Marjorie Taylor Greene Just Wrecked Trump’s Entire Shutdown Strategy | The New Republic
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Marjorie Taylor Greene Just Wrecked Trump’s Entire Shutdown Strategy

As Greene admits the GOP is screwing the country on health care, a leading congressional scholar explains how Greene accidentally revealed the surprising weakness of Trump’s position in the shutdown standoff.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks into microphones outside the U.S. Capitol
Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene in Washington, DC on Sept. 3, 2025.

With the government shutdown fight dragging into its second week, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene rolled a grenade into the GOP camp. She erupted on Twitter, demanding to know why Republican leaders have no plan to help millions of people who will be hurt when expanded Obamacare subsidies expire. This wrecks President Trump’s whole strategy in this fight, because it rests on the idea that only Democrats are to blame for the standoff, all due to their undying love of “illegals.” Greene’s broadside also sent House Speaker Mike Johnson scrambling. But we think this fiasco goes even deeper. We talked to veteran congressional scholar Norman Ornstein, author of a new piece on the standoff. We discuss how Greene has exposed serious cracks in the MAGA coalition, why this exposes weaknesses in Trump’s stance, and what Democrats can do to maximize their leverage. Listen to this episode here.