Traditionally seen as occupying a more staid, straight-laced and “conservative” end of the American political spectrum, the modern Republican party has, under President Donald Trump, become a hub for many of the theories formerly relegated to the fringes of national discourse. Over the past decade, the conservative movement has elevated adherents to claims of demonic possession, extraterrestrial infiltration and, most recently, instantaneous transportation.

Just months after being nominated to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s core Office of Response and Recovery in late 2025, top FEMA official Gregg Phillips became the subject of an investigation into his “rise to prominence” as a “far-right activist” who “spread conspiracy theories,” said CNN. Phillips’ claim that he’d spontaneously teleported to a Waffle House restaurant in the city of Rome, Georgia, has “generated numerous headlines and at least one biting late-night comedy segment,” The New York Times said.

Rep. Tim Burchett: UFO disclosures the country would ‘come unglued’ over

“We need full disclosure,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn) said to Newsmax in April. “The public has a right to know, dadgummit, it’s your tax dollars. Let’s get it out there.” Asked by host Rob Finnerty about the aliens-exist claims from former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, Burchett, who sits on both the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committees, said he’d been “briefed by just about every alphabet agency there is.” If the national security apparatus were to “release the things that I’ve seen, you’d be up at night worrying about or thinking about it.”

One of Burchett’s recent classified briefings “would have set the earth” on fire and cause the country to “come unglued,” the Tennessee lawmaker said. Outer space revelations are “getting covered up, and the people that know are dying or disappearing.”

Tucker Carlson: demonic origins of atomic weaponry

Onetime Fox News juggernaut Tucker Carlson insists a nocturnal attack from supernatural forces once left him bloody and scarred while his family slept unmolested. The claim, made in footage from the unreleased “Christianities?” documentary, was accompanied by “creepy music, reenactments of Carlson firing a gun and dogs running through the woods in slow motion,” The Seattle Times said.

Nuclear weaponry is also “demonic,” Carlson said on the Bannons War Room podcast to former White House advisor Steve Bannon. Anyone who “claims otherwise” is “either ignorant or doing the bidding of the forces that created nuclear technology in the first place, which were not human forces obviously.”

Matt Gaetz: alien hybrid breeding program

Once a front-runner to lead the Trump administration’s Justice Department, former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz claimed on The Benny Show podcast in late March that the U.S. government is engaged in a human-extraterrestrial breeding program, with eyes on making inroads to the broader galactic community.

“An actual uniformed member of the United States Army briefed me,” Gaetz said to right-wing political commentator and podcaster Benny Johnson. Despite taking place in a “non-classified setting,” Gaetz said the soldier showed him “locations of hybrid breeding programs where captured aliens were breeding with humans to create some hybrid race that could engage in intergalactic communication.” During the interview, Gaetz “admitted he didn’t verify the whistleblower’s claims,” HuffPost said, but added he was told there were “between six and 12 breeding facilities around the country.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene: Jewish space lasers

Perhaps the most infamous Trump-era Republican flight of sci-fi fancy is that of former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who in 2018 claimed in a since-deleted Facebook note that a series of catastrophic California wildfires were potentially started by a beam from “space solar generators” under the nebulous control of the Rothschild banking firm — itself a longstanding shibboleth for antisemitic conspiracy theories. In a 2025 interview on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Greene said she “didn’t even know the Rothschilds were Jewish” and also claimed UFOs “could be fallen angels.”

Roger Stone: demon portal above White House

In 2022, longtime Trump ally and conservative operator Roger Stone claimed on the Eric Metaxas Radio Show that a “demonic portal” had appeared above the White House “around the time that the Bidens moved in.” Insisting he’d been initially skeptical, Stone said he was convinced, in part, by a friend’s sending him a “bunch of documents and also a bunch of notations from the Bible about portals,” adding that he had seen the alleged 1600 Pennsylvania Ave vortex “swirling like a cauldron.” Asked why the apparent rift in space-time hadn’t been reported on by mainstream news outlets, Stone said simply that the media “doesn’t cover a lot of things that are true.”

JD Vance: UFOs as demons

Asked during a recent interview with Benny Johnson about federal tracking of UFOs and other potentially extraterrestrial phenomena, Vice President JD Vance offered a slightly different take on whether or not advanced civilizations were visiting Earth: “I don’t think they’re aliens, I think they’re demons,” Vance said. Pressed to expand on his assertion about “celestial beings who fly around, who do weird things to people,” Vance said there is a “desire to describe everything celestial, everything otherworldly” as “aliens.” Put simply, said Slate, Vance “appears to believe that aliens visit Earth” and that those aliens “are actually demons.”

Congressional Republicans do not often love their leaders. They booted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023 and replaced him with the then-nearly unknown Mike Johnson. Now Johnson faces a revolt from high-profile women in his ranks.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) hold on the speaker’s gavel “appears weaker than ever,” said The New York Times. Public anger has come from GOP figures like Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), a member of Johnson’s leadership team, as well as Reps. Nancy Mace (S.C.) and Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.), who circumvented Johnson to force a vote on a congressional stock trading ban. House Republicans are often fractious, “but it does seem like there is an unusually high level of discontent,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley (Calif.) to the Times. Johnson “wouldn’t have the votes to be speaker if there was a roll-call vote tomorrow,” Stefanik said to The Wall Street Journal.

Female GOP lawmakers have “less representation in leadership” and hold just one committee chairmanship in the lower chamber, said NBC News. The women “feel they have been passed over for opportunities” and believe Johnson has repeatedly undercut them. “We aren’t taken seriously,” said one anonymous female Republican to NBC. Johnson’s team is pushing back. The speaker has “helped recruit and support women running for office,” a spokesman said. It is a conflict Johnson needs to resolve. Republicans have a slim majority in the House, and he cannot afford any defections.

What did the commentators say?

“The GOP women are humiliating Mike Johnson,” said Joe Perticone at The Bulwark. It started when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) backed the petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files. It has come to a head with Stefanik, angry with Johnson over her proposal to require the FBI to disclose when it investigates congressional candidates. All of it is a sign that House Republicans are on the verge of “entering into open rebellion” against their leader. The party’s women are “giving Johnson the bird” while GOP men in the House are living with the “indignity of being subservient cogs in the party machinery.”

It is not shocking that a party built on President Donald Trump’s “macho, politically incorrect swagger” is having trouble with women in its ranks, said Matt Lewis at The Hill. Johnson in particular is an evangelical “fond of lecturing about ’distinct roles’ for men and women.” He also makes an easy target for Republicans frustrated by the party’s political challenges, but who will not challenge Trump directly. Is the speaker a “retrograde misogynist” or just a patsy? “Either way, the ending is the same.”

What next?

Johnson is “imploring” his members to “stop venting their frustrations in public,” said The Associated Press. If there are conflicts, “come to me, don’t go to social media,” he said to reporters Thursday. More and more, though, GOP members are “ignoring him,” said the AP. House Democrats are delighted. Republicans are the “gang that can’t legislate straight,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries to the outlet.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene just wrecked the cult of Trump,” said Greg Sargent in The New Republic. Standing outside the U.S. Capitol last week with a group of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, the GOP representative slammed the president for calling her a “traitor” and a “ranting lunatic” because she helped force a vote on releasing government files on the deceased sex trafficker. In a barb clearly aimed at Trump—who reversed his opposition to releasing the files as it became clear he couldn’t stop the congressional effort—the Georgia Republican said a traitor “serves foreign countries and themselves” while a patriot serves “Americans like the women standing behind me now.” This “rift is a big deal,” said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch. That a “notorious Trump-slobberer” like Greene would openly resist the man who coined the phrase “Make America Great Again” is significant. But she’s also doing it while promoting the radical idea that MAGA “has discrete ideological content beyond the president’s whims and daily political needs.” If this notion catches fire on the Right, Greene could find herself leading “the first meaningful right-wing rebellion against autocracy of this era.”

The “MAGA crackup” goes far beyond Epstein, said Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times. In recent weeks, Greene has chided Trump for being too focused on striking foreign deals while ignoring “the five-alarm fire” of affordability and health-care costs. Other MAGA types have been infuriated by the president’s un–America First defense of skilled foreign worker visas, which he told Fox News are needed because Americans lack “certain talents.” A few days later, Trumpist influencer Mike Cernovich was raging online about “how overt the corruption” is within this administration. It was against this backdrop of spreading disaffection that Trump rebuked Greene—rebukes she said led to death threats against her and her family. “Many right-wing influencers reacted with unusual fury” to Trump’s jabs. Some even posted images of burning MAGA hats, a sign “that the MAGA coalition is fragmenting.”

Perhaps, said Joan Vennochi in The Boston Globe. But if the last decade has taught us anything, it’s that Trump’s “base sticks with him,” no matter what, and so far there’s little reason to think that this time will be different. True, Trump’s average approval rating— about 40%—is at a second-term low. But it’s only down some 2 points from September, which hardly signals some imminent sea change in his political fortunes. Trump’s Epstein-files “U-turn” may read as weakness to D.C. insiders, said Jack Blanchard in Politico. But it could be a “path to redemption” with his base. If Trump fulfills his promises and now delivers “an all-out blitz on ‘affordability,’” slashing tariffs and mailing out $2,000 “rebate checks,” MAGA might forget its “disenchantment.”

But Trump isn’t “losing control of MAGA” because of the growing incoherence of his policies, said Jeet Heer in The Nation. Figures like Greene are breaking with Trump, and MAGA is “splintering,” because the GOP’s voters, donors, and leaders are already looking past Trump to 2028, when the party will need a new standard bearer. Can a political coalition “created and unified by a cult leader” survive “without that cult leader”? asked Andrew Sullivan in his Substack newsletter. We’re about to find out. It’s less than a year until the 2026 midterms and perhaps only months before Donald J. Trump, as a political force, finds himself “quacking lamely in the rearview mirror.”

What happened

President Donald Trump Sunday night reversed course and said House Republicans should vote for an upcoming petition to force the release of the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein files.

Trump’s monthslong battle to quash the petition had divided his MAGA base and contributed to his “increasingly nasty split” with his former ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), The Associated Press said. Greene was one of four Republicans who forced an upcoming vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and Trump’s surprise about-face was an “implicit acknowledgement” that the measure has enough support to pass in the House.

Who said what

“House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax,” Trump said on social media last night. “I DON’T CARE!” He “threw in the towel” after it became clear his “last-minute push” to dissuade House Republicans “wasn’t getting results,” The Wall Street Journal said, and “risked calling even more attention to the matter.”

The “internal GOP strife underscores how politically toxic Trump’s association with Epstein has become,” especially since last week’s release of emails in which the convicted sex offender alleged that Trump “knew about the girls,” Politico said. The president “normally enjoys an iron grip” over “subservient” House Republicans, but “he’s lost all control over the chamber when it comes to the Epstein matter, and Hill Republicans have grown increasingly wary of Trump’s fixation on the issue.”

Greene told CNN Sunday that Trump’s break with her — including calling her a “ranting lunatic” he no longer supported on Friday and a “traitor” on Saturday — “unfortunately, it has all come down to the Epstein files.” She said she did not think the files would show any wrongdoing by Trump. “I have no idea what’s in the files,” Greene added. “I can’t even guess. But that is the question everyone is asking, is why fight this so hard?”

What next?

One reason Trump had fought to “avoid a total GOP jailbreak”, Politico said, was that a big win “could increase pressure on the Senate to take up the bill,” potentially “forcing an embarrassing veto that would prolong the controversy.” Lead sponsor Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) told ABC News Sunday his Epstein petition “could have a deluge of Republicans” voting in favor tomorrow, “100 or more,” and he was “hoping to get a veto-proof majority.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) once lockstep adherence to the Trump administration is beginning to shift — in no small part due to the White House’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation that has become a major millstone around the administration’s neck. But does the growing daylight between the U.S. representative from Georgia and this White House signal a genuine political realignment for the MAGA mainstay? Or is the controversial congresswoman simply showing that she has learned how to play politics in Washington with the best of them?

‘More subtle than she first appeared’

The schism between Greene and President Donald Trump reached a crescendo last week, when Trump attacked “‘Wacky’ Marjorie” on Truth Social for her tendency to “COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!” and for having “gone Far Left, even doing The View, with their Low IQ Republican hating Anchors.” The president’s opprobrium, including his withdrawal of political support for Greene, comes as the congresswoman tests “whether Republicans can openly defy Trump and survive” by “betting that standing with Epstein victims is a powerful enough shield to withstand the wrath” of this White House, said Axios.

While the fight over releasing the Epstein documents is the most proximal episode to Greene’s distancing herself from Trump, the “turn against the president” has been unfolding “over the last several months,” said Rolling Stone. Greene has “publicly questioned his foreign policy decision” and critiqued his “support of Israel” and “domestic political maneuvering” on health care, said Rolling Stone. Greene has “asserted that she remained committed to the MAGA movement,” but Trump’s criticisms were a “stunning rebuke” of one of his “fiercest defenders,” said The Washington Post.

In offering an apology for her role in “inflaming the country’s poisoned politics” during a CNN interview this weekend, Greene succeeded in “furthering her own intriguing political reinvention,” the network said. Greene’s “evolution” suggests a politician who is both “more subtle than she first appeared” and who is “increasingly adept at wielding her own power.”

