Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene sharply broke with her party leaders Wednesday as they tried to project a united front in the deepening standoff with Democrats over health care and the government shutdown, calling on Speaker Mike Johnson to bring the House back into session and warning that Americans would be hit with higher costs if her party doesn’t help right the ship.
Greene, a staunchly conservative Republican from Georgia, warned that her party would face a backlash from voters if rising health care costs are not addressed, underscoring the growing rift between Trump’s prominent ally and Republican leaders.
“The whole world is being destroyed,” Greene told CNN in a wide-ranging exclusive interview from her House office. “Look, Democrats, you created this mess. Republicans, you have no solutions. You haven’t come up with a new plan, and we’re not even talking about it, and it’s hurting a lot of people.”
The issue is at the center of the government shutdown dispute, with Democrats demanding an extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that were bolstered during the Covid-19 pandemic to help families pay for health insurance. The loss of those subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year, is expected to increase health care premiums, and Democrats say they must be addressed immediately as a condition of their votes to reopen the government.
Republicans say those negotiations should wait until Democrats support a direct extension to fund the government through Nov. 21. Johnson says he will not reconvene the House until Senate Democrats vote for the stopgap bill, which the House passed last month.
Greene said Johnson’s approach is a mistake.
“I think you really should reconvene the House for many reasons,” Greene said, lamenting that the regular appropriations process and important meetings among members, including on health care, are on hold. “Any serious House speaker is going to build consensus within their conference behind a plan. It’s not something secret that they work on in a committee.”
“This cliff is looming for millions and millions of Americans, where your health insurance premiums are about to skyrocket, so put your money where your mouth is,” he said, calling for broader changes to the country’s health care policy while arguing that the Obama-era Affordable Care Act dramatically raised his family’s health care costs.
Greene’s comments are the latest in a series of actions she has taken that have isolated her from her party’s leadership…and the White House. An outspoken critic of Ukraine, she has also stepped up her criticism of Israel and called the Gaza war a “genocide.” And she is one of a handful of Republicans trying to force a full House vote to request the release of files from the Jeffrey Epstein case, while also urging Trump to meet with victims of the late convicted sex offender, saying it would be “good to hear their personal stories.”
Asked if Trump was deviating from MAGA principles, Greene said, “I would never speak for the president, but I don’t think he always gets the best advice.”
“I’m very supportive of the president, but I also work for my district, and I’ve made it clear time and time again, who voted for me,” he added, noting that his district will be “crushed” by high health insurance premiums.
But Greene also made clear that she didn’t think her party was winning the public relations war over the shutdown, criticizing the GOP for putting the blame squarely on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer without trying to reach a deal themselves.
“I think politics is terrible,” Greene told CNN. “I don’t think anyone is sitting at home saying, ‘Oh, this is great. The Republicans and Democrats have the government shut down and they’re not discussing anything to fix it.’ The Democrats are saying, ‘Continue to increase the debt with the ACA tax credits,’ and the Republicans are just… calling it a Schumer shutdown, so I don’t think anyone is winning here, and I think it’s a failure, and I personally think I don’t like”.
CNN’s Dalia Abdelwahab contributed to this story.
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