McCarthy on Greene: She’s the ‘canary in the coal mine’
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) looming retirement is a broader representation of embattled GOP lawmakers who could depart under the Trump administration and put the Republican majority at risk.
“She’s almost like the canary in the coal mine,” McCarthy said during a Tuesday interview on Fox News’s “Jesse Watters Primetime.”... McCarthy’s words come in tandem with 22 House Republicans who have either made the decision to retire early or forgo a reelection bid next year.
The Republican leadership is trying to spin this as a positive, but MTG's action is making other Republicans think about resigning too. One senior House Republican told Jake Sherman of
Punchbowl News:-
"This entire Whitehouse team has treated ALL members like garbage... the regular rank and file members are more upset than ever... More explosive early resignations are coming. It's a tinderbox. Morale has never been lower."
It's having a positive effect alright, but not for Trump Republicans. That's what we need to start calling them now -
not MAGA. Trump may have the coined the phrase 'Make America Great Again" but he doesn't own it. Neither is he doing it, and the actual MAGA crowd are starting to realize they've been duped.
I think the people here saying that MTG only got into politics to grift are wrong. Of course she will wait until completing five years of service before resigning to get FERS - who wouldn't? But she has been critical of Trump for months now, long before showing any indication that she might throw in the towel. I believe her reasons are genuine. This doesn't mean I agree with all the stuff she has said and done - far from it - but it does suggest she is being honest.
In a February 2021 speech on the House floor MTG said "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". One of the people who 'allowed' her to believe falsehoods was Trump, who unlike her
knew they were lies and promoted them anyway. People here pooh-pooh her talking about being a 'battered wife', but that is exactly what Trump has been doing to Republicans. Now some of them have finally had enough and are packing their bags.
'Skeptics' say these Republicans are only resigning because they will lose in the next election, but that's not it. The truth is they have lost faith in Trump and can no longer stand being under his thumb. However as any battered wife can tell you, it takes a lot of strength to do that. MTG is the first because she has that strength.