‘Apostasies’ that do not negate a ‘lifetime of conspiracies’

Greene’s pivot may very well be an “honest evolution, which entails accountability,” or it might be mere “shallow opportunism, which offers none,” said The Atlantic. “Recent apostasies from her party” do not automatically negate Greene’s “lifetime of conspiracies.” Although she has said she “still supports Trump,” Greene now wants to “stop the toxic rhetoric” that “if we’re being honest, has been a staple” of her career, said Poynter.

Surprising as Greene’s political pivots may seem, there is reason to see the moves as less about a newfound sense of independence and more about a broader dynamic taking shape within the GOP at large. Trump’s attacks on the congresswoman come during a “politically fraught moment” for GOP lawmakers “feeling squeamish after a crushing off-season election cycle,” Politico said.

The Trump-Greene feud is “highlighting the cracks within MAGA world” in ways that are “increasingly apparent through MAGA-aligned media brands and commentators,” CNN’s Brian Stelter said on Bluesky. What’s notable is “not the number of the cracks but the sheer *variety* of them.”

Even “presidents-turned-cult leaders become lame ducks eventually,” said Gabe Fleisher in his “Wake Up To Politics” newsletter. And though there is likely “some personal element” to Greene’s decision to split from Trump, “at least publicly, it’s over policy divides.”

Greene frequently falls on the less popular side of whatever issues she’s broken with Trump over, but she is nevertheless often “on the side quickly gaining popularity in the GOP.” Greene’s outspoken critiques may then be “just the latest hint,” said CNN, that Republicans are “beginning to assess” the president’s behavior and how it “might weigh on their fortunes when he no longer controls the GOP.”

We live in strange times, said Holly Hudson on The Daily Beast. Who’d have thought, for instance, that the day would come when Marjorie Taylor Greene began “sounding... kind of reasonable”?

The Georgia congresswoman has until now been best known as a conservative firebrand and conspiracy loon. She famously suggested that wildfires might have been started by “Jewish space lasers”, and railed against the “Gazpacho police” (she meant “Gestapo”).

Over recent weeks, however, this once-staunch Donald Trump loyalist has started taking the administration to task. She has blamed Republican leaders for the government shutdown; sided with Democrats in calling for an extension of tax credits for health insurance; railed against high inflation; and stated that her party has “no plan”.

‘Dipping a toe in the pool of Trump defiance’

Greene’s independent streak has not gone unnoticed by Trump, who has apparently been calling around and asking: “What’s been going on with Marjorie?” Trump is right to ask, said Melanie Zanona on NBC News, as Greene is “arguably more in tune with the Maga base than any other member of Congress”. Her attacks may, in fact, be partly motivated by pique: sources say she’s cross that the White House talked her out of running for the Senate, and is disappointed not to have been given a cabinet role.

But there’s also political calculation at work, said Rex Huppke in USA Today. Greene is positioning herself for the post-Trump era. She can see that the president’s popularity is sliding and that the economy is not working well for most Americans. She’s a “gifted grifter dipping a toe in the pool of Trump defiance to see if it makes waves she can ride”.

‘Echoing the frustrations she’s hearing’

Greene’s rebellion is a warning to the Republicans, said Matt Wylie in The State. “She’s not going rogue; she’s echoing the frustrations she’s hearing from her own base.” Trump keeps insisting that prices are falling, yet it’s clear his trade tariffs are hitting people in the pocket. Grocery bills are rising; pay cheques are shrinking. Some voters, meanwhile, are unhappy about Trump launching legal assaults on his political enemies and deploying troops in cities.

“Economic pain, institutional mistrust and political exhaustion are converging into something volatile – a storm of disillusionment that no amount of populist rhetoric can overcome.” The GOP needs to start governing more effectively, or “the cracks in the Maga movement will only widen”.

For much of the 21st century, American political support for Israel has been a bipartisan exercise, cutting across the aisle to become one of the few universally agreed-upon subjects in Washington, D.C. However, as Israel's siege of the Gaza Strip nears the two-year mark, that broad support has eroded significantly.

Not only are Democrats increasingly willing to criticize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ultranationalist government, but certain conservative circles are, too. While President Donald Trump had made the vociferous backing of Israel a key feature of his administration, some members of his MAGA coalition have begun publicly breaking from the party orthodoxy and speaking out against Israel's conduct in Gaza.

'Growing skepticism' over Israel from the right

While the Trump White House has been "measured" in its criticism of Israel, its "cautious approach" contrasts with the "ascendance of a loud wing of the president's base that has sharply criticized Israel," said Politico. While "plenty" of Republicans, including "MAGA loyalists," are still "backing Israel," the party's right flank is growing "increasingly frustrated" with support for a war they see as "politically noxious" and a "moral stain on the country's reputation."

Writing on X that the situation in Gaza amounted to "genocide, humanitarian crisis and starvation," Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) became the "first Republican in Congress" to describe the situation in Gaza as a "genocide" — an "indication of growing skepticism on the right about Israel's conduct of the war," said The New York Times. That Trump himself broke with Netanyahu recently by affirming mass starvation was happening across Gaza is "creating space for a GOP realignment on Israel," Axios said. While "America First" MAGA supporters have been historically skeptical of U.S. foreign aid, Trump had "carved out an exception for Israel," the consensus for which has "eroded at a stunning rate" recently.

While the majority of mainstream Republicans still support Israel's war on Gaza "virtually unconditionally," conservatives willing to speak against the Gaza war are "becoming more influential online and outside Washington," said Responsible Statecraft. That's true "particularly among conservatives under 30."

Republicans willing to speak out about Israel's wartime conduct are likely "reading the tea leaves in terms of public opinion," said Northeastern University Political Scientist Costas Panagopoulos at Newsweek. Lawmakers have been "getting pressure from constituencies about what's going on in Gaza" and are being asked to "hold Israel to account."

Violence that hits 'significantly closer to home'

MAGA's "increasing unease" about Trump's Gaza policy has both put "a spotlight on the administration's close ties with Israel" while raising "additional questions" about Trump's plans moving forward, said The Hill. Escalating violence in both Gaza and the West Bank "hits significantly closer to home" for many of Trump's more "traditionally" conservative supporters who may be "less swayed by flashy controversies" than they are by "harm to Christians" living in those communities, Haaretz said.

"My people are starting to hate Israel," Trump reportedly told a Jewish donor recently, according to a "Middle East expert who speaks regularly with the administration," said the Financial Times. Even so, it's important to avoid "overstating the impact of critics on the far right."

"I don't think" the MAGA frustrations will lead to a "blow-up with Israel and Trump," said the expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity. But "there are people in the White House who are watching this narrative develop in the right wing, in the MAGA world, that is very anti-Israel, very anti-Jewish.”

A few years ago, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and her brand of conspiracy-minded, populist politics seemed to be on the outside looking in. One of several members of the House who was openly aligned with the January 6 Capitol rioters, Greene's close relationship with President Trump looked less like an act of strategic genius and more like she had lashed herself to the bow of a sinking ship. With the then-former president facing a litany of legal and financial difficulties and Democrats holding a trifecta in Washington, D.C., her story might have ended there — if not for Trump's stunning political comeback in 2024. This ultimately led to pardons for everyone convicted in connection with January 6 and the sudden elevation of once-fringe figures like Greene into the political mainstream. After serving as mocked and maligned sidekicks to more serious GOP figures during the first Trump administration, Greene and her allies are now firmly in the driver's seat of national politics. While she has left some of her most outlandish theorizing behind, she continues to say things out loud that most people might leave tucked safely away in the nooks and crannies of their internal monologues.

The co-owner of a general contracting firm and CrossFit franchise before she was elected to the House, Greene rose to prominence as a conservative media figure during the first Trump administration when she published a series of articles for a website called American Truth Seekers. At the now-shuttered website, she "wrote favorably of the QAnon conspiracy theory, suggested that Hillary Clinton murdered her political enemies and ruminated on whether mass shootings were orchestrated to dismantle the Second Amendment," said NBC News. She further boosted her profile prior to her 2020 House campaign with viral stunts, including "a since-deleted Facebook Live" video in which she tried to visit Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in her office and referred to it as "a day care" while "mocking the staff for keeping the door locked," said CNN. But her relentless antics have never seemed to bother voters in her district — she ran unopposed in the 2024 Republican primary for her seat and won a third term in the general election by almost 30 points.

Allegedly conducted extramarital affairs at a CrossFit gym

In 2012, Greene reportedly had affairs with two men at the CrossFit gym where she was employed in Alpharetta, Georgia, "one with a tantric sex guru named Craig Ivey, and another with a gym manager named Justin Tway," said the Independent. She filed for divorce from her husband, Perry, that year but the couple got back together before finalizing a divorce in December 2022. Greene denied the allegations. The episode did not prevent Greene from publicly accusing Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) of having an affair with a Chinese spy during a House Homeland Security committee meeting on April 25, 2023. Republicans had hoped to land blows against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, whom they would later impeach, but "Greene's performance sidetracked that conversation," said Fox News.

Promoted QAnon and other conspiracy theories

The QAnon conspiracy theory held that an "anonymous person called Q was revealing secrets about a child trafficking ring orchestrated by Democrats and global elites," said The Washington Post. Prior to her election to Congress, Greene contributed to the extremist website American Truth Seekers, where she promoted QAnon beliefs. She also "further pushed conspiracy theories on her Facebook page," including the idea that the 2019 mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 51 people was a false-flag operation designed to undermine American gun rights, said Rolling Stone. Greene also used social media to back conspiracy theories about 9/11 as well as "casting doubt on school shootings," said The Washington Post. "I was allowed to believe things that weren't true and I would ask questions about them and talk about them, and that is absolutely what I regret," said Greene when her past behavior caused Democrats to strip her of her committee assignments in February, 2021.

Blamed California wildfires on space lasers

In a 2018 Facebook post written before her election to Congress, Greene speculated that the deadly Camp Fire was deliberately sparked by Jewish elites in cahoots with the governor of California and power company PG&E to clear land for a high-speed rail project. Her conclusions were based on the observation that "oddly there are all these people who have said they saw what looked like lasers or blue beams causing the fires," leading many observers to claim that Greene believed in "Jewish space lasers." Critics blasted the ludicrous ideas in her post. "Aren't there easier ways to get your rail stations approved by the state legislature?" said Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine. Greene's post was not just absurd but also anti-semitic because "people have used claims that this one particular wealthy family controls the world to cast aspersions on Jews in general" for centuries, said Zack Beauchamp at Vox.

Compared masks and vaccine mandates to the Holocaust

On May 20, 2021, during an interview with David Brody of the far-right news network Real America Voice, Greene complained about the requirement to wear masks during House proceedings. Forcing Jews to wear gold stars and sending them by rail to concentration camps "is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about," said Greene. She later apologized, saying "there are words that I have said, remarks that I have made, that I know are offensive, and for that, I want to apologize." She continued to use analogies to compare vaccine mandates to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. "People have a choice, they don't need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations," said Greene in a July 6, 2021, post on X.

Opposed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election

Following President Donald Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Greene quickly embraced his lies about Democrats using fraud to change the outcome. "I will not certify a stolen election," she wrote in a January 3, 2021, post on X. There remains no credible evidence that there was systematic fraud in the 2020 election. "Biden won the election, fairly and legally," said CNN.

Greene was one of the 139 House Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election during the counting of electoral votes on January 6, 2021, a process which was interrupted by the Capitol insurrection. Greene continued to insist that the 2020 election was stolen, and prior to the 2024 election claimed in an interview with far-right extremist Alex Jones that voting machines were switching early votes in Georgia. After Trump's victory in 2024, she did not make any further accusations of election fraud.

Blamed the January 6, 2021, insurrection on Black Lives Matter and Antifa

Greene has vacillated between blaming the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot on left-wing agitators and complaining about how Black Lives Matter protesters allegedly got away with violence during the summer of 2020. Initially, she scoffed at the idea that Trump supporters could really have been behind the riot. "If the #Jan6 organizers were Trump supporters, then why did they attack us while we were objecting to electoral college votes for Joe Biden?" she said in a February 9, 2021, post on X. Greene still sometimes groundlessly blames the insurrection on left-wing agitators. "I fully believe they were Antifa/BLM [Black Lives Matter] rioters," said Greene in a November 2023 appearance on Triggered, Donald Trump, Jr.'s podcast.

Endorsed violence against Democrats

In social media posts prior to her election to Congress, Greene repeatedly endorsed violence against prominent Democratic officials, including former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In one video posted to Facebook in 2019, Greene accused Pelosi of treason, which is "a crime punishable by death," said Greene. In another 2020 Facebook post prior to her election, Greene posted a picture of herself holding an assault rifle next to pictures of Reps. Rashida Tlaib (R-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-MInn.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) with the caption "Squad's Worst Nightmare." That history of violent rhetoric and imagery was part of the reason Democrats voted to remove her from committees in 2021.

Suggested Democrats manipulated Hurricane Helene to influence the 2024 election

Greene's history of building conspiracies around natural disasters got longer in October 2024, when Hurricane Helene ravaged parts of the U.S. Southeast a month before the presidential election, including the electoral battleground state of North Carolina. "Yes they can control the weather," said Greene in an October 3, 2024 post on X. "It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done." The post remains live and undeleted on her timeline. The congresswoman "is no stranger to misinformation" and her comments were "met with a wave of criticism," said The Guardian. Her comments even prompted some in her own party to disavow the conspiracy, including Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.). "Nobody can control the weather," said Edwards in an October 8, 2024 press release. Many observers, however, were not shocked. "Some things in this world that are inevitable: death, sunrise and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene responding to tragedies with pure insanity," said Rolling Stone. Following the Texas flooding disaster over the July 4 weekend that killed 138 people, Greene introduced a bill that will "prohibit the release of chemicals into the atmosphere intended to change the weather, temperature, climate or block out sunlight," said Politico.

