Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) announced at a town hall Thursday night that she won’t vote for any federal spending packages unless several of her demands are met — chief among them, an impeachment of President Joe Biden and an end to investigations into former President Donald Trump.
Like many Republicans in Congress who are pushing for an impeachment inquiry into Biden, Greene’s opinion is based on unfounded claims that the president — in his capacity as vice president during the Obama administration — engaged in shady business dealings with his son, Hunter Biden, and his business partners.
These claims, which have been peddled by Republicans on social media and in interviews with right-wing media, have not been backed by concrete evidence; some Republicans have publicly admitted that the calls for impeachment are primarily about making Biden look bad in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.
During her town hall meeting in Floyd County, Georgia, on Thursday, Greene said that she would oppose an upcoming vote on federal spending because Republican leaders in the House hadn’t committed to impeaching Biden.
“I’ve already decided I will not vote to fund the government unless we have passed an impeachment inquiry on Joe Biden,” Greene told her constituents.
Greene also demanded actions to protect Trump from the several legal inquiries he currently faces, including the defunding of special counsel Jack Smith’s office.
Greene listed other items as her “red line in the sand,” including the funding of “mask mandates, vaccine mandates and COVID [protections],” and additional funding for U.S. military support to Ukraine.
Biden administration officials have described Greene’s comments as “extreme.”
“The last thing the American people deserve is for extreme House members to trigger a government shutdown that hurts our economy, undermines our disaster preparedness, and forces our troops to work without guaranteed pay,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said shortly after Greene’s comments were made public.
It’s possible that Greene’s ultimatums are an attempt to demonstrate her loyalty to Trump, as Greene has said that she believes she’s “on a list” of potential choices for Trump’s vice president in the 2024 election. The former president demanded that Republicans impeach Biden in posts earlier this week on his social media platform, Truth Social.
In those same posts, Trump disparaged the two impeachments he faced while in office, as well as investigations into his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential race.
“These lowlifes Impeached me TWICE,” Trump wrote, “and Indicted me FOUR TIMES.”
“Either IMPEACH the BUM, or fade into OBLIVION,” Trump added in a warning to Republican leaders.
Polling demonstrates that Americans would view an impeachment effort against Biden with skepticism.
According to a Public Policy Polling survey conducted August 23-24, 56 percent of Americans believe that an impeachment inquiry into Biden would be “a political stunt,” while only 38 percent believe that it would be “a serious effort to investigate important problems.” The poll also found that 61 percent of Americans don’t want Biden to be impeached without evidence that he received bribes or enacted government policies due to his son’s business dealings.
“MAGA Republicans’ impeachment promises are nothing more than a partisan political stunt designed to hurt President Biden, and the American people know it,” Leslie Dach, a senior adviser with the Congressional Integrity Project, which commissioned the poll, said in a statement.