Marjorie Taylor Greene Rips Gaetz, Boebert After Tense Meeting: ‘Furious’
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Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene called out conservative allies after a tense meeting over the House speakership race on Tuesday.
Tensions within the GOP came to a head as House Republicans remained divided about who should be elected to lead Congress’ lower chamber after the party retook a narrow majority in the midterm elections last year.
Representative Kevin McCarthy, of California, has secured the majority of his party’s support, but a handful of holdouts threatened to derail his bid. McCarthy could lose only four votes due to Republicans’ slim majority.
Anti-McCarthy Republicans guaranteed rules changes aimed at bolstering conservatives’ standing in the House, but many still refused to support him in the hours before the speakership vote. Aiming to lock up support, McCarthy held a meeting on Tuesday that quickly grew tense.
During that meeting, McCarthy clashed with his critics. He made a last-minute plea, which appeared to fail as some members still refused to vote for him, and one ally reportedly suggested that defectors could be stripped of committee assignments, Politico reported.
Greene, a Georgia Republican who rose to national prominence because of her hardline conservative views and alleged past embrace of right-wing conspiracy theories, lashed out at some of her closest allies for their McCarthy opposition after the meeting. Despite being firmly to the right of McCarthy, she has been one of his most vocal supporters, describing herself as a “realist.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene Slams Republicans Demanding Positions: ‘I’m Furious’
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In remarks to reporters, she called out Matt Gaetz, of Florida, and Lauren Boebert, of Colorado, by name.
She questioned why Gaetz continued to oppose McCarthy’s speakership despite calling the compromise on the GOP rules package “exquisite.” Greene also slammed Boebert, who narrowly won reelection in November, for taking McCarthy’s money for reelection but not supporting him.
Greene also alleged that three members of the House Freedom Caucus, without naming anyone, demanded committee positions for themselves in a meeting with McCarthy on Monday and added that they did not ask for Greene’s committee positions, which were revoked over her past support for conspiracies, to be reinstated.
“I have not done that for myself,” Greene said. “The only thing I have done is debate and request and argue amongst my peers for the right things, for the rules package and for our agenda for the American people. I haven’t asked for one thing for myself.”
Greene said she was “furious” that her conservative colleagues made personal demands without considering her.
“But I find out that it’s my Freedom Caucus colleagues and my supposed friends that went and did that,” she said. “They asked nothing for me. Nothing. That’s what I found out in there. I am furious.”
A Gaetz spokesperson referred Newsweek to the congressman’s tweet, in which he wrote: “If you want to drain The Swamp, you cannot put the biggest alligator in charge of the exercise.”
Newsweek reached out to Boebert’s office for comment.
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