Traded stocks during the rollout of President Trump's new tariffs

Greene was one of a number of Republicans whose stock trading in April 2025, as President Trump was rolling out his "Liberation Day" tariff policies, raised suspicions. Greene "purchased between tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of stock on April 8 and 9, the day before and the day of" the tariff rollout, said The New York Times. Those dealings caused even fellow Republican Congressman Mike Lawler to argue that "stock trading by members of Congress or their spouses should be banned." She has also drawn criticism for investing in the company Palantir shortly before it received a massive contract from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Greene has "has long been dogged by allegations of insider trading, which she denies," said The Independent. The issue may yet cause a more problematic rift for the GOP, given that Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna "will attempt to force a House vote on a congressional stock trading ban in September," said Politico.

Claimed the death of Pope Francis was a blow struck by God against evil

Following the death of Pope Francis on April 21, 2025, Greene posted inflammatory remarks on X suggesting that his passing was a deliberate part of God's battle against wickedness. "Today, there were major shifts in global leaderships," said Greene. "Evil is being defeated by the hand of God." Greene never elaborated on exactly what she meant and "did not issue any clarification after coming under fire for the post," said The New Republic. "While it's unclear if the post was directly referencing Pope Francis," she has "been critical of church leadership" during the reign of Francis, said Yahoo News. According to the congresswoman, she left the church years ago after she became a mother, "because I realized that I could not trust the Church leadership to protect my children from pedophiles," said Greene in an April 27, 2022 post on X. That post was itself an attempt to mitigate the fallout from an interview she had given in which she claimed that "Satan's controlling the church."

Feuded with Trump advisor Laura Loomer

In August 2025, a deposition of Laura Loomer stemming from her defamation lawsuit against HBO talk show host Bill Maher was leaked to the press. In the deposition, the conspiracy-theorist-turned-Trump-consigliere who wields extraordinary power inside the White House unleashed a series of wild accusations against Greene, including that the Georgia congresswoman routinely puts Arby's roast beef in her pants. When pressed for details about how she knows this, Loomer responded, "Because I know she likes to eat at Arby's." In the deposition, Loomer also accused Greene of being a "political prostitute" who performed sex acts on former House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as well as a "raging anti-semite" who is disliked by senior members of President Trump's staff. Loomer has also attacked Greene for her criticisms of the U.S. backing Israel. "It's the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct. 7 in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis and starvation happening in Gaza," said Greene in a July 28 post on X. Loomer and Greene have traded accusations of corruption, with Greene claiming Loomer is an Israeli intelligence asset and Loomer accusing Greene of funneling campaign cash to her daughter. Given that Loomer appears to have the power to make consequential personnel decisions on bodies like the National Security Council, her feud with Greene may lead to her falling out of favor with President Trump, a cruel fate for those who yoke their political fortunes to the MAGA leader.

In a MAGA world of extreme-sounding influencers and agitators, Laura Loomer stands out. She has promoted conspiracy theories suggesting that 9/11 was an "inside job" and suggested that various American gun massacres were really carried out by "crisis actors" or ISIS terrorists. She is a self-proclaimed "white advocate" who is no stranger to racially charged remarks. Now she's hitting the campaign trail with Donald Trump.

That makes Republicans nervous. The former president's allies are worried Loomer's visibility at campaign events "could cost him votes in key battleground states," said NBC News. One recent Loomer comment — that the "White House will smell like curry" if Kamala Harris, whose mother is Indian, is elected — raised sharp concerns among GOP officials trying to get Trump elected. "She has to go," said one unidentified Trump supporter.

"I think that the president would serve himself well to make sure this doesn't become a bigger story," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a dedicated Trump supporter. Loomer's "rhetoric and hateful tone" are a problem, said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), herself a frequent user of charged rhetoric. Democrats are joining in. "No leader should ever associate with someone who spreads this kind of ugliness, this kind of racist poison," said White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre.

What did the commentators say?

"Laura Loomer is the symptom. The real problem is Donald Trump," Ruth Marcus said at The Washington Post. Loomer is a "pungent example" of the people Trump chooses to associate with — adviser Stephen Miller, strategist Stephen Bannon and consultant Roger Stone among them. But Loomer's provocations "take the cake," so much that Trump's fellow Republicans are urging him to create some distance. That's good advice: Any "sane" politician "would stay as far away from a person like this as possible."

Loomer's public career has been "full-tilt insane and repulsively cheap," Jeffrey Blehar said at National Review. She's part of a "toxic ecosystem" of alt-right personalities known both for their loyalty to Trump and "contempt for the truth." And now she has found her way into Donald Trump's "direct orbit." But it is folly to blame Loomer for Trump's tendency to surround himself with "attaboying toadies." Loomer is a "symptom" of Trump's problems. "Trump knows by now the kind of people he wants surrounding him."

What next?

Trump has made a "half-hearted" attempt to downplay Loomer's presence, said MSNBC. "Laura Loomer doesn't work for the campaign," he wrote on Truth Social. And he told reporters on the campaign trail that she is a "free spirit" but otherwise denied knowledge of her activities. "I don't know that much about it," he said.

Loomer, meanwhile, is accusing the media of a "smear campaign" against her, said The New Republic. It won't work: "Donald Trump likes me. Donald Trump trusts me. OK?" she said on her podcast. Those comments mean that the Trump campaign's efforts to paint her as an outsider "have fallen flat." But the backlash from GOP officials makes Loomer a "unique liability" during election season, Ali Breland said in The Atlantic: "Laura Loomer is where Republicans draw the line."

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), an ardent supporter of Donald Trump, tried to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) last week for allowing the approval of fresh aid for Ukraine. She failed, with Democrats joining most Republicans to defeat the motion to vacate in a lopsided 359-43 vote. Johnson said he appreciated the show of support and hoped "this is the end of the personality politics and the frivolous character assassination that has defined the 118th Congress."

Many of Greene's GOP colleagues booed her in what Newsweek described as a sign she has "lost Republicans." Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said his party's "decision to stop Marjorie Taylor Greene from plunging the House of Representatives and the country into further chaos is rooted in our commitment to solve problems for everyday Americans in a bipartisan manner." Trump, now campaigning to win back the White House, defended Johnson and warned that Greene's effort was stirring "chaos" at the wrong time, The New York Times reported. Greene has gone from the far-right fringes of the GOP caucus to a position of considerable influence as a voice of the MAGA faithful, but did she go too far this time?

MTG crossed a GOP red line

Marjorie Taylor Greene's moment of influence could be over, said Jemima Kelly in the Financial Times. The Republicans who booed her were not worried it would "get them in trouble with The Big Boss," even though she is the "embodiment of the MAGA faction of the GOP." Trump may have needed her support "when he had to compete with the likes of Ron DeSantis for the right-wing base of the Republican party." But now he has locked up the nomination and "doesn't need her anymore." It looks like MTG is "too MAGA for DJT." 

Greene's "public shaming was far too long in coming," said Patricia Lopez at Bloomberg. Her defiance of Johnson's peace offerings in private meetings "united a fractious GOP caucus" behind the speaker. Trump has obviously been "losing patience with Greene." She was "booted from the House Freedom Caucus last year for attacking fellow Republicans," and has "alienated" so many colleagues by showing "disregard for preserving a slim GOP majority in the House" that she appears to be a "spent force at this point." Her humiliating defeat "should remind House Republicans that they can unify and put down agitators within their ranks when needed."

She isn't going anywhere

Johnson's triumph gives the GOP a golden opportunity to start cleaning up its act, but don't hold your breath, said Alex Shephard in The New Republic. "Unfortunately, Marjorie Taylor Greene isn't going anywhere," because she still has Trump's support. Yes, he opposed the effort to take down Johnson. But he is "not really trying to chasten Greene, let alone excommunicate her." He merely wants her to dial back the "intraparty dysfunction" while he tries to win over moderates he needs to take back the White House from President Joe Biden. "Once the election ends, Trump has little reason to play nice with his fellow Republicans," and he'll go back to rewarding bomb-throwers like Greene for their "blind loyalty."

The liberal media will keep MTG relevant in the meantime, said Debra Saunders in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. She "made her bones trashing other Republicans," and as long as she keeps it up CNN will keep airing everything she says. Greene immediately showed she has no plans to give up the "shameless stunts" she uses to stick it to the establishment, spinning Johnson's survival as a victory for the "uni-party," as if any bipartisan vote is proof that mainstream Republicans are in cahoots with Democrats. The media loves to play up that kind of vitriol from the far right. "So even though Greene failed bigly, expect to see her nightly on the news channels as she shares her views on the Capitol steps with press scrums hanging on her every word. MTG is, after all, the gift that keeps on giving."

What happened

The House voted 359-43 on Wednesday to quash a bid by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to remove Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). Ten Republicans and 32 Democrats supported Greene's motion to vacate, but 196 Republicans and 163 Democrats quickly killed it.

Who said what

Greene, who had threatened to oust Johnson since he allowed the House to fund Ukraine's defense, read a list of his "transgressions" and called his leadership "pathetic, weak and unacceptable." As Greene spoke, "she was heckled from both sides of the aisle in an unusual display of bipartisan distaste toward a single lawmaker," said The Washington Post.

Johnson said he appreciated the "show of confidence from my colleagues to defeat this misguided effort." Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said his party's decision to stop Greene "from plunging the country into further chaos is rooted in our commitment to solve problems," not a love for Johnson.

"I absolutely love Marjorie Taylor Greene," former President Donald Trump said on social media after the vote, but Johnson is a "good man who is trying very hard" and Republicans are "not in a position of voting on a motion to vacate. At some point, we may very well be, but this is not the time."

What next?

Greene would not rule out further motions to oust Johnson, and Jeffries would not say if Democrats would help him survive a second time.

'Of course the death penalty is racist. And it would be wrong even if it weren't.'

Los Angeles Times editorial board

Civil rights groups have asked the California Supreme Court to invalidate the death penalty in the state, arguing it's racist, says the Los Angeles Times editorial board. They're right. A study found "Black defendants were 4.6 to 8.7 times more likely to be sentenced to death than other defendants," and the disparity was larger when the victim was white or Asian. But the death penalty "would still be wrong" if biases were eliminated. It gives the government "too much power."

Read more

'Marjorie Taylor Greene's attention ploy flops'

Joe Perticone in The Bulwark

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has been "dangling an axe over House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for weeks" for passing Ukraine aid, says Joe Perticone. But it's apparent even to the right-wing provocateur herself that she "overplayed her hand." Greene was hoping to boost her standing by ousting Johnson the way Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) got rid of Kevin McCarthy last year. But her antics have "further alienated herself from her colleagues" and diminished her influence.

Read more

'Biden should not stand in the way of the ICC'

Kenneth Roth in Foreign Policy

The Biden administration is trying to talk International Criminal Court prosecutors out of charging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for obstructing aid to Palestinians, but Washington's arguments "are weak," says Kenneth Roth. It insists the ICC lacks jurisdiction, but the governments that created the court two decades ago have already "overruled" that claim. "As it did for the alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine, the Biden administration should stand aside and let the ICC process run its course."

Read more

'New laws are turning police into "supercitizens"'

John Pfaff in The American Prospect

Republican state lawmakers are making "police more impervious to any meaningful oversight," says John Pfaff. Florida and Tennessee have "gutted" independent oversight boards, packing them with current and former officers. Elevating "police to the baronial class" threatens efforts to "make our criminal legal system more racially just." It also poses a "much bigger, existential threat" ahead of a presidential election in which "one candidate who has extraordinary police and first-responder support is unlikely" to concede if he loses.

Read more

What happened

House Democratic leaders said Tuesday that if Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) follows through with her attempt to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), they will help kill her motion to vacate.

Who said what

With Ukraine aid secured, "the time has come to turn the page on this chapter of Pro-Putin Republican obstruction," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and two other top Democrats said. If Greene "invokes the motion, it will not succeed." Johnson is now "officially the Democrat speaker of the House," Greene said. Johnson said he hadn't "requested assistance from anyone," but the country needs "a functioning Congress."

The commentary

Tuesday's announcement by House Democrats "appeared to dare Greene to act," The Washington Post said. If she does "plow forward" even though her push to fire Johnson is "firmly on track to fail," Politico said, Greene may be "hurting herself more than him."

What next?

Democrat Tim Kennedy's win in Tuesday's special congressional election in New York will "effectively shrink" Johnson's majority to a "single, tenuous vote on partisan issues," The New York Times said. Four upcoming special elections should bring "Republicans reinforcements, but not until this summer."

To be the president of the United States is to exist under pressures virtually unimaginable to nearly everyone else on Earth; you control a vast arsenal of weapons capable of destroying the planet many times over; you sit at the top one of of the most powerful, complex economies in history; the lives and wellbeing of hundreds of millions of people depend on your decisions; and to top it all off, you could, theoretically, be fired at any moment. But while impeachment has always been a Damoclean sword hanging over every president's head, it's historically loomed largely as an abstract concern, rather than an acute threat — until recently.

