US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is my favorite Republican. No one has done more to create the chaos that is the Republican-led House of Representatives, and no one is doing more to end it and flip the chamber Democratic in November.
Moscow Marge, as she’s been dubbed, is the toast of Russian television, along with Tucker Carlson, whose fawning interview with Vladimir Putin was even ridiculed by the Russian leader himself.
Republican Rep. Ken Buck said “Moscow Marjorie” is “getting her talking points from the Kremlin.” Russian TV host Evgeny Popov declared, “She believes that Americans should help Putin win.” Russian television’s America expert Dmitry Drobnitsky believes she is the one actually “running Congress.”
She has led the failed far-Right effort to block long-stalled aid to Ukraine by filing more than 20 amendments to gut the emergency aid legislation, most of which read like they were drafted by Putin’s foreign ministry, the Daily Beast observed.
Taking revenge
In revenge, she wants to punish Speaker Mike Johnson for finally taking his manhood out of deep storage to end six months of cowering in fear of her and the GOP Putin lobby to finally do the right thing and let Ukraine aid come to the floor for a vote.
The casualties mounted on the battlefields of Ukraine and the ammo supplies dwindled while he dawdled over whether to be Churchill or Chamberlain.
The House finally passed the four-part $95.6 billion foreign aid package late last Saturday and sent it to the Senate, where it was combined into a single bill and passed on Tuesday.
Ukraine aid is the largest part ($60.8 billion), another $26.4 billion is earmarked for Israel and humanitarian aid for Gaza, and $8.1 billion for Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region. It also includes a ban on TikTok.
The legislation had broad bipartisan support when finally brought to a vote, but that meant nothing to the “my-way-or-the-highway” extremist minority who believe any compromise with Democrats is a mortal sin.
They demanded the House must first deal with the crisis at the southern border, but when the Senate produced a bipartisan bill to do just that, Senate Republicans and Johnson refused to even consider it, acting on orders from Donald Trump, who said he wanted the issue held back for use in his presidential campaign.
MTG HAS filed legislation to take away Johnson’s gavel, which would make him the second speaker in six months – and the entire 235 years of American history – to be fired by his own members.
She can “pull the trigger” at any time to force the House to take up her motion to vacate right away. Joining MTG are two far-Right colleagues who also have been linked to antisemitism, Christian nationalism, white supremacy, and racism: Reps. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
That wasn’t the only time Johnson “completely betrayed” GOP voters, she said. She’s also upset that the House passed an 11th-hour spending deal last month to avert a partial government shutdown.
Johnson may survive because most colleagues are reluctant to go through the humiliation and ridicule that marked their three-week search last October for a successor to Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who was deposed for colluding with the enemy – the new GOP definition of bipartisanship.
That’s also the charge against Johnson, but some moderate Democrats have indicated they might be inclined to help rescue him from the chaos caucus.
Greene, the notorious discoverer of Jewish space lasers, may be the de facto leader of House Republicans, but she echoes her master’s voice and harbors hopes of being Trump’s running mate.
She knows the former president’s grievances are limitless and she shares many. She had only been in Congress a few days when she introduced articles to impeach Joe Biden the day after his inauguration.
Trump’s MAGA cult is built on isolationism, but the story behind opposing aid to Ukraine has deeper roots. It goes to a 30-minute “perfect phone call” on July 25, 2019, when Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “do us a favor.” The newly elected leader in Kyiv wanted to talk about promised weapons deliveries; Trump wanted him to first dig up political dirt on the Biden family.The truth about the extortion attempt was revealed in the Congressional testimony of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the White House expert on Ukraine. Vindman, like Zelensky, is a Ukrainian-born Jew.
Trump falsely believed that Ukraine, not Russia, was interfering in the 2016 US election. Two of his closest advisers, campaign chair Paul Manafort and Rudy Giuliani, his personal attorney, had ties to the pro-Russian elements in Ukraine and helped spread disinformation about the Bidens.
The former president, a Putin admirer, has said “in 24 hours” he could end the war started by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sources close to Trump indicate that would mean forcing Zelensky to cede to Russia territory it had already grabbed.
President Biden and America’s NATO allies fear a Putin victory in Ukraine would encourage him to try to grab other former Soviet satellites like Poland, the Baltic states, and beyond. Trump indicated he would not object, recently publicly telling Putin that Russia could “do whatever the hell they want” in Europe, including attacking NATO countries which he deemed were not spending enough on defense.
European Council President Charles Michel told Trump to “get the facts straight” and support Ukraine, Politico reported. “Don’t be intimidated by Putin. We aren’t.” Trump is lying – surprise – about the amount of aid the EU is sending Ukraine ($150 billion), Michel said.
Johnson went from Ukraine skeptic to advocate, reportedly because of what he learned in highly classified leadership briefings not available to most other lawmakers. A devout Evangelical, he said he prayed on the decision and finally decided “I want to be on the right side of history,” Rep. Michael McCaul, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said the speaker told him, according to the Associated Press.
Doing the right thing could cost Johnson his job if MTG triggers her motion to vacate. She and the chaos caucus are living up to their reputation and they’re doing it for a good cause: making Democrat Hakeem Jeffries the speaker of the House. We pray for their success.
The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and former American Israel Public Affairs Committee legislative director.