“MAGA” Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., got personal this week in their disagreement over who should be the next House speaker.
SO WHAT
Is Trump losing control of his movement?
SHOTS FIRED
Speaking at a Turning Point USA conference in Phoenix on Monday, Boebert slammed Greene for endorsing Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.,’s bid to be the next speaker.
“I’ve been aligned with Marjorie and accused of believing a lot of the things that she believes in. I don’t believe in this just like I don’t believe in … Jewish space lasers,” Boebert said, referencing a conspiracy theory once espoused by Greene.
THE CLAPBACK
Greene returned fire on Twitter later in the day, accusing Boebert of throwing her “under the bus for a cheap sound bite.”
In a series of tweets on Tuesday, Greene explained why she was backing McCarthy, despite having criticized him in the past.
- “There is no one else running for Speaker. And no one in our conference could get 218 that would do these things. The border and impeaching Mayorkas,” she wrote.
ZOOM OUT
“For most of the last few years, Trump has been a unifying force in the GOP and, more broadly, on the right,” Daily Beast columnist Matt Lewis wrote earlier this month, following the GOP’s underperformance in the midterm elections.
- “But what happens when a strongman starts to appear vulnerable? Chaos ensues. People rise up and/or the power vacuum is filled by local warlords.”
- As evidence of the chaos, Lewis cited a series of internecine spats among right-wingers: Greene versus alt-right provocateur Nick Fuentes, Greene vs. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Greene vs. Laura Loomer and Alex Jones vs. Ye.
Another sign: Gaetz, one of Trump’s staunchest supporters in Congress, took a shot at the former president Tuesday over his support for McCarthy.
- “If Donald Trump believes Kevin McCarthy should be speaker of the House, then Donald Trump is wrong,” Gaetz told Real America’s Voice at the same Turning Point USA Conference where Boebert spoke.
- “Donald Trump has not always nailed it on the HR front.”