Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R–Ga.) joins Free Media's Robby Soave to discuss the resurgence of democratic socialism, her friendship with Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), and where the Trump administration went wrong. Greene also argues that too many politicians simply refuse to listen to their constituents and would rather die in office than give up power. And Soave introduces her to a favorite Reason term: "total boomer luxury communism."

0:00–The resurgence of democratic socialism

2:17–President Donald Trump's promise of "no new wars"

6:03–The economic impact of tariffs and deportations

8:32–Thomas Massie and libertarian views

11:53–The political establishment and two-party system

17:26–J.D. Vance and the future of the Republican party

21:41–Does Marjorie Taylor Greene miss Congress?

23:17–Generational wealth and entitlement programs

24:51–Why octogenarians refuse to leave Congress

Producers: Paul Alexander & Natalie Dowzicky

Audio Mixer: Ian Keyser

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript. Check all quotes against the audio for accuracy.

Robby Soave: Welcome to Free Media. I'm Robby Soave, and today I am joined by former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. It's lovely to see you. Thank you for being here.

Marjorie Taylor Greene: Yeah, thank you for having me.

Well, I want to start with some news from last week. The democratic socialists are doing really well in New York City, winning some primaries there. This is coming at a time when I think the rank and file in both parties are so frustrated with the establishment, whether it's the Democratic establishment on that side or the Trump administration on the Republican side. You've been a vocal critic of Trump, and we'll get to that. But first I wanted to ask you, what do you make of this rising tide of far-left policies on the socialist side?

I'm not surprised by it at all. As a matter of fact, I had been saying for several years that this was coming, that that was the direction of more younger-generation Democrat voters. And so it doesn't surprise me at all, but I also see the same thing on the right. There's a sort of like a new direction happening, and it's happened in the past year, where many people, many Republican voters who voted for Trump, voted for Republicans, considered themselves MAGA or were MAHA, or just actually voted in that election for the first time, have been so disappointed that they're fractured off as well. And it's a lot of the younger-generation people on the right who are just fed up. So I think it's on both sides that you're seeing many people are fed up with the establishment of both parties, Republicans and Democrats. And the establishment, honestly, after serving in Congress, they're very much the same. There is a center of Republicans and Democrats in Congress and in the Senate that will pretty much vote yes together on a lot of the key funding bills and will never change, no matter how they campaign. They just stick together and keep the machine moving forward. And so it doesn't surprise me that you're seeing that on the left and the right.

Part of the key pitch I think that Trump made to young voters, new voters, people he reached through podcasts in the 2024 election, was the no-new-wars guarantee. Last year, this year, doesn't seem like we've been a no-new-wars administration. What do you think happened? Was that a lie? Did he change his mind? Has he been convinced by people who don't agree with that aspect of MAGA? What is going on?

That's a deep question, not easily answered. So that was one of the things that I loved early on about Donald Trump. Back in 2016, when he came out on the debate stage and he was willing to talk about how Iraq was a major mistake and criticize people in Washington for supporting that war. And that was always one of the things that I personally loved about Donald Trump, is he seemed to be and constantly spoke out against no more foreign wars, not supporting foreign wars, regime change. And that's exactly what so many of us are sick and tired of. Now, what changed? We saw a radical change after he became president. I spoke out. I think I was the only Republican, probably me and Thomas Massie. I'm sure we were the only two. And last year, in June 2025, when he first bombed Iran, I spoke out against it. I'm sure Thomas Massie did, Charlie Kirk did, Tucker Carlson did, but we were a very small percentage that were willing to criticize the president. That's one of the worst things you can do in MAGA is dare criticize the president.

