Bulwark Takes - Why MTG’s Chaos Makes Her Useful

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Sam Stein and JVL take on Marjorie Taylor Greene’s break from Trump, why her sincerity sets her apart from the GOP’s careerist crowd, and what her Epstein-driven pivot says about the party’s collapse into pure performance politics. Take our quick listener survey and help us make The Bulwark even better. https://bit.ly/bulwarkaudio

Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bullwark. And I'm here with JVL, fresh off of the weekend, looking fresh, has a nice triad today, where he goes for, goes out for his girl, MTG. And this is what actually impressed me at the triad. I had no idea you were such an eat, pray, love fan, but now I know. Not a, not a fan. Fan. I hate. I've always been mildly obsessed with eat prey love as a sim. of American decadence and like late stage capitalism I've never seen it never seen it it's okay you don't need to am I missing something no okay you don't need to but it's a very American story and it's a story about uh you know people it's a very common story right it's like death of a salesman but with like unbelievably privileged Manhattan night and you know like you look up one day and you realize well shit is this all there is and uh you know when you go through

series of personal crises. And I think that's what happened to Marjorie Taylor Green. Yeah. And it's one of the reasons I find her so relatable. So let's talk about the calm, because you make a compelling case that she's actually being sincere. And that or at least we should take what she's doing as sincere.

I mean, she's always seemed sincere to me. So she is born rich. Her dad runs a construction company and she's Catholic and she's in Georgia. She gets married real young. She gets married, her junior of college.

So, you know, like, she's still in college. She graduates the next year. She goes into, she has three kids. She becomes a CFO of the construction company that her family owns. And then like around 2011, you can see she looks up and she's like, really? This is it? You know? And I don't know.

As anybody who's ever been in their 30s knows this is a feeling, which is not wildly uncommon. And so she quits the construction company. happening. And she starts getting really into CrossFit. So much in a CrossFit that like, you know, the user who becomes the pusher. She opens her own CrossFit gym. And so she's a, she's a CrossFit person. And while she's becoming a CrossFit person, she also becomes a Facebook person. And she just starts gorging herself on everything the algorithm sends her. And her entree to politics is through Facebook. Imagine the type of belief.

that somebody would have if their entire political worldview was shaped by like, hey, as a, as an adult, they just sort of logged on to Facebook and started reading the news. And that's what they got. And so she becomes obsessed with all the the Foxy News type stuff that you would think, right? Sharia law is coming. And we drag queen story hours. And she starts getting really involved. And she starts blogging. And she's in a lot of Facebook groups. And she shows up to a drag queen story out or local library and like, this is horrible. This is terrible. She runs around chasing David

Hogue through Washington, D.C. with a video camera because she thinks she's going to tell him off. And in the middle of all this, she also leaves the Catholic Church because she's like, look at this. They have priests abusing kids and the church just covers it up. I can't be part of this.

Right. And then she gets deeper into it. And then she's like, I'm going to run for Congress. And she wins. And she wins. It's like true American story here. Yeah. And so my thesis here is all is that you can work with somebody like that because you

can have a conversation with them because they genuinely believe what they say. And because they believe it, you can actually maybe exchange views with them, maybe persuade them. Somebody like Marco Rubio doesn't believe anything he says and is only saying what he has to say in order to get the piece of cheese that he wants. like, why even bother talking to him? Right. You're not going to convince him otherwise because he doesn't believe it himself. Right.

He's just doing it to get what he wants. Well, so I don't disagree with you, actually. I think there's something there. I think to me, it's interesting because the way you frame it, it's like, here's someone who did not have a fully developed belief system. I don't mean that in a pejorative way at all. Or she came into this world early, and her information ecosystem was incredibly narrow. And so as the moment that Trump hits, right, right?

This is mid-210, 2010s. Right. And so as she gets more exposed and has more discovery, obviously she allows herself to evolve. That makes total sense to me. It also strikes me as someone who is frantically continuously looking for a movement or an institution or someone to trust, right? Like she likes Donald Trump because he provides order or an explanation for her world. And when he disappoints, she is looking now for something. else to trust. And that's a totally normal human thing to do as well. She's a secret,

right? We talk about these people in religious surveys. Yeah. So what do you do with, if you're someone who is a Trump opponent, who, who wants to hold the president accountable? I mean, this is the big discussion on the Democratic side is, do you, do you open the gates to someone like a Marjorie Taylor Green, right? Or do you say, thank you, but, you know, maybe the Jewish space lasers and the threats and all that stuff is just too much for me to get around? I don't know what Open the Gates means in that context, right? I mean, I think you just take her at face value. Like, you show her the respect of taking her at face value.