Speaking with Fox News' Sean Hannity this week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) asserted that his party's ongoing investigations into President Biden and his family's business dealings were "rising to the level of impeachment inquiry" — a statement he defended the following day, comparing the Biden administration to that of disgraced former President Richard Nixon. McCarthy's comments, although conspicuously vague and lacking any concrete timeline, "mark the furthest he's gone on a potential impeachment inquiry," Politico said. And although McCarthy denied any pressure from former President Donald Trump to push forward with impeaching Biden, his comments this week came amid "pressure from the hard right" of his party which has made investigating the president and his family a hallmark of Republicans' narrow congressional majority.

Crucially, McCarthy's escalation — and the GOP's thus far unfounded allegations — against the president exists in the broader context perhaps best stated by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who in a recent floor speech linked the conservative effort to impeach Biden with a contemporaneous push to expunge Trump's own impeachment record. To Greene and her allies, the two are inextricably connected, seemingly validating former GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert's 2019 prediction-cum-threat that Republicans would seek political retribution for Trump's impeachment. "We've already got the forms," Gohmert said. "all we have to do is eliminate Donald Trump's name and put Joe Biden's name in there."

With dueling impeachment narratives already saturating the 2024 presidential race, is this formerly rare political last resort our new presidential norm?

What are the commentators saying?

"If impeachment loses its taboo to become just another partisan instrument with implications for elections and fundraising, that would weaken its power as an emergency mechanism," Axios said in 2019, during the first Trump impeachment trial. Whether that process has already begun, however, is unclear. "I do not see this as the beginning of a trend or more likelihood for impeachments in the future," Berkley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky told the outlet. "I think it is the coincidence of having had a few recent presidents who have committed acts worthy of consideration as impeachable offenses."

"The question going forward, of course, will be whether the Trump impeachment conditions the public to understand impeachment as a tool of normal politics, or whether it retains its exceptional character," Cornell Constitutional Law professor Josh Chafetz told The New York Times that same year. "The Clinton impeachment does not seem to have been enough to make it a tool of normal politics, but maybe this time will be different."

Two years later, The Washington Post appeared to answer Chafetz's question, writing that "the era of perpetual presidential impeachment is probably upon us" after Republicans began calling for Biden to be removed from office — not for his family's business dealings as they are now, but for the U.S. military pullback from Afghanistan. "The trouble with Dems lowering the bar when impeaching Trump over Ukraine is that Biden has certainly now tripped over it himself," former George W. Bush speechwriter Scott Jennings said. "Same elements at play."

Speaking with the New York Times, Republican media strategist Brendan Buck suggested that the potential for an age of perpetual impeachments had less to do with the conduct of any particular president, and more to do with the state of American politics as a whole. "We're in an era where you need to make loud noises and break things in order to get attention," he said in 2021, shortly after Biden assumed the White House. "It doesn't matter what you're breaking — as long as you're creating conflict and appeasing your party, anything goes."

Where do we go from here?

In the short term, a number of high-profile Republicans already have started throwing cold water on the impeachment chatter, with Utah Sen. Mitt Romney noting that "The bar is high crimes and misdemeanors, and that hasn't been alleged at this stage." Fellow Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said that "the best way to change the presidency is win the election," and even Newt Gingrich, the former GOP House Speaker who led the impeachment effort against former President Bill Clinton sounded skeptical, telling the Washington Post that while "it's a good idea to go to the inquiry stage," going to "impeachment itself is a terrible idea."

That much of the pushback comes from the Senate is perhaps unsurprising given that any impeachment trial against Biden would likely be a non-starter in the Democratic-controlled chamber. Still, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) seemingly acknowledged the start of a cyclical impeachment chain even as he downplayed the Senate's role in making that decision. "It's getting to be a habit around here, isn't it?," he asked reporters who raised the House's deliberations. "Once you start, it's unfortunate, but what goes around, comes around," he added.

Writing in the Hofstra Law Review in 2020, attorney Erin Daley proposed a series of actions that could potentially break that cycle, returning impeachment from its increased banality to its singular status as a last resort. Suggesting a "new standard for impeachment," Daley highlights statutory reforms to strengthen the legislative branch's ability to conduct genuine impeachment inquiries, while giving more clear oversight to the judicial branch as "a tool that could help Democrats and Republicans alike" while also preventing a "future Republican-led Congress from conducting a similar polarizing impeachment against a more liberal president."

"It is impossible to comport with Framer intent when Congress uses impeachment as a political weapon and the president completely disregards checks and balances," Daley concluded. "Polarization has ruined the transparency and legitimacy of impeachments, and for now, Congress should recognize that '[i]mpeachment needs the legitimacy that the courts can provide.'"

We may indeed be entering an era of perpetual impeachment, but there are, it seems, exit ramps — if we want them.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called statements made by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) defending the suspected leaker of U.S. intelligence documents "irresponsible."

On Thursday, 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was arrested in connection with the leak, and later charged with possessing classified documents pertaining to national security and possessing national defense materials. The material included top-secret documents on the war in Ukraine and intelligence gathered on Israel and South Korea.

Greene, a member of the House's Homeland Security Committee, tweeted that the suspect is "being treated like a traitor and criminal," and accused the Biden administration and Department of Defense of "acting like criminals."

This is "one of the most irresponsible statements she could make," Graham said during an interview with ABC News' This Week on Sunday, adding, "If you're a member of the military intelligence and you disagree with American policy and you think you're going to be okay when it comes to leaking classified information, you're going to go to jail." Military members are "less safe" because of the leak, he continued, and "there is no justification for this. And for any member of Congress to suggest it's okay to leak classified information because you agree with the cause is terribly irresponsible and puts America in serious danger."

On Fox News Sunday, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said the suspect is being called "a traitor" by some and "a hero" by others, but "neither side has the information or the data to be able to make that decision yet, because there's been no investigation, and we haven't even had our first classified briefing, which will happen later this week when we're back in session."

The Senate Intelligence Committee will also open an investigation into the leak, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union. The committee has focused "intensely on how we keep our secrets safe," she stated. "And I have a lot of questions about why were these documents lying around. Why did this particular person have access to them? Where was the custody of the documents, and who were they for? We need to know the facts. We need to know who this airman was, why he felt he had the authority or ability to show off confidential documents, secret documents to his friends."

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene recently made what seemed like a huge claim. "Explosive found by Border Patrol Agents Jan 17th," the Republican tweeted alongside a photograph on an onion-shaped object wrapped in duct tape amidst the beige backdrop of the American southwest. "Agents have surveillance of who brought it in and when and confirmed it was the Cartel."

"This changes everything," she said, urging the military to "take action" against purported Mexican narcotics operations.

The "explosive" turned out to be a bag of sand. But this has not silenced a growing chorus of Republican voices calling for the United States to essentially launch a hot war across its southern border, even as many of those same conservatives denounce American support for Ukraine in its efforts to repel Russia's ongoing invasion. What's behind the renewed GOP push for the U.S. to launch missiles into Mexico, and why are some of its loudest proponents making it their new tent pole issue?

What are Republicans saying?

Greene is hardly alone in her call to, as she put it, "beat the drums of war" against purported Mexican drug cartels: In a recent Fox Business interview, Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) backed military action across the southern border, claiming that "the idea of drone striking these fentanyl plants in Mexico sounds like a pretty good idea to me."

Darkhorse GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has also made military incursions onto Mexican soil a feature of his campaign, vowing that the United States will support domestic efforts by the Mexican government to combat drug cartels, and warning that if it fails, "we'll come in and do it for you."

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) lamented recently that it was "a mistake" former President Donald Trump hadn't bombed cartel assets during his term in office, while Fox News host Greg Gutfeld insisted that the "threat of death" from an "on the table" prospect of U.S. military intervention would be enough to defeat Mexican narco-operations.

Texas GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw has taken a slightly moderated stance on using force to attack Mexican drug cartels, authoring the "Declaring War on the Cartels Act of 2023" to dramatically expand government authority to pursue and disrupt Mexican drug businesses. The act, however, stops short of declaring cartels a "terrorist organization," as Trump had vowed to do. Speaking with the conservative Washington Examiner, the congressman explained that "it doesn't necessarily mean just dropping bombs right away. Diplomatically, it means that we have a whole new leverage over the government."

"This is obviously a real war," he added. "And [the Mexican government] obviously need[s] our help. And we should have an authorization to allow that. I think this gives the president leverage. And I would think it'd be a win."

Greene has been the most emphatic about juxtaposing the U.S. support for Ukraine with her ongoing calls for military action across the southern border. She told Donald Trump Jr. during a recent interview that she "can't understand why we're fighting a war in Ukraine, but we're not bombing the Mexican cartels who are poisoning Americans every single day."

Why the focus on Mexico?

The notion of using American military assets against intra-Mexican domestic threats isn't new, but the recent effort led by Greene to use assistance to Ukraine as a foil in that effort is noteworthy. There is certainly a growing sense among certain isolationist Republicans that the war between Ukraine and Russia is not in America's vital national interests. The GOP also has an ongoing fixation with the U.S.-Mexico border as the main conduit for fentanyl, which plays into Mexico's broader place in the zeitgeist as a major undocumented immigration threshold. The two issues are unrelated, and Greene is conflating them.

"The growing excitement in the MAGA scene about bombing Mexico over fentanyl underscores that while this set opposes certain modes of military intervention, they have no qualms about using force or risking sparking war in ways that can even exceed the U.S. foreign policy establishment's generally hawkish worldview," MSNBC's Zeeshan Aleem noted. "Right-wing nationalists are not particularly concerned about Russian imperialism in Ukraine, both because they see it as a faraway problem and because they share some ideological affinity with Moscow. But they're eager to have the U.S. use military force to deal with a domestic problem like drug use, even if it's a terrible tool for solving the problem."

"The idea that the U.S. military would go into Mexico and bomb and raid these labs is quite the wild idea because it is the same militarized approach they did in Colombia with cocaine," drug policy journalist Zachary Siegel recently told Aleem. "Not only did that not stop cocaine production, it sparked a wave of terror across the country as drug production became a high-stakes war."

Former UN ambassador and Trump administration National Security Adviser John Bolton called the push to label drug cartels as terrorist organizations a "rhetorical gimmick."

"I think it fuzzes things up" the notoriously hawkish Bolton told NewsNation's Morning in America recently. "They're not like Hamas or Hezbollah. It's a different threat; it's a serious problem," he continued.

Still, some Republican lawmakers see points to be gained among their base by refocusing the conversation around American international influence somewhat closer to home. The situation in Ukraine is an "ongoing civil war," Dan Caldwell, VP for the conservative Center for Renewing America think tank, told The Washington Post, adding that he is a "realist" who believes in a "more restrained foreign policy."

As Ramaswamy suggested during an interview with the hard right Breitbart news outlet, attacking Mexico militarily could be seen as part of a larger conservative push to villainize China, from which much of the international fentanyl trade actually originates.

"So that I think is a top military, foreign policy priority that we can deliver for less than 10 percent of what we spent in Ukraine, less than 10 billion dollars," the candidate stressed, adding later that if elected president "[w]e're done spending money in Ukraine, and we reprioritize our focus on the top two foreign policy priorities that matter."

This is key in what Aleem called "the erosion of the Bush-era neoconservative consensus on forever wars in the GOP." Noting that the argument over the impact of U.S. involvement in the Ukrainian-Russian war is indeed important and worth having, this attempt to redirect toward Mexico and China should be taken with a significant grain of salt. "Nobody," Aleem concluded, "should be duped into thinking that the MAGA right is a guarantee of a less bellicose American foreign policy."

Americans are deeply divided along political lines. In one recent poll, more than half of respondents said they expect a civil war to erupt in the near future. Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has proposed a "national divorce" between liberals and conservatives. What would this look like? Here's everything you need to know:

What exactly is a national divorce?

The basic premise is that "conservative states should separate and form their own government," The Daily Iowan explains. The Republican-led states would secede from the Democrat-led states, and the U.S. would split into two countries, similar to what happened during the Civil War. However, "this isn't 1861, when the central point of contention — slavery — fell along a relatively clean, demarcated north-south divider," The Washington Post says. Rather there are some reddish states in the north, blueish states in the south, and vice-versa, with purple states in between. So "breezily suggesting that we 'separate by red states and blue states' makes no real sense," the Post adds.

How would it affect the country?

One of the most pressing issues would likely be America's national debt. As Congress is currently gridlocked in a battle to raise the debt ceiling before a looming deadline, does the debt "just get defaulted on?" asks the Fayette Tribune. "Or does it get split up ... and if so, how?"

Another question is what would happen to military assets. There is only one unified U.S. Armed Forces, so how would the country divvy up these resources? "Does New Mexico suddenly become the world's second-largest nuclear power because so many U.S. nuclear weapons happen to be stored at Kirtland Air Force Base?" the Tribune asks, musing that perhaps "each state [would] get a few warheads, along with a proportional distribution of aircraft, helicopters, tanks, etc."

Then there's the question of travel between the United States and the secession country. The Schengen Area in Europe serves as an example of how this could play out. Cited as the "world's largest visa-free zone," the European Commission describes the Schengen Area as a zone that "guarantees free movement to more than 400 million EU citizens, along with non-EU nationals living in the EU or visiting the EU as tourists." This essentially allows travel between the EU nations without border stoppages.

"Will a New York to Los Angeles flight with a layover in Denver turn into the customs nightmare equivalent of traveling from Moscow to Buenos Aires via Mozambique?" the Tribune wonders. The answer would be determined by the willingness of the two countries to even acknowledge one another.

Is a national divorce even legal?

