It’s hard to believe the MTG era in Georgia is really over, at least for now, after spilling so damn much ink about the woman we couldn’t stop talking about.
I covered Marjorie Taylor Greene’s rise, her early outrageous statements, the time she called the Gestapo Police the “Gazpacho police,” and eventually, the rock-solid relationship she had with the voters in her 14th congressional district.
I wrote about her MAGA star turns for President Donald Trump when he was too tied up defending himself in courtrooms to campaign for himself, and then about her abrupt break with the president because she had the — let’s call it courage — to demand the release of the Epstein files that he has tried so hard to conceal.
I did not write about the time MTG upbraided me for what I saw as a throwaway line in a column about former state Sen. Colton Moore, who is running for her seat and whom she has not endorsed. On the night Moore was arrested at the Georgia Capitol for trying to get into the House gallery that he had been banned from (for his own behavior), Moore proceeded to make campaign content out of his subsequent booking and mugshot at the Fulton County Jail (just like Trump!).
“Congratulations to state Sen. Colton Moore, the most successful graduate of the Marjorie Taylor Greene School of Public Affairs,” I wrote. In retrospect, that was underselling Moore’s buffoonery that night and insulting Greene in a way she probably didn’t deserve at that point in her time in Congress.
By then, instead of being happy remaining the punch line of late night jokes, Greene was using her time to really deploy the levers of power for her district. She dropped her opposition to earmarks to bring money home to her district and befriended then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who put her on committees that gave her a real platform and influence.
But things with the president started to go sideways in his second term, well after Greene helped him win his own reelection. She publicly broke with the Trump on Medicaid funding and the government shutdown. But it was the Epstein files that really marked the end of Greene’s welcome in Trump’s Washington.
In announcing her decision to resign from her House seat immediately, the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk seemed to weigh on Greene, as did the president’s refusal to intervene, or even sympathize, when she told him MAGA fans were threatening to kill her and her children.
“What cost do I have to give for this job?” she asked my colleague Tia Mitchell at the time. “Do I have to watch one of my children get murdered? Do I have to get murdered?”
Her decision to quit before the end of her term has chafed local Republicans, who considered her a prize fighter instead of a quitter, and who worry about who will replace her in the chaotic two-step process to pick her replacement.
After this week’s special election, a runoff will decide who gets her seat through December, followed by the primary for the full-two-year term in May and a November election. The idea of getting voters out to the polls as many as five times in six months makes local leaders dizzy and wary of who and what comes next.
After Tuesday’s results, we know Trump-endorsed Clay Fuller and Democrat Shawn Harris will head to a runoff to fill out the rest of Greene’s term, which Fuller is likely to win. With him, Republicans will get a pro-Trump Republican, who is less of an attention magnet than Greene. That may suit this quiet corner of the state just fine.
In the meantime, Greene has chosen not to run for statewide office this year after the White House made it clear she wouldn’t get Trump’s endorsement. Instead she is remaining a constant, vocal critic of the president’s latest moves in Iran, on the economy, and of course, the Epstein files.
Greene may be done with elected office for now, or forever, but she isn’t going away quietly. Trump should have thought of that before he cut her loose.
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