Hoyer floor drama: Top Democrat says Greene endangering ‘Squad’

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) in a dramatic address Thursday displayed a poster of a social media post from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) holding a gun next to three progressive Democrats during floor debate on a resolution to remove her from committees, warning that such rhetoric puts their lives in danger.

“I ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle when they take this vote: Imagine your faces on this poster. Imagine it’s a Democrat with an AR-15. Imagine what your response would be and would you think that that person ought to be held accountable?” Hoyer said.

WATCH: @LeaderHoyer during debate on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA): “I urge my colleagues to look at this image.”

Rep. Hoyer then walks image around House floor to be seen by other members.

Full video here: https://t.co/C3wOr1lJZi pic.twitter.com/j8G91hO49K

— CSPAN (@cspan) February 4, 2021

Greene posted the photo on Facebook in September of herself next to images of Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) with the caption “Squad’s Worst Nightmare.” Facebook removed the image for violating its policies.

Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and Tlaib are frequent targets of the right and have repeatedly faced security threats since taking office two years ago.

Hoyer walked from the Democratic side of the aisle to the well in the center of the chamber and held the poster up high to ensure that Republicans could see it.

When he returned to the microphone, Hoyer said that rhetoric like Greene’s dehumanizes Omar, Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib and encourages violence.

“They’re not ‘the Squad.’ They’re Ilhan. They’re Alexandria. They’re Rashida. They are people. They are our colleagues,” Hoyer said.

“‘Squad’s Worst Nightmare,'” Hoyer said, reading aloud the caption on Greene’s post. “Is that what it was intended to do, that each one of these ladies would have a nightmare about somebody with a gun, an AR-15?”

“I urge my colleagues to look at that image and tell me what message you think it sends,” Hoyer said.

The House is expected to pass the resolution later Thursday to kick Greene off the education and budget committees over her embrace of conspiracy theories like QAnon, suggesting school shootings were staged and that a plane didn’t crash into the Pentagon on 9/11, as well as for repeated endorsements of violence against Democratic politicians.

In addition to her Facebook post touting herself as the “Squad’s Worst Nightmare,” Greene liked a comment in 2019 that said “a bullet to the head would be quicker” to remove Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and, in 2019, responded to a commenter asking if they could hang Hillary Clinton and former President Obama by saying “We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off.”