Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene confirmed Wednesday that she is no longer a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus after the group voted to oust her after she called Rep. Lauren Boebert a ‘little b****’ on the House floor.
Greene’s dismissal from the group was in question because she refused to call back the Freedom Caucus’ Chairman Scott Perry, who had wanted to deliver the news to the Georgia Republican personally.
Greene told CNN Wednesday that she hadn’t called back anyone in the group because, ‘I don’t care.’
‘I’m not interested in any type of drama, or petty conversations,’ she said.
Freedom Caucus members chose to vote her out due to her treatment of Boebert – who she had also confronted in a Capitol Hill bathroom during January’s speaker’s vote – but also because she had backed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene confirmed Wednesday that she is no longer a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus after the group voted to oust her after she called Rep. Lauren Boebert a ‘little b****’ on the House floor
Rep. Lauren Boebert is photographed leaving the Capitol Building on Wednesday. Her altercation with Greene prompted Greene’s ouster from the House Freedom Caucus during Fourth of July recess
Boebert, on the other hand, was a part of the vocal ‘Never Kevins,’ who held up McCarthy’s ascent to the speakership for 15 ballots.
‘I enjoy being a free agent a lot better,’ Greene also told CNN. ‘I’m interested in getting accomplishments done, not doing things just to disrupt and fight leadership. And that’s a major difference.’
On Monday, CNN reported on the deep tensions within the Freedom Caucus, which was launched in 2015 by Rep. Jim Jordan, among others, to move House Republican leadership to the right.
Now around 40 members strong, the group has become unwieldy, with members split on how much they should support McCarthy and whether they should officially back the 2024 White House run of former President Donald Trump.
‘Days are numbered anyway for the group,’ one conservative lawmaker told CNN. ‘Because they go in 100 different directions.’
Greene is supportive of both.
She’s already endorsed Trump’s 2024 campaign and worked to get McCarthy elected as speaker.
That runs contrary to the original role of the Freedom Caucus, which was often to be the thorn in House GOP leadership’s side.
‘The reality is they’re mad at her for playing ball with McCarthy and, and still being one of Trump’s favorites,’ a conservative lawmaker told CNN. ‘It’s pretty evident. That’s what’s gone down.’
At the same time her relationship with Boebert has frayed.
When the two women were both elected in 2020, they were immediately tied together in media reports.
‘QAnon goes to Washington,’ announced Roll Call, the longtime chronicler of Capitol Hill, connecting Greene and Boebert to the pro-Trump conspiracy theory, which they have since distanced themselves from.
Greene and Boebert were also compared to each other because of their brash temperament, relative youth compared to most members of Congress and ability to rile up a MAGA crowd.
But Greene doing just that – at the rally of a known white nationalist in February 2022 – and Boebert expressing displeasure, produced the first media reports that the MAGA darlings weren’t in lockstep.
During January’s House leadership vote, the two women had a fight in the bathroom.
Sources told The Daily Beast that ‘Greene questioned Boebert’s loyalty to McCarthy, and after a few words were exchanged, Boebert stormed out.’
‘You were OK taking millions of dollars from McCarthy but you refuse to vote for him for Speaker, Lauren?’ Greene reportedly said, catching Boebert off guard by coming out of a stall in the women’s bathroom off the Speaker’s Lobby.
Boebert responded to Greene, ‘don’t be ugly,’ a source said, and then added that she ‘ran out like a little schoolgirl.’
Six months later, their arguments spilled out onto the floor.
During votes on June 21, Boebert can be seen approaching the dais, walking past Greene and then hightailing it back to her where the two women were captured by C-SPAN speaking animatedly.
The lawmaker chairing the session can be heard banging the gavel and saying, ‘Take your conversations off the floor,’ as a round of voting concluded.
By dinnertime, The Daily Beast had reported what was said.
Greene had alleged that Boebert had copied her articles of impeachment, instead of just supporting her bill.
‘I’ve donated to you, I’ve defended you. But you’ve been nothing but a litte b***h to me,’ Greene told Boebert, sources said. ‘And you copied my articles of impeachment after I asked you to cosponsor them.’
One GOP lawmaker in earshot told The Beast: ‘I heard Marjorie call Boebert a b***h right to her face.’
And Greene admitted to it on-the-record.
‘She has genuinely been a nasty little b***h to me,’ the Georgia congresswoman told Semafor.
Greene said that Boebert had come over to her to confront her about telling reporters she believed the Colorado congresswoman was playing copycat.
‘I was sitting down, and so I stood up and said, “I’m happy to clarify my public statements to your face,”‘ Greene told Semafor. ‘I told her exactly what I think about her.’
On Thursday, House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Andy Harris spilled the beans to Politico that the group’s members had taken a vote and kicked Greene out of their group .
He called the ouster ‘an appropriate action.’
‘I think the way she referred to a fellow member was probably not the way we expect our members to refer to other fellow, especially female, members,’ Harris said. ‘I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was publicly saying things about a member in terms that no one should.’