Just back from summer recess, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene indicated she is more than happy to be getting to work – without the camaraderie of her colleagues in the far-right Freedom Caucus she was once a member of.
Speaking with reporters outside of the Capitol on Thursday, Ms Greene shared her thoughts on the appropriations process regarding a defence bill that she voted against.
While doing so, the Georgia congresswoman notably expressed some light frustrations with some of her fellow ultraconservative members of Congress who did not participate in a closed-door conference despite voting against the spending bill.
“I’m not a member of the burn-it-all-down caucus anymore,” Ms Greene, of Georgia, said, according to The Hill. “I’m a greatly, very happily, a free agent and I want to do my job here.”
Ms Greene’s comment is a reminder that she was booted from the House Freedom Caucus earlier this year after clashing with her colleagues over the debt limit bill and getting into a vulgar argument with Rep Lauren Boebert on the House floor over stealing her idea to impeach President Joe Biden.
Once a prominent member of the far-right congressional caucus, Ms Greene is now forced to operate without the collective bargaining power that comes with the group.
The congressional group raised hell for Kevin McCarthy in January by refusing to vote for him for speaker of the House unless he met some of their demands.
Since then, they’ve enacted similar strategies when voting for legislation to enact, or remove, policies.
But despite losing the backing of the group, Ms Greene still confidently indicated she would vote against the defence bill unless leadership got rid of spending allocation toward the Ukraine war.
“I won’t vote for any bill that funds a war in Ukraine,” Ms Greene told reporters.
Several members of the House Freedom Caucus also voted against the bill and asked Mr McCarthy to take a more hard-line approach to budget cuts before sending the bill to the Senate and President Biden.
But Ms Greene pointed out that some of those same people who voted against the bill did not contribute to the appropriations conversation
“A lot of my colleagues that are saying those things weren’t even in the room, so they weren’t there to hear any of the conversation nor raise their concerns,” Ms Green said.
She added: “They can’t stand out and hold press conferences but not attend our conference meetings and expect to work things out.”
