{"id":148140,"date":"2025-11-22T13:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T13:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/148140\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T13:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T13:12:09","slug":"marjorie-taylor-greene-what-to-know-about-her-five-years-in-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/148140\/","title":{"rendered":"Marjorie Taylor Greene \u2013 what to know about her five years in Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  [&amp;_p]:tit-sub-xl tit-sub-xl md:[&amp;_p]:d-tit-sub-xl md:d-tit-sub-xl mb-[1.3rem]\">It all happened so fast. Less than a week after President Donald Trump denounced Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican announced that she would resign from Congress on January 5.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Greene&#8217;s departure will cap five tumultuous years in Congress. She was first an outsider, then briefly at the centre of power during House Speaker Kevin McCarthy&#8217;s reign. Trump&#8217;s return to the White House could have heralded a new era of clout in Washington, but Greene&#8217;s simmering discontent led to a split with the president.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Here&#8217;s a look at Greene&#8217;s background and some of the most notable episodes in her tumultuous five-year career in Congress.<\/p>\n<p>Where did Greene come from?<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Greene had little involvement in politics before Trump ran for president. She and her husband had bought a commercial contracting company from Greene&#8217;s father. Greene later opened a CrossFit gym in suburban Atlanta. But, during the 2016 campaign, she started posting stories and videos online.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Her initial commentary was a stew of conspiracy theories. Greene suggested a 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas was a coordinated attack to spur support for new gun restrictions. In 2018, she endorsed the idea that the US government perpetrated the attacks on September 11, 2001. In a video filmed at the US Capitol in 2018, she claimed Representatives Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., both Muslim women, weren\u2019t \u201cofficial\u201d members of Congress because they used Qurans rather than Bibles in their swearing-in ceremonies.<\/p>\n<p>How did she get elected?<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">In 2020, Greene jumped into politics by joining a crowded Republican primary in a competitive congressional district in suburban Atlanta, where she lived. But after the incumbent in northwest Georgia&#8217;s strongly Republican 14th District announced his retirement, Greene shifted her candidacy there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">During her campaign, Greene openly sympathised with QAnon, a conspiracy theory involving a global cabal of Satan-worshipping cannibals, including US government leaders, that operates a child sex trafficking ring. She eventually distanced herself, saying she got \u201csucked into some of the things I had seen on the internet&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Greene won the Republican nomination in a runoff and then cruised to election when Democrat Kevin Van Ausdal dropped out of the race.<\/p>\n<p>How was she received in Congress?<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Some of Greene&#8217;s most inflammatory rhetoric wasn&#8217;t publicised until after she was elected \u2013 such as a 2018 claim that California wildfires were ignited by a laser beam from space controlled by the Rothschild banking family.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">The claim was often summarised as \u201cJewish space lasers\u201d because the family has been the subject of antisemitic claims over the years. Greene later said she didn&#8217;t know the Rothschilds were Jewish.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">A Democratic-led House kicked Greene off both her committees just weeks into her first term, saying she&#8217;d earned the punishment by spreading by hateful and violent conspiracy theories. Eleven Republicans backed the ejections.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">But Greene thrived in exile, raising millions in small donations even as she continued to provoke Democrats. For example, she and two other Republican House members sued House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after they were fined for refusing to wear masks on the House floor during the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">When Republicans won the House majority in 2022, she lined up with McCarthy, the California Republican who became House speaker. McCarthy returned Greene to committee assignments and enlisted her as a close adviser.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Greene has often been at the centre of drama with Democrats, including bickering with Democratic Reprepresentative Jasmine Crockett of Texas and heckling President Joe Biden as a \u201cliar\u201d during one of his State of the Union speeches.<\/p>\n<p>How did Greene fall out with Trump?<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">While Trump ran for a second term, Greene was a constant cheerleader, often appearing alongside him at rallies in Georgia and elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">But they soon drifted apart. Greene\u2019s discontent dates back at least to May, when she announced she wouldn\u2019t run for the Senate against Democratic incumbent Jon Ossoff. Trump later claimed that he had sent Greene a poll showing that she \u201cdidn&#8217;t have a chance\u201d in the race.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Greene also passed on running for Georgia governor, attacking a political \u201cgood ole boy\u201d system and alleging it was endangering Republican control of the state.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">She started taking positions contrary to Trump. Greene described Israel&#8217;s actions in Gaza as a \u201cgenocide\u201d against Palestinians, and she backed the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/marjorie-taylor-greene-with-thomas-massie-and-ro-khanna-appl-B2ZQVELGDJBNVM2QO46VUL77MA.jpg\" alt=\"Marjorie Taylor-Greene with Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, applauds during a news conference as the House prepares to vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act. \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"ImageMetadata__MetadataParagraph-sc-hi5x8q-0 cWTYyG image-metadata\">Marjorie Taylor-Greene with Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, applauds during a news conference as the House prepares to vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act.  (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">She also criticised Republican leadership over the recent federal government shutdown, saying they needed a better plan to ease the sting of expiring health insurance subsidies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Greene referred to herself as \u201cAmerica first, America only&#8221;, suggesting that Trump was too focused on foreign affairs. As her criticism escalated, Trump became fed up and said he would endorse a primary challenger.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">After years of support, he declared, Greene was a \u201ctraitor&#8221;. A week later, she announced her resignation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It all happened so fast. Less than a week after President Donald Trump denounced Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[65,42,43,64,40,38,41,39,66],"class_list":["post-148140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}