So what do I think changed? I think President Trump has been under massive pressure since he has become president, and that's come through Israel, that's come through major donors of his, that comes from people like Mark Levin, Lindsey Graham, you name it. The whole entire pro-Israel or Zionist caucus has pushed for that, and it's always a push in Washington. See, that's another thing people need to understand: No matter who the person is that becomes president, they are going to be lobbied with massive pressure to engage in war or to support another country in war. And the reason why is it is one of the biggest businesses in America. People talk about the military-industrial complex. That is a real thing. And so these are many companies all over our country that are funded annually from Washington, and they rely on defense contracts in order to continue to build weapons, to make the latest, greatest weapons that they can't wait to sell to the Pentagon, can't wait to show lawmakers and show off and say, "Hey, here's what we need for our military." They make it very patriotic to support.

And there's even a massive pressure campaign, and I've first-hand witnessed this as a member of Congress, as they come to you and they say, "Hey, if you don't vote and support the [National Defense Authorization Act], there's a couple of defense contractors, companies, very important companies in your district. And without these contracts, without this funding, there's going to be thousands of people that are your constituents, they'll lose their jobs." And so they even pressure you in that way and imply that you'll probably lose your election if people are losing their jobs because you're not voting for this funding.

I remember you giving interviews to Tim Dillon and some other people, saying that you are actually listening to people. You were listening to the people in your district saying, "Hey, I'm a small-business owner. These tariffs are really hurting me. Hey, I want to do something about illegal immigration, but if we're rounding up every single person, including people who are working and not committing other crimes, it impacts my business in a negative way." Do your former colleagues listen to the people in their district on some of these pretty basic economic issues, where what the administration was doing was just destroying their bottom line?

So what I was saying, and I still say it, is this is what my actual constituents are saying. Here's their real words. These are the real concerns of Americans. But most members of Congress, they live in the silo of the two-party system, whether it's Republican or Democrat, and they will not openly and publicly step outside those boundaries. So whether they listen to them or not, you are not going to see—and I'm sure it's something you can observe—you're not going to see Republicans and Democrats hardly ever step outside their party. Because if they step out and they actually start telling the truth, like, "Hey, Americans really don't support whatever it may be," they're going to get it when they go back to Washington. You'll hear it.

So I used to get it all the time from our leaders, whether it was the speaker, the majority leader, whether it was different leaders in our conference. If I was taking a certain position that was not the GOP position, I got a backlash for those things. And that affects people's fundraising. But I didn't ever have to rely on the party fundraising. Over 95 percent of my donations were small-dollar donors. So I never felt threatened in that way. It wasn't the cocktail party fundraisers in Washington that funded my campaign. So I was just willing to be outspoken and honest about this is what's hurting people.

Can you speak a little bit about your ideological evolution? You came to Washington as a fervent backer of MAGA, of Trump, a supporter of MAHA, and you have ended your time in Washington very ideologically and personally close with Thomas Massie, who got taken out, targeted by Trump for many of the same reasons you became at odds with the administration. Thomas Massie is someone who has thought of himself as a libertarian or friendly to libertarianism, which is the ideology of Reason. Have you developed more interest in the project of— I'm not trying to say you were against freedom to begin with. I know that was important, a view of yours as well. But have you felt more kinship with Massie and with the ideology and the movement he's involved in?

That's actually a misconception. Literally my entire time in Congress, I was aligned with Thomas Massie and our voting records are very similar. As a matter of fact, he was one of my best allies and best friends the entire time I served there. And we worked together on many issues, and that was before Trump was elected in 2024. So I stood, sort of, in both camps, I would say.

And I never was a big Republican Party person. As a matter of fact, I never was elected before I won in 2020 for Congress, and I never even went to my county GOP meetings. Like I didn't know anybody. I didn't know them. I was actually angry at Republicans when I ran for Congress, and I attacked them constantly. And I didn't align with Democrats at all, so I attacked them as well.

And I would say, if I describe myself best, I was very naive to the entire political process, because I had no experience in it. But I was angry, just completely angry at the government, just totally outraged by the government. So when I became a member of Congress—so imagine yourself becoming a member of Congress—and I actually went in there, I spent five years of my life the most pissed off I could ever be because I hated all of it. I hated every bit of it.