Not according to United States law. Secession falls under seditious conspiracy, which is illegal under Title 18, Section 2384 of the U.S. Code. This states that "if two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States ... they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both."

The 1869 Supreme Court ruling of Texas v. White also held that secession was unconstitutional. The court's majority opinion said that "the Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation," adding that "the Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States." Basically, the court ruled that none of the Confederate states had ever actually seceded from the Union, because the Constitution doesn't give states that authority.

Former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), who served as the vice-chair of the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 Attack, replied to Greene's proposal by reminding her of its illegality, telling her to "review some of the governing principles of America."

Cheney tweeted at Greene that "our country is governed by the Constitution. You swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution," adding: "Secession is unconstitutional. No member of Congress should advocate secession, Marjorie."

How do Americans feel about the idea?

A national divorce has a surprising amount of support. A 2021 study by the University of Virginia Center of Politics polled 1,011 supporters of President Biden and 1,001 supporters of former President Donald Trump, with a 2.2 percent margin of error. The poll found that 41 percent of Biden voters and 52 percent of Trump supporters "would favor [blue or red] states seceding from the union to form their own separate country."

Still, the odds of a national divorce actually happening are probably not very good. It's a "poisonously stupid idea," writes the National Review. Indeed, the idea "has nothing to recommend it," Politico agrees. "The practical obstacles are obvious and insuperable, and the likely effects would be very unwelcome to its proponents."

It's clear "the country is deeply riven along political, cultural and religious lines," Politico continues, "although it's not obvious that the poisonous contention of our era is worse than that of, say, the 1790s or the 1970s — political and cultural conflict is endemic to such a large, loud, diverse democratic country as ours."

Nearly two years after being ignominiously booted from her spots on both the House Budget and Education and Labor Committees, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is back with a seat on the powerful Homeland Security Committee, pending an all-but-assured conference-wide vote to confirm the assignment, CNN reported Tuesday.

The reportedly unanimous decision to re-seat Greene comes as the GOP House Steering Committee continues to mete out assignments to party members for the coming legislative term. Greene, then a first-term lawmaker, initially lost her seats in 2021 in response to her history of inflammatory, extremist, and conspiratorial statements, some of which questioned the events of 9/11 and various high-profile school shootings. Since then, both Greene and now-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had forecast that she would regain at least some committee assignments under a Republican House majority.

Greene is not, however, the only far-right representative to have their exile from the House committee process reversed under McCarthy's rule: Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) has also been assigned a spot on the House Natural Resources Committee, on which he previously served before his censure in late 2021. Similar to Greene, McCarthy had initially offered assurances that Gosar, who frequently associated with white nationalist figures such as Nick Fuentes, would regain a committee seat, predicting at one point that "the committee assignments they have now — they might have other committee assignments. They may have better committee assignments."

Notable in all this is the fact that while Gosar, who was among the small group of GOP holdouts to McCarthy's speaker's bid, was simply returned to his old committee, Greene, who enthusiastically backed the now-speaker in a broader pivot toward the Republican mainstream, did indeed receive an upgrade from her initial assignments.

McCarthy has committed to giving freshman GOP Rep. George Santos (N.Y.) a committee assignment as well, despite the growing list of demonstrative falsehoods and potentially criminal scandals in which the newly elected lawmaker has found himself embroiled.

McCarthy had previously claimed that Santos, who also backed his speaker bid, should not serve on any of the House's more powerful bodies, such as the Ways and Means or Appropriations Committee.

From the moment she was sworn into Congress in 2021, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) represented a seismic shift rightward for a party already pulling inexorably in that direction under then-outgoing President Donald Trump. A committed conspiracy adherent whose political capital was tied to extremist antics rather than legislative prowess, Taylor Greene spent much of her first term in office garnering headlines for a host of stunts and statements, even as she was ignominiously removed from her congressional committee assignments for the very same.

After handily winning re-election in 2022, Taylor Greene seemed in a prime position to forge ahead on the path she'd begun carving the year before, thanks to an incoming GOP House majority with a newly expanded bloc of lawmakers cast by large measure in her own mold. Instead, to the surprise of many, Taylore Greene spent the closing months of 2022 and the opening days of 2023 playing an entirely different role than her tenure thus far would have suggested: that of a team-player for the Republican establishment. Here's everything you need to know:

What's changed?

Perhaps the most overt sign of Taylor Greene's ongoing metamorphosis into an aspiring mainstream operator has been her stalwart support of former Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in his quixotic bid to become the next speaker of the House. "I actually think that's a bad strategy [to vote against McCarthy] when we're looking at having a very razor-thin majority, with potentially 219 [seats]," Taylor Greene told former Trump advisor Steve Bannon this past November. "We're talking about one vote."

Since that initial boost to McCarthy's aspirations, Taylor Greene has only doubled down on her support for the man many of her fellow Freedom Caucus members have accused of being, in the words of Arizona Republican Andy Biggs, "created by, elevated by, and maintained by the establishment."

Indeed, the very language Taylor Greene has been using in her defense of McCarthy suggests her decision has been as much about tactical self-positioning within the GOP — demonstrating an ostensible concern for the party as a whole — as it is a question of ideological compatibility between the two.

As Axios reported earlier this month, "Greene is betting that backing up McCarthy in his time of dire need will pave a path to legitimacy and power if he becomes speaker. She's increasingly drawing herself closer to the establishment without abandoning her bombastic rhetoric and contentious ideology." In doing so, Axios noted, Taylor Greene is following in the footsteps of Ohio's Jim Jordan, who plotted his own route from far-right idealogue to insider power player within the GOP caucus.

"A decade ago, no one would have imagined that Jim Jordan would today be taking over one of the most influential committees in the House," a GOP consultant told Axios. "What changed? He spent the last five years not just being a conservative firebrand on Fox News, but simultaneously building respect and relationships within Congress. It's clear to me that MTG is attempting to plot a similar path to seriousness, while still retaining what made her popular to the base in the first place."

Has she burned any bridges in the process?

Taylor Greene's attempted pivot toward mainstream — or at least establishment — positioning has not gone unnoticed by her fellow ultraconservative Freedom Caucus colleagues. As one of the more vocal anti-McCarthy voices in the party's rightmost wing, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) has found herself increasingly at odds with Taylor Greene, with whom she had previously been most closely linked.

"I've been aligned with Marjorie and accused of believing a lot of the things that she believes in," Boebert told Real America's Voice in December. "I don't believe in [supporting McCarthy] just like I don't believe in Russian space lasers, Jewish space lasers." Taylor Greene, for her part, shot back at Boebert, accusing her of taking "our $$$ but when she's been asked: Lauren refuses to endorse President Trump, she refuses to support Kevin McCarthy, and she childishly threw me under the bus for a cheap sound bite."

In a not-so-tacit admission that her support for McCarthy is part of a broader plan to amass establishment clout, rather than remain a bomb-throwing outsider, Taylor Greene continued to lambast Boebert, as as well one-time touring partner Matt Gaetz, during a subsequent podcast interview with Bannon.

"Do you know why I'm upset?" Taylor Greene said. "Because Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, and Scott Perry, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, walked into Kevin McCarthy's office last night and made their own personal demands about what subcommittee chairmanships they want to have, and who they want on committees, and who they want taken off committees. And guess what? The chairman of the Freedom Caucus negotiated nothing for me."

One-time Republican Congressional Candidate and former Taylor Greene ally Laura Loomer has also lashed out at the congresswoman's effort to reposition herself within the party, sparring with Taylor Greene over White Nationalist Nick Fuentes' dinner with Kanye West and Donald Trump and tweeting that the congresswoman was a "cancer in our movement" for backing "the McStablishment"

So where does she go from here?

Ultimately, Taylor Greene's political future as a party insider will hinge on what sort of party the GOP becomes in the coming years. By so tightly aligning herself with McCarthy in the face of such rancorous opposition from her fellow far-right colleagues, she risks a diminished standing within her caucus should his bid to become speaker fall flat. Notably, her newfound allegiance to McCarthy stems from her pre-existing closeness with Trump, who has remained similarly stalwart in his support for the embattled former minority leader. And with that closeness comes the risk that, as Trump's influence within the party wanes, so too will her respective position thereof.

Still, whether this latest move to frame herself as a happy warrior for the broader GOP succeeds or not, the undeniable truth is that Taylor Greene has, in more ways than one, already succeeded in mainstreaming herself within the party — not by changing her own brand of bombast, but by forcing the party to conform to her standards or risk losing its sway with an increasingly radicalized base.

"Such was the dangerous game of relevancy that Greene was pursuing," New York Times Magazine's Robert Draper mused this past October:

It's a dynamic of which the congresswoman herself seems well aware. Can she maintain her personal influence within a party in which the very thing that made her stand out is now becoming normalized?

"Part of my problem is," Taylor Greene told Draper for his piece, "I've been too early."

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.) bid to be the next speaker of the narrowly divided House is imperiled by a handful of Republicans who say they won't vote for him. Allies have started wearing "O.K." buttons — signifying "Only Kevin," not tepid support for his speakership bid — but the Never Kevin caucus has stood firm so far.

McCarthy is holding up committee assignments until after a speaker is elected, presumably as leverage over GOP holdouts, but that has caused its own problematic paralysis for the incoming Republican majority, Politico reports. It has also driven a wedge between two sophomore GOP lawmakers typically seen as allies: Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (Colo.).

Greene has surprised some observers and many of her Freedom Caucus allies by vigorously backing McCarthy's speakership bid. Boebert said at a Turning Points USA conference in Phoenix on Monday that she won't support McCarthy unless there's a mechanism added to topple him from the speaker's chair. In her televised comments, she also mocked Greene. "I've been aligned with Marjorie and accused of believing a lot of the things that she believes in," she said. "I don't believe in this just like I don't believe in Russian space lasers, Jewish space lasers."

Greene wasn't amused.

Boebert "gladly takes our $$$," Greene added, but when asked, "Lauren refuses to endorse President Trump, she refuses to support Kevin McCarthy, and she childishly threw me under the bus for a cheap sound bite."

Greene and Boebert may "look from the outside like MAGA twins," but "inside the House GOP, they're not quite buddy-buddy," Olivia Beavers reported at Politico in April. Privately, Republicans say Boebert "detests being tied to her Georgia colleague" and nearly came to blows with her over Greene's controversial appearance at a February event organized by white nationalist Nick Fuentes. You can read more about the Greene-Boebert relationship, and the larger tensions within the Freedom Caucus, at Politico.

Less than one year after Twitter "permanently suspended" Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal account from its platform for violating its company policy on COVID-19 misinformation, the Georgia Republican returned on Monday to the site she'd once blasted as "an enemy to America." Greene's account is a beneficiary of new owner Elon Musk's rolling effort to reactivate predominantly far right-wing figures previously barred under Twitter's earlier leadership, including former President Donald Trump.

In a more than hour-long broadcast from her newly resurrected personal account (her official congressional account, @RepMTG, has remained active since her suspension) Greene vowed to spend her time "testing every limit of free speech that I have," asking at one point "why does it take a billionaire buying Twitter to restore people's freedom of speech?"

Greene's personal account was banned in early 2022, following several temporary suspensions for election and COVID-misinformation messages. While Twitter did not give an official reason for her permanent suspension at the time, Greene later claimed it was the result of her having tweeted statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services open-submission Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

In spite of her promise to test the limits of free speech, Greene's return to Twitter on Monday has largely consisted of retweets of her initial announcement video, and fundraising appeals she claimed would make up for lost income she was unable to solicit while her non-congressional account was banned.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), one of the speakers at former President Donald Trump's rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday, said that if Republicans win control of Congress next week, they will use their power of the purse to cut off military aid to Ukraine as it battles Russian invaders. "Under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine," she said, to cheers from the crowd.

Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) visited Kyiv on Thursday to "underscore the broad support that continues to exist in Congress for the Ukrainian people," they said in a joint statement. "Clearly, what's going on in Ukraine is something that Republicans ought to focus on, because it's in our national security interest," Portman told reporters.

There is broad bipartisan support for arming Ukraine but a faction of Republicans oppose such aid. And "Portman, who is retiring, may be replaced by Republican candidate JD Vance, who opposes continued aid to Ukraine," Fox News reports. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has said a GOP House won't give Ukraine a "blank check."

Greene used to be a far-right gadfly in the party for her adherence to QAnon conspiracies and other misinformation, but she has become a major GOP fundraiser and power player as the Republican Party has shifted in her direction, as Robert Draper detailed in The New York Times Magazine last month. Greene is supporting McCarthy for House speaker if the GOP wins, but that support comes with a cost.

"I think that to be the best speaker of the House and to please the base, he's going to give me a lot of power and a lot of leeway," Greene told Draper. "And if he doesn't, they're going to be very unhappy about it. I think that's the best way to read that. And that's not in any way a threat at all. I just think that's reality."

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Thursday posted a video on social media in which she appears to kick a Gen Z activist.

The video, which has now been viewed over a million times, shows activists from group Voters of Tomorrow confronting Greene about gun reform as she's leaving a news conference, The Washington Post reports. At one point, activist Marianna Pecora walks in front of Greene, prompting the lawmaker to seemingly kick at Percora's feet (though neither pair of feet was visible in the video). Pecora then immediately says, "Oh my god," and moves to the side.

