According to Mary Trump, the niece of former U.S. President Donald Trump, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is not actually the most powerful or influential member of Congress. Though McCarthy holds an important title, Mary Trump was quick to point to controversial Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene as the Republican in the House who holds the most power and influence over her party.
Mary Trump said as much during an interview just recently, mincing no words in the wake of Greene’s beginning of her second term in the House of Representatives. The claim that she may well be more powerful than McCarthy is hard to judge, but none too impossible as Greene’s name is often splayed across headlines, and many seem to look in her direction to keep them in the political know-how in spite of her past of advocating for right-wing conspiracy theories such as President Joe Biden somehow rigging the 2020 presidential election in his favor.
It seems that for many, Greene is one of the most recognizable faces amongst the GOP, and she has risen to such a level of national prominence at least in part due to her brazen attitude and blunt opinions that she often shares with various degrees of filtration.
While hosting an episode of her podcast, The Mary Trump Show, the former president’s niece, who has long been a vocal critic of the Republican Party, expressed her worries about Greene and the influence she seems to have over the GOP. This is far from the first time Mary Trump has chosen to speak out about political discourse, as she was an outspoken opponent to her own uncle during his time in office from 2017 to 2021.
“She’s actually the Speaker of the House, let’s be real,” she said, referring to Greene. “In two years, she has made herself the most powerful person —Republican— in the House of Representatives.”
Although Greene is quite a well-known and recognizable figure within modern politics, it’s difficult to say whether she is actually the most powerful member of the GOP or not. Some signs would point to that not being the case, however, as both Democrats and Republicans alike voted to revoke her from her committee seats in a bipartisan coalition. It was only this month Greene finally managed to regain those seats.
Even so, Mary Trump is not the only individual who has questioned Greene’s power over the Republican Party. The likes of Former GOP Chairman Michael Steele echoed similar sentiments just last month, stating that Greene will likely be a prominent influence in many of McCarthy’s decisions on issues pertaining to the far-right. Moreover, former Republican Representative Joe Walsh from Illinois, has also made similar statements about Greene during an interview with MSNBC in the not so distant past.
“McCarthy will probably be Speaker, but let’s be real,” Walsh said. “Marjorie Taylor Greene these next two years will be the Speaker of the House. She will have McCarthy by the short hairs every single day of the week for the next two years.”
