Marjorie Taylor Greene, on Her Way Out of the Door, Twists Arms and Makes Demands of Leadership
Her final day working as a congresswoman is set to take place next week.

In some of her final days as a member of the United States House of Representatives, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is not holding back. On Wednesday, she twisted Speaker Mike Johnson’s arm to try to get one of her bills on the floor, and even threatened to use a burn-it-all-down legislative strategy in order to poke the higher-ups in Congress in the eye.
Last month, Ms. Greene unexpectedly announced that she would be resigning from Congress on January 5, 2026. Though she will be a representative through that time period, Congress is set to go out of schedule for the holidays on Thursday, December 18. They are not scheduled to return until after Ms. Greene officially resigns.
Despite the fact she has only five working days left, she is trying to squeeze every opportunity out of them as she can.
On Wednesday, the House was considering the must-pass annual defense authorization bill. Before the actual bill can come to the floor, House members must pass what is known as a “rule,” or a procedural mechanism to bring the bill up for a vote. Democrats and a handful of conservatives threatened to vote down that rule to protest a number of policy changes in the bill.
Ms. Greene was one of those hardline conservatives who dragged the process out for more than an hour on Wednesday, demanding that Republican leaders bring one of her bills to the floor. That legislation, the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, would make it a felony for anyone to perform any kind of transgender surgeries or hormone therapies for children. If that bill became law, offenders would face up to 25 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
“I made a deal and changed my NO vote on the rule to a Yes in exchange for a floor vote next week on my bill that is one of President Trump’s key campaign promises and executive orders,” Ms. Greene wrote on X after the rule passed. “Leader Steve Scalise has promised me that my bill Protect Children’s Innocence Act … will be brought to the floor for a vote next Wednesday, [December] 17th.”
“Every Republican campaigned to protect kids from the trans agenda,” she wrote.
Ms. Greene has said that President Trump is part of the reason that she is leaving the House one year before her term is up. He lashed out at her over a number of issues, including Ms. Greene’s assertion that nothing — especially health insurance — is affordable today.
On Wednesday, Ms. Greene announced that she was not only going to support a bipartisan bill to extend Biden-era health care subsidies, but she was going to sign on to several pieces of legislation whether she supported those bills or not in order to protest Mr. Johnson.
Ms. Greene signed on to what is known as a discharge petition in order to bring that bipartisan bill to the floor. That procedural mechanism allows rank-and-file members to force votes on legislation over the objection of leadership, so long as the petition receives the signatures of a majority of House members — 218, to be exact.
“At this time, I am considering signing every discharge petition — whether I support the bill or not. As a duly elected Member of Congress, I believe my colleagues should have the ability to bring legislation to the floor for a vote,” she wrote in another post on X. “Every Member deserves the right to represent their district and receive a recorded vote on their bills.”
“This is a result of House leadership blocking Members from governing,” she said, without naming the speaker.
For months, Ms. Greene has bashed Mr. Johnson for not being an effective leader. She says he has blocked key pieces of Mr. Trump’s agenda from coming to the floor. She was especially incensed when he sent House lawmakers home for nearly two months during the government shutdown, even though Congress can still hold committee hearings and consider legislation.
“I feel like our majority is being ruined,” she told conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly last month. “He can bring us into session where we can be passing our bills [and] we can have our committees at work.”

