Marjorie Taylor Greene still wants to be vice president: The Georgia congresswoman may have been kicked out of the Freedom Caucus, but she’s not given up hope that she’ll be chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate.
Marjorie Taylor Greene: The Next Vice President of the USA?
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), last month, was kicked out of the House Freedom Caucus, the group of hardline conservatives in the House of Representatives. The vote, which was made public last week, followed Greene’s well-publicized fight on the floor of the House of Representatives last month with another member of the Freedom Caucus, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO).
“I think the way she referred to a fellow member was probably not the way we expect our members to refer to other fellow, especially female, members,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), who confirmed Greene’s ejection to Politico, said.
Greene had infamously returned to Boebert as a “little *****” during the argument, which was reportedly about the two lawmakers’ rival efforts to push for the impeachment of President Joseph Biden, as well as other long-running disagreements between the two. Greene has introduced several resolutions to impeach Biden, while Boebert attempted to force a vote on that last month.
But there were other factors in Greene’s removal from the Freedom Caucus, including “some of the things she’s done,” in Harris’ words.
These included Greene’s decisions to side with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), both in his election for speaker and in his debt ceiling-raising agreement with Biden, both of which the Freedom Caucus has opposed. Greene and McCarthy formed an alliance with McCarthy as Republicans took back the House in the new Congress.
While out of the Freedom Caucus, Greene will retain her spots on House committees, which likely is more important to her anyway.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), back in April, had called Greene the unofficial “leader” of the Republican caucus.
“I think you’ve got Marjorie Taylor Greene running the caucus… Every time something irks her, she communicates that McCarthy is doing her bidding,” AOC said back in April. “And I think that this is something that is quite clear. I think that Speaker McCarthy is stuck between having to please the most racist and heinous elements of his party with having to maintain a majority. And he is choosing to side with the extremists.”
Despite her separation from that group, it appears that Greene still has dreams of being chosen by President Trump as his vice presidential pick, should he win the Republican nomination again.
Zach Petrizzo, a reporter for the Daily Beast, discussed that dynamic in a recent appearance on The New Abnormal podcast.
“Greene has kind of cultivated this really wise relationship with [House Speaker Kevin] McCarthy, [and] one of McCarthy’s longtime advisers, this guy named Brian Jack, who is also one of Donald Trump’s closest policy advisers. So you have this very unique relationship,” Petrizzo said on the podcast. “Greene ultimately is trying to play her cards very wise here and, who knows, she might be VP one day.”
The reporter also said that Greene has gone out of her way to talk up issues that Trump himself is concerned with.
Petrizzo added that he doesn’t like the chances of former Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake, who is also said to covet the vice presidency.
“I think Lake’s kind of definitely in the bottom,” Petrizzo added.
The Washington Post, also over the weekend, looked at some potential vice presidential picks for Trump, if he is in fact the nominee. They list Greene, along with Lake, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR) as “the base/loyalty plays.”
“A Greene selection would give the national party fits more than anyone on this list; even with her attempted reinvention of herself, she’s spouting many of the same conspiracy theories and proving just as unwieldy. She also performed surprisingly poorly in her ruby-red Georgia district in 2022,” the Post said.
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Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
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