video of him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), retweeted a post with the video on Thursday before apparently unretweeting it.
The Associated Press, the New York Times and multiple Twitter observers noted that on Thursday evening, Gosar retweeted a post from a right-wing commentator at the Blaze that captioned the video “Really well done. We love @DrPaulGosar, don’t we folks?”
The retweet was deleted from the GOP lawmaker’s feed after a couple of hours, per receipts provided by ProPublica.
Gosar’s repost came after he had defended himself during the censure vote by pointing out that he had deleted the video “out of compassion for those who genuinely felt offense.”
“I voluntarily took the cartoon down not because it was itself a threat, but because some thought it was,” the far-right congressman said in his prepared remarks on the House floor. At no point during the speech did he apologize for the video.
House Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who refused to address the video for more than a week after Gosar had posted it, also defended the Arizona Republican on the basis that he had removed the post.
“I do not condone violence, and Rep. Gosar had echoed that sentiment,” the GOP leader said during a floor speech before the censure vote. “The video was deleted, but Democrats won’t listen because they will do anything to distract from the failures of one-party rule in one year destroying a nation.”
The censure passed almost entirely on party lines. All Democrats voted “yes” and were joined by only only two Republicans: Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). One Republican, Rep. David Joyce (R-OH), voted “present.”
As a result of the censure, Gosar has been removed from his two committee assignments on the House Natural Resources committee and the Oversight committee, on which Ocasio-Cortez also sits.
