Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) insists she hasn’t modified, however the conservative firebrand’s deepening splits along with her get together on every thing from Jeffrey Epstein to well being care subsidies are puzzling and exasperating her fellow Republicans.
Greene cast her political id in Congress as a fierce Trump loyalist, defending the president and Jan. 6, 2021, protestors, and attacking Democrats at each flip.
However with Trump again within the White Home, Greene has put herself on the alternative facet of most of the president’s positions, and on considerably of an island amongst Republicans.
In a telephone interview for this story, Greene mentioned she’s not the one who has modified, pointing to her criticism of congressional Republicans and their lack of motion on well being care in her first 2020 marketing campaign.
“I am 100 percent the same person today as I was when I ran for Congress,” Greene mentioned.
Greene mentioned it’s “ridiculous” to recommend her positions have put her on an island within the GOP. “I’m actually representing what a lot of Americans fully support.”
“My job title is not cheerleader for Republicans in Congress. I’m not talking about the President. I’m talking about Republicans in Congress. And Republicans in Congress are the ones that need to come up with a plan to fix the health insurance,” she later added.
But a number of of Greene’s Home GOP colleagues and GOP sources advised The Hill that they’re extra thrown off than ever by Greene’s positions, and need she would take a unique technique to realize her targets.
“Whether it’s Gaza, whether it’s Epstein, or whether it’s now the ACA [Affordable Care Act] credits, she’s been 180 degrees opposite of Trump,” one Home Republican vented. “In fact, she’s been more Biden than she has been Trump.”
Greene over the summer time dubbed Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide.” She was considered one of simply 4 Republicans to signal on to a discharge petition to launch information associated to the intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein in defiance of White Home needs. Final week, she went in opposition to GOP leaders’ shutdown messaging by expressing alarm on the expiring ObamaCare tax credit that would double insurance coverage premiums for tens of millions, saying Republicans don’t have any plan to deal with the problem.
She racked up extra breaks with Republicans and Trump in a media blitz during the last week — together with a shocking critique of the Trump administration’s mass deportations, whereas noting her expertise proudly owning a building firm.
“We have to do something about labor and that needs to be a smarter plan than just rounding up every single person and deporting them just like that,” Greene mentioned in an episode of The Tim Dillon Present podcast launched over the weekend. “I’m going to get pushback on that, but I’m just living in reality from here on out.”
In a change from their sample of villainizing Greene, Democrats are praising her well being care stance. One press launch from the Democratic Congressional Marketing campaign Committee quoted a spokesperson merely saying: “Marjorie Taylor Greene is right.” Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) featured a screenshot of her social media submit in a press convention.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) downplayed the importance of Greene’s issues in a press convention final week.
“Congresswoman Greene does not serve on the committees of jurisdiction that deal with that, those specialized issues, and she’s probably not read in on some of that,” Johnson mentioned.
Greene dismissed frustrations from her colleagues who had hoped and anticipated she can be extra of a group participant within the GOP trifecta.
“That frustration with me only exists here in this political bubble,” Greene argued, pointing to calls to her workplace about her well being care stance simply that day: Out of 224 calls, 175 had been supportive and 40 had been in opposition to, she mentioned.
Greene maintains she is a staunch Trump supporter, at the same time as she advised NBC Information she will not be a “blind slave” to the president. However she declined to say whether or not she has talked to President Trump not too long ago.
“I don’t talk about my relationship with my mom and how many times I talk to her, and I don’t talk about how many times I talk to my kids and what day I talk to them,” Greene advised The Hill. “I don’t have to explain that. You don’t hear me running out and saying, ‘I talked to the President today.’”
Greene did point out citing issues to Trump on the telephone throughout an look on Steve Bannon’s Battle Room earlier this month.
She has, nevertheless, been open about her conflicts with the president’s aides and consultants — typically saying Trump is getting unhealthy recommendation or the flawed info when he differs from her on a difficulty.
After an unnamed White Home official circulated an announcement to press warning that signing a discharge petition to drive a vote to launch the Epstein information “would be viewed as a very hostile act to the administration,” Greene mentioned in a Actual America’s Voice interview that whoever mentioned that was a “coward” for attacking members like her who defended Trump after Jan. 6.