The confrontation occurred as Greene departed a House Freedom Caucus news conference regarding a government funding bill, the Post reports. The activists, including 20-year-old Mexican immigrant Santiago Mayer, questioned Greene about her stance on gun reform, at which point Greene suggested he "move to another country" if he didn't like U.S. gun laws. Greene later doubled down on Twitter, calling Mayer a "paid political activist, who just so happens to be blessed to have immigrated to our great country."

This is not the first time Greene has been caught allegedly harassing an activist. In 2019, she followed around Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg as he was meeting with legislators in Congress, reports Newsweek.

"We won't let her get away with this," Voters of Tomorrow wrote on Twitter.

After former President Donald Trump announced Monday that FBI agents had searched his Mar-a-Lago residence, apparently seeking classified documents he failed to hand back to the government, "supporters of the former president reacted in the kind of calm, measured tone we've come to expect from the MAGA movement," Rex Huppke deadpanned at USA Today.

A couple dozen Trump supporters gathered outside Mar-a-Lago on Monday night to vent their anger about the raid. Prominent Republican lawmakers and officials complained about "politicization" of the Justice Department. There were many mentions of Hunter Biden and Hillary Clinton, and a lot of comparing the FBI's execution of a search warrant to various dictatorships, totalitarian regimes, and "Banana Republics." Several conservatives called for dismantling the FBI.

"The FBI must be legally and formally dissolved," tweeted Candace Owens. Russ Vought, a former Trump White House official, told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago "is a wake-up call for those in Congress to be able to use the tools at their disposal to defund the FBI, to ask the right questions, and to prepare for a Church-style commission next year if given a Republican majority to dismantle the FBI into a thousand bits." Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was more succinct.

Govs. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) and Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) both decried what they called the "weaponization" of the federal government against Trump. And House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) combined those thoughts, saying the Justice Department has "reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization" and vowing "immediate oversight of this department" if Republicans win back the House.

"Many of the Republicans aghast at the FBI raid had supported FBI probes of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server in 2016," The Washington Post notes. But tastes change, Dan Rather suggested.

Nicole Wallace, an official in the George W. Bush White House, suggested that the self-evidence of the FBI's search should temper the ire of Trump supporters. "Everyone close to Trump knows he's a liar," she told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. "They're acutely aware of his penchant for mishandling classified information" and destroying National Archives–bound documents, dating back to the earliest days of his presidency.

Has Marjorie Taylor Greene even read the Bible?

She certainly has some opinions about it. The notorious Republican congresswoman from Georgia recently gave an interview in which she asserted that American church groups that assist migrant refugees are "not adhering to the teachings of Christ" but instead are the result of "Satan's controlling the church."

"The church is not doing its job, and it's not adhering to the teachings of Christ, and it's not adhering to what the word of God says we're supposed to do and how we're supposed to live," Greene said. Sure, those teachings include the command to love one another, she said, "but their definition of what love one another means, means destroying our laws. It means completely perverting what our Constitution says. It means taking unreal advantage of the American taxpayer." If groups like Catholic Charities took a tougher stance against immigration, "loving one another would have the true meaning and not the perversion and the twisted lie that they're making it to be."

Now I've been fallen away from the church a few years, but I definitely remember that among Christ's teachings is the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story about a man who showed mercy on a traveler who had been beaten by robbers.

And I remember this from the Gospel of Matthew:

Listen: There's nothing more tedious than a non-Christian citing Biblical chapter and verse to Christians, but Greene cited the "teachings of Christ" and these (if you're a believer) are the teachings of Christ. It's not clear what other actual teachings she's referring to other than her own intense feelings about the Constitution and immigration. That's not the same thing.

This would be little more than a minor theological debate if not for the fact Christianity ostensibly guides one of our major political parties. So it matters. Greene is not the first or last person to filter their religion through the prism of their own personal and political preferences. I'm probably doing it right here. But Greene's comments have all the hallmarks of a glib Biblical illiteracy that she brandishes as a cudgel against "the least of these." We'd all be better off if Christian nationalism was actually more Christian.

A cache of 2,319 text messages sent and received by former President Donald Trump's White House chief of staff Mark Meadows between Election Day 2020 and President Biden's inauguration shows a group of Republican lawmakers and operatives working to overturn the election and scrambling to respond to the chaotic events of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The messages, obtained by CNN and released on Monday, include texts from Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner and son Donald Trump Jr. They also include "White House and campaign officials, Cabinet members, Republican Party leaders, January 6 rally organizers, Rudy Giuliani, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, Sean Hannity and other Fox hosts," writes CNN. There are also texts with "more than 40 current and former Republican members of Congress," including Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), Mo Brooks (Ala.), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.).

On Jan. 6, as rioters breached the Capitol, Donald Trump Jr. texted Meadows, warning that "[t]hey will try to f--k [my father's] entire legacy on this if it gets worse." Others who urged Meadows to have Trump call off the rioters included former White House chiefs of staff Mick Mulvaney and Reince Priebus and Reps. William Timmons (R-S.C.) and Greene, who wrote to Meadows that he should "tell the President to calm people" and that "This isn't the way to solve anything."

"A little over a year ago, thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to stop the election from being certified, and they wanted declare Donald Trump Super-President Forever No Backsies," Trevor Noah said on Monday's Daily Show. "But the Capitol riot wasn't even the scariest thing that happened on Jan. 6, because you see, my friends, we're now finding out that something else happened that day: Countless Republicans seem to have had their memories erased."

"I know it sounds crazy," Noah deadpanned, but to illustrate his point, he explained how House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rick Perry suddenly have no memory of what they said and did a little over a year ago, "and it looks like nobody has been hit harder by Jan. 6 amnesia" that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)," he added, showing Greene's testimony last week — and how her memory was briefly jogged by evidence. "Clearly this person's unqualified for Congress, because politicians are supposed to be good at lying," he sighed. "This was just embarrassing." Still, it would make a good prestige TV show, The Daily Show suggested.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who is currently fending off a constitutional challenge to her congressional candidacy, said in court on Friday that she could not recall whether or not she implored former President Donald Trump to impose martial law to stay in power after the 2020 election.

On Monday, however, CNN published a trove of messages belonging to former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, in which Greene is shown to have contacted the official regarding such a declaration (though she referred to it as "Marshall law").

"In our private chat with only members, several are saying the only way to save our republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law," Greene texted Meadows on Jan. 17, 2021, after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. "I don't know on those things. I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know."

"They will destroy our country next," she added.

The group advocating against Greene's candidacy has argued she is ineligible for re-election under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which bars lawmakers who supported or participated in an insurrection from serving again. Greene, however, denies participating in or engaging with the riot.

On Jan. 6, Greene texted Meadows asking him to tell Trump to "calm people" as the riot unfolded. "This isn't the way to solve anything," she wrote.

The lawmaker sent Meadows another message on Jan. 7: "Yesterday was a terrible day. ... I don't think that President Trump caused the attack on the Capitol. It's not his fault." Greene added that there was "no excuse" for what happened, and she "fully" denounced all of it, but people felt like they had "no other choice."

"Thanks Majorie," Meadows replied. Read more at CNN.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) testified under oath for over three hours on Friday, defending herself against claims by a group of Georgia voters that her activities in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot should bar her from seeking re-election, CNN reported.

Greene claimed she "was asking people to come for a peaceful march" but not "to actively engage in violence." Andrew Celli, the lawyer for the voters challenging Greene's eligibility, said she "was one of several leaders who gathered the kindling, who created the conditions, who made it possible for there to be an explosion of violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6. And then, she dropped the match."

Judge Charles Beaudrot is expected to issue a recommendation to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) in the next few weeks.

Under the 14th Amendment, public officials can be disqualified from holding office in the future if it can be proven that they "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against" the United States. The outcome of legal proceedings against Greene could indicate whether a similar challenge to former President Donald Trump might succeed if he seeks a second term in 2024, CNN notes.

According to The Independent, Greene is appealing a federal judge's ruling that allowed the challenge to her eligibility to proceed.

A federal judge ruled Monday evening that a constitutional challenge to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-Ga.) re-election bid could move forward, after having signaled some sympathy toward the advocacy groups who brought the case, The Associated Press reports.

The groups' challenge, filed last month with the Georgia secretary of state's office, claims that Greene was involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and is therefore ineligible to run for re-election under the 14th Amendment of the Consitution. The 14th Amendment was ratified shortly after the Civil War, and bars lawmakers who supported or engaged in an insurrection from serving again.

But now that District Judge Amy Totenberg has permitted the challenge, what happens next?

Well, first, "a scheduled hearing in front of a Georgia state judge will take place as planned on Friday morning," CNN writes. That state judge will hear from both sides of the case and decide whether or not the 14th Amendment applies to Greene. If the judge rules in favor of the activists and advocacy groups and against Greene, the firebrand representative can then file appeals "and the matter may not be resolved before ballots are printed for the May 25 primary election," per CNN.

Outside of the individual case, however, Totenberg's ruling "could reverberate beyond" our Georgia lawmaker in question, considering "similar constitutional challenges are pending against other Republican officials and could even be lodged against former President Donald Trump if he runs again in 2024," CNN reports.

Greene has denied participating in or engaging with the Capitol riot.

Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) raised less than half as much as her Democratic challenger in the first quarter of 2022, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Monday.

According to fundraising reports, Greene raised $1.1 million in the first three months of 2022, compared to the $2.4 million raised by Democrat Marcus Flowers. Flowers' campaign website says he "served as an active-duty member of the U.S. Army, followed by more than 20 years as a contractor or official for the State Department and Department of Defense."

Greene also faces a lawsuit that aims to disqualify her from running for office due to her alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The Journal-Constitution notes that, despite being outpaced in the last three months, Greene still has more cash on hand than Flowers ($3 million to his $1.9 million) and has raised more overall ($8.4 million to his $7.1 million).

Flowers' campaign to unseat Greene is a long shot.

The race is not ranked as competitive by the Cook Political Report, and the last Democrat elected in Greene's district was Nathan Deal, who won his seat in 1992 and was reelected in 1994. Deal joined the Republican Party in 1995, won seven more terms in the House, and served as governor of Georgia from 2011 to 2019.

"It's really me, the Easter Bunny," said a bunny-suit-clad Bowen Yang to kick off the latest Saturday Night Live cold open. "Either that, or you're at Coachella and the shrooms are kicking in." Then, in the "Easter spirit" of "renewal and rebirth," he invited a variety of figures to take the stage and "share their hopes for this Easter season."

First to address the audience was Dr. Anthony Fauci (Kate McKinnon). "I know, yeah, I'm still here … trust me, I'm not here to give you any more 'COVID guidance.' I'm not stupid enough to think you're actually gonna follow it. All I'll say is that COVID cases are a lot like Jesus — they've risen again!" McKinnon-as-Fauci said.

Next up was GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Cecily Strong), who was, of course, armed with an AR-15. "I've been saying aggressively to all my Jewish and Muslim colleagues, 'Happy Easter!' Don't worry. This rifle's chocolate, but the bullets are real," she said.

Other guests included New York City Mayor Eric Adams (Chris Redd), Elon Musk (Mikey Day) — who offered to buy Easter for 23 billion Peeps — Britney Spears (Chloe Fineman), and Jared Leto (Kyle Mooney), who initially introduced himself as Jesus Christ.

As the Easter Bunny attempted to wrap up the segment, former President Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) dropped by to share his own Easter wishes. "I told America COVID would be over by Easter. I just didn't say which one," Johnson-as-Trump said.

A federal judge on Friday indicated she might allow a Jan. 6-related constitutional challenge against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-Ga.) candidacy to proceed, Insider reported.

The suit argues that Greene should be disqualified for running for office due to her alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Greene "aided and engaged in an insurrection to obstruct the peaceful transfer of presidential power," the challengers claim in their suit, "disqualifying her from serving as a Member of Congress under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and rendering her ineligible under state and federal law to be a candidate for such office."

According to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, lawmakers are prohibited from returning to elected positions if they supported an insurrection. Challengers claim Greene is therefore unable to run for re-election because she allegedly "planned with protest organizers and 'encouraged' the violence that disrupted the Electoral College certification" on Jan. 6, CNN reports.

Federal Judge Amy Totenberg of the Northern District of Georgia said Friday she had "significant questions and concerns" about a recent ruling in a similar challenge against firebrand Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), and will likely this week issue a ruling as to whether or not the challenge against Greene can proceed, CNN noted.

James Bopp Jr., Greene's lawyer, claims the suit being brought against her is "50 pages of newspaper articles, hearsay and political hyperbole," per CNN. The Georgia Republican is not an insurrectionist and was not involved in planning the Jan. 6 protests, her lawyers and a spokesperson claim.

Totenberg's decision is expected around the same time a Georgia state judge plans to "hold a hearing to address whether Greene engaged in or aided the insurrection and if that disqualifies her from office," Insider reported.

"I have the weirdest life, I really do," Jimmy Kimmel said on Thursday's Jimmy Kimmel Live. "Once again I find myself in the middle of a brouhaha, as I appear to have run afoul of probably the worst woman in American politics, Marjorie Taylor Greene."

"On our show Tuesday night, MTG — Klan Mom, as we call her — earlier in the day called three of her fellow Republicans 'pro-pedophile' for supporting Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court," Kimmel explained. "So I made a joke, I said, 'Where is Will Smith when you need him?' And the audience laughed. So she saw it and she decided she's going to try to get some political mileage out of this," tweeting that she is reporting him to the police. "Not only did she call the police, she called the same police she voted against giving a Congressional Gold Medal to for defending our Capital against the insurrection she helped incite on Jan. 6," he said. "It's amazing how quickly you can go from 'These liberals — you can't say anything anymore!' to 'What did you say? I'm calling the cops!' It must be that cancel culture they're always talking about."

