As we watch our local, state, and federal elected officials in office and in action, their public media appearances and more salacious comments tend to define their public persona overly.
I have told many for decades, particularly if the official is part of your community or represents you, try to find an opportunity to meet and greet them in person before you decide to lock and load on your opinion and assessment.
Which brings me to Georgia’s 14th District Congresswoman and resident spitfire, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Rome). I first met MTG through her family business, Taylor Construction, at a holiday party being held by Cox Media Group. Taylor Construction was a longtime WSB Radio advertiser.
Major Cox clients and advertisers mixed and mingled with WSB-TV and radio management, sales team members, and news talent. MTG was articulate, poised, and professional. Though I had been the radio and TV station’s political analyst for several years by then, she did not comment. She asked no questions of a public policy or political nature.
Years later, Taylor Construction would become a substantial donor to the annual WSB Radio Care-athon, benefitting the AFLAC Cancer & Blood Disorders Services Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Leading advertisers and corporate citizens like Taylor helped WSB listeners raise between $1 million and $2 million each year, and to date, more than $30 million has been donated toward pediatric cancer research, treatments, cures, and support for family members of children undergoing often extensive and expensive treatment.
During 2020, when Congressman Tom Graves(R-Ranger) retired from Georgia’s 14th— one of the state’s most reliably conservative districts — to become a lobbyist and spend more time with his family, then political neophyte MTG would seek and win that seat. In the process, she also became one of President Donald Trump’s most ardent and visible supporters during the 2020 contests.
As we know, the outcomes that fell, MTG’s stock was on the rise, while Mr. Trump’s was on the decline.
Having previously experienced the business face and a more polished MTG first, I admit it was challenging to reconcile that with her later, more “clown car” version, so inexplicably and blindly loyal to Trump. Though frequently critical of House Speakers and the architect of the fall of prior Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), until quite recently, in MTG’s eyes, Trump could do no wrong.
The shift became visible during the most recent government shutdown, which was also the country’s longest. Congress was in recess, and as MTG spent more time at home in her district, she became more vocal about concerns over inflation, price cuts that never materialized, the rear-end impact of tariff costs, and, most significantly, the spiraling costs of health care. MTG began to loudly criticize Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as the leadership of the Georgia GOP and RNC, as rudderless boys’ clubs.
The space between Greene’s own views and her party’s leadership began to grow, as did questions about whether these changes were real or simply a new positioning for MTG 2.0.
MTG emphasized that her focus had not changed; she was still putting America and her constituents first. She also continued to support the victims of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein vocally. She lobbied for the release of all documents and files to identify other perpetrators, beyond Ghislaine Maxwell, noting that there was still NO MAN doing any kind of time for the several thousand victims of Epstein’s crimes.
The government eventually reopened, House Democrats and the Republicans released new Epstein documents and emails, and then Trump released a torrent of shots at MTG. He referred to her “rants and instability,” concluding that not only had she “lost her way,” but that he would work with “the good people of her district” to find another conservative to support and run in the 2026 primaries against her.
MTG fired back on Truth Social and elsewhere, even sharing several of her earlier private text exchanges with the president. