BOMBSHELL: MTG’s Sudden Exit Blindsides GOP Leadership

Alright everybody it's me sam stein managing editor board by jvl here on a friday night super late because we have some heartbreaking news for jvl some real news for us here marjorie taylor green who has been making a lot of waves. Is resigning from congress she put up like a completely i don't know where put up a statement in a video announcing she was going to be stepping down on January 6 Fish 7 6 5th the day before the January 6 anniversary, right? Two days but two days after she gets her pension and we can get to that later Anyways, let's listen to the video and on the flip side JVL you tell me what you think

I have too much self-respect and dignity I love my family way too much. And I do not want my sweet district to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president that we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms, and in turn be expected to defend the president against impeachment after he hatefully dumped tens of millions of dollars against me

and tried to destroy me. It's all so absurd and completely unserious. I refuse to be a battered wife hoping it all goes away and gets better. If I am cast aside by the president and the MAGA political machine and replaced by Neocon's big pharma, big tech, military industrial war complex, fifth as well. There is no plan to save the world or a 4D chess game being played. When common American people realize and understand that the political industrial complex of both parties

is ripping this country apart, that not one elected leader like me is able to stop Washington's machine from gradually destroying our country, and instead the reality is that they, common Americans, the people, possess the real power over Washington, then I'll be here by their side to rebuild it. Until then, I'm going back to the people that I love to live my life to the fullest as I always have and I look forward to a new path ahead. I'll be resigning

from office with my last day being January 5th, 2026. And I look forward to seeing many of you again sometime in the future. May God bless you all and may God bless America.

Sam, where's the lie? Show me. Show me the lie in any of that.

It's not so much a lie okay it's not i'm not saying she's lying but there is something like it's almost like circular logic that i'm having trouble following right. She's like well if i can be replaced by a new car and pharma shill. It's like, yeah, you can be replaced if you resign. Like you should stay in office. If you feel like that might happen, then stay in office and

fight it out.

I don't know. No, this is, look, I honestly, not a bit. This is not a bit. I find her logic and I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. She looks at the world and she says, okay, so I'm gonna have to run a primary in my district, which I'll probably win because like, Georgia is the state that stayed with Brian Kemp, right?

Remember Lakeland? They like their conservatives there. And then I'll win this thing after having, you know, uh, eight digits of money dropped on my head on TV by the magpacks by the magpacks. And I'll go back to Washington with the Republicans now being

in the hole by like 35 seats.

Yeah.

And my job will be to defend Donald Trump for two years.

Yeah, that's true. All that's very true.

And like, I am sorry, but what, what, this is, it's a house seat. They, they, they make those things, you know, they give those things away basically. There's so many of them, except for New York 12. New York 12 is like a battle royale.

Literally anyone who has a pulse is running a New York 12.

But honestly, this is the kind of logic that you would have thought that so many Republicans from the pre-Trump days would have followed, right? They would have said, I'm sorry, you want me to beat a MAGA challenger and then go back to Washington and just get on my knees

and spend all of my time defending the indefensible for this guy who hates me anyway? Well, there's an alternate path, man. No, thank you. And very few of them did it. They were just like, sure, I'll do that.

Just let me keep my seat. God have a seat. I won't wear my pin.

What I'm wearing my lapel pin, please.

But JVL, there's an alternate path, right? She could, let's say in theory, she takes the step of running again, getting eight figures poured on her and surviving the other, it doesn't mean she has to go and become Trump's defender in the House minority. She could actually do what she's doing now. She could speak out against him when she feels like she needs to, and she could just gradually grow towards a more independent, you know, right-wing nationalist type, I guess, but populist posture.

What are you going to promise? You're powerless in your, yeah, that's right.

I mean, powerless in the house. There's nothing there's nothing to be done. And the whole focus of of the, you know, 26 to 28 will be accountability for Trump and whatever that means. Re-analyst hearings. And and if you're a Republican in the House, your job is going to be to sit around and defend him. And look, in a perfect world, I'd say just switch parties, Marjorie. Yeah, right.

But of course, but she's not a Democrat. And this is the thing. We're Democrats are like, oh, or, you know, are we, we can't be a big enough tent to bring her in. She's not asking to be brought in. She doesn't agree with you guys about hardly anything.

It's just that she believes all the stuff she has said about like the elites and corruption and all that stuff. And like, she really believes all this stuff about, uh, abuse of, of girls. And that has led her to be like, peace out.

