Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. speaks during the first day of the Republican National Convention. Photo: Jasper Colt / USA TODAY NETWORK
During a speech that was ostensibly about the economy, GOP candidate Donald Trump praised Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), saying that she’s “shy, quiet” and “really highly respected in Washington,” despite her extremism – especially on LGBTQ+ rights issues — as well as reports of her being ostracized by both centrist and more conservative members of her party.
During the speech, in which Trump rambled about immigration, air conditioning in California, and Oprah Winfrey’s love of key lime pie, while also repeating his past claim that Vice President Kamala Harris lied about a summer job she had in the ’80s at McDonald’s, Trump took a moment about 45 minutes into his speech to praise Greene, who had introduced him as a “successful businessman that gave us the best four years of our life.”
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Now Trump’s getting attention online for how he described Greene.
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“A very shy, quiet person, doesn’t like mixing it up too much,” Trump said yesterday at the campaign event in Savannah, Georgia. “But she is really highly respected in Washington, and she’s fantastic, Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
Greene has a long history of attacking LGBTQ+ rights. She tried to shut down Congress multiple times to keep the House from voting for the Equality Act, which would provide civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ people. She introduced a bill to ban gender-affirming care for trans minors and make such care more difficult to obtain for trans adults. She has an anti-trans sign outside her office that she originally put up because a Democrat hung a trans flag, which upset Greene. She hired a self-proclaimed ex-gay as an intern. She also voted against marriage equality, saying that marriage is between one man and one woman “and that’s how God created it.”
Greene is so extreme that more moderate members of her own party have called her out. Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) accused her of engaging in “a failing act of political theater” when she tried to get Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) removed from the speakership earlier this year for not being conservative enough in her opinion.
But that hasn’t endeared her to the far-right either. Last year, Greene famously got kicked out of the House Freedom Caucus — a group of far-right lawmakers — for her repeated “attacks” on her colleagues.
“She’s not a member of the Freedom Caucus, and she shouldn’t be in the future,” then Freedom Caucus member Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) said at the time.
She doesn’t even get along with another extremist who was elected to the House the same year as she was and is a fellow supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO). Greene allegedly referred to the gentlewoman from Colorado as a “wh**e” behind her back and a “b**ch” to her face.
“No lie is beneath this nutcase,” one person commented on Trump’s claim that Greene is “highly respected in Washington.”
Greene wasn’t the only anti-LGBTQ+ extremist Trump praised yesterday. He also called Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban “really a great leader” and bragged about Orban’s endorsement of his campaign.
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