Kimmel tweeted back, and a lot of people "liked" his response, and that "triggered her I guess, the sweet little snowflake, because she tweeted again this afternoon," he said, adding that he finds it "very rich" that Greene, of all people, "is suddenly whining about 'fantasies of violence,'" and explaining why. "She's a snowflake and a sociopath at the same time — a snowciopath, as we will call it from now on," he said. "I realize maybe other Republicans like having her around to make the rest of them seem normal."

If Greene wants to report him to the police, Kimmel mocked, he would go "right to the top" and report her to the Justice League, and he made a show of writing a letter to Batman. (He got a response, too.) Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Diamond and Silk also got involved, Kimmel shrugged, but "believe it or not, all that is maybe only the second dumbest Hollywood vs. Washington feud of the day. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas went after Mr. T last night." He explained that story, adding: "And again I have to ask: Where's Will Smith when you need him?"

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is taking one late night joke pretty seriously — so much so that she says she reported it to police.

Greene on Twitter took issue with Jimmy Kimmel recently joking on his show that he wants Will Smith to slap her. "@ABC, this threat of violence against me by @jimmykimmel has been filed with the @CapitolPolice," Greene tweeted, posting a clip of the joke.

Kimmel laughed off the tweet, responding, "Officer? I would like to report a joke."

The joke in question came in response to Greene claiming that Republicans who support Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson "are pro-pedophile." Referring to Smith slapping comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars over a joke about his wife, Kimmel said, "Wow, where is Will Smith when you really need him?" The joke received applause from Kimmel's audience.

Greene, who has been criticized for suggesting she supported executing Democrats and was stripped of her committee assignments in 2021, has been a frequent subject of ridicule on Kimmel's show. He has also referred to her as "Klan mom" and the "sorriest excuse for a congresswoman we've ever had."

Kimmel previously criticized Smith's actions at the Oscars, saying Rock "did not deserve to be slapped in the face for a joke." Greene, though, said she appreciated Smith's "Alpha male response of a husband defending his wife," adding, "It was much better than a Twitter fight with people saying tough things on their keyboard behind their screen."

Capitol Police hasn't confirmed that Greene filed a report, but her office said that it "takes all threats of violence towards the Congresswoman very seriously," claiming, "Last night, Jimmy Kimmel called for violence to be committed against Congresswoman Greene. It will not be tolerated."

Ohio Republican Senate candidate JD Vance on Monday night defended his "friend" (and supporter) Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) by claiming "she did nothing wrong" in speaking at a white nationalist's conference last month, HuffPost reports.

Greene spoke at the America First Political Action Conference, where participants "hailed Russian President Vladimir Putin as a hero and chanted his name," HuffPost writes. The organizer of the conference — Nicholas Fuentes — is a prominent white nationalist activist, per The Washington Post.

The congresswoman was later condemned for her participation by members of her own party, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who said "There's no place in the Republican Party for white supremacists or anti-Semitism." House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) described Greene's attendance as "appalling." And Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) called Greene — and fellow conference participant Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) – "morons."

"I have morons on my team," Romney said, per the Post.

So it might seem all the more surprising that, at a GOP candidates' debate in Ohio, Vance stood by Greene's decision.

"She is my friend, and she did nothing wrong," Vance told the crowd. "I'm absolutely not going to throw her under the bus, or anybody else who is a friend of mine." In January, Greene endorsed Vance in his Senate bid.

Vance had also said it was unfair to hold only Republicans and not Democrats to "guilt by association" standards. Marjorie appeared at a conference "where somebody said something bad," but "did she say something bad?" he continued. "I actually watched her remarks, I agreed with nearly every word that she said."

"There's no business in the world that asks you to stab your friends in the back like politics. I absolutely refuse to do it to Marjorie Taylor Greene."

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) got a preview Wednesday of what his life will be like if he becomes speaker next year: a fresh barrage of questions about Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.). The pair spoke at a white nationalist conference in February, an event that seemed to shock even former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and McCarthy so far won't commit to keeping them off congressional committees as repudiation.

The lawmakers' associations are a bad look for the GOP, whatever their insistence that their appearance at the conference didn't mean they share the white nationalists' views. It will become an even bigger focus of Democratic and media attention if Republicans win a House majority in November. But it also speaks to a larger debate between the left and the right that is only gaining in importance.

We are in the midst of a discussion about whether and how important national institutions, even the American founding, can be separated from the racism that was prevalent for much of our history. An increasingly vocal subset of the American left is effectively arguing this cannot be done.

That argument deserves serious conservative pushback, and the nationalist strand on the right at its best offers a robust defense of America's nationhood, sovereignty, heroes, and institutions. Making those arguments will at times require courage in the face of unfair accusations of racism. But this defense cannot be allowed to degenerate into apathy toward, or, worse, embrace of genuine racism.

If McCarthy and other mainstream Republicans want to be able to credibly push back on "wokeness" and popularized versions of critical race theory, with their expansive definitions of racism, they cannot tolerate or ignore actual racial animus in their own ranks. These left-wing trends will only grow in popularity if conservatives embody the caricature progressives would draw of them by declining to recognize the immorality of racial hatreds in all places and times, including Congress in 2021.

America's history with race, like that of other great countries, is complicated. Oversimplifying it in either direction does not help us move forward. The woke and the white nationalist need each other. Conservatives need neither of them.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) distanced himself Monday from the "unacceptable" participation of two GOP lawmakers, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Rep. Paul Gosar (Ariz.), in a white nationalist event in Florida on Friday. At one point during the America First Political Action Conference, organizer Nick Fuentes backed Russia's Ukraine invasion, saying "they're going on about Russia and Vladimir Putin is Hitler — and they say that's not a good thing." Right before Greene took the stage, Fuentes led a chant for Putin.

"There's no place in our party for any of this," McCarthy told reporters. "The party should not be associated, any time, any place, with somebody who is anti-Semitic" or leads chants for Putin. He said he will "have a discussion" with Greene and Gosar.

This is a slight deviation from "a game plan that McCarthy has repeatedly adopted over the past year with the more extreme elements present in the House GOP conference: engage controversial members privately but avoid alienating them with any public criticism," since he needs their support to become House speaker, The Hill reports. "While that strategy helps limit public GOP infighting in the moment, it also means that extremism routinely goes unchallenged by top party leaders."

McCarthy has no such qualms about publicly censuring the two Republicans who sit on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. One of them, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), is retiring next year, but McCarthy is backing the primary challenger to Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). So the conservative magazine National Review asked McCarthy's campaign if he also plans to back a primary challenger to Greene.

The National Republican Congressional Committee is still actively supporting the re-election campaigns of Greene and Gosar, journalist Judd Legum noted Monday.

"What I think we should do is kick them out of the party," Kingziner said Monday. "What do I think we're going to do? Nothing. Liz and I can get censured, they're going to get help up as the future leaders of the party."

Greene — who proposed forming an "Anglo-Saxon" America First Caucus with Gosar last year, before House GOP leaders stepped in — defended her participation in the conference from "the Pharisees in the Republican Party" and their criticism. "I won't cancel others in the conservative movement, even if I find some of their statements tasteless, misguided or even repulsive at times," she said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made a statement to reporters Monday condemning Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) for appearing alongside white nationalist Nick Fuentes, Politico reports.

"There's no place in the Republican Party for white supremacists or anti-Semitism," McConnell said.

Greene and Gosar spoke at the America First Political Action Conference in Orlando, an event organized by Fuentes, over the weekend. It was Greene's first time at the event. Gosar returned after delivering the keynote last year.

During an address to the crowd, Fuentes called for a "round of applause for Russia," amid its invasion of Ukraine. The crowd responded with a brief chant of "Putin! Putin!"

On his streaming show, America First, Fuentes has used the N-word and said he believes only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

McConnell was not the only Republican to criticize Greene and Gosar for appearing at the event. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) described the two as "morons" who are "certainly missing a few IQ points." House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called their participation "appalling and wrong" and "unacceptable."

Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), both of whom were censured by the RNC for serving on the Jan. 6 committee, also spoke out. Cheney posted a tweet calling Greene and Gosar "the Putin wing of the GOP," while Kinzinger complained that while "Liz and I can get censured, they're going to get help up as the future leaders of the party."

Gosar was censured and stripped of his committee assignments by the House in November after he posted an edited anime video that depicted him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and depicted immigrants as flesh-eating monsters. Greene was stripped of her committee assignments in Feb. 2021 for suggesting (among other things) that school shootings were false flag operations.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) had some harsh words for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), and any other Republicans who attend white nationalist events and support Russian President Vladimir Putin amid the invasion of Ukraine.

Greene and Gosar both participated in the America First Political Action Conference Friday in Orlando, with Greene speaking in person and Gosar appearing in taped remarks, CNN reports. The conference was organized by white nationalist Nick Fuentes. During an interview Sunday on CNN's State of the Union, Romney said there is "no place in either political party for this white nationalism or racism. It's simply wrong ... it's evil as well."

As for Greene and Gosar specifically, "I don't know them, but I'm reminded of that old line from the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid movie where one character says, 'Morons, I've got morons on my team,'" Romney said. "And I have to think anybody that would sit down with white nationalists and speak at their conference was certainly missing a few IQ points."

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) tweeted a video on Saturday of Fuentes introducing Greene at the event and calling on the crow to "give a round of applause for Russia." Cheney wrote, "As Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar speak at this white supremacist, anti-Semitic, pro-Putin event, silence by Republican Party leaders is deafening and enabling. All Americans should renounce this garbage and reject the Putin wing of the GOP now."

Romney told CNN that Putin has been "an adversary of America at every chance he's had," and hearing Republican say they support him is "unthinkable to me, it's almost treasonous and it just makes me ill to see some of these people do that. But, of course, they do it because if they get shock value and it's good to get more eyeballs and maybe make a little more money for them or their network. It's disgusting."

If you can't get the backing of former President Donald Trump, perhaps that of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) will suffice.

According to four "longtime Republican operatives" working on competitive GOP primaries nationwide, an MTG endorsement is "not only considered as welcome, but also as one that should be actively courted," The Daily Beast reports, noting the congressmember's power lies in her direct line to the former president, as well as her large network of grassroots donors.

"It is stunning," one source told The Daily Beast. "Her popularity among much of the base and what she brings to a campaign right now is not nothing. Actually, it can be good for the candidate, and I don't know if I would have predicted that a year ago."

"If you can't get Donald Trump, you are going to want to have MTG in your back pocket," said another operative, who also "professed zero personal admiration for Greene," The Daily Beast notes.

At this point, at least seven Republican candidates have earned Greene's stamp of approval, including the "loudly pro-Trump" Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.). Typically, Greene's been picking mostly challengers to Republicans who have broken from Trump, "either by impeaching him or criticizing him faintly, or even by working with Democrats," writes The Daily Beast.

"It's not that everyone is trying to get her endorsement, but … if you're running on 'Let's own the libs,' and 'Let's be culture warriors,' that's where you go," veteran Republican strategist Doug Heye told The Daily Beast. "One of the things we've seen over the past decade-plus now, but that Donald Trump really drove home, is that politics is performance art."

Added former Cobb County, Georgia GOP chair Jason Shepherd of Greene's now-coveted endorsement: "I did not see that coming when I first met Marjorie."

Did you order the gazpacho? Or were you hoping for vichyssoise? That's just one of the many jokes provoked by the latest gaffe by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). In an interview on Wednesday with the right-wing One American News Network, Greene denounced "Nancy Pelosi's gazpacho police" — a reference to allegations that the Capitol Police improperly investigated members of Congress. By the end of the day, Greene herself got into the Soup Nazi act, tweeting, "No soup for those who illegally spy on Members of Congress, but they will be thrown in the goulash."

The stakes were minute even by the standards of social media controversy. Surveying the responses, it's hard to avoid the impression that Greene's critics thoroughly enjoyed the diversion from their real jobs. Still, the timing, just a few weeks after related spats about Whoopi Goldberg and the removal of the graphic novel Maus from a Tennessee middle school curriculum, points toward a more serious question. Do Americans know enough about the Holocaust and the Nazi regime?

Surprisingly, the answer may be yes. As Yair Rosenberg reports in The Atlantic, Americans are well-informed on the topic. According to a 2020 Pew study:

The results aren't all good news. The report also found:

Still, public knowledge of the Holocaust is far better than almost any aspect of American history or politics. While more than 80 percent display some understanding of the Holocaust, majorities are unable to identify basic constitutional structures or major figures and events. As I've noted before, this isn't a new problem. Evidence of widespread civic ignorance goes back as far as we have systematic data.

Rosenberg argues that Americans' relatively strong knowledge of the Holocaust and the omnipresence of analogies to the Third Reich is an educational success story. I'm not so sure.

For one thing, public awareness of the Holocaust is probably not the result of formal teaching. A recent study by the American Historical Association found the top sources for information about the past were TV and film. Even non-classroom educational settings, such as museums, were far less popular. It's a limitation of the survey that it didn't consider K-12 schools, where all students receive at least some history instruction. But it's not unreasonable to think that the dominant influence is Hollywood, where Nazis have served as all-purpose villains for more than 75 years.

