Morning Joe mocks Marjorie Taylor Green’s Gestapo confusion with soup-related video mash-up

Georgia congresswoman wrongly claims Nancy Pelosi is in charge of the Capitol police

Republican US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is yet again the butt of jokes, this time for mixing up the notorious Nazi secret police force, the Gestapo, with the cold soup gazpacho.

Her mistake prompted a wave of mockery, including from the hosts of Morning Joe.

The daytime talk show on MSNBC played a clip of Ms Greene fear-mongering over "Nancy Pelosi's gazpacho police," along with a variety of clips from TV shows and movies dealing with soups.

The clips included scenes from Seinfeld's famous Soup Nazi as well as moments from Dumb and Dumber, The Simpsons, and Oliver Twist.

Ms Greene was attempting to liken the US Capitol Police to Hitler's secret state police.

Unfortunately for her, either a slip of the tongue or a general lack of historical knowledge caused her to stumble and suggest that the House Speaker controls a law enforcement entity focused on cold tomato soup.

While the clip is funny and easy ammunition for critics of Ms Greene to take shots at her, her allegations are serious; she was claiming that the Capitol police are spying on members of Congress.

Those allegations stem from a complaint from Republican Congressman Troy Nehls, who claimed Capitol police entered his office and inspected it illegally. Capitol police maintain that the search was not illegal and that it was protocol for the force to check any offices where a door has been left open to maintain the safety of Congressional lawmakers.

Beyond that incident, Ms Greene has presented no evidence suggesting a spy campaign is being carried out by Capitol police. Even if members of the law enforcement body did stumble onto some sort of privileged information during a search, the Capitol police do not report to Ms Pelosi.

The incorrect idea that Ms Pelosi controls the Capitol police originated with Rogan O'Handley, a conservative influencer on Gettr. The post went viral and was shared on Facebook by Dan Carr, a conservative Mississippi pastor who spread the misinformation to his 30,000 followers.

“So let me get this straight … Nancy Pelosi was in charge of Capitol Police on Jan. 6. They were understaffed and underprepared. But now she gets to be in charge of the investigation of ... herself?!” he wrote.

Mr Carr went on to say that she was "responsible for the police officers on Capitol Hill" and that the day of the Capitol riot, they were "understaffed" due to her lack of oversight. He went on to blame her for the breach at the Capitol by Trump supporters hoping to overturn the 2020 election.

However, this is not correct. The Capitol police answer to the Capitol Police Board, which is itself overseen by several congressional committees, including both the House and Senate appropriations committees, the House administration committee and the Senate rules committee.

The Capitol Police Board includes the Senate sergeants-at-arms and the Capitol architect. Ms Pelosi does not sit on any of the committees tasked with overseeing the Capitol police, either then or now.

Ms Greene has tried to invert the narrative of the Capitol riot, painting the defendants who have been arrested as wrongfully imprisoned patriots, calling them "political prisoners of war," while comparing the Capitol police to Nazi enforcers.