As House Republicans try to move past the rifts demonstrated during their three-week speakership quagmire, one person has emerged from the drama with few friends and plenty of enemies: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
Greene was a close ally of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). And with McCarthy out of power—and Greene largely ostracized from her former friends in the House Freedom Caucus, as well as the GOP rank and file who already disliked her—there aren’t many House Republicans standing with the conservative Facebook shock jock-turned-congresswoman.
Greene’s diminished status in the GOP conference was on full display last week as she introduced a resolution to chastise Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) for her pro-Palestinian rhetoric, and lost the vote badly.
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Twenty-three Republicans broke with Greene on her resolution to censure Tlaib, even though the Democratic congresswoman has repeatedly put her foot in her mouth over the war in the Gaza Strip.
And those 23 Republicans breaking with Greene—a firebrand conservative who is perhaps the id of the MAGA movement in Congress and has Donald Trump on speed dial—is just the latest evidence that GOP members are neither fearing nor loving Marjorie Taylor Greene.
That point was further illustrated after the vote, when Greene took to Twitter to shame the Republicans who voted against her censure resolution.
“You voted to kick me out of the freedom caucus, but keep CNN wannabe Ken Buck and vaping groping Lauren Boebert and you voted with the Democrats to protect Terrorist Tlaib,” Greene wrote, taking aim at Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX). “You hate Trump, certified Biden’s election, and could care less about J6 defendants being persecuted.”
Rather than just letting her shot go, Roy responded by telling a reporter from The Hill: “Tell her to focus on chasing so-called Jewish space lasers if she wishes to spend her time on such matters.”
That didn’t go over well with Greene.
“Oh shut up Colonel Sanders, you’re not even from Texas, more like the DMV,” she replied.
Greene has never been one to shy away from an online battle. It’s part of the reason she has gained such MAGA infamy. But Greene’s fellow GOP members, many of whom once considered themselves her ally, suggested to The Daily Beast that her antics are only making her standing in Congress weaker.
“Childish in many ways,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) said of Greene’s attacks. “Does he look like Colonel Sanders? I don’t know how beneficial that is to start attacking other conservatives.”
Nehls, a fellow Trump cheerleader, notably came to Greene’s aid in 2021 when she faced an effort to boot her from her committee assignments. But now, he’s questioning her tactics in attacking conservatives.
“What do you feel you’re accomplishing there, you know?” Nehls said. “Chip’s a pretty conservative guy… What do you feel you are personally gaining from that?”
Nehls missed the vote on Greene’s resolution against Tlaib. He was at Mar-a-Lago, appearing at a screening for Dinesh D’Souza’s new movie, Police State, in which he made a cameo. But he told The Daily Beast that, even though he didn’t vote against the resolution, he’s still felt attacked by Greene for technically not supporting her resolution.
“My point is this: I don’t know why you would want to go to war with me?” Nehls said.
Another Republican lawmaker, who was once a Greene ally, put it far more bluntly.
“She’s creating her own enemies through unprovoked, unwarned, and unsubstantiated attacks,” this GOP lawmaker said. “Embarrassing herself through launching attacks she later has to retract due to their inaccuracies.”
When that Republican lawmaker confronted Greene after the list of 23 was blasted out on her X page, this source said, “she responded viscerally.”
Yet another Republican lawmaker who was once close to Greene agreed that she’s losing friends.
“There is no one I have heard from, dozens of members, who are happy with her, that trust her [or] confide in her,” this Republican lawmaker said.
“She’s continually seeking attention,” this GOP member said, “building herself up while tearing others down. I have cut ties completely.”
Some Republicans tried to minimize the feud. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), ever one to find the folksy, bright side of any issue, compared the disagreement between Greene and Roy to a “fight at Christmastime or Thanksgiving.”
“You know, family at the table,” Burchett said. “You try to not set the two together.”
But other close Trump allies acknowledged that Greene was doing herself no favors.
When The Daily Beast asked Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) if he thought Greene was losing friends in Congress after the latest dust-up, he was clear the answer was yes.
“Yeah. Is she concerned about that? I don’t think so,” he said.
“The airing of grievances by Twitter, or by X, is just not productive,” Donalds continued. “When you do it through social media, it just doesn’t work.”
After Greene’s back-and-forth with Roy, Donalds spoke privately with Roy and Boebert. But notably, as of Friday afternoon, he had not spoken with Greene herself.
“Honestly, I joked with him and said, ‘Hey man, let me get a three-piece,’” Donalds said of his conversation with Roy, whose white goatee has a bit of the flavor of Sanders’ 11 secret herbs and spices.
For Roy’s part, when questioned by The Daily Beast about where his relationship with Greene now sits, he directed the questions back to Greene. (He also said that he “loves” fried chicken.)
As for Donalds’ conversation with Boebert, according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with the conversation, the Colorado Republican downplayed the most recent attack against her by Greene.
“I don’t even want to deal with this,” Boebert said, according to a Republican member who heard the remark.
Other Greene allies also attempted to stay out of the fray, including Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who declined to comment, as well as Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT), who said he tries to “stay out of it.”
“You know I tend to ignore such distractions,” Zinke said.
But at least one of Greene’s allies took it a step further, arguing that those fellow MAGA members speaking to The Daily Beast were actually never the lawmaker’s friends.
“I don’t know how close of a friend you can be and then step away,” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) said while walking out of a House Freedom Caucus meeting Monday night. “That means you were never a close friend!”
While some allies bit their tongue, another Greene ally said they were still her friend—even if they didn’t appreciate her blasting out a list of Republicans who voted against her legislation.
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) was one of those GOP lawmakers who broke with Greene. And even though he said he didn’t like her advertising his vote like that—”she put me in kind of a box last week,” Grothman said—he still thinks of her as a friend.
“I can’t speak for the rest of Congress, but she’s got at least one,” Grothman said.
But Greene’s confrontational style appears to be getting worse, not better.
As The Daily Beast reported back in January, Greene had a fiery dispute with Boebert in the women’s restroom at the start of Congress, which months later eventually escalated into a heated confrontation over rival bills to impeach President Joe Biden.
Their spat culminated in Greene calling Boebert a “little bitch” on the House floor.
While Greene appears to be losing friends in Congress, she still has plenty of allies in Trumpworld. As The Daily Beast reported in January, Greene’s name has been, and since remained, on an informal vice president shortlist.
“Trumpworld loves our dear MTG,” one Trump adviser said.
“She’s the most loyal soldier in Congress and has been there since day one,” a Trumpworld operative said. “She is often his mouthpiece.”
When asked for comment, Greene told The Daily Beast she wasn’t interested in speaking with a “stupid gossip blog.”