And I would say I was very much fooled, like many. I was also a rallygoer, like a Trump rally–goer. So I believed his speeches. I believed his words when he talked about no more foreign wars and draining the swamp and "lock her up" and we're going to hold them accountable. He said, "I am your retribution." You know, I believed all of that because I believed in crashing the system. And so I thought that Trump would be the vehicle to do it, and boy, was I wrong. And so I spent five years in Washington trying every way possible to find success in stopping everything that I felt was ruining America. But it's virtually unstoppable.

The two-party system is so brutal, right? 

Yeah.

Because you're frustrated and I'm frustrated that the administration, the Trump administration, is not prioritizing some of the things they ran on, is not trying to make it easier to start a business or build a house or prosper in America, is very focused on foreign conflicts. But what you know that if you withdraw support for that party and it helps the other party, they're going down a socialist direction. Or even someone like Gavin Newsom and his backers, who want to massively confiscate the wealth of our most productive tech entrepreneurs, the people who are trying to make my life easier, who are trying to grow the economy in that way, and they're going to embrace ideas that are totally shutting all of that down. So it's like you just have bad choices no matter what you do.

That's right. It's government overreach on both sides and in all different directions. And so there are no choices anymore. I call it the political-industrial complex. The Republican and Democrat two-party system is the political-industrial complex. And right now, as it stands, you can't beat it. I tried. I literally tried to beat it. I got in it and thought, "Hey, hold them accountable." I wanted to hold Republicans accountable for what they promised on the campaign trail, and I wanted to defeat Democrats on the threats that I thought they were threatening against us as well. But no, as it stands right now, it is such a strong system. 

Well, no, let me take it back. It's beatable. It just requires the American people fully getting engaged. And the American people just aren't fully engaged.

And it's a system that is not working for so many people in America, so many young people. I know you've spoken many times about the difficulties of young people trying to obtain health care or afford a house, and I don't think big government is the solution to any of those problems, because the more money the government puts into fixing those problems, the more expensive those things seem to get, the more out of reach they seem to get. But does the left have an easier or more appealing answer when the right doesn't seem to have any answer, or doesn't articulate how they're going to clear the red tape, allow market solutions to fix those problems? You don't hear enough of that, do you?

No, and the Republican Party doesn't really mean it. They might try to talk that way, and they do now. They have reduced some regulations. I mean, there are really some great things that they have done that I appreciate. I certainly love the border security. I think that's been a success from the Trump administration. However, no, no. What the Democrats do is they offer solutions, and they're good at making their solutions sound fantastic. But when you analyze their solution and you look at the outcome, you can quickly realize, no, they may have a solution, but it's going to make things worse.

I mean, Obamacare was the perfect example of that. They sold it, and it sounded really, really great, but the outcome has been many insurance companies pulled out of the health insurance market. Then the competition decreased massively every year. Premiums increased, and health care costs went up, and the government funding of it helped it. So it propped it up, and then their solution is more government health care, and we can't afford that.

Social Security is about to be completely insolvent in 2032. And so all of us that have been paying, you've been paying Social Security your entire life. If you're a business owner, you're paying 12.2 percent. If you have an employer, you are paying 6.1 percent. Well, very soon, in just a matter of years, most Americans are going to find out that you really have been paying a tax the entire time, and it's very unlikely you'll ever see a Social Security check paying you back any of the so-called benefits that you paid in. So much of this turns out to be a scam.

While at the same time, both parties have plunged us all into nearly $40 trillion in debt. So no one's really bringing real solutions in. And my frustration remains that, at large, the American people, and I'm not talking about you, but at large, the American population just is completely not engaged. They're just not. You want to know why? They're not suffering yet. A population of people have to truly suffer before they're willing to engage.

And right now, even though inflation has made the cost of living extremely difficult, even though health care and health insurance is absolutely absurdly expensive— I mean, we could even talk about car insurance. That's one of my pet peeves.

