On Friday’s show, the Oscar winner and activist lamented that lawmakers had enacted a series of extreme restrictions on abortion since the fall of Roe v. Wade when asked by co-host Joy Behar what could be done beyond marching and protesting.
“Well, I thought about murder,” she said, before stopping for effect.
Lily Tomlin, who co-stars with Fonda in “Moving On,” a dark revenge comedy that opens next Friday, asked for clarification on the comments.
“What did you say?” asked Tomlin.
“Murder,” Fonda repeated.
Behar took action and insisted that Fonda was “I’m kidding, she’s kidding,” before noting that life advocates “will take that and live with it.” She wasn’t wrong. (Watch the exchange from 2:25 below.)
Shortly after, Greene, a self-proclaimed “u”napologetic pro-life politician,” expressed outrage at the exchange on Twitter.
The controversial congresswoman wrote that she regularly received death threats”because of the naughty women in ‘The View’ and the things they say about me. (No word on the violence that his own rhetoric — saying “Democrats want Republicans dead” and calling for a “national divorce” — might inspire.)
“Calling on our assassination makes ‘The View’, the hosts, producers, network, advertisers and everyone involved is responsible for death threats, attacks and potential murders of politicians and pro-life activists,” she continued.
“While women’s reproductive rights are a very serious and extremely important issue to me, my comment on ‘The View’ was obviously a joke,” Fonda said in an emailed statement. “My body language and tone made it clear to those in the room – and anyone watching – that I was using hyperbole to make a point.”
“Across the country, women face real threats to their bodies, and people lose faith in our mission to protect women when others choose to focus on side issues and make jokes instead. than on the real problem,” she added.
A request for comment to “The View” was not immediately returned.
Greene ended his tweet with the kind of diplomatic phrasing that has become a hallmark of his political reputation.
“Besides @Janefonda your eggs are dry so you don’t have to worry about getting pregnant anytime soon so you can retire from baby murder now,” she wrote.
Of note, in 2021, CNN discovered that before she was elected to Congress, Greene “liked” numerous social media posts that suggested executing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif. ) and FBI agents.
Her apparent support for the execution of prominent Democrats as well as her embrace of racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories led the House to vote to strip her of committee duties in the last Congress.