Why do it now though? That's the question, right? Like we have a, eight months at least, maybe more, way more, 10 months till we get the elections. Like there's no reason to do it right now. What's your theory? Friday before Thanksgiving, I mean, honestly.

It's so weird.

This just feels, so it does not appear as though anybody in Republican leadership got a heads up on this.

Very much so, yeah.

This is what I have said the whole time. When people are like, oh, but don't you think she's laying the ground for somebody. And I'm like, I am sorry. I have now been a fairly close Marjorie Taylor Greene watcher. And this is not a woman who is plotting her moves out 12 deep, right? Like, she just, she sees things in the world,

and she says stuff, and she does it. Like, she starts doing CrossFit, and she likes CrossFit so much she opens a CrossFit gym.

Right. Like this is, this is just who she is. This has that vibe.

This has the vibes of someone who had like, you know, maybe she had a nice glass of Chardonnay tonight. She's eating dinner with her husband or boyfriend, Brian. She's like, you know what? I just don't like this. Get the camera rolling.

Let's tape.

That's like, it's so it is refreshing to see a Republican who doesn't view a congressional seat as the most important thing in their lives, because that's what we have seen so much like the Pete Myers of the world. And right, all of these guys should probably should probably probably recap for the audience

what Pete Myers journey was here.

What was the Meyers journey? So he's a freshman elected to Congress. His first thing to do from Michigan, his first thing to do was to,

oh, look at that, son of a bitch, JR.

It's the third man.

There he is. There he is bursting in like the Kool-Aid.

We'll get back to Pete Meyer later. Andrew Egger, what do you think? He had to run home to get on this

because he was so amped. I am amped but I don't know. I'm a little I'm I'm paralyzed cuz I don't know what you have already done. Oh, oh, you know what that makes it even hotter.

You just start talking. You have no idea what our what our

line is on this. Okay, can we talk about the human element real quick? Maybe you've already done this. Just the like just how like insane it is to watch an elected Republican just sort of talk openly about what it's like to have Donald Trump try to put them down like you and JBL on the same same camp here.

Very human video.

Yeah, I just mean like like, she's absolutely right. She's like, I fought like hell for this guy for years and years. And I took a couple stances that were more to his base than he is. And now he's trying to crush me over that. And he's gonna dump tens of millions of dollars

into my district. I'm gonna have to like fight that, spend the next year. And then, and this was my favorite thing about her video. Maybe you already did this too. Like and then Democrats are going to retake the House and I'm going to have to spend the next two years still getting none of the stuff done that I want to get done and instead just having to be his big cheerleader against the impeachment efforts like of course I'm not going to do that. Like that was her that's her stated

understandable sane rationale for not. Because she doesn't value holding a seat in Congress as the single most important thing in her life and a thing that is worth disfiguring her soul for

and if only more Republicans viewed public service in that way.

Okay.

Okay.

Hold on Andrew. Why now though? Why do it now?

Well, she's gonna run as president, right?

I mean, it doesn't that seem obvious. Isn't that the obvious ending of the video? Andrew, why now though? Why do it now? Well, she's gonna run for president, right?

I mean, doesn't that seem obvious? Isn't that the obvious ending of the video? Like when the American people are ready to join me in this fight, you know, she's making the play. It actually kind of hurts her to have to be the Trump defender, like to kind of meekly go back to-

Yeah, but she could do this at any point between now and the midterms. No, but but but but Trump has forced this moment on her by by by doing this now and she has to make a choice. She has to grovel she has to kiss the ring. Or she has to do this weird dance where like she she does like the Brian Kemp thing and she doesn't declare war on him, but she beats him and then tries to like maintain this uneasy truce, but then would actually have to go right back to defending him. And she's saying, she's taking the human side.

Why does she have to go back?

But why does she have to go back to defending him?

Well, that would be her job.

That would be her job as a Republican in Congress under a Democratic House.

She's currently Republican in Congress, and she's currently not defending him.

But under a Democratic House, that would be the agenda. That's her point in the video. The agenda under a Democratic House is impeach Donald Trump. And so like a Republican caucus agenda will be defend

defend Donald Trump. Yeah, right. And so what is it? Let me let me what else would she do? Because you can't move agenda items, right? You can't let me put this. Let me put this

Tim Miller tweet to you guys. First JBL, then Andrew. Tim, our dear colleague, writes, the streak of Republicans challenging Trump and then quitting continues a pace. I thought MTG would be different. Sad! Exclamation point.

