Friends say that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) became best friends with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) during his tumultuous fight for the top job.
When the Georgia Republican first entered Congress two years ago, it was widely believed that she would be a political liability and a threat to his leadership. However, several sources told the New York Times that McCarthy and the Georgia Republican had developed a close bond as he fought to become speaker of the slim Republican House majority.
“I will never leave that woman,” McCarthy said, according to a friend who was granted anonymity to describe their private conversation. “I will always take care of her.”
McCarthy told the newspaper that he has faith in Greene because he resembles his childhood pals from California.
“If you’re going to be in a fight, you want Marjorie in your foxhole,” McCarthy said. “When she picks a fight, she’s going to fight until the fight’s over. She reminds me of my friends from high school, that we’re going to stick together all the way through.”
McCarthy has already been strongly influenced by Greene, who has quickly become well-known in an increasingly extreme GOP. McCarthy has taken on her views on vaccine mandates and funding for the war in Ukraine, and he has agreed with her call to present “the other side of the story” regarding the uprising on January 6.
“If he sticks to it,” Green told the Times, “will easily vindicate me and prove I moved the conference to the right during my first two years when I served in the minority with no committees.”
Greene appears to be just as loyal to McCarthy. She has triggered a feud between herself and once close ally Lauren Boebert over Boebert not being loyal enough to McCarthy in Greene’s eyes.
Boebert and Greene got into a heated argument in the ladies’ room of the U.S. Capitol.
On Jan. 3, the first day of the new Congress, a verbal altercation broke out in the lady’s room of the House speaker. According to sources, the politicians fought over their alleged allegiance to Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who was vying for the position of House speaker.
“Greene questioned Boebert’s loyalty to McCarthy, and after a few words were exchanged, Boebert stormed out,” said one source familiar with the argument.
“You were okay taking millions of dollars from McCarthy but you refuse to vote for him for Speaker, Lauren?” Greene said, according to another source familiar with the confrontation.
According to the first report, Greene confronted Boebert for accepting campaign funding from McCarthy and then voting against him in the speaker vote. Boebert had been unaware that the Georgia Republican was in the washroom.
“That’s when Lauren said, ‘Don’t be ugly,’” the first source said, adding that Boebert then “ran out like a little schoolgirl.”
Boebert just said, “See you later — bye See you later — bye,” and Greene has not commented on the incident.