And you treat her with a level of seriousness that you would not treat J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio or any of these other guys, you know, John Thune, who just go along to get along. And, you know, like, that has led her, look, the reality is, if you are deep in on, like, pedophon, Aphelia and the Epstein stuff, and you are sincerely in on it, then you have to wind up where she has wound up on Trump. Right. Right. Oh, yeah. The guy's clearly, clearly at least complicit, if not worse than complicit.

And he is obstructing the release of all this stuff. He's acting like a guy who's guilty. In a way, it's almost shocking that she's one of three to do this. Four. Yes. Yeah. They've all basically, at one point in their lives, said this is the most serious. issue of our day. It's a widespread elitist cabal covering up horrific pedophilia. And then to not

at this moment come out and say, I demand that this stuff be exposed. Which is shocking. A few of them actually do believe it. Right. The percentage of the Republican House caucus that are just transactional. It's all bullshit. It's like 98% of them. And I don't know. Did you see Marjorie on Dana Bash this weekend? I did. And I thought the part you highlighted was kind of interesting, which is when she was asked about her past stuff, right, like the David Hogg stuff and the threats and all that. And how she, she did apologize for it. She said, you know, I, it wasn't like, I'm sorry. I hurt people's feelings. It was like, I was sorry. Like, I was wrong. She said, I participate in this toxic culture. Like, I, you know, it was wrong. Trying to change it. I guess the devil's advocate take from everyone, uh, who's expressing it as well, she, she's, you know, she's got higher ambitions. Trump didn't endure. her. Now he's revoked an endorsement. I don't even know if one actually existed, but she clearly wants to do something higher in office, and this is just a step in that direction. I mean, if you want to say that this is a woman who is modulating what she says because it's

part of a sophisticated strategy to climb, I mean, anything's possible, but it would be the first time. It would also be a very poorly calculated step. She's just about completely isolated her from a huge swath of the party. So it would not have been the smartest man. And she, I mean, again, she came into Congress as the first Q&N believing member of Congress and immediately got herself, you know, kicked off of all committees because she wouldn't stop saying all the crazy stuff that she believes. And again, I just, I don't want to, I don't want to whitewash it. And I do want to make clear to people, this is not like JVL going soft on her because she agrees with him. Like, I've been on the MTG beat for like a couple years

at this point. I've been going around saying, like, this is a person we can do business with, right? This is somebody who can actually have a conversation with. And it's just, again, it was inevitable. If somebody really believed what they said on all the Epstein stuff and all the QAnon stuff, that they would have to break with Trump. And the fact that she did, I just take as further confirmation of all the other stuff we've seen, which is that she, she believes some crazy ass. Yeah. She believes some crazy ass. Yeah. She believes some. Crazy, crazy ass. But you know what? Like, I don't know. Like, okay, you can, you can talk to her about that. You could maybe change her mind on that. She's changed her mind on lots of things. She's not one of these people who just digs in and refuses to respond to new facts. No, that's true. The other, but the other explanation is like, I'm not sure I believe it, but maybe she did make the right calculation, right? Like, okay, let's in theory say she has high ambitions. She wants to use this as a stepping stone moment. And she's calculated that, in fact, breaking with on these strategic matters, in addition to the stuff like the Obamacare subsidies, which is a more

populist break with Trump, that that is the right move. And yeah, maybe it doesn't make sense in the moment, but what if it does actually make sense in the long term? What if, as you pointed out, Trump's on the wrong side of the conspiracy theory, and she's on the right side? I don't know. And people are going to say, hey, Donald Trump's actually a lame duck, and he did kind of abandon a lot of this America First stuff.

Yeah, I mean, I have a hard time believing that she is. a credible presidential candidate in a Republican primary. Unless the only other people running are like Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz. Sure. She might not be credible, but she might know where the, to borrow the cliche about hockey, she might know where the puck's heading. She might. But again, she's not somebody who has conducted any phase of her life since at least 2011

as though she was skating towards some puck. She just sees stuff and she feels it and she believes it and she acts on it. tries to slap the puck. And I, yeah. And again, like, maybe that doesn't mean that that isn't what she's doing this time. Maybe she's really gaming and out. But I don't know. And even watch her on Dana Pashley, she's not super smooth and practiced.

Like, she's a little awkward. She's, weirdly, she is much closer to being a regular person than like 99% of the people in Congress. Like she's like a super, well, she's a super messy person. Right. Not polished. She's not polished. She's not buttoned up. She is not the.

