Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) caused a stir on Capitol Hill on Tuesday when she publicly admitted, in a lengthy screed posted to X, that she had not read Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act before voting for it — and she is "adamantly opposed" to the provision barring states from regulating artificial intelligence technology for 10 years.
"Full transparency, I did not know about this section on pages 278-279," said Greene, adding that she would have voted down the bill if she were aware of it. "We have no idea what AI will be capable of in the next 10 years and giving it free rein and tying states' hands is potentially dangerous. This needs to be stripped out in the Senate."
While a number of commenters on social media agreed with her fundamental reasoning, Greene also caught a lot of heat for not having read the bill she voted for in the first place.
"'I would have voted NO if I had known this was in there.' Hey MTG, your job is to know what you're voting YES on," wrote the Public Citizen account. "It's unacceptable for an elected official to vote for policies that will harm millions of Americans & cop out by saying they didn't read all of the text."
"Here's MTG announcing that she never read Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' before voting yes, and she actually hates it now," wrote Joshua Reed Eakle of Project Liberal. "We should bring back shame."
"Recall, Pelosi was pilloried for a poor choice of words around the ACA," wrote the influencer "Peter Twinklage." "She said in 2010: 'We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it.' but ‘Obamacare’ had been debated for months & was given 8 hearings. Now MTG defends herself by saying she doesn’t read bills."
"MTG and Mike Flood, two peas in a pod for voting for something that they didn’t read because leadership told them to. And now they both openly regret their votes," wrote attorney Blake Allen, referencing the fact that just a few days ago, Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE) admitted in a town hall that he wasn't aware the bill contained a provision stripping federal courts of the power to punish Trump administration officials for defying judicial orders.
"So just today on the House's AI moratorium: Bipartisan group of 260 state lawmakers from all 50 states opposes; MTG threatens to tank the whole bill if it remains; Sen. Ed Markey publicly confirms he'll challenge it as not complying with Senate rules," wrote Politico reporter Anthony Adragna.
"To somewhat defend MTG here (lol), I’m a realist and know that members are not going to read 1000 page bills. But you or your staff should at least read the section-by-section summary," wrote University of Maryland adjunct law professor Ben Yelin.
"I’m certainly no MTG fan, but I actually respect her and staff for posting this," wrote entrepreneur Deva Hazarika. "Easy to dunk on for obvious reasons, but a rep publicly admitting they vote on legislation without reading or knowing what’s included in it is a rare moment of candor from habitual liar."