I mean, just a hard disagree. Just a hard disagree. She's a straight shooter with upper management written all over her. I mean, I just again, I look at what she's done and I see what Andrew's saying. Like, maybe, maybe looking like, oh, maybe she wants to start a third party. Right. I do not. I mean, also, I'm sorry. Just watch her video. She is not a raw political talent who gets elected president

or like she is much more like a normal person. Talk right. Like that does not, she does not look like Zoran Mamdani or uh, or our buddy cam, right. Cam's fantastic for ad or so many like, you know, she's a woman who's like, yeah, you know, I get my phone, set it up. I'm going to sit down at the sofa and just tell people that I'm not doing this. And uh And and that's great. And I've honestly two years is such a long time.

And Marjorie Taylor Greene's life, she could decide that she's going to like start a cooking show between now and then. Like, I mean, I honestly believe that, like, you know, she's going to she's going to find something else interesting in her life. And she's a woman of great enthusiasms.

Maybe she get really into woodworking.

I would watch a cooking show.

Start building, building craftsman furniture.

I watch her cooking show.

And she's going to run for president as a Republican. I think that I think that there's a pretty I mean, it's not the only way you can read this video because it is all subtext. But I think there is a very like faithful reading of what she's doing right now that basically says Donald Trump is failing the MAGA movement that has been built up around him. He is, he is jettisoning critics who are more faithful to that MAGA spirit than, than he is, because, you know, of his own just sort of personal hangups and his inability to be crossed.

And, and it is, I consider it my, my goal as a public figure to, to advance that agenda. I'm not able to advance that agenda in Congress right now. I don't think I'm going to be able to advance that agenda next Congress either with Donald Trump as president. And, and I think that, that one possibility is that she's just saying, fuck it all and walking away. But the other very obvious possibility is that she thinks she is this a more plausible receptacle for for what MAGA is than JD Vance is. And I think I think like that's actually a really fascinating question, because like what is MAGA? Like if MAGA is this like primarily this weird like pseudo

social Like celebrity cult thing the wood that this like plurality of the Republican Party this feeling they all have toward Donald Trump where it's like Hammer high water then JD Vance is like the the inheritor of that, right? He's the guy who has like put his own soul under the night more extensively than anybody else say that again Yeah, sure sure Has. Although, even Don Jr. has not gone through the ritual self-abasement.

Or Tucker, come on.

No, no, come on, guys. It has nothing to do with, I mean, some of its ideology, but it's really personality, right? It's like Don Jr. is the what are we talking about? Yeah. But if it's not that, if that's not the main thing of MAGA,

if the main thing of MAGA is actually just this sort of broader seething iconoclasm and desire to see elites brought low and this particular policy agenda, really, really isolationist foreign policy, stuff like that, then I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene is moving pretty aggressively to corner that market as like the most sort of like plausible like like figurehead for that.

So I don't know. I would not. This this makes me more likely more more higher expectation rather than a lower expectation that she actually has higher. You know,

Andrew, you're this feels like that scene in the Dark Knight where the Joker goes to Harvey Dent and Harvey's like, you know, you planned it this way. Joker looks at me, do I look like a guy who makes plans? Does Marjorie Taylor Greene strike you as a woman who makes a lot of plans?

Can I answer that? The Joker had made plans, though. That's the thing, right? The Joker had planned it.

Yeah. And that's I mean, like, Martin Luther King has done both sides of it. I mean, she came into Congress, like, just like flailing around and like, very quickly found herself like, kicked off all her committees and all those sorts of things. And then she kind of like, reinvented herself in this very strange way. I mean, in almost like a weird Funhaus mirror version of what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did on the other side, where she made herself an indispensable ally of Kevin McCarthy and actually started acquiring institutional power

for herself in a way that actually does kind of suggest that she was very serious about getting some of these bills passed. And that's what she talked about in the video. She's like, my bills are gathering dust. Mike Johnson won't have a vote on them.

Donald Trump is kicking you know, kicking me. I mean, it's like very much not like, I'm taking my ball and going home. It's very much like I am going home to think about how to like change this. You know what I mean? I could be completely wrong about this. Obviously.

