Marjorie Taylor Greene blames Republican leaders for government shutdown

One of the most controversial members of Congress, Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, usually draws the ire of Democrats, but now she's speaking out against some in her own party and coming out in favor of what Democrats demand to reopen the government,

an extension of enhanced healthcare subsidies.

Congressman Greene, thank you for joining us here in the Situation Room, we appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

Let's start there. Let's start with the shutdown. So you voted for the short-term funding bill, but now you're talking about this healthcare issue. Help us better understand why now.

Well, actually this is something I talked about when I first ran for Congress in 2020, because I grew up in a construction company family, bought that company after college and retired my parents. And after the ACA was passed.

The Affordable Care Act.

Yes, the Affordable Care Act. Our family's health insurance premium went from $800 a month to $2,400 a month. So I've known about this as a major problem for a long time. It's not just ACA recipients whose premiums are going to skyrocket very soon.

It has been a disaster for many Americans across the board. And cost of living is so high now. Many of my constituents, many of my friends and even my own children are finding health insurance to be extremely unaffordable and something that they are having to go without. So I think this is an incredibly important issue.

I think it is a crisis. I don't think it's something to wear political party team jerseys on. I think it's something that we have to address and fix.

And it's very personal for you.

Very personal. It's affected my own life. And the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010. So we're 15 years down the road and the industry has changed drastically. Many companies dropped out of the market. We've seen doctors stop having their own practices and become hospital employees.

We now have to import doctors because we don't have enough. Healthcare has drastically changed and I just, I get, I'm one of those that gets real tired of political drama when it's not actually solving a problem and this is such a crisis that I'm willing to say, okay, everyone, we have to do something about this. It shouldn't be something that we dangle the American people or military pay or all of these things. We shouldn't be dangling them back and forth. We have to fix it.

What are you hearing from your constituents right now and do you have any regrets about voting for that short-term continuing resolution, that

spending bill? Thank you for that question. Number one, I am a Republican and I support the President. I was very vocal about I didn't want to vote for a CR. I want to pass our appropriations. That's our constitutional duty, and I want to bring that taxpayer dollars back to my district.

I work hard on that, so that was important to me. But I support the President, and I voted for the CR. Number two, what am I hearing from my constituents? It's great. We track all the calls that come into my office. About 60% of the calls coming

in right now are calls of support and saying, yes, health insurance is a crisis. They're telling us stories about how they're already paying $2,000 a month

with $10,000 deductibles. 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. But I'm hearing from people on both sides, people already

on the ACA and people that are already getting crushed by high health insurance premiums.

I want to ask you about this new Washington Post poll. It shows that 47% of Americans believe that President Trump and the Republicans are mainly responsible for the shutdown. You see it here on the screen. Compared to just 30% of Americans who blame Democrats,

of course, Republicans are the ones with the power. Do you agree with Americans in that poll that see the shutdown as your party's fault?

You know what, I don't think the shutdown is popular for either side. And so I see the shutdown completely different from maybe my party leadership. And I'm not putting the blame on the president. I'm actually putting the blame on the speaker and Leader Thune and the Senate. This should not be happening.

And I don't think – look, as a member of Congress, we already have a low enough job approval rating. This shutdown is just going to drive everybody's approval rating that much lower.

But you say you're putting the blame on the leadership of your party.

Absolutely, we control the House, we control the Senate, we have the White House. I've been vocal saying, you know, you can use the nuclear option in the Senate. This doesn't have to be a shutdown. But what we have to do is we have to work for the American people.

And our country is so divided right now. We see it all the time in every single way. It's divided in what I would say very dangerous ways. And we saw that with the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk, which has upset so many people across the board. And look, when it comes to hearing from senior citizens

or my own friends and neighbors and my own family members and people that voted for me, and they're just saying, Marjorie, we just really want somebody to do something about health insurance premiums. We really want our government and our leaders to actually focus on our country for a change

and fix our problems. That is the message I constantly hear from my district and I'm a representative. I don't have to be a cheerleader for my party. I have to represent my district because those are the people that hired me and sent me here

and I myself, I agree with them and I'm pretty much over the, it's just drama constantly on TV. No offense, because you guys are on television, but that's all that we see in American politics

now. You know, there's a reporting that President Trump, as you know, recently called at least two senior Republicans to ask, and I'm quoting now from these reports, what's going on with Marjorie, end quote. Have you talked to the president about this issue, Lee? It's obviously so personal for you.

Well, you know, the president has my cell phone number and he's called me many, many times. So if he wants-

How recently?

I don't get into that kind of details, but he knows how to call me and he can ask me himself. But here's the deal, there's also this, and I'm not blaming you guys, but there is a media narrative trying to say that I don't support the president.

I absolutely support the president. I campaigned for him for years. But I'm also an action person and I want my party to solve problems.

And you say that he's not getting good advice though.

You told Monty Raju what specifically? Well, I don't think it's good advice that a government shutdown is going to help Republicans in the midterms. I don't agree with that. I also don't think it's good advice that Republicans ignoring the health insurance crisis is going to be good for midterms. I actually think that would be very bad for midterms. And I think that just not staying focused on America First policies

is detrimental as well. Yeah, and on that note, are you concerned about the cost of living? Very. That the President Trump said he would lower? Inflation crushed people in the past four and a half years, and the costs have not come down. I myself can tell you my apartment here in Washington, D.C.,

the electricity bill is $100 more than it was last year, because you can look at your own bill and look at costs. Prices have not come down. That is a reality. People's wages have not gone up. That's another reality.