Whatever its cause, moreover, disproportionate attention to the Holocaust is intellectually distorting. Nazis atrocities must never be forgotten. But there's something wrong when they're just about the only things Americans know about Jewish or European history, both of which include ample evidence of the best human capacities as well as the worst. Nor is there anything to celebrate when Americans are much better acquainted with foreign events than with our own past, which includes its horrors as well as its triumphs.

The neglect of other events, periods, and regions has damaging political consequences, too. Greene and other populist opponents of COVID restrictions have been rightly criticized for comparing mask requirements or vaccine mandates to Nazi policies. But American thinking on foreign policy is seriously distorted by the respectable habit of identifying every authoritarian ruler as another Hitler and every territorial dispute as a second Munich. Historical analogies are a valuable tool of political reasoning. But they don't work if you only know one case for comparison.

Foreign policy isn't the only area where our obsession with Nazis is an obstacle to clear thinking. During riots in the summer of 2020, progressives denounced federal agents deployed to protect courthouses and other government installations as Trump's equivalent to "Brown shirts [sic]." There were legitimate concerns about violations of civil liberties, but it's not fascism to try to stop violent attacks on public property.

To be fair, the denunciation of heavy-handed law enforcement as Nazi-like oppression isn't limited to the left. In 1995, an infamous NRA mailing described ATF and FBI personnel in the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, as "jack-booted government thugs, federal agents wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms to attack law-abiding citizens." There's considerable evidence that the authorities catastrophically bungled the situation, leading to the deaths of four ATF agents and a total of 82 Branch Davidians (including more than 20 children). But the main reason was a very American combination of bureaucratic incompetence and militarized tactics — not cold-blooded murder justified by an ideology of dominance.

Greene's gazpacho gaffe is funny, but these situations are no laughing matter. And it's not crazy to worry that misplaced Nazi rhetoric makes it harder to discuss public health, public safety, or anything else. But the answer isn't to make the Holocaust even more central to classroom education, popular culture, or political discourse. Paradoxically, we might understand more if we talked about it less.

Luckily for Rep. Marjorie Taylor "Gazpacho Police" Greene (R-Ga.), most late night hosts are taking this week off. But not all of them.

"The Republican Party is having a bit of an internal squabble right now," sharply "divided over whether the violent insurrection of Jan. 6 was a violent insurrection or just a lively sightseeing tour of the Capitol," Jimmy Kimmel said on Wednesday's Kimmel Live. After the Republican National Committee suggested the rioters were engaged in "legitimate political discourse," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) "poked his head out from under his shell to counter that statement," Kimmel said. "Well, welcome to the resistance, Emperor Palpatine. Just to show you how far down the crazy hole we've gone, we're now applauding Republicans who are willing to admit what happened, happened. But there's not just crazy, there's some dumb going, too."

"Exhibit A" was Greene and her "rather outlandish claim about Nancy Pelosi" and her "gazpacho police," Kimmel said, showing Greene's televised malapropism. "That's right, if you've got cold soup, you'd better watch it because Nancy Pelosi's coming for it. These must be the soup Nazis Seinfeld warned us about so many years ago. And if the gazpacho police get hold of you, they'll throw you right in the goulash, so be very careful."

The Daily Show's Trevor Noah focused on the $3.6 billion worth of stolen bitcoin the Justice Department just recovered, and the couple they accused of trying to launder that cryptocurrency. "You might think that everyone who uses bitcoin would be happy that the police would be able to track down this stolen crypto, but it turns out, no," he said. "Because cryptocurrency is supposed to be anonymous, and if the FBI can trace bitcoin to someone who might have stolen it, what's to stop them from tracking innocent people who are just using bitcoin to buy heroin and automatic weapons?"

"Now you're probably wondering, who are the criminal geniuses who are part of one of the biggest financial crimes in history?" Noah said. "Well, you know when they say you should never meet your heroes? Yeah, this is why." He poked at the male half of the pair, Ilya Lichtenstein, but he savaged Heather Morgan, a self-described entrepreneur-journalist-rapper. "I know what you're thinking: the bitcoin crimes are nothing compared to calling this sh-t rap," Noah said, showing just enough to rest his case.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) did all she could fondue to call out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday, but after mixing up the word "Gestapo" — the Nazi secret police — with "gazpacho" — a cold tomato soup that originated in Spain — her attempt fell flatter than a bad soufflé.

During an interview, Greene accused Pelosi's "gazpacho police" of "spying on members of Congress, spying on the legislative work that we do, spying on our staff, and spying on American citizens that want to come talk to their representatives." She was referring to a claim from Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) that the Capitol Police investigated his office "illegally;" the department denied this, saying an officer conducted a security check after his office was left open.

Greene's culinary journey through Europe continued after the "Gestapo"/"gazpacho" blunder, with the congresswoman trying to get in on the joke she never meant to make. "No soup for those who illegally spy on members of Congress," she tweeted, "but they will be thrown in the goulash."

Controversial lawmaker and Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) endorsed Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance in his Ohio Senate bid on Tuesday, urging voters in her statement to "to start electing strong conservatives" who "put people over politicians and understand exactly what we're up against," per The Hill.

"JD Vance is the conservative warrior that the entire America First movement needs fighting for us in the U.S. Senate, and that's why I'm proud to endorse him," Greene told Fox News.

The firebrand representative's endorsement is a "big get" for Vance, one of many Republicans in the Ohio race vying for former President Donald Trump's support. Not long ago Vance was a critic of the ex-commander in chief; these days, he "has sought to cast himself as a warrior for Trump's political movement," The Hill writes.

"I am so honored to have Marjorie's support," Vance said, per The Hill. "I've gotten to know her over the last year, and she's precisely the type of leader we need in our party: genuine, honest, and courageous. Unfortunately, there are too few like her, and so long as that's the case, Republicans may win an election from time to time, but we'll never do the difficult work of truly taking our country back from the leftwing mob and the woke corporations."

Recently, the conspiracy theory-touting Greene was permanently suspended from Twitter for repeated violations of the platform's COVID-19 misinformation policy. Last year, she was also stripped of her House committee assignments following backlash to past comments.

Other GOP candidates running for U.S. Senate in Ohio include "former state Republican Party Chairwoman Jane Timken, former state Treasurer Josh Mandel, businessman Bernie Moreno and investment banker Mike Gibbons," The Hill notes.

Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) took to the spotlight on Thursday to offer a reflection on last year's Capitol riot that varied pretty drastically from most others today.

The two Republicans first appeared on Stephen Bannon's podcast to declare "we're ashamed of nothing," as Gaetz put it, per Axios. "We're proud of the work we did on Jan. 6 to make legitimate arguments about election integrity," Gaetz continued, with Greene's agreement.

Later, they held a news conference (in lieu of a similar event by former President Donald Trump, who canceled his planned speech). Gaetz and Greene made the baseless claim that Capitol police, federal officials, and Democrats were in fact to blame for the violence that day. As The New York Times writes, "there is no evidence that undercover agents or other outsiders played a role in the attack."

While Gaetz asserted "we're here to get to the truth behind Jan. 6, the federal government's own involvement with it," he and Greene received swift pushback against their unproven claims. With their news conference as the only GOP event in the Capitol today (many other Republicans were at an event to honor the late Sen. Johnny Isakson), critics like author Jessica Shortall argued "the party is 100% letting them be the face and stance of the party on this."

President Biden was nearly stranded on Air Force One after the deplaning truck got stuck in snow-hit Washington, D.C., Jimmy Fallon said on Monday's Tonight Show. "The last time D.C. was hit with that much whiteness it was Jan. 6," he joked. "If you're keeping track, Biden can somehow walk down a flight of icy stairs in the snow but not up a flight of stairs when it's nice out."

Fallon also showed NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown taking off his shirt and walking off the field — and off the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — on Sunday. "Before you judge him, that's the same way Andy Cohen left Times Square on Saturday," he joked.

"Usually, when someone gets that angry-drunk on live TV, they have to go explain their behavior to Andy Cohen," Stephen Colbert said at The Late Show, showing Cohen's rant and laughing at his explanation that he was "overserved."

"Oh, there is news about Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene," whose Twitter account was permanently suspended Sunday for violating its "five-strike policy" on posting COVID-19 misinformation, Colbert said. "Speaking of insane people trying to destroy everything, we're approaching the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection. In lieu of flowers, the rioters are asking for money in their prison canteen accounts."

The House Jan. 6 committee says it now has proof former President Donald Trump watched the insurrection unfold on TV in the Oval Office dining room, then "kept having to retape his video telling fans to leave the Capitol riot, which may explain his 187-minute silence during the attack," Colbert said. "Over three hours of silence from the former president! That's an unheard-of phenomenon — that Melania calls 'my dream date.'"

The Late Show also shared audio of Trump's Jan. 6 outtakes.

Late Night's Seth Meyers gave some context to Andy Cohen's live Bill de Blasio rant, then applauded Greene's Twitter ban — and Trump's — as "a huge quality-of-life improvement," explaining that "trying to live in a world where people like Trump and Greene are constantly screaming insane s--t on Twitter is like trying to have a conversation with a friend on the street next to a jackhammer."

Meyers also highlighted other conservatives who, like Greene, are "so deeply invested in the unhinged idea that any attempt at all to curb the spread of COVID is somehow tyranny," from Fox & Friends hosts to Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.).

Less than a day after Twitter permanently banned her personal account for repeatedly violating the platform's COVID-19 misinformation policy, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said Monday she'd been temporarily suspended from Facebook, as well, Politico reports.

"Facebook has joined Twitter in censoring me," Greene wrote on Gettr, the social media platform started by ex-aide to former President Donald Trump Jason Miller. "This is beyond censorship of speech."

According to a screenshot included with Greene's Gettr post, the social network is prohibiting the representative from "posting or commenting from her Facebook account for a period of 24 hours for violating the platform's policy against misinformation," Politico writes. Greene, however, disputes Facebook's decision.

"Who appointed Twitter and Facebook to be the authorities of information and misinformation?" she wrote. "When Big Tech decides what political speech of elected members is accepted and what's not then they are working against our government and against the interest of our people."

Also on Monday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the leader of Greene's caucus, issued a statement criticizing Twitter and other members of Big Tech for their "recent decisions to silence Americans — including a sitting member of Congress," among others. He did not mention Greene, who still has access to her official congressional Twitter account, by name.

Twitter permanently suspended the personal account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) Sunday due to violations of the social media site's policy on COVID-19 misinformation.

Greene was banned, The New York Times reports, after she tweeted out "a misleading chart that pulled information from a government database of unverified raw data called the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, a decades-old system that relies on self-reported cases from patients and health-care providers," in an attempt to prove that Americans are dying from the COVID vaccine at high rates.

According to Twitter, this was Greene's fifth "strike." Content moderators had previously handed strikes to the controversial first-term congresswoman over tweets asserting that vaccines were "failing" and that COVID only harms the old and obese. She was also temporarily banned in July over claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, the Los Angeles Times reported.

According to CNN, only Greene's personal account (@mtgreenee) has been banned. Her official congressional account remains active.

Greene reacted to the news by posting on the messaging app Telegram that Twitter "is an enemy to America and can't handle the truth."

Ohio Senate candidate and Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance (R) echoed her sentiment. "From Russiagate to COVID to Kyle Rittenhouse, disinformation is not just allowed but promoted on the tech platforms. Only when something threatens the regime does it get censored," he tweeted.

In another Tweet, he wrote that Twitter and other big tech companies "need to be crushed."

Congressional candidate Holly McCormack, one of several Democrats running to unseat Greene in 2022, took a more lighthearted approach.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tried unsuccessfully Tuesday night to end an ugly feud that broke out Sunday between two freshman members of his caucus, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). After separate meetings with McCarthy, Greene said she "agreed that I'd quit attacking" Mace, then said she hoped Mace gets a Republican primary challenger.

Mace told reporters: "All I can say about Marjorie Taylor Greene is bless her f--king heart."

The feud between Greene, representing the House GOP's far-right flank, and Mace, considered a moderate, broke out after Mace criticized Rep. Lauren Boebert's (R-Colo.) "racist tropes" and "disgusting" remarks aimed at Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Greene called Mace "trash" on Twitter, and Mace hit back.

Mace also used "a series of emojis — a bat, a pile of excrement, and a crazy clown" — to describe Greene, The New York Times notes, and fellow moderate Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) tagged in, calling Greene "the unserious circus barker McSpacelaser" and criticizing McCarthy for a "silent streak that would make a monk blush." Greene responded by playing the Trump card, prompting Mace to mock Greene for "running to the principle's [sic] office to tattletale because she can't stand on her own two feet."

Greene's supporters included Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who retweeted right-wing provocateur Jack Posobiec dismissing Mace as a "scam artist" for promoting vaccinations on CNN (though she delivered a different message the same day on Fox News).

Greene told Steve Bannon on his podcast that Republican leaders are "always all over us whenever we say or do anything, but it's the Nancy Maces that should be called out." Mace explained to Fox News Radio host Guy Benson on Tuesday she's feuding with Greene because "she's a grifter, she lies to grift," and "she is pulling the wool over so many eyes, so many vulnerable people." Greene, she added, "hasn't done a damn thing since she got into office."

All this "carnival-like behavior would amount to little more than a sideshow if it did not have real implications for midterm campaigns and, possibly, a fractured Republican majority in 2023," the Times reports. Republicans have the wind at their backs, but if they win a narrow House majority in 2022, McCarthy will need both factions — the Greenes and the Maces — to win the speakership, a prize he has coveted for over a decade.