I mean, I, I, again, I, I look at the Kevin McCarthy thing as Kevin McCarthy was another institution to which Marjorie Taylor Greene thought she was supposed to give her devotion to. And he felt just like the Catholic church, just like, you know, marriage and family life. And it turns out it wasn't, but she was with Kevin because she's like, hey, I got to Congress

and now we have the majority. And well, he's the leader and I, you know, he's nice, you should support the leader. I, you know, he's, he's nighttime. You should support the leader. That's how you get things done. Right. And that's why she became his gal. And, uh, it turned out not to work out, but you know, I, anyway, that's, I don't think there was a lot like AOC, I think made a very clear, I'm going to, I'm going to become a serious lawmaker. I don't want to be a backbencher.

I don't think Marjorie Taylor Greene did that. Maybe I'm wrong. No, this could be. No, I think that's going to be an incorrect read.

No, I think that's right. The other thing I would just say in this is like in the weeds governance stuff. But like it's just a biting indictment of the House of Representatives, right? Like nothing's getting done there. It's just, I mean, this whole past week has been an example of that where there's just dueling censures, like, you know, Mike Johnson's out of control. He can't, you know, stop the Epstein files from happening. And, you know, different lawmakers are trying to do different discharge petitions.

There's just no institutional prerogative or self-respect. That's,

that is not true of the House as an institution because four short years ago, when the Democrats had a similarly tiny majority, right? Nancy Pelosi was able to move a whole mess of legislation.

That's true, that's true. It's true of this house.

This house with this party and this leader are a joke. But it is not an institutional thing. And it's not because their margins are so thin. Again, the Pelosi house with Democrats for the first two years of the Biden administration had almost the exact same margin.

And they moved an ass load of legislation. That's true. Democrats for the first two years of the Biden administration had almost the exact same margin, right? And right. They guess that's true. Assload of legislation.

That's true. I would just the only nuance I would add is that even in the Pelosi house, it was so and we're getting really into it, but it was so hierarchical and so leadership driven that unless you're part of like a, you know, a committee chair or a member of leadership, you really don't have much to do. You could do messaging bills, you can like go on TV and rail and that's what she did.

But like, you're not really doing anything in terms of legislation. Even under Pelosi, you're just trying to like be a reliable vote and maybe get an amendment. And I just, I, you know, maybe that, I don't think this is what compelled her, but it certainly didn't keep her there. Right. And you know, maybe that I don't think this is what compelled her, but it certainly didn't keep her there, right? Like, I think if there were other opportunities, or more power for individual lawmakers, maybe she has a different perspective.

But that that was her main gripe. As far as Mike Johnson was concerned, in that video, there were the two things there were the fact that he kept the house out of session for eight weeks just to dodge. Yes, very, which is crazy. But the other thing was that she has all these bills and and she thought they ought to be able to see the light of day in a Republican Congress. And they they never did. She said they sat there gathering dust on those. And like, you know, it it does seem just from that. I mean, she she had

she did introduce all this legislation. Right. And and she felt like it deserved a hearing.

Some of it was insane. You know, like, is there is there a parallel here to her career that I'm like missing? It means like, is anyone like this in our political life before? I can't even think of a similar figure to this. Somebody said Sarah Palin. I don't think that's quite right. No, that doesn't seem right. I mean, I guess there's I guess they're as close as anyone could be. But like, no, it, I think it's also the compressed timeframe of it, too. It's like, it went in the course of half a year from being like copacetic, and fine,

to like, not great to like combustible to I'm leaving. And that was just like, it just really happened super fast.

There's a weird sense in which it's like what happened to Paul Ryan after he was elected speaker. He was like, this is great. Like, I'm the speaker. I have all these ideas. I mean, like, the difference is he actually got to pass all of them.

He passed like Pelosi during Trump's first term, Paul Ryan passed like a billion of his own like sort of policy ideas through the House. They all and then they all just died in the Senate. But then, you know, he I guess sort of gradually came to the realization that, like, even though Trump was letting him do all of that in the House, there was no future for any of that stuff. His his vision of the Republican Republican Party was going to kind of die with him.

And he he pieced out. Which is different.

That part is because Marjorie Taylor Green's version is still still on the rise. I don't want people to think that I am a total in the tank for Marjorie Taylor Greene. So I do have one very, very real criticism. Go ahead. Only monsters put up their Christmas tree before Thanksgiving. Yes. Oh, my. Thank you. Yeah, I saw the Christmas tree in the back. I thought, Oh, come on. No, no, don't you do that. This is like the people who start putting up like Halloween decorations in mid August. You know, I don't I don't like Sam, you don't

understand your people. Because I'm Jewish. Yeah, I had

exactly. Yeah.

