Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in a newly published interview argues Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is “100 percent” following orders from President Trump, and as a result relinquishing the power of Congress.
The remarks from Greene, who will resign from Congress effective Jan. 5, come amid complaints from members of the House that it is giving up too much sway to the White House.
“I want you to know that Johnson is not our Speaker. He is not our leader,” Greene told The New York Times in December, according to a profile of her published Monday. “And in the legislative branch — a totally separate body of government — he is literally 100 percent under direct orders from the White House. And many, many Republicans are so furious about that, but they’re cowards.”
Greene has fallen out with Trump over the last year, and said she was resigning from Congress rather than putting her district through a messy primary in which the president would back a GOP opponent. She has also repeatedly offered criticism of Johnson.
The Times interview is the latest in a series of public comments in which Greene has offered her side of the falling-out with the president.
Davis Ingle, a spokesperson for the White House, told The Hill in a statement that “President Trump remains the undisputed leader of the greatest and fastest growing political movement in American history — the MAGA movement.”
“On the other hand, Congresswoman Greene is quitting on her constituents in the middle of her term and abandoning the consequential fight we’re in — we don’t have time for her petty bitterness,” Ingle said.
Greene has broken with Trump and Johnson in recent months over a myriad of issues. She blasted Johnson’s decision to refuse to bring the House back in session when the government was shut down, calling it an “embarrassment.”
She was also one of four Republicans to endorse a discharge petition aimed at forcing a vote on a bipartisan bill requiring the Department of Justice to release files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Johnson said the Epstein case was the Democrats’ “entire game plan,” while Trump called it a “hoax.” The president made a last-minute flip and urged Congress to support the bill, leading to it passing nearly unanimously, including a vote from Johnson.
And Greene called the Speaker out at the end of October for not providing any plans on a GOP alternative to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies set to expire at the end of the year.
The bitter feud between Greene and Trump has seen the president unendorse the Georgia lawmaker and call her a traitor. In a statement announcing her retirement decision, Greene predicted “a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the President we all fought for” if she ran for reelection, and said she refused to be a “battered wife.”
Johnson said in an op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal over the weekend that House Republicans had a “great year,” touting a GOP health care bill that was passed by the lower chamber earlier this month. The bill does not address the expiring subsidies.
He also argued 2025 has been “one of the most productive first years of any Congress in our lifetimes.”
“House Republicans passed 441 bills. We voted to codify 70 of President Trump’s America First executive orders, clawed back billions in wasteful spending through rescissions, and repealed 23 harmful Biden-era regulations with the Congressional Review Act,” he said.
Greene has criticized Johnson for following Trump’s lead too assiduously.
At the end of November, she said she and other House Republicans “came courageously roaring into 2025 with legislation that matched the 2024 electoral mandate only to be totally sidelined by Johnson under full obedience of the WH.”
“Now that House members are switching gears into campaign mode and will be fighting for their lives, our legislative majority has been mostly wasted. Our best shot was the first 6-9 months. And when Republicans likely lose the midterms it will become total and complete political war and gridlock once again,” she wrote on social media at the time.
The Hill reached out to Johnson’s office for comment.
