Republican lawmakers are pushing back after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was tapped to lead a new House Oversight subcommittee focused on Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency.
President-elect Donald Trump is creating the advisory office to substantially reduce government spending, and while some GOP lawmakers publicly praised Greene's oversight appointment, others also privately grumbled that House speaker Mike Johnson was "rewarding bad behavior," reported Politico.
“I’ve always faced criticism, but that’s also what makes me perfectly cut for this," Greene said, "and, you know, the team player approach — look, we’re in $36 trillion of debt because everybody played ball."
GOP lawmakers suspect the post was a payoff to ensure Johnson had support for another term as speaker, which he denies. Greene announced recently that she would support him despite trying to push him out of the job in May.
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“She came in to visit with me about the path forward and how she wanted to be part of the team, part of the solutions, and I welcome that,” Johnson said. “There was no quid pro quo. We just decided that cooperation serves the country.”
Johnson said House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) chose Greene for the role without consulting him, and the Kentucky Republican confirmed that and praised the congresswoman as “very energetic and high profile.”
“I think she wants to prove people wrong," Comer said. "She knows there’s people criticizing."
Greene stated that she's eager to get to work with Musk and Ramaswamy to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget — which she said would be “difficult” but “attainable.”
“I, myself, have been critical of my own party many times," Greene said. "It probably is equally as much, sometimes, as I have been of Democrats, and so I’m looking at this as a really good chance to take my critical eye and use it in a subcommittee and use it in hearings."