Even though all of this cost keeps rising and credit card debt increases, the American people are still getting along, living their lives, able to go on vacations, able to enjoy their hobbies and do things. They're being stretched tighter, but they're still enjoying pretty much their American life. So they're not suffering. Therefore, they're not engaging. And they'll engage when it's probably too late.

Do you see any of this changing once Trump is no longer in office and we move to, I guess, J.D. Vance likely pursuing the presidency? How do you feel about him and what he might run on? In some ways, he sounds more committed to no new wars, America first, etc. But of course, right now, he's on a kind of tour defending what the administration has done, because he can't say that he disagrees with it, because when you tell Trump you disagree with him, you get yourself in trouble. That happened to you. 

Exactly.

Do you know deep down he's just kind of biding his time and there would be no new wars if he took over? Or would he face the same pressures that you're describing, and it's not even worth rooting for?

Well, I know J.D., and I like him. I was the first Republican member of Congress to endorse him when he was running for Senate. They were all pushing for another guy that was very pro-Israel. However, it was me, Charlie Kirk, Don Jr., Tucker. I think that was pretty much our coalition. We all got behind J.D. Vance and eventually persuaded President Trump to endorse him as well.

But here's where I'm at today. I strictly judge people by their actions, 100 percent. I can like someone or agree with their statements or say, "Wow, they gave a great speech. That sounds lovely." But I'm strictly on actions only. Love Joe Kent. He resigned because he was like, "I'm not going to be a part of this." I really appreciated Tulsi [Gabbard] releasing the information about COVID and the labs all over the world and the funding behind it, but she also did that on her last day in office, when we could no longer prosecute Fauci, as if that was ever really going to happen.

President Joe Biden, he loves Fauci. Well, yeah, but Trump also loves Fauci. I mean, and he loves the COVID vaccine, and he thinks he saved 100 million people because of the COVID vaccine, although I would argue millions of people died because of the COVID vaccine.

Do you think that?

Yeah, I do. I'm very much against the COVID vaccines. And I think—

I'm against mandatory vaccination. I think it should be people's choice. That's what I would say.

Yeah, it should be people's choice, but I served on the COVID Select Committee on Oversight, and this was an issue that I took a deep, deep dive in, on many levels. And there are known very, very bad things that are known about the vaccines, and they knew them early on, and the FDA still approved them, and they should have never been approved.

When it came to COVID, it was a horrible virus, but the people that were at risk, people that were obese or elderly people, people that had really sad health conditions to begin with, they were very vulnerable to it. So I believe that's the population of people we should have protected. We should have stayed open, kept working, kept school going, and I think herd immunity would have taken care of it. For the larger part of the population.

We had to rely on it anyway, because whatever one thinks about the vaccine, it certainly didn't prevent the spread of cases, as they suggested it would. It absolutely didn't do that. Everyone who did get it had the experience, if you get the COVID shot, of eventually getting COVID anyway. So that was an interesting prediction.

It seems like when people got the vaccine, they actually got the virus more often, versus those like, I never got the vaccine. I got COVID in March 2020, and I've never gotten it since.

So I got the vaccine probably four times, and I got COVID probably four times. So…

Wow.

There you go.

Yeah, that smashes my theory. But don't get it anymore. You don't need it.

I think we're moving on from that. Well, I know you said you'd have to go shortly, so we'll wrap with this. You're not going to be in Congress anymore. What do you want to do next? What does your life look like now? Do you miss being in Congress, and what are you hoping to accomplish?

I absolutely do not miss being in Congress. Imagine working every single day with the people that are destroying our country and with people that have no desire to fix it, and most of the people there are completely sold out. So I don't miss that at all. I love being back in what I call Normal People World, where everyone is just real and honest and you have to earn your living with an honest day's work. That's the world I came from, with a family construction business, and I'm very happy to be back in Normal People World.

