A new cadre of America-first politicians is fighting to restore the American Republic by shrinking the size of the federal government, defying globalism, and canceling spending for foreign wars. Among them is Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who was first elected to Congress in 2020 and then reelected in 2022. Since her 2020 campaign — and continuing to the present — she has been routinely attacked and maligned by the major media, and her name has become well known throughout the country among both admirers and foes. 

But what is Greene really like? For starters, she is a constitutionalist who believes in “America First.” In The New American’s Freedom Index, which rates every member of Congress based on adherence to the Constitution, she has earned an impressive 97-percent lifetime score, one of the best in Congress. In our last Index, published in our January 15 issue, she earned a perfect score of 100 percent.

The New American senior editor Veronika Kyrylenko interviewed Representative Greene in her congressional office on February 13. An abridged version of their discussion follows. The full interview is available on video online at TheNewAmerican.com.

The New American: I would like to get your reaction to the Senate passing a $95.3 billion emergency spending package addressed to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. How do you feel about it? Have you heard from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) if he’d be putting it up for a vote? 

Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG): I’m 100 percent against it, and I can speak on behalf of the American people. Our border has been ripped wide open by the Biden administration. We’ve had 10 million people come across our border since Joe Biden took office in January 2021. We’ve got two million gotaways. These are people from over 160 countries. We don’t know who they are. We don’t know where they are. And we don’t know what they’re planning to do in America. But we do know that among them are terrorists, and we don’t know what’s going to happen. I think the American people feel this way, and I feel this way. This government has put the American people $34 trillion in debt. They are doing nothing to secure our border. But yet they fought all weekend, held the senators throughout the Super Bowl, and stayed up until 5:00 a.m. debating and fighting in order to make sure that they could send 95 billion of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars to fund the war in Ukraine, the war in Israel, and a future war between Taiwan and China. It’s America Last. I’m absolutely against it. And I say, shame on all the Republicans and Democrats that have forgotten their oath, forgotten the people that they swore their oath to, and really could care less about how hard Americans worked to earn their money.  

TNA: It’s up to the House to decide on this bill right now. How do you envision its fate? 

MTG: Well, that’s the problem. There’s a major divide. Washington, D.C., is really like a foreign country. It doesn’t represent the interests of the American people. We don’t know yet because the Senate just passed it. I put it out on my social media, saying it’s dead on arrival in the House. Our “conservative” speaker, Mike Johnson, should not be bringing this bill to the floor. He should be telling the Senate to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to pass H.R. 2, the best, strongest border-security bill that’s ever been introduced in congressional history. That’s the bill that should be passed. Another thing we should be doing is passing funding to rebuild our United States military supplies that have been depleted so badly by just handing all these weapons over to Ukraine and to these other foreign countries. So, we should be rebuilding our military. That’s what we should be talking about. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s dead on arrival. What I have heard is that they may separate the three. They may separate [the funding for] Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan and try to put those under suspension and pass them, and I’m going to tell you right now that the base is going to be furious if that happens. 

TNA: Two years ago, when the war started in Ukraine, there were just a handful of representatives, you included, who opposed war funding. Do you see these attitudes changing in the House right now? Do you hear more of your colleagues saying, “It’s wrong to send so much money to foreign countries to fund their wars”? 

MTG: Yes. When it started back in 2022, I was literally one of a few. And I was very vocal about it. And, of course, we have extreme sympathy for any country being attacked. Of course, we have sympathy for the people of Ukraine. But it doesn’t mean that we should fund the war. Ukraine is not a member nation of NATO. Yet here’s America, sending billions and billions of dollars. $113 billion. And now they want to send $60 billion more. The truth about the war in Ukraine is that it’s really just a killing field. It’s destroying an entire generation of men — Ukrainian men — and I’m sure Russian soldiers are being sent to die there, too. It’s really horrible. And what should be happening is peace talks, and it should be between Russia and Ukraine, not everyone else. Let them work out their dispute. Let them find peace between the two of them. That’s what I’m for. 

That’s how it started. But it has changed. And it changed because the American people agreed with my voice and agreed with a few others of us that were willing to stand up and say, enough of the United States funding foreign wars. Enough of this. We need to work on our own problems and issues. And guess what happened? Phone calls, social-media posts, emails, and constituents showing up and talking to their representatives. That’s how it works. And they showed up and started putting pressure on my Republican colleagues, asking, “Why did you vote to fund the war?” 

TNA: There’s a whole new cadre of politicians [such as you and Donald Trump] who have actually decided to put America first. There is an opinion that you and other America First politicians are an embodiment of the people’s acute demand for no-nonsense constitutional policies that would oppose globalism and other forms of socialism that are proliferating in America right now and that are so deeply antithetical to our founding principles. Do you agree with it? 

