Is MTG Defending Trump Or Just Being Reasonable For Once? – Amid a crisis within the Republican Party, as House members struggle to find consensus on who should become the next Speaker, an unlikely voice of reason has emerged: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
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A fierce supporter of former President Donald Trump, once a QAnon conspiracy theorist, and a one-time speaker at the white nationalist “AFPAC” event,
Marjorie Taylor Greene has gone to war with GOP legislators whom she previously considered allies.
In a tweet on Tuesday, Greene echoed the former president’s concern that refusing to vote for McCarthy risks the Republicans’ control of the House.
“If the base only understood that 19 Republicans voting against McCarthy are playing Russian roulette with our hard earned Republican majority right now,” Greene wrote. “This is the worst thing that could possibly happen.”
Greene’s post was made in response to a tweet from conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who claimed that two Democratic leadership aides were already discussing forming a “coalition leadership” to divide the House evenly between Republicans and Democrats.
The same day, Greene said she was “furious” with her “friends” in the House Freedom Caucus for refusing to get behind McCarthy.
Marjorie Taylor Greene: Why Is She Doing It?
The answer is probably as simple as the fact that Rep. Greene is a supporter of former President Donald Trump, and former President Donald Trump supports McCarthy in his effort to become the next House Speaker.
The fact that Greene’s closest political allies have turned on Trump and continue to stand in the way of McCarthy’s election is strange in itself and could represent a shift within the party away from Trump and towards his agenda.
Trump’s support of McCarthy represents the former president’s pragmatism – a characteristic of his that many would flat-out deny exists – but the objection from 20 Republican rebels, including Reps. Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert, reflect their absolutism and commitment to Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda.
Greene’s support for Trump may simply reflect her loyalty, but there could be more to it.
Her defense of Kevin McCarthy now could be leveraged into support from the House GOP in the future and could potentially improve her legitimacy within the party and build her influence.
Greene, who was stripped of her committee assignments in February 2021 over her previous support for the Q Anon conspiracy theory, could also be looking to win back those committee assignments.
However, Greene herself said that she has not sought assurances that she would receive them if she supported McCarthy and accused her colleagues in the House Freedom Caucus of attempting to negotiate their assignments in exchange for support for McCarthy.
“I’m the only Republican that has zero committees. So you would think I would be the one in there asking for something. But I haven’t done that. But I find out that it’s my Freedom Caucus colleagues and my supposed friends that went and did that, and they asked nothing for me. Nothing. That’s what I found out in there. I’m furious,” she said on Tuesday.
With all that being said, however, it’s also entirely possible that Greene is telling the truth when she says that she fears the election of a unity candidate.
Maybe she’s backing Trump, maybe she’s just being reasonable for once, and maybe it’s both.
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Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
