Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said this week that American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten is “not a mother,” during a congressional hearing on pandemic-era school closures.
Democrats at the hearing alleged that Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) had engaged in “cruel personal attacks” against Weingarten that were “unacceptable.”
But is she right? The answer is not as simple as it might appear.
First, the basic family history: Weingarten married Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum in 2018, whose former wife had two children with a previous husband (more on this below).
The exchange in question occurred before House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Select Coronavirus Crisis during its hearing Wednesday on school closures during the pandemic:
Greene: Ms. Weingarten, are you a medical doctor?
Weingarten: I am not.
Greene: Are you a mother?
Weingarten: I am a mother by marriage.
Greene: By marriage, I see.
Weingarten: And my wife is here with me. So, I’m really glad that she’s here, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum.
Greene: Ms. Weingarten, and you haven’t taught school since the 90s, so you’re not a teacher anymore?
Kleinbaum: I am actually, Representative, I am actually on leave from my teaching position and this fall I will be teaching as a guest teacher at Cornell, my alma mater.
Greene: When was the last year you taught, 1997? Is that correct?
Weingarten: The last time I taught a full class was June 1997.
Greene: Okay, that’s been quite a long time, approximately 26 years ago.
“What I’d like to talk about is your recommendations to the CDC as not a medical doctor, not a biological mother, and really, not a teacher, either,” Greene said later in the exchange. “Let me tell you, I am a mother, and all three of my children were directly affected by the school closures by your recommendations, which is something that you can’t really understand.” She mentioned rising rates of suicide, anxiety, depression, and diagnoses of gender dysphoria among children during the pandemic, as well as decreased learning.
Greene then told Weingarten, “You had no business advising the CDC what the medical guidelines were for school closures. . . . The problem is people like you need to admit you’re just a political activist. Not a teacher, not a mother, and not a medical doctor.”
The statement prompted a challenge from fellow lawmakers. Representative Robert Garcia (D., Calif.) raised a point of order, saying of Weingarten, “I just want to note that the decorum of the attacks on the witness were unacceptable that the gentlelady from Georgia just did. And so it would be nice if we didn’t attack the witnesses, particularly making a decision about whether or not she is a mother. You are a mother. Thank you for being a great parent. Thank you.”
Representative Raul Ruiz (D., Calif.) decried the “cruel personal attacks to Ms. Weingarten, who loves her children,” saying “it is reflective of the cruel personal attacks to any adopted mother or father who love their children” and asking that the remarks be “taken out of the record, for the sake of all the parents who have adopted a child and love them dearly and see them as their own.”
Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R., Ohio) stated that Greene’s comments were not in violation of House rules.
Back to the family history, which helps shed light on why Greene said what she said: Weingarten was friends with Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum in the 1990s, and they married in 2018. Kleinbaum previously was married to Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig. They wed in 2008. Wenig had two children with her former husband, whom she divorced upon realizing she was a lesbian; Wenig and her husband shared equal custody of their two daughters. Kleinbaum and Wenig divorced in 2012 after a nearly 20-year relationship. In a New York Times interview published in 1993, Kleinbaum mentioned raising two kids, but did not disclose the ages. A brief biography of Kleinbaum published before 2013 mentions that the two daughters had graduated, and Kleinbaum had a niece and nephew.
The media coverage of the hearing has characterized Weingarten’s status as a parent differently, with some describing her as a “step-mother” and others describing her as an “adoptive mother.”
This is not the first instance in which Weingarten’s claim to parenthood prompted criticism from conservatives. Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) had made similar comments about Weingarten’s status as a parent on Fox News in 2021.
“Randi Weingarten is a joke. Randi Weingarten does not even have children of her own. What in the hell does she know about raising and teaching kids? In fact, that’s probably why she was perfectly fine to shut down schools for two years and force kids to wear masks, because she didn’t have to deal with it at home,” Cotton said.