MTG: I think that’s correct. I think there’s been a major change since Donald Trump stood on the debate stage among 17 other presidential candidates. He stood out to me, but he also stood out to many other Americans. We saw a regular American businessman. Of course, he’s a billionaire. He’s extremely successful. But he talked like a normal American. He didn’t sound like the other polished politicians on the stage. And I think that opened the door. And then watching President Trump be completely attacked here in Washington by the mainstream media, who lied about him relentlessly — the Russia hoax, impeachment number one, etc. — we, as Americans, really started paying attention, and that opened a lot of people’s eyes. 

For me, it was when Paul Ryan was speaker of the House and they passed a $1.3 trillion omnibus bill, and it was a Republican-controlled House, a Republican-controlled Senate, and we had Donald Trump in the White House. It was the ultimate opportunity for Republicans to really change things. And it was the ultimate time for them to pass the agenda that we all voted for, that they promised us on the campaign trail, that we all supported behind Donald Trump, and that we wanted, but they failed us completely. That bill didn’t fund the wall. It did not do anything to stop abortion. As a matter of fact, they funded Planned Parenthood for $500 million. They did none of the agenda items we wanted. And that was what made me decide to run for Congress. 

But I think it’s those types of issues that have brought other candidates out.... They’ve seen me be successful, and they probably look at me and say, hey, if she can win an election, if she can get in there and fight for the things we care about, maybe I can, too. And I’ve seen a lot of other candidates run for office. We need them here. We need many more America First candidates to win their races. And it’s not going to be a quick fix. 

Funding foreign wars: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev. The United States has sent many tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine, along with military hardware, to aid Kiev in its war with Russia. This has only prolonged the conflict and led to more death. (AP Images)

TNA: Since 2016, the MAGA movement has had some major electoral setbacks on the national level. What are the major challenges that we’re facing? What are the strategies to regain momentum and ensure future electoral successes? 

MTG: We need to care about our elections. Elections have to be fair. Elections shouldn’t be run with days and days of absentee ballots that can be dropped off at any box on the sidewalk. We should only have citizens voting. It shouldn’t be filled with illegals able to vote in our elections. It shouldn’t be run by machines. It’s not difficult to do paper ballots. And I watched that happen in the Iowa caucus. I was pretty amazed. In a matter of a few hours, the state votes on paper ballots with a pen and pencil, and they hand-count them and get results. They do it all with transparency in front of the people who just voted on these paper ballots.  

Republicans have to fight harder to make sure that we get our districts. But that comes down to the census. We have to stop counting illegal aliens in our census, and when we actually count American citizens, then we can draw our districts correctly in our country, and we’ll have better maps representing Americans. So there are many factors involved in this. And that’s why I say it’s going to take a lot of years to fix these problems. But here’s the thing: It’s up to Americans to fix it. And for many years, Americans were lazy and totally ignored the people that we voted into office. 

TNA: What’s your take on special counsel Robert Hur, who just decided that Joe Biden is unable to stand criminal trial over his mishandling of classified documents? Hur said that the president is “an elderly man with poor memory.” What’s your reaction to such a lenient decision and the justification that he provided for it? 

MTG: I think [what] shocked America and brought the issue up to the forefront that no one could ignore anymore was the fact that we have one special counsel, Jack Smith, prosecuting President Trump to the highest level of the law because of his handling of classified documents. And President Trump did nothing wrong. But yet, on the other hand, we have the current president of the United States, who has documents spread all over the country. But yet, the special counsel decides, with prosecutorial discretion, not to prosecute him. And it wasn’t because he hadn’t done anything wrong. It was because his memory is so bad. That rocked America, and they can’t hide it anymore. It’s what we’ve known all along. It’s what Americans know every time they see him on camera. It’s the whole reason why his administration, his staff, and his campaign try to stop him from doing press conferences or being out in front of the camera. We want Robert Hur to come before us and testify. We have a lot of questions for him, and we think that it’s a big problem. If [Biden] can’t stand trial in front of a jury, then he cannot serve as president of the United States. 

TNA: Who’s really running the country, then? 

MTG: His staff. Many of them are former Obama administration officials. And it’s clearly not Joe Biden. Joe Biden doesn’t know the difference between Egypt and Mexico at this point. So, it’s a crisis. I think it’s a constitutional crisis. I think it’s a national security crisis. It puts all of us in a dangerous situation. And the Democratic Party as a whole needs to face up to it. They need to face up to the fact that the Cabinet is responsible to invoke the 25th Amendment, and remove Joe Biden from the presidency, and install the vice president. That really would be the responsible thing to do if they cared about the country. But they don’t care about the country. They only care about politics, and they only care about maintaining power.  

