Marjorie Taylor Greene has shoved a grenade into the middle of the GOP over the current government shutdown, and her attacks on party leaders are drawing sharp, public rebukes. Republicans from the Hill have reacted with frustration, with some senior members saying her rhetoric sounds more like a leftward turn than conservative discipline. This article lays out the fight, reproduces key quotes exactly, and looks at how Greene’s moves are affecting the party’s ability to push back on Democrats during the shutdown.
The shutdown itself traces back to Democrats refusing to back a continuing resolution they supported in March, a move that left Congress scrambling instead of finishing regular appropriations. Greene has publicly blamed Republican leadership for inaction, accusing them of sitting on policy ideas while the shutdown drags on. Her critics say those attacks are unhelpful and are undercutting GOP unity at a critical moment.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called on people Wednesday to stop listening to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and suggested her politics are moving leftward.
Greene’s criticism of her fellow Republicans has escalated in recent days amid the government shutdown. Speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Cruz urged people to not “spend much time worrying about what Marjorie is saying.”
“What I’ve found is that whenever an elected official decides that they are going to turn on Israel and hate Israel, you will very quickly see every other policy out of their mouth become very, very liberal,” Cruz continued. “And so suddenly Marjorie is for massive government spending and taxes and open borders and amnesty.”
“OK, fine,” he said. “That is not where the American people are. Where the American people are is real simple. We’re on Day 29 of the stupidest shutdown.”
Cruz followed Sen. Bernie Moreno’s (R-Ohio) plea for Greene to stop openly criticizing House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
That rebuke from Cruz is loud and clear, and it frames the central complaint: Greene’s rhetoric is being read as moving away from conservative priorities at the worst possible time. Rank-and-file members are concerned that public feuds hand Democrats cover and reduce the GOP’s leverage in negotiations. GOP leaders have tried to defuse the tension, but the public calls for silence from colleagues show how raw the division has become.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is on the warpath against her own party’s handling of the government shutdown. And her fellow Republicans are increasingly calling her out.
The firebrand three-term lawmaker, long an ally of President Donald Trump, has distanced herself from Republican leadership in recent months. And as the shutdown drags on, Greene’s loud — and usually lonely — dissent risks fracturing Republicans’ efforts to present a united front and pressure Democrats into caving on funding the government.
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Republicans have continually indicated they’ll negotiate on health care premiums only after the shutdown. House Speaker Mike Johnson has tried to brush off Greene’s attacks and defuse the tension, telling reporters that GOP-led conversations on health care are happening in other channels.
“Bless her heart, that’s an absurd statement,” he told CNN when asked last week to comment on Greene’s assertion that the Republicans were “sitting on the sidelines” on health care.
Greene has only ramped up her critiques of the speaker and his team, with the shutdown now well into its fourth week, writing on X on Tuesday that Johnson “said he’s got ideas and pages of policy ideas and committees of jurisdiction are working on it, but he refused to give one policy proposal to our GOP conference on our own conference call.”
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Greene’s disagreement with Republicans stretches beyond the shutdown. She broke party ranks by calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide in July and was one of just a handful of Republicans to sign a discharge petition from Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) that would force a floor vote on the Epstein files.
There’s a pattern here: Greene has been vocal on issues that split the conference, and that visibility means her comments carry weight beyond a private critique. When a member publicly breaks ranks on Israel or procedural fights, it forces leadership into damage control while negotiations stall. For Republicans who want a tight message against Democrats, this internal noise is dangerous political noise at a strategic moment.
Part of the irritation stems from nuance and optics. Saying leadership isn’t doing enough and then airing that critique in public amplifies the impression of disarray, even if the intent is to push for faster action. Members who want to present a united front argue that working channels and closed-door strategy have to come before theatrical blasts on social platforms and cable shows. The stakes are higher because the shutdown is already stretching into multiple weeks and voters see the chaos.
Some of Greene’s critics have framed her remarks as a leftward drift, suggesting that turning on core allies signals a broader change in priorities. Others see it as tactical — a bid for attention that is out of step with the goal of forcing Democrats to negotiate. Either way, the result is the same: the GOP is distracted by infighting when it should be focused on policy leverage.
So, Greene is for illegal alien health care and NPR funding, because that’s why Democrats shut down the government. And last, she’ll be going on The View:
Shaking my damn head, man. If the goal is to win fights with Democrats, loud public feuds won’t replace a disciplined strategy that moves votes and builds pressure. Party leaders and rank-and-file Republicans now face a choice about whether to tolerate public dissent or insist on private coordination while the country waits for Congress to reopen the government.
