Marjorie Taylor Greene on MAGA, Congress, and the Two-Party System
"I spent five years of my life the most pissed off I could ever be because I hated all of it," the former congresswoman tells Reason's Robby Soave.
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R–Ga.) joined Free Media's Robby Soave in June to discuss her friendship with Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), her break with Trump-era politics, and why she believes both major parties are failing ordinary Americans. Greene says she once thought President Donald Trump would help crash the system. Now she argues that the two-party system itself is the problem, and that Americans are not yet engaged enough to beat it.
Q: Can you speak about your ideological evolution? You came to Washington as a fervent backer of Trump, MAGA, and MAHA. By the end of your time in Washington, you were ideologically and personally close with Massie, who was targeted by Trump for many of the same reasons you later became at odds with the administration. Massie has thought of himself as a libertarian or friendly to libertarianism. Have you felt more kinship with Massie, and with the ideology and the movement he's involved in?
A: That's actually a misconception. My entire time in Congress, I was aligned with Thomas Massie, and our voting records are very similar. He was one of my best allies and best friends the entire time I served there. We worked together on many issues, and that was before Trump was elected in 2024. I stood in both camps, I would say.
I never was a big Republican Party person. I never was elected before I won in 2020 for Congress, and I never even went to my county GOP meetings. I didn't know anybody. I was angry at Republicans when I ran for Congress, and I attacked them constantly. I didn't align with Democrats at all, so I attacked them as well. I was very naive to the entire political process, because I had no experience in it. But I was angry, completely angry at the government, totally outraged by the government. When I became a member of Congress, I spent five years of my life the most pissed off I could ever be because I hated all of it. I hated every bit of it.
I was very much fooled, like many. I was also a rallygoer—a Trump rallygoer. I believed his speeches. I believed his words when he talked about no more foreign wars and draining the swamp and "lock her up" and we're going to hold them accountable. He said, "I am your retribution." I believed all of that because I believed in crashing the system. I thought that Trump would be the vehicle to do it, and boy, was I wrong. I spent five years in Washington trying every way possible to find success in stopping everything that I felt was ruining America. But it's virtually unstoppable.
Q: The two-party system is brutal. You're frustrated, and I'm frustrated, that the Trump administration is not prioritizing some of the things it ran on. It is not trying to make it easier to start a business or build a house or prosper in America, and it is very focused on foreign conflicts. But if you withdraw support from the Republican Party, it helps the other party, and they're going down a socialist direction. Or even someone like California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his backers, who want to confiscate the wealth of our most productive tech entrepreneurs—the people who are trying to make my life easier, who are trying to grow the economy that way. They're going to embrace ideas that shut all of that down. You just have bad choices no matter what you do.
A: That's right. It's government overreach on both sides and in all different directions. There are no choices anymore. The Republican and Democrat two-party system is the political-industrial complex. Right now, as it stands, you can't beat it. I tried to beat it. I got in it and thought, "Hey, hold them accountable." I wanted to hold Republicans accountable for what they promised on the campaign trail, and I wanted to defeat Democrats on the threats that I thought they were threatening against us as well. But no, as it stands right now, it is such a strong system.
Let me take it back. It's beatable. It just requires the American people fully getting engaged. And the American people just aren't fully engaged.
This interview has been condensed and edited for style and clarity.
