The extremist Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene triggered a wave of viral jokes on Wednesday after ranting about the “gazpacho police” patrolling the Capitol building in Washington DC.

Greene was apparently mixing up the famously cold Spanish soup gazpacho with the Gestapo – the brutal Nazi-era secret police in Germany.

The Georgia congresswoman has made numerous bigoted statements and her spreading of Covid misinformation has seen her ousted from Twitter. She made the most recent comments in an interview on Real America with Dan Ball, produced by the rightwing One America News Network television channel.

“Not only do we have the DC jail which is the DC gulag, but now we have Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police spying on members of Congress, spying on the legislative work that we do, spying on our staff and spying on American citizens,” she said, referring to the Democratic speaker of the House.

Greene did not explain why she thought Pelosi would form a police force inspired by gazpacho soup, nor why it would then carry out such extensive surveillance at the heart of American democracy.

Predictably, Greene’s apparent gaffe prompted a wave of internet hilarity and jokes.

“Gazpacho is a cold tomato soup. Gestapo is the Nazi police force. Neither of these things are right,” tweeted political journalist Jake Sherman.

“How dare MTG blame Gazpacho, when we all know that Vichyssoise Violence is the real culprit,” quipped podcast host Emily Brandwin.

Sarakshi Rai, a senior journalist at the Hill, added: “I was wondering why everybody in DC was tweeting about gazpacho and now I’m just craving some for dinner.”