Marjorie Taylor Greene is an American congresswoman who appears in John Kiriakou’s commentary as a case of a politician he disagrees with almost entirely but credits on specific questions.
Kiriakou’s assessment
Kiriakou has said he finds Greene “impressive in some ways”, arguing that being able to say something favourable about a person does not mean agreeing with them, and adding that she “is kind of impressive considering where she came from”.[1][2]
The Epstein files
Greene was among the Republicans — with Thomas Massie and members of the House Freedom Caucus — who joined Democrats to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files, against the wishes of Speaker Mike Johnson.[3][4] She has also said publicly that the GOP is betraying conservative values and that neoconservatives have recaptured Donald Trump from his own movement.[5]
Kiriakou has recounted her account of a conversation with Trump, in which she asked why he was angry at her for wanting the documents released unredacted when she was not in them; Trump’s answer was “yeah, but many of my friends are.”[6] Kiriakou calls her willingness to stand up on this “courageous”, but says it was ultimately too much even for her and that “they forced her all the way out of Washington” — an outcome he attributes to the number of very senior figures of both parties, including presidents of both parties, who are at least implicated.[7]
Israel and Gaza
Greene also appears in Kiriakou’s account of the American right’s drift on Israel. Asked about her description of the Gaza war as a genocide, he answered that “she’s right, of course, but it’s amazing to hear her and people like her saying anything like that.”[8] She was one of six votes in a House measure to cut off offensive military aid — the members of the Squad plus Greene — a tally Kiriakou contrasted with the 27 senators who backed an identical measure days later.[9]
The resignation, and the pension date
Kiriakou’s response to Greene’s resignation was disappointment rather than sympathy. He had, he says, just remarked to a friend: “I can’t believe that I get up every day and agree with Marjorie Taylor Greene. Like, how did this happen? Because I don’t think I changed. I think she changed.”[10]
What he had expected of her was structural. “I remember thinking, wow, this may actually begin to change the national debate — because even though she was junior in the Republican party, she was still very important in the Republican party.”[11]
He extends the criticism to Nancy Mace, then running for governor of South Carolina, who was talking about resigning effective 6 January alongside Greene to make a political point about how things were being managed. Kiriakou’s verdict on the gesture is one word — “I think that’s cowardly. I really do” — and his explanation for the date is not political: “that’s the day they qualify for the pension.” His summary: “Shame on them both.”[11][12]
The consequence he draws is that the only plausible vehicle for change inside the party has gone. “If there was going to be a movement within the Republican party that was going to work to change the Republican party on some of these issues, it could have been led eventually by the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace. And now it won’t be. I mean, Thomas Massie can’t do everything himself, right? And Rand Paul is right on the issues only half the time.”[13]
’Who are you and what have you done with Marjorie Taylor Greene?’
Kiriakou treats Greene’s realignment as the single sharpest illustration of ideology cutting across party lines. He recounts a friend tweeting at her: “Who are you and what have you done with Marjorie Taylor Greene?” — and his own version of the same reaction: “I can’t believe that I wake up in the morning, read the news, and agree with everything that Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying. What kind of crazy country have we become? I don’t understand it.”[14]
He volunteers his own record against her: on his old radio show “I used to make fun of Marjorie Taylor Greene mercilessly. Mercilessly. But man, it’s like every time she opens her mouth these days, she’s right. And I find myself agreeing with her.”[15] The specific case put to him, which he accepted, was that Greene called Gaza a genocide before Bernie Sanders did — something Kiriakou called “huge” for critics of American policy in the Middle East, and “a clear indication of the current state of American politics.”[16]
He names her as one of a set rather than an exception, alongside Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Steve Bannon.[17]