Marjorie Taylor Greene Ejected from Freedom Caucus Over Support for Speaker McCarthy, Calling Lauren Boebert a ‘B****’
Evelyn Hockstein/Pool via AP
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has been ejected from the House Freedom Caucus according to a member of the conservative voting bloc.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) told CNN’s Haley Talbot that the group voted to remove Greene last month. “A vote was taken to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from the House Freedom Caucus for some of the things she’s done,” said Harris on Thursday.
Although he refused to say how he voted on the measure — which makes Greene the first member ever kicked out of the conservative group — he characterized it as “appropriate action,” pointing to her persistent support of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and criticism of other members, per Politico‘s Olivia Beavers.
Beavers had previously reported that the vote would take place on June 23, but the result was not known until Harris’s remarks on Thursday.
Greene had reportedly called fellow Freedom Caucus member Lauren Boebert (R-CO) “a little bitch” on the floor of the House of Representatives after she accused Boebert of copying her call for President Joe Biden’s impeachment.
Greene supported McCarthy throughout his lengthy campaign secure the speakership even as a group of Republicans largely comprised of Freedom Caucus members withheld their support from him in January. She characterized their efforts as “obstruction.”
“We’re on multiple days now with multiple candidates from this group, so I’m not sure how Lauren Boebert on one hand can demand so much out of Kevin McCarthy, but then demand nothing out of someone else and then be willing to vote for them to be Speaker. That’s not serious,” said Greene at the time.
During the debt ceiling fight this spring, Greene backed the deal brokered by McCarthy with Biden despite the fierce objections raised to it by her Freedom Caucus colleagues.
She explained her vote like this:
I could have done the politically easiest thing in the world and say ‘I’m not voting for this.’ You know what I could have done? I could have played politics. I could have said, ‘No, I’m not voting for this.’ I could have attacked leadership, I could have tweeted about it. I could have done interviews, and then I could have sent all of you a bunch of fundraising emails.
So I chose to do the difficult thing, and you want to know how I did that? I did that because I like to sleep at night. I’m not gonna sit here and throw red meat, because that’s what people want to hear. I’m going to really think about this and consider this decision. And I’m gonna do the right thing.
Greene had previously risen to national prominence by throwing red meat around as one of the most outspoken supporters of former president Donald Trump and critics of Democrats in the House.
