Politicians talk dirty. But not that dirty, at least not within the ranks of the Freedom Caucus — a gleefully brazen band of far-right rabble-rousers with a history of fighting GOP leadership.
In exclusive interviews with Raw Story, one current and two former members of the Freedom Caucus — who requested anonymity to speak candidly about a colleague — described the inner-workings of the group and why its members could no longer tolerate Greene’s antics.
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“That’s a big damn deal in there. You don’t have to agree with everybody. What you do have to f------ do is not violate anyone's confidence,” one former Freedom Caucus member told Raw Story. “I can never remember anyone ever yelling at anyone in a Freedom Caucus meeting. Ever.”
The Freedom Caucus is notorious for its methodical secrecy. For one, the group keeps its full membership rolls hidden from the public. And members prize having candid meetings with one another even when there’s fierce intellectual disagreements within the group.
“The sort of code of the members: You disagree with somebody, you still don't burn them down because it's important for you to be able to have an honest discourse,” the former Freedom Caucus member said.
While the former member doesn’t know Marjorie Taylor Greene personally, the former member questioned whether Greene knows herself.
“What’s important to MTG? I don't know the answer to that question — that's rhetorical,” the former Freedom Caucus member asked. “It may have backfired, but it may not have. She may have gotten exactly what she wanted. Who knows?”
Tactics are one thing. Just ask now-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). At the start of the year, over 15 Groundhog Day-esque ballots, a mere handful of Freedom Caucus members — along with some of their far-right allies — kept McCarthy in political purgatory until he doled out concession after concession.
Greene — whose aides didn’t make her available for an interview — wasn’t a part of the speaker standoff. She was fully in Camp McCarthy, which also left bitter feelings among some corners of the Freedom Caucus. McCarthy has since rewarded Greene.
Tact is another value Freedom Caucus members prize, and critics say Greene doesn’t have much.
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“You can’t say things like that,” the Republican lawmaker told Raw Story. “I really don’t understand these people who will say crazy things just to get in the papers, and — maybe that’s her personality — I would never say anything like that.”
The Freedom Caucus lawmaker fears populist politics is overtaking prudent policy making.
“There are some of the newer members who would prefer to be hardlined, and it does worry me for the future of the Freedom Caucus — because if you push out the intellectual debate aspect, I’ll think you’ll chase off a lot of people,” he said.
While the Freedom Caucus is only eight years old, it’s already strayed from its fiscal conservative roots, according to another former member who has since left the U.S. House but remains in elected office elsewhere.
“When I joined the Freedom Caucus, I was hoping that I’d finally found a place where fiscal conservatives could go — and I think that’s why a lot of other people went there,” the former Freedom Caucus member said. “And then it turned out that, maybe, that wasn’t the major driver even for the Freedom Caucus.”
In the past, the Freedom Caucus was more selective on the front end.
“I don’t think we ever kicked anyone off when I was there,” the former member told Raw Story. “But there were people that wanted to join that we decided not to invite to join and it tended to be people who struggled so hard to articulate their positions in a pleasant way without insulting groups of people that we didn’t want to be identified with them.”