TNA: Lately, the political atmosphere feels more charged than usual. There is lots of troubling talk about potential political unrest, violence, and, in some extreme narratives, the possibility of civil war. Just one year ago, seemingly reacting to the extreme polarization in America, you tweeted that we needed a national divorce of red states and blue states. To my knowledge, you never addressed the practical implementation and legal mechanisms of separating states. 

MTG: Much of that’s already there. It can be easily done. Of course, I am completely against a civil war. I don’t have any interest in a civil war in America. I think that’s the last thing we should be doing. The only war we should be fighting is stopping people from invading our country every single day. If we’re going to go to war, we should have our military at our southern border because the cartels control many of our border sectors. That was told us by our own Border Patrol chief. So I just wanted to make that statement about war. But the mechanisms are there to have states have their rights and to shrink the federal government down. And that’s what should happen. The federal government has us, all of us, $34 trillion in debt. I haven’t proposed any legislation for a so-called national divorce or separating red states from blue states. But you definitely see that this is the trend that we’re drifting towards. But I don’t think the country is really ready for that yet. 

TNA: The Constitution provides two paths. One is the nullification of unconstitutional laws, regulations, and policies enacted by the federal government. In other words, all local officials take an oath to uphold the Constitution. They can say, “We decide not to go along with the unconstitutional usurpations of the federal government.” The other path is secession, when a state actually leaves the union and is therefore no longer under the Constitution. Which path do you advocate? Or do you envision a third way? 

MTG: I haven’t actually gone down either path yet, and I think that’s something that each state has to decide. I’m very much for state rights, and I think that potentially this is where we’re going. But at the same time, I’m very invested in reelecting President Trump and hopefully getting things right here in Washington. For me personally, I would love to have a red state where we don’t have Democrats, like I said, shoving their woke policies, transitioning children, and all of these horrible things that they continue to shove down our throats. But I just don’t think that our country’s there yet. I think we got close with Texas with the argument between the federal government and the state of Texas. I think that’s definitely a place where Texas has a strong movement called “Texit.” That’s a large group of people in Texas that would love to secede from the union or find a legal way to separate from being controlled by the federal government. But it brings into question many things, like how does your national defense compare to a state’s own military or militia? That brings up many questions. So, again, I haven’t gone down that avenue yet. I’ve merely said this is how people feel. People are fed up with it. If you want to have your communist state of California, you have it over there. Hollywood, stay out of Georgia. We have our own ideals and our own values, and they are nothing like yours. 

TNA: What was your reaction to [Texas] Governor [Greg] Abbott’s decision not to go along with a federal policy to take down their razor wire and [prevent Texas from protecting its] border? 

MTG: I think he was doing a great job. I think everyone applauded him for taking that strong stand, and all the Republican governors across the country, I think, except one, have come out and supported him and backed Texas. And I think that’s exactly what they should be doing. A strong coalition of Republican governors who are willing to stand up against federal government power and overreach is exactly what we need to see happen. So, I hope Governor Abbott continues to stand strong on that and for the protection and security of the state of Texas. 

Nullification at work: Texas Governor Greg Abbott (seated, signing bills) has put immigration enforcement into the state’s own hands, setting up border barriers and arresting illegal migrants, ignoring federal orders to the contrary. Texas’ actions set an example for other states to follow. (AP Images)

TNA: How do you respond to the assertion voiced by, among many other groups, the Libertarian Party that “it’s not red versus blue, it’s state versus you”? That is, the real political divisions are not among everyday Republicans or Democrats, but between the federal government and everyday Americans. 

MTG: Yeah, it’s definitely the case. It’s where the federal government wants control, and people lose their independence. I definitely think that our problem is the growth of the federal government. It’s like an overgrown monster that started out as a cute little puppy in your house. And then it ate all the food in your refrigerator and all the food in your pantry, chewed up all your furniture, went potty all over the house, and made a mess. And that’s what the federal government is like now — an overgrown monster that is working every single day against each American citizen. 

TNA: Your opponents would say that it was just a natural reaction to all the challenges and crises that we’re facing. How would you explain in simple terms what the purpose of the government is and what specific areas or functions of the government need to be scaled back in order for them to adhere closer to the Constitution? 