So what I'm doing now is we're producing a new series called Life With MTG, where I'm just talking about the things that I find interesting, that I think most Americans are talking about, versus what Washington, D.C., or the national news is talking about. And it's new, so I'm going to be sharing stories that happened in Washington and also just knowledge that I learned. And I want to share that with people. I think you deserve to know it.

So, yeah, that's what I'm doing and enjoying. My kids are all in their 20s. That's why I'm always mad about health insurance and the cost of living and housing and all that. And so just enjoying a lot of good, normal life.

Have you heard the term total boomer luxury communism? That's what we have started describing, this system in America where young people, through taxes, are paying for everything and all the benefits are going to older and retired people, who also have the money that they've saved their whole lives. It's like they're getting all the benefits from the system, but also they're the ones with all the houses and all of the money, and it doesn't really make sense to do it that way.

Well, OK. So I give boomers a lot of grief. I do. I tear them up all the time, mostly because they just get spoon-fed information on Fox News all day long, or CNN or whatever they watch. And I can't stand Fox News. I think it's straight-up propaganda. So, yeah, I give the boomers a hard time. However, they earned their money. They own their homes. That is their wealth. So I'm never going to ever attack anybody for what they earned.

Yeah, I don't want to take that away from them. It's just also then the government benefits all go to them too.

Well, they paid for it, though. I mean, the problem—

Like you said, young people paying into it are never going to get it.

No, you're not going to get it. And you want to know why you're not going to get it? Because of the boomers that are in charge and refuse to let go of power. So, yes, we are being systematically destroyed by the boomers. So I blame the boomers for a lot of problems, but it's the boomers like the Mitch McConnells, the Nancy Pelosis, the Donald Trumps, the Joe Bidens, all these 70- and 80-year-olds. Who are…

Who all cling to power. Why do they love being in government so much? You say it's like being in hell, you prefer being with normal people. Nobody else seems to feel that way. They all want to die in office.

You want to know why they want to die in office? I'll tell you why. When they've been there for 30 to 40 years, that literally becomes their life. And so it's horrible. It's a miserable existence.

So imagine yourself being 80 years old, and your staff is your caretakers. They take you to the doctor. They drop off and pick up your dry cleaning. They help you get your groceries. They wheel these people around in their damn wheelchairs. I'm not kidding you. They wheel them all over the Capitol, all over the office buildings, to their committee hearings, to the House floor to vote, where once they're in front of the cameras, they stand their decrepit old selves up, and they walk into the House floor and they sit in a chair, they put their voting card in the machine, and they push green or red based on what their staff tells them to vote.

And then they come out and they give their occasional few-minute speech, or they read their speech and they read their talking points on their committee hearings. That's what these people are. The very sad, very lonely, horrible existence of many of these old members of Congress and senators is you're not seeing an old person that is living out the end of their life surrounded by their children and their grandchildren and maybe even great-grandchildren. No, you're seeing these old people wearing their old dumpy suits, or some of these women are—like Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi—some of these women are wearing extremely expensive, beautiful suits, wearing high heels that I don't know how their old feet can possibly walk around in those high heels.

But that's how they're spending their days. And they can't let go of the praise. Do you know what they love more than anything? "Oh, let me hold the door for you, Mr. Congressman," or "Yes, Your Honor. Your Honor, here. Oh, it's good to see you again, sir. Come on in." They are addicted to all of that. And so it's why they never give it up. They never give it up. And most of them, after they've been there so long, that's how they earn their paycheck. So what would they replace their paycheck with?

And that's really just a horrible, awful reality, but it's a reality that I wish so many times the American people could see. Could see that old, old person being wheeled around by their 25-year-old staffer to go in there and read the words that the other 20-year-olds wrote in their office and vote the way they've told them to vote. You're not being represented. You're not. I'm just telling you, you're not being represented.

Well, I can't think of anything more libertarian to do than decide you don't want to be a part of that. Marjorie Taylor Greene, thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I enjoyed it.

The post Marjorie Taylor Greene: 'You're Not Being Represented!' appeared first on Reason.com.