Greene was additionally discouraged from operating for Senate by these in Trump’s orbit, with the Wall Road Journal reporting in Could that Trump’s pollster Tony Fabrizio commissioned a ballot exhibiting her trailing behind Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) by double digits. Greene mentioned on the time she “wanted nothing to do with the Senate,” criticizing the consultants and aides who leaked the ballot and personal conversations, insinuating they had been working in opposition to her as a result of they weren’t on her payroll.
Pushing again on the sense that she will not be a group participant or working in opposition to the president, Greene pointed to her votes for the “One Big Beautiful Bill” of Trump’s tax cuts and Medicaid reforms, and for GOP persevering with decision (CR) stopgap funding measures.
“I have voted for the team party bills that I didn’t necessarily like. Didn’t like them. I wasn’t big on the one big — I thought there were some things I really did like, but there was others I didn’t,” Greene advised The Hill. “I don’t ever want to vote for another CR, they make me want to vomit, but I voted for the two CRs this year. I’m supporting the president by voting for a CR. This is what he wanted.”
“And so I don’t see how they give me criticism for standing up and saying — back to what I’ve always said – health insurance is crushing Americans, and we’ve got to do something about it,” Greene mentioned.
She additionally made a shock announcement at a Home GOP political assembly final month that she would switch $240,000, a hefty sum, to the Nationwide Republican Congressional Committee.
A lot of Greene’s starkest current departures from Trump and different Republicans have come within the months since her longtime spokesman and deputy chief of workers, Nick Dyer, left her workplace in Could. Dyer was broadly recognized within the press corps and on Capitol Hill, touchdown him on The Hill’s 2024 Notable Staffers record.
Greene mentioned the workers change has not affected her messaging. “I always wrote my tweets. I always did my own communications.”
Dyer advised The Hill: “It was an honor to work for Congresswoman Greene as she led the fight to reshape Congress and put America First. I’m proud of what we accomplished in a few short years.”
One other longtime aide who ran Greene’s political operations since her first 2020 marketing campaign, Isaiah Wartman, left her group after the 2024 election to affix the White Home as a particular assistant to the president for personnel.At the same time as Greene has repeatedly ruffled feathers over time, Republican leaders have prolonged olive branches as they tried to harness her star energy.
Relatively than exiling her as a conspiracy theorist and a pariah, then-Minority Chief Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) introduced Greene in, legitimizing the firebrand early in her congressional profession. Their alliance contributed to McCarthy critics within the Home Freedom Caucus kicking Greene out.
Greene’s help didn’t do a lot to save lots of him from being ousted by a crew of different GOP firebrands. However after initially clashing with Johnson and making an unsuccessful transfer to oust him after he pushed Ukraine funding by way of Congress, Greene appeared to be repeating the antagonist-to-power ally path.
After a “productive” assembly with Johnson after the 2024 election, information broke that Greene would chair a “DOGE” subcommittee below the Home Oversight Committee — and Greene later backed Johnson for Speaker.
She hinted at larger ambitions, publicly musing about turning into Homeland Safety Secretary earlier than Trump named Kristi Noem for that function.
Nonetheless, she held hearings on defunding PBS and NPR, and Congress later permitted the White Home’s request to cancel public broadcasters. The Home handed two of her payments: One to formally rename the Gulf of Mexico because the Gulf of America, and one other to require DHS to publish a month-to-month report on foreigners deemed safety dangers trying to enter the U.S.
Her Defend Youngsters’s Innocence Act, a invoice she’s led for years to ban gender-affirming take care of transgender youth, superior out of the Home Judiciary Committee this yr. Whereas the Division of Justice final month transmitted and endorsed a unique invoice led by freshman Rep. Bob Onder (R-Mo.) supposed to codify Trump’s government order on gender-affirming take care of minors, Greene mentioned she has a dedication that her personal laws will get a flooring vote.
However leaders can count on that Greene may have no scarcity of critiques. Johnson mentioned on Fox Information Sunday he had a “thoughtful” dialog with Greene in current days in wake of her newest well being care criticisms.
And people excessive expectations for Republicans are on the core of Greene’s politics.
“I’m sick and tired of Republicans in Congress not passing the agenda, not doing what they say they’re going to do, not governing the way they campaign,” Greene mentioned.