MTG: I think there are many departments of the government that we can completely strike out of the budget. That’s what happens when you own a company, and when you build up too much overhead in your company and your company grows too big and you have too many employees and too many departments, then you stop actually producing revenue and you go into debt. And that’s the same thing that’s happened here in the federal government. Many of the problems you could say, some of them have had unintended consequences, such as trying to legislate against a problem. But it really created many problems — corruption, abuse of power, lining the pockets of their corporate donors, and lining the pockets of industries that are constantly running around our offices with their lobbyists. 

I think the easiest way to solve the problem is to really reduce the size of the federal government, and that’s literally firing thousands of federal employees and closing down entire departments because they don’t serve what the [intended] purpose is. So, the purpose of the federal government is, number one, to protect the 50 United States with our military. We should be funding a military for the protection of the United States of America. Number two is to pass laws for the safety and security of all Americans, but also to protect the trade and business of our American companies. But our federal government has gotten so far away from all of those things. Look at the amount of foreign aid that our government gives to countries all over the world. It’s basically a payoff to all these countries so that America can have a voice and step in and tell all these countries what they should do. 

TNA: Can you talk of any significant efforts made by you and your colleagues on the Hill to get back to the limited government envisioned by our Founding Fathers? 

MTG: We have made a lot of significant efforts. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of bills that I’ve introduced or co-sponsored to do things like pull out of the UN, stop funding all this foreign aid, stop funding foreign wars, and get rid of the Department of Education. These bills never get a floor vote. 

TNA: Recently, you added your name to the list of co-sponsors of H.R. 6645, or the DEFUND Act of 2023, which would terminate our membership in the United Nations and all affiliated bodies. Please tell us about your motivation to support this legislation. 

MTG: Oh, that one was a no-brainer. We need to get out of the UN. I’ve also co-sponsored legislation to defund the WHO [World Health Organization]. It makes sense. These are global entities that do not serve the interests of the United States and are oftentimes controlled by our enemies. As soon as I saw that bill, I said, “sign me up.” 

TNA: By our enemies, do you mean Communist China?  

MTG: Yes, Communist China, who seems to control a lot of that, and the UN and WHO. 

TNA: Yet, we seemed to be collaborating with Communist China in creating the SARS-CoV-2 virus that started the Covid pandemic. You sit on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, one of whose goals is to investigate the pandemic origin. Would you comment on any significant progress that you’ve made so far? 

MTG: Well, that has been the primary goal of the committee, to investigate the origin of Covid. But that stage has already passed. We all know where it came from. It came from a lab in China. We know that it was funded by our government. We know that it was funded through EcoHealth Alliance. This isn’t a mystery to the American people. So, I’ve been pretty frustrated with the Covid committee because it stays focused on the origins of Covid when everybody already knows the origins of Covid. That’s not the question. I think the committee should be working much harder on the outcome and the damage that Covid did, as well as the forced and mandated masking and vaccination of Americans, which is of bigger interest to me, and I think it’s of bigger interest to the American people. 

I held my own hearings on Covid vaccines because there are many people who have been injured by Covid vaccines. The staggering number of reports on the various systems is something unbelievable to me, and it’s shocking that everyone in Washington, D.C., wants to ignore people who have said that they have either suffered vaccine injuries themselves, a loved one died, or they had someone die after taking the vaccine. 

TNA: You invited prominent scientists and physicians to testify. Can you please talk about the information that was the most surprising to you? 

MTG: Those hearings were so compelling. Dr. [Robert] Malone was on the first panel of our witnesses, and he provided extensive answers and explanations about what Covid is and explained everything in detail about the creation of Covid mRNA vaccines. Our second panel was Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Ryan Cole, [and pediatric cardiologist Dr. Kirk Milhoan]. They went into detail. And here’s what was amazing to me: They quoted peer-reviewed studies; they quoted statistics in every single answer they gave. And just before that hearing, we had the deposition with Dr. Anthony Fauci. He did not quote peer-reviewed studies. He did not quote any studies. He didn’t quote the test results. He just talked and gave his own opinion and his own answers. [It was] such an extremely different avenue and way of thinking, where Dr. Fauci sounds like a narcissist and sounds like he’s playing God and that we are all just mice in his basic medical lab, and we’re like his test subjects, whereas these other doctors have been wonderful. We didn’t have to subpoena them. They willingly came, paid for their own travel, and paid for everything to be here. Their answers were so much better than Dr. Fauci’s. 

The Covid vaccine is being forced on pregnant women, it’s been forced on some people to keep their jobs. It’s been forced on all our military members, and now it’s on the CDC childhood vaccine schedule. What is going to happen in the future? And we have a responsibility to be open and honest about this and say we’ve got to look at this issue with fully open eyes and really know what is happening here, but no one’s willing to do it. 

TNA: Have you heard any responses or feedback to your hearings? 