And so Americans are continuing to have a very difficult time getting by. And I'll go a step further. I'm a mom. And so when it comes to what is affecting my adult children's

lives, who are 22, 26, and 28, I'm going to be 1,000% fighting for them over any politician and any party. And I can tell you right now, that generation, they are barely making it. And they're very hopeless for their future.

So you're a mom first, a politician second.

That's right, I'm a mom first.

That's good to hear.

So I wanna just ask you also about another issue you've been really outspoken about, and of course that is the Jeffrey Epstein files, wanting to release those. I know Democrats have also been calling for that. A few other Republicans as well. The Democrats are accusing Speaker Johnson

of delaying the swearing in of Arizona's Democratic Congresswoman-elect because she would give the last vote needed to release those Epstein files. I'm wondering, you know, the Speaker for his part, he has denied that.

He said it's because of the shutdown. Have you spoken to him? Do you think she should be sworn in right away?

Well, I'll I'll say it like this. I can't conclusively say if that's why the House is not in session, but the House should be in session and the House should be in session for many reasons we have appropriation bills

that need to get passed. There is a new Democrat that's been elected that does deserve to be sworn in. Her district elected her. We have other bills that we need to be passing. And if it's to avoid the discharge petition, why drag this out? That is going to have 218 signatures. And so I say, go ahead and do it and get it over with.

You know, the big news that we're all following right now is obviously the ceasefire deal between Israel and do it and get it over with. You know, the big news that we're all following right now is obviously the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas and Gaza and the hostage deal that all the remaining Israeli hostages, dead and alive, will be allowed to go back to Israel. President Trump says he might be going to the region

as early as this Friday. He wants to be there when this historic moment unfolds. He wants to witness this, talk to his aides, talk to the Israelis, talk to the Palestinians as well. Do you have any concerns at all that this deal could still, God forbid, fall apart?

I don't know. I certainly applaud the president. This has been one of the issues that I've campaigned on and talked about constantly. I'm very much against America's involvement in foreign wars. And the president has worked very hard on this. However, we have to see Israel and Hamas, both sides,

truly cement this agreement. But I certainly hope for all involved that this definitely is a peace deal that will remain.

We all hope that, yeah.

And on July 28th, you talked about that. You said, quote, it's the most truthful and easiest thing to say that October 7th in Israel was horrific and that all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza. On that note, when it comes to the genocide,

I mean, do you believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal?

I don't know if I can accuse him of being a war criminal. However, well, let's just say both issues are bad. That's why I said that. What happened on October 7th is absolutely horrific. And of course, our hearts go out to those families and those hostages that remain.

But at the same time, the relentless bombing of the Palestinian people, and many of them have been just innocent people. They're not Hamas. They're literally women and children, and you can't unsee the amount of pictures and videos

of children that have been blown to pieces and are, they're finding them dead in the rubble. That isn't, those aren't actors, that isn't fake war propaganda, it's very real. And I think that is equally horrific. I just really, I wanna CNN to it,

and I think most Americans do.

And I mean, with President Trump's involvement, it looks like, you know, this first phase, a ceasefire, it's happening. We're monitoring all of that closely. Of course, it's very tenuous. I want to ask you about something else

that Ted Cruz responded to. So you recently suggested on X that a, quote, foreign government or powerful people may try to kill you. Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas shared that post of yours on X, writing, quote, why do crazy people keep thinking

the Jews are trying to kill them? What do you say to Cruz and and what did you mean by that?

Well, first, that was an extremely ridiculous thing for Ted Cruz to say. I never said Jewish people. I'm not anti Semitic. 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. I have some of the highest amount of death threats as a sitting member in the House of Representatives.

And when you speak about certain issues, we can watch the calls and the emails and the messages. They increase and the threats increase. And so when I say I am seriously concerned for my life and I say if something ever happens to me, I really mean it.

It's okay for me to say that. This is the time that we're living in where we're seeing political violence. And I'm totally against it completely in every which way. But when I say something like that and to have another Republican of my own party

insult me and insinuate I'm saying something I never said is absolutely unacceptable.

Right. And I know a lot of members of Congress are getting threats, which is, you know, we can't tolerate that. But when you say the foreign government are

powerful people, who specifically were you alluding to there? I'm saying anyone. Any foreign government. And any people of power. I'm talking about the Epstein list. This has been the most, I don't understand why. I genuinely do not understand why there's been any effort to hide this and prevent it from coming out, but because of the efforts for years now

to hide it and prevent it from coming out, it certainly makes you feel afraid when you're one of the ones truly on the front lines pushing it to come out. I also serve on the Oversight Committee and we're leading that investigation there.

So I'm involved on both fronts, the Oversight Committee investigation, as well as my signatures on the discharge petition.

And you don't think Oversight's doing enough on that?

Actually, to tell you the truth, the Oversight investigation has the power to go much further than Thomas Massey and Ro Khanna's resolution. But they're not doing that. Why do you think that is, in your view? Well, number one, there's a government shutdown and the House is not in session, so nothing is happening. But actually, the Oversight Committee

has subpoenaed a lot more information than Thomas Massey's resolution specifically calls for. But here's my stance. I'll work on any, this involves women who were raped. Women at 14 years old who were raped, and they say there's more people involved. I don't know how anyone in their good conscience

can be against letting that information come out. So I wanna help on any front that I can.

You're a courageous politician, but more important, a loving mother. Thanks very much for coming in. We hope you'll come back here in the Situation Room.

I would love to.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Congresswoman. Thank you very much, Congresswoman. Appreciate it very, very much.