Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene Joins Howard Kurtz's Media Buzz to Discuss the Speaker Election

Early on in the battle over the next House Speaker, Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Kevin McCarthy's key allies, got really frustrated with the other side's negotiating tactics. We found out that there were several members, three in fact, that went in last night and were demanding positions for themselves, demanding gavel positions, demanding subcommittees, demanding for people to be taken off committees and people to be put on committees. I haven't asked for one thing for myself, and I'm the only Republican that has zero committees. And joining us now is Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican Congresswoman. So we'll come back to that, but walk us through what happened at the end, because everyone's now seen the pictures. Let's put it up. Were you surprised when Kevin McCarthy fell one vote short on the 14th ballot late Friday night, when everybody was saying he was going to win? And when you were trying to hand your phone, everyone could see DT on it, to get an opponent, Congressman Matt Rosendale, to talk to the foreign president. Why did he refuse to take the call? Well, actually, I was surprised that this went on as long as it did. Going into this, this week, this past week, we all knew the negotiations were there. It had been going on for months. And in the last final weeks, we thought everyone was in a good place. Then everything started, and we started seeing that there was a solid 20 that just wouldn't back down. But there was also a solid 201. Right. That got lost in a lot of the coverage. And, you know, that was something the media kept spinning around. They were trying to say that Kevin McCarthy would drop out or that the conference was going to pull away. Absolutely not. And President Trump really helped with that. There towards the end, I had been talking with President Trump several times that night, and I was trying to get Matt Rosendale on the phone with him. President Trump wanted to talk to him. And I was shocked that he refused his phone call. And he seemed angry about it. He was angry. He yelled at me on the House floor, telling me, don't you ever do this. I was so surprised. I couldn't understand. I was holding out my phone saying, it's President Trump. He wants to speak with you. You know, President Trump endorsed, I think, all 20. And was there anybody else on the floor at that time that you were able to get to take a call from the former president? Well, you know, these are my Freedom Caucus allies. And yes, and our voting records are literally the same. I have a 100% conservative voting record and will continue to have one. But he had talked to them multiple of the 20 during the course of the week, urging them to vote for Kevin McCarthy for speaker because we have a great agenda. And the agenda is easy to support. It's the same type of agenda the base supports. So we were ready to go. But it took a while to get there. But I'm really glad they came around. Just briefly, were you concerned at all about there being an actual fistfight on the House floor when Mike Rogers was lunging toward Matt Gaetz, who had voted present? But clearly, there was some kind of miscommunication or screw up. And then Rogers, Congressman Rogers, having to be restrained. Well, there was a lot of frustration and patience. People's patience were worn out. There were some things happening behind the scenes that had caused a lot of people to be upset. For example, there were people that had sick family members at home. People, Kevin Hearn's mother had passed away. There were, there were babies had been born. Right. You know, Wesley Hunt, one was premature and his wife was in the hospital. Right. So there were serious things going on. And there were members in the conference that were saying enough of this. There is nothing more to discuss. There's no reason to prolong this. Let's get on with it. Okay. Now, you told a few months ago, you told New York Times magazine writer Robert, Robert Draper for his book about McCarthy. You said, I think that to be the best speaker can put this up here of the House and please the base. He's going to give me a lot of power and a lot of leeway. And if he doesn't, they're going to be very unhappy about it. That's not in any way a threat. That's reality. So could it be said, and this has gone on in the history of our republic, that you'd already cut your deal that if McCarthy became speaker, you wouldn't be treated as some fringe character, but you would have influence. That's not at all true. As a matter of fact, I don't have any committee assignments yet. I've only submitted the same form that every other member gets to submit asking for committees. And I don't have a promise. I've already heard some people saying that what they're getting, because that was honestly what a lot of the negotiations in the end were all about. I have no promise. I have no deal. I only fully supported, I've said this all along, the agenda that's laid out there. It's even on Kevin McCarthy's website, what we can accomplish in the Republican conference. And the reason why I told that to Robert Draper is because I have the support of the base and I keep telling everyone here in Washington, this is what the American people want. And it was easy for me to get on board with this agenda because I'd see the conference come around the same things. Just to deal with one bit of history, the Democrats stripped you of your committee assignments after you were elected. That was raw politics. But in fairness, didn't you also say around that period that you had been a follower of QAnon conspiracy theories and you had rethought this and you were no longer influenced by the group? Well, like a lot of people today, I had easily gotten sucked into some things I'd seen on the internet. But that was dealt with quickly, early on. I never campaigned on those things. That was not something I believed in. That's not what I ran for Congress on. So those are so far in the past. All right. You tweeted, I guess in late December, being conservative and anti-establishment, I used to criticize Kevin McCarthy a lot. So if that's true, why did you end up on his side when some of your fellow conservatives in the Freedom Caucus, obviously, you know, Gates was saying he will not win next week, next month, next year. Thank you. That's a great question. Yeah, he did say that. And sure enough, Kevin McCarthy is our speaker. Well, here's what happened. I came into Congress and, you know, Kevin and I, we had some public confrontations or not necessarily confrontations, but said things about one another. But I did something that I wish more members of Congress would do. I started talking to Kevin McCarthy and I went and met with him and got to know him better and got to understand where he sees the conference going, what he sees our agenda and what we should do. And that's why I came around a lot sooner than 20 of my Freedom Caucus colleagues. But listen, here's the great news. I'm glad they came around this past week. So what you saw them do, learn to trust them and have faith in the plan going forward. I was able to do that over the past year. But I hope more and more of my colleagues do that. When things got heated, you said this about Congressman Chip Roy of Texas. He refused to object on January 6th. That's not what our base wanted. So a lot of the people who were backing Kevin McCarthy also didn't vote to certify the electoral college results for Joe Biden. Do you think that's an important thing to the base even today? Oh, it's very important. Well, what I was pointing out is the same people that conservatives were holding up in high esteem don't necessarily have those voting records while they're at the same time criticizing Kevin McCarthy, who does? Kevin McCarthy did object on January 6th. And he's been a top target of the Democrats and the January 6th. Do you believe that Joe Biden is a legitimately elected president? Of course, Joe Biden's the president. That's always a silly question. OK, I wasn't trying to be silly. I was trying to just clarify. We have about half a minute left. As you know, what a lot of media is saying now is, oh, you know, McCarthy gave away too much. He's weakened his speakership, especially when the number of members required to do a snap vote or whether he should stay in that chair went down from five to one. Was that a big deal in the machinations here? Well, no, I'll go with this. And this is what I've said from the beginning before we ever got into this week. The most important thing that every single member has is their voting card. There's only 222 Republicans and we need 218 to pass anything. That's where the magic happens. And so the big fight that happened this week, I think that a lot of it was really unnecessary and just a bunch of fanfare that helps popularity on the Internet but doesn't produce results. Now we have a speaker that we can produce results with and we have to do that by coming together to get 218. Yeah, that's where our power lies. And so with this rules package, let's be very real. We've got a Biden White House. We have a Democrat controlled Senate and we got to get to 218 to accomplish anything. Right. Ultimately, Washington, it's about the math. That's right. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Thank you so much for coming in today. Thank you for having me.