Marjorie Taylor Greene Keeps Breaking With Her Party. What’s Going On?

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Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is on quite a tear. Over the past month, she’s been publicly trashing her colleagues over the Jeffrey Epstein files, health care costs, regulations for artificial intelligence^[2], and funding for Israel. This week Greene took things up a notch during an interview with the Washington Post^[3], where she criticized House Speaker Mike Johnson’s government shutdown strategy, accused him of treating Republican House members who are women unfairly, and argued “a lot of the men here in the House are weak.”

All this conflict with other members of her own party is a new twist for the conservative firebrand, who has generally kept busy pushing outlandish conspiracy theories^[4] and racist ideology^[5]. Now, Greene is coming out swinging against her party’s policy platform and internal culture, while still not outright breaking with the MAGA movement and President Donald Trump . Even the president has noticed Greene is acting differently lately; according to two GOP sources who spoke to NBC news^[6], Trump has been calling around and asking: “What’s going on with Marjorie?”

Just last week Greene published a lengthy social media post declaring that she was “absolutely disgusted^[7]” over the fact that tax credits for health insurance premiums would be expiring at the end of the year, since Republicans did not include an extension in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law over the summer (the one that, you know, Greene also voted for). Greene made sure to caveat her post by adding “NO FUNDING FOR ILLEGALS AND ANY BENEFITS FOR THEM.”

This week, Greene also provided a peek into her ongoing feud with Johnson in an interview with the Post. While publicly pushing^[8] Republicans to abolish the filibuster, Greene shared that she was also sparring with Johnson about it over text message. “He told me they can’t do it and it’s math,” Greene said, adding that she pushed back and pointed out that Senate Republicans had just tweaked rules to confirm^[9] a bloc of 48 Trump nominees without Democrats’ consent in September. (Last year, Senate Majority Leader John Thune vowed^[10] he would not touch the filibuster.) Greene even went on CNN last week^[11] to push the GOP on the filibuster, also discussing her disagreements on health care premiums and the rising cost of living. Meanwhile, Johnson tried to downplay the conflict with Greene, telling reporters they had a “good discussion” as “colleagues and friends.”

But Greene was far from done. She also went in on her party’s treatment of women, accusing male GOP House members of being “weak” and “afraid of strong Republican women.” She pointed to New York Rep. Elise Stefanik’s treatment as an example: President Trump pulled her United Nations ambassador nomination in order to secure the GOP’s majority in the House, even though Stefanik lost her post as House GOP Conference chair—the third-highest-ranking House Republican—in the nomination process. Upon Stefanik’s return to Congress, Johnson instead appointed^[16] her chairwoman of House Republican Leadership. It’s a job that’s mostly focused on party strategy and communications, which Greene characterized as “some honorary bullshit role” that is “unbelievably insulting.”

“She’s a woman, so it was OK to do that to her, somehow,” Green told the Post.

Greene also weighed in on her decision to join a discharge petition^[17], alongside every Democrat in the House, that would require the Justice Department to release all information on the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. While acknowledging that she took a lot of heat for that, Greene doubled down on her choice. “It’s such a disgusting issue that we’re like: We don’t care if we get attacked,” she said, referencing her Republican colleagues Reps. Nancy Mace and Lauren Boebert, who also signed the petition.

Greene quipped that her male colleagues couldn’t “relate” to her concerns about Epstein and “don’t want to get yelled at by the president” or Johnson.

Back home in Georgia, at least some of her constituents seem to be thrilled with this recent turn of events. “I love her. I love how outspoken she is. She represents the heart of her people, not just her branch of government,” Rhonda Smith, a Georgia resident in Greene’s district, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution^[19]. Another constituent applauded Greene for coming out against^[20] long-standing U.S. policy of funding Israel’s military.

Greene herself doesn’t seem too worried, either. “My district knows I ran for Congress trashing Republicans,” she told the Post. “They voted for me because they agreed with that. My district’s not surprised.”

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