MTG: Oh, regular Americans were thrilled with those hearings, watched them, and shared them. We had millions of views, which shows that people care about it. People really care about this issue. It’s also a campaign issue. This is something that if I hold a town hall, someone’s going to ask me about. If I’m out talking with people or giving a speech somewhere, someone’s going to ask about it because they care, because they were forced to take these vaccines. Another issue that is becoming extremely important, and I don’t think it can be ignored, is the increase in cancer. We are seeing cancer increase like never before — all kinds of cancer. And that’s another reason why we have to investigate these vaccines, because if they are causing cancers, or “turbo cancers,” and we don’t know who could be affected, my goodness, this is literally murdering people and being unwilling to even talk about it. So, I think it’s a moral obligation. I believe it’s a moral obligation that members of Congress should be talking about it and investigating it. Guess what? One more thing. The American people paid for it. Taxpayer dollars funded these things. And so that makes it our duty. It’s our responsibility. 

TNA: It cost us $10 billion to make these vaccines via Operation Warp Speed. And you know what is extremely concerning to me? It’s that we have no idea how six of these 10 billion were spent because they were awarded from the government to the vaccine manufacturers via some defense contractor who has ties with the CIA. And we have no idea — not even the [Department of Health and Human Services], which co-ran Operation Warp Speed alongside the [Department of Defense] — what’s in these [classified] contracts. Do you have any interest to learn what happened during Operation Warp Speed, which was specifically aimed at the speedy development of vaccines and which Donald Trump likened to the Manhattan Project? 

MTG: I’ve heard President Trump talk about it many times, and I think he’s right to be proud of certain elements of Operation Warp Speed. I’m not talking about the vaccine. I’m talking about the fact that so much red tape was able to be cut so that everyone could come together and basically be prepared to fight a pandemic. And then, it’s easy to stand on this side of history and look back and judge everyone who made decisions at that time. They were forced to make these decisions with the information they were being handed. Who were the ones advising President Trump? Dr. Fauci and Dr. [Deborah] Birx. He trusted them. They were his advisors. They should have been advising him the right way. Did we know at the time that Dr. Fauci was the one profiting and making all this happen? No. And President Trump didn’t know that either. But I do think it’s important to look into these types of things that should be investigated in our Covid committee — not just origins, but I think it would be good to investigate these things. 

TNA: The last topic I would like to ask you about is the impeachment of the absolutely dysfunctional DHS secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. What’s next in this saga? 

MTG: It was extremely infuriating. It was extremely frustrating and disappointing that we had three Republicans join with the Democrats and protect Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who legalized, through his powerful Cabinet position as secretary of Homeland Security, the largest invasion of the United States in history. One of those [Republicans] was Ken Buck, who is retiring. We all think he’s looking for another job, maybe with CNN or something. Tom McClintock, no one can understand whatsoever. He claims to be a constitutionalist, but yet he’s unwilling to use one of the biggest tools that our Founding Fathers gave us to get rid of people like Alejandro Mayorkas. Hopefully, his district and his constituents will correct him on that issue. Then, we had [Representative Mike] Gallagher, who announced his retirement within days after voting “no” and comes from a strong Republican district in Wisconsin. I think people let him know how they feel about that. [One week after the House failed to impeach Mayorkas, the House voted a second time, impeaching him by a vote of 214 to 213. The second vote occurred on February 13, just hours after our interview of Representative Greene.]

TNA: How do you expect the senators to vote on it? 

MTG: Well, after this weekend and the 5:00 a.m. vote, we know where the Senate stands. [Early Tuesday morning, the day of this interview, the Senate voted to approve a $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, without providing any funding for the U.S. border crisis.]  

TNA: I would like to ask you about your pinned tweet, and I would like you to elaborate on that: “Today and everyday is 1776. Never give up our freedoms. Never let the left steal them away. Be a watchman on the wall and stay on guard every single second of every single day because the left will stop at nothing until they destroy our faith, our families, and our freedoms.”  

MTG: I pinned that tweet after the Democrats and a radical leftist group tried to take my name off the ballot in 2022 and stop my district from even being able to vote for me. And they attacked me using the term 1776 against me. And I pointed out to that Democratic attorney, who was from New York, while we were sitting in a Georgia courtroom, I said, “You did see the Georgia seal on the wall, sitting behind the judge. And it says, 1776.” 1776 isn’t a threat. It is a reminder of exactly who we are as Americans, that in 1776 we stood up to a tyrannical king and declared our independence, and we fought for our freedoms. And that’s why we should always stand as watchmen on a wall and fight every single day to protect those freedoms. Because once they’re gone, they only come back with bloodshed. And that’s something that every American should remember every day.