Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s choice to back the debt ceiling agreement on Wednesday has drawn severe criticism from her erstwhile ally Steve Bannon, who encouraged the Georgia Republican to face a primary challenge.
Bannon urged Greene and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, who also voted in accordance with party leaders, to “Both Face Primary Challenges from Real MAGA” in a message posted on the conservative social media site Gettr on Wednesday night.
The House handily approved the debt ceiling agreement on Wednesday with a vote of 314 to 117. President Joe Biden and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached the agreement after extensive discussions.
The law was passed by a bipartisan coalition despite fierce opposition from conservative Republicans and socialist Democrats. The socialist Dems claimed it could not sustain additional work requirements for safety net programs and the Republicans claimed it did not go sufficiently enough to reduce federal spending.
As it stands, the agreement would impose federal spending caps and postpone the debt ceiling until January 2025—after the following presidential election. Even though the agreement was designed with both Republicans and Democrats being able to claim victory, some in both parties were still not happy with the outcome.
Prior to the vote, members of the Freedom Caucus, led by its Pennsylvania-based chair Rep. Scott Perry, vowed to “do everything” in their power to derail the agreement. 71 Republicans abstained on Wednesday in favor of the agreement reached by their own speaker. The Freedom Caucus member Greene wasn’t one of them.
She stated in a lengthy Wednesday Twitter thread, “I agree with my conservative friends in the Freedom Caucus on some of the flaws in the Fiscal Responsibility Act and I’ve never wanted to raise the debt ceiling on debt that I never voted to create.”
“But I came to Washington to make changes and this bill actually provides a tool (an idea from @RepThomasMassie) that gives us a chance to make those fiscal changes.”
I agree with my conservative friends in the Freedom Caucus on some of the flaws in the Fiscal Responsibility Act and I’ve never wanted to raise the debt ceiling on debt that I never voted to create,..
🧵1/19 pic.twitter.com/Q4A7DfGvS2
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) May 31, 2023
Her endorsement of the debt ceiling agreement represents yet another rift between the Georgia Republican and the Freedom Caucus members she vehemently disagreed with during McCarthy’s unsuccessful quest for House speaker.
McCarthy was only chosen as House Speaker in January, following 15 arduous rounds of voting that were mandated by a group of Republican hardliners who staged a days-long uprising. After several discussions and compromises, McCarthy was able to persuade the Republican defectors to back his campaign.
Despite the fact that this caused her to publicly feud with two of her closest GOP allies, Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida, Greene was a staunch supporter of McCarthy throughout the election.
The fact that Greene supported McCarthy was seen as a betrayal by some of her admirers, with Infowars viewers calling her a “fraud” and prompting her to explain herself by asserting that she was “still the same person.”
Bannon’s post demonstrates Greene’s commitment to McCarthy throughout the debt ceiling negotiations, exposing the Georgia Republican to additional criticism from MAGA Republicans.
Elections will be held in 2024 in every U.S. House district, including Greene’s seat in Georgia’s 14th congressional district. Since her first day in office on January 3, 2021, Greene has maintained her position.
Bannon, a former senior adviser to President Donald Trump, thinks the United States is rapidly deteriorating under the present administration but that there is still time to restore some sort of normalcy and prevent a complete collapse.
If the Democrats and Joe Biden lose in 2024, that is.
Bannon, the host of the well-known “War Room” podcast on the Real America’s Voice network, was first asked if he agreed that the nation is enduring one of the most dire conditions in its history and that there is only a limited window of opportunity to turn things around or lose the country as it was founded in an interview with Natural News founder and editor Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, for Brighteon TV.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt. I think if you look at the three previous crises of this country — the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II…and that’s just the problems on the basic politics, economics, invasion, sovereignty issues. It doesn’t even deal with the issues of an existential threat like the Chinese Communist Party and how they’ve infiltrated… And it doesn’t even touch upon artificial intelligence and the convergence and the singularity. So if you look at this — this is, I think, the most dangerous time not simply in American history, I think it’s the most dangerous time in world history. And now, because of artificial intelligence and biotechnology and the advances, I think it’s the most dangerous time for the human race,” Bannon said on his show.
He concurred with Adams that left-wing cultural norms and “woke” ideals are being injected by the designers of AI tools like ChatGTP, but he emphasized that it is more than that. He predicts that eventually AI systems and algorithms will be able to program themselves and may even perceive humans as the “enemy.”