Hold on one other thing, just so you guys can can I'm kind of curious what you think about this. I'm on Polly market because that's what I do. They have a question. Will Trump praise Marjorie Taylor green by December 31st? Do you think that percentage has gone up or down following this?

Tell me what it was.

That's going to give it away.

Uh, all right.

It was 20%. Yes. He will praise her by December 31.

I mean, honestly, I couldn't guess. That strikes me as an absolutely random proposition. Sure. And I also don't know. That's a bad bet, because how does that get structured? What counts as praise?

Yeah, what counts as praise? In what way?

You're right. Don't worry about the bet. Well, I'll tell you what the markets think. It's now up to 55%.

Yes.

People are interpreting this as she's getting out of the way of Donald. He's going to reach out to her and say she has had a great career. Thank you for your service. I'm not so sure about that.

I could see that. She burned the bridge pretty hard. So did Elon. Elon said he was a pedophile. And three weeks later, they were like, yeah, it's all cool.

Right?

Donald Trump said he was gonna send troops into New York to stop Zoran Mamdani from turning into a social hellhole. And then today, they're like, bro-ing it up and J.D. Vance is like on the side, like, oh shit, oh shit.

What'd you think of it? By the way, I haven't gotten your take on that, J.D. I talked to Sarah about it, but did you see it?

Did you watch it?

No, so I haven't seen it, I mean, everything with Trump is a little surreal, but this one was like comically surreal at one point they were like. A reporter was like, Mr. Mamdani, you called him a fascist. You stand by it. And you could tell Zon's really struggling to figure out what, how to like spin this

one, like how to get it back to affordability. And Trump just looks at him and he's like, don't worry about it. You can stand by it. And he gives him a little attaboy.

My, my only read of it. And I, I have no idea. Like the only thing that even halfway that I've been able to come up with that even halfway makes sense is that they both kind try to be like the magnanimous one and come out that way. And then neither of them ever dropped that. And then the meeting ended, right? I mean, like, I don't know.

It was very strange.

Or why is it possible that Mamdani decided to take the same approach to Trump that like foreign leaders do?

I think that's exactly what he decided.

I mean, but why not? Why? I mean, this is national Democrats can't do that, but Zoran could. He's he is a little bit light. He's not a traditional Democrat. He's very local to New York.

He can say, and he was able to do it in a way that was not grotesque in like Gretchen Whitmer. Right? Because Gretchen Whitmer has tried to do this in the most pathetic way possible. And Momdani did it in a very Hollywood way. And I don't know.

Maybe that'll work.

I mean, this is what I told Sarah. Is that because she was sort of, she and I were a little bit of disagreement about whether it was the smart thing for him to do.

Which him?

Mom Donnie?

For Mom Donnie. And my point to her was this man, this young mayor has four or five months where he's got to make it work. Because after that, it's just going to be hell. Every mayor's life is hell, right? But you get a little grace period and you don't want to spend it with the federal government saying we're taking away trillions.

And oh, by the way, we're sending in the National Guard and canceling all these infrastructure projects. Like you just don't need that on your plate. So he bought himself six months and that was worth it.

You know, you know what they say, Sam? What? Only in New York, kids. Only in New York. I'm walking here. Nobody buys themselves six months with Trump, though. I mean, you get I think you get until Trump decides, you know, until Trump decides it's over. What if he what if he sends Trump some gold cufflinks made of like subway tokens. This is a, with a little grace note on it saying, Mr. President, I know we have many disagreements,

but I really appreciated the way you welcomed me into your palace. And I just want you to know, next time you want to come up to New York, we'll put your face in one of the big Times Square things because the, you know, it's people should respect.

I mean, it could literally be something as stupid as that.

And yeah, maybe Trump is all I think. See, I think he should have. He could have renamed the the subway stop at Jamaica. The Donald Trump, Donald J. Trump subway stop at Jamaica.

You can imagine that.

Could you imagine?

Yeah. stop at Jamaica, Queens or something like that. Trump would have loved that shit. Mr. Trump, would you like a subway stop named after you? We could do that, sir.

Oh, is that right? All right, I gotta run. I gotta go be a parent. This was fun. MTG guys, retiring, or announcing she's resigning tonight in a crazy, unexpected video.

We brought it to you live here. Well, not live, taped. Well, not live, taped. But subscribe to the feed, JVL, Andrew,