I mean, most of these guys have been running for office since they were like 10, right? I mean, your median congressperson is somebody who is like, they're Tracy Flick. And she is not, whatever else you want to say about her, she's not Tracy Flick. No. I don't know. I just find it refreshing because for me, the most depressing thing is watching all of these collaborators who know how bad Trumpism is and know how dangerous it all is. and you just go along with it anyway.

Well, and Bill Crystal made the point today in morning shots, which is like, you know, forever, like the expectation was, well, as the moderate Republicans who are going to find places to break with Trump and on Epstein, of all things, like these guys who are in these districts who, this is such an easy vote for them to take, and they didn't do it, but it was Nancy Mays, who has her issues, let's put that aside, Lauren Bober, who had a ton of pressure put on her in literally the situation room by top Trump officials, MTG and then Tom Massey.

Those were the four that were like, actually, you know what? Fuck you. Well, we're going to take this vote. And they're not moderates. No. Well, this is what I'm saying. So there was a, I wrote about this guy last week, Jeff Hurd, who was out in Colorado. He actually went to primary Lauren Bowler because she was such an embarrassment.

It was a pretty purple district. And he was the choice of all the responsible Chamber of Commerce Republicans. And she jumps districts, so she didn't have to run. against him, he became, and he was like, I'm going to be a check on President Trump. He didn't want any part of the discharge position, petition, rather. You know, and it's because these guys are all useless. Once you're willing to just lie about stuff for positioning, then why would anybody think that you'd be looking to break, right?

Unless you can get something for breaking, there's no reason that you would. And so these guys will be the last ones holding on. I'm pretty convinced, right? It's going to be amazing to watch the actual vote when it hits the House floor. all these people who didn't have the courage to sign the discharge petition are going to run to vote for this thing. And it's going to look so fucking lame. I mean, it's really something. But I didn't ask you, where are you on Marjorie?

Are you, are you hard of work? See, as someone who made the space laser for the Jews, it's a little tough for me to now, you know, turn on and say, hey. She just admires your work. You know. I don't know. The banks, the Hollywood studios. She's a big fan of the people. Big fan of our people.

I mean, I'm not quite where you're at, I don't think. I'm not like that far away. I welcome people who are converts. And I think I was talking with, it was either Chris Murphy or Kinsinger at the Trib Festival. And I think the topic came up about like, do you welcome people like this? And I think Kinsinger was like, never, Marjorie Chalegreen, no. I might be but I think that's it.

But I think Murphy was like, look, if you want to be a majority coalition, and you've got to like open your doors to people who you would never agree with. And, you know, you take converts. And maybe you don't take them like without a little bit of distress, but you take them. And you're not saying trust her. You're not saying trust. She's not a Democrat. She's never going to be a Democrat.

She is. In coalition, if you want to have coalition politics on these issues, you have to be able to work with these people. And you know who understood that was Donald Trump, right? He's like, yeah, I'll give you maha. I don't care. I would say one more thing. I think her, so remember she was very close with Kevin McCarthy and she was a big defender of Kevin McCarthy. Yeah, I do remember that.

This is, again, a case where Marjorie came in and was just like looking for something to believe in. And McCarthy was there and she was like, yeah, okay, I'm with it. And she was really pissed when he got deposed by the, you know, the little group of people who did the vote of no confidence or whatever was on him. And she, you know, again, this is just, she's believing in stuff and then the stuff goes and blows up in front of her face. and she can't get over it. And I think that's actually, you know, you're right, that there's something, there's something admirable at that,

where it's like you build a belief system, you actually do believe in it, and when it gets exposed as fraudulent or pulled out from under you, you don't just say, oh, well, I'll just keep getting along. You say, no, you know what that's kind of fuck. Sure isn't what conservatism has done.

Yeah. Right? I mean, contrast her and the way she's reacted to the changing of events with the way like the tenets of intellectual, intellectual conservatism have just morphed around over the last decade. I don't know. Again, her politics are not my politics, right?

I mean, she loves guns. Find somebody who loves you the way MTG loves guns. You know, she's just super into it. She really, really has a problem with trans people. Like, I mean, all the things, very concerned about Israel. Yeah. Very concerned about Israel. It would be a little bit more than just Israel.

But yeah. I'm just saying, like all these things. are real, which is why, like, you know, it's not like, it's not like she's going to come join the bulwark. She's not going to become a Democrat. Despite what Eli Legge said. You can recognize where she is. You can recognize her as being where she is, pay her the respect of believing that she's there genuinely. And where you can work with her to get things done, you can do that. Yeah, I agree. All right. Well, folks should read the column. It's great. you don't have to read it even if you hate eat pray love you can just read it because it's a great column jviel thanks buddy

appreciate you