NBC News reported this morning that Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right bomber from Georgia who went from pariah in a Democratic House to power-player in a Republican chamber, wants to be Donald Trump's presidential running mate in 2024.
Caution is advised because two people who have spoken to the firebrand second-term Congresswoman about her ambitions NBC quoted by name Steve Bannon, the former Trump campaign chair and White House strategist, now a controversial presence in far-right media and accused fraudster.
This is not a shrinking violet, she s ambitious, she s not shy about that, nor should she be, Bannon said. She sees himself on the short list for Trump's VP when MTG looks in the mirror and sees a potential president smiling back. The second source cited, unnamed, said Greene's whole vision is to be a vice-president and said she was likely to be on Trump's shortlist.
Greene has become an unlikely ally of Kevin McCarthy, the new House speaker, after backing him against a rightwing rebellion that forced him through 15 rounds of voting to secure the position.
This week, the New York Times reported that McCarthy said of Greene: "I will never leave that woman." Bannon told NBC Greene she was both strategic and disciplined, that she made a power move, knowing it would run up hard against her most ardent crew. She was prepared to take the intense heat hatred short-term for the long-term goal of being a player. Greene did not make a statement. She said that McCarthy would easily vindicate me over the next two years and prove that I moved the conference to the right during my first two years when I served in the minority with no committees. This is a sort of thing that was kicked off by the House when Democrats ran the House, and McCarthy now thinks there is no impediment to membership of panels on oversight and homeland security:
She did not make any conspiracy theories about the 9-11 attacks.
It would seem to be possible in today's Republican Party. With only Ron DeSantis of Florida anywhere close to the election, Trump dominates the polling.
Robert Draper, the author of Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind, knows something of MTG and her rise.