Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s rift with her own party for failing to come up for a fix for the Affordable Care Act’s health care marketplace amid the government shutdown is now a full-on assault after the MAGA firebrand ditched her normal outlets like Fox News, One America News Network and Newsmax to go on CNN live Thursday.
The Georgia congresswoman and ardent supporter of President Donald Trump joined Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown in the left-leaning cable news giant’s DC studio.
“I don‘t think it‘s something to wear political party team jerseys on,” she told the hosts. “I think it‘s something that we have to address and fix.”
The government shutdown is now on its second week and leaders of Greene’s party on Capitol Hill – including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune – say that Democrats are at fault for voting against a so-called “clean continuing resolution” to keep the government open.
But Democrats want a continuing resolution to include an extension of enhanced tax credits for the Affordable Care Act’s health care marketplace. Notices have already gone out to recipients of insurance on the marketplaces notifying them that their premiums could double as the tax credits expire at the end of the year.
Greene said she is not a fan of the Affordable Care Act and talked about how businesses and patients were affected by the law signed by Barack Obama in 2010.
“I am a Republican and I support the president,” she said. She also added that while she voted for the continuing resolution last month, she also wanted to continue working on the spending bills to fund the government throughout the fiscal year.
“I‘m getting phone calls from people that are saying if the ACA tax credits expire, they aren‘t going to be able to have health insurance. they‘re going to have to drop it,” she said.
Brown brought up how, as the government shutdown began, a Washington Post poll showed a plurality of Americans blamed the shutdown on Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill and only 30 percent blamed Democrats.
“I‘m not putting the blame on the president, I‘m actually putting the blame on the speaker and Leader Thune in the Senate,” Greene said. “This should not be happening.”
Greene suggested that Republican leadership in the Senate should get rid of the filibuster.
“ We control the house, we control the Senate, we have the white White House,” she said. “I‘ve been vocal saying, ‘you know, you can use the nuclear option in the Senate.’ This doesn‘t have to be a shutdown.”
Republicans in the Senate have so far rebuffed overtures to remove the 60-vote barrier required for most legislation to pass.
But Greene also criticized Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who responded to a tweet from Greene suggesting a foreign government try to kill her. Cruz said it suggested that she meant Israel, given Greene’s criticism of the Israeli government’s war in Gaza.
“I never said Jewish people, I‘m not anti-Semitic,” she said. “I don‘t hate any people, group for their identity or who they are. So that was unbelievably low for a sitting U.S. senator to say that, but what I‘m talking about is very real. I have a tremendous amount of death threats. it‘s documented.”
In recent months, Greene has broken with her party leadership, most significantly, she joined with Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and signed their discharge petition to declassify files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Every Democrat signed on, as did two other Republicans: Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Nancy Mace of South Carolina.
Democrats have criticized Johnson and House Republican leadership for not swearing in Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election and who pledged to be the 218th signature to force the legislation to go to the House floor.
“There is a new Democrat that‘s been elected that does deserve to be sworn in, her district elected her,” she said. “We we have other bills that we need to be passing. And if it‘s to avoid the discharge petition, why drag this out that that is going to have 218 signatures.”
Despite initially being a firebrand in the House of Representatives when she initially arrived, Greene largely clinged to former House speaker Kevin McCarthy. But she has had a testy relationship with Johnson since shortly after the House GOP unanimously named him as their new speaker two years ago this month.
Last year, Greene filed a motion to vacate Johnson from the speaker’s chair, which failed.
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