Arizona Republican Representative Paul Gosar has said that the reason Democrats began “squealing and screaming” about the anime he posted last month was that it was effective.
“What I’ve noticed is the Democrats start squealing and screaming. And I can tell your audience – I’ve got seven siblings who are Marxists, and when they start squealing and crying, that’s when I know I’m over the target and to stay there and keep going,” Mr Gosar said in an interview with Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz.
Mr Gosar was censured by the House in November for sharing an edited anime on social media showing him killing New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and then attacking President Joe Biden.
The Arizona Republican deleted the after it was heavily criticised, but reposted it after he was censured.
Mr Gosar told Mr Gaetz on the Firebrand podcast that the was an attempt to “engage people differently” on the issue of immigration.
He said the “the hits came flying in” after he posted the . “Three million hits in less than 24 hours.”
Mr Gosar concurred with Mr Gaetz that the wouldn’t have “drawn the ire of Democrats“ if it “wasn’t so successful in its reach”.
Several of Mr Gosar’s siblings blasted the and their brother for sharing it. His youngest sibling, Jennifer Gosar, told CNN last month that her brother is “a sociopath” and pushed for Congress to hold him to account.
She later welcomed his censure while speaking to MSNBC and said she hoped it was “not the end” of his punishment.
Mr Gosar’s siblings have earlier called for their brother to be removed from Congress for supporting former President Donald Trump’s baseless conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen, for minimising the Capitol riot on 6 January, for palliating the severity of the Co-19 pandemic, and for making untrue and antisemitic statements about the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
In June, Mr Gosar’s brother, Dave Gosar, told NBC News that the House representative was a “traitor” who had “disgraced and dishonoured himself”.
At least seven of Mr Gosar’s nine siblings have criticised him publically since he began his political career after working as a dentist.
Six of his siblings campaigned for his opponent in the 2018 midterms, but Mr Gosar was reelected in his deeply red Arizona District.
“I’ve got seven siblings that are horrific to me,” Mr Gosar told SiriusXM after he was censured. “I mean, they’ve done everything. They’ve called me every name in the book. And yet I have done nothing, nothing to them at all.”
“I have done nothing irrational,” he added. “I’ve done nothing physically, I’ve never harmed them, I’ve never done anything. So, that should tell you the calibre of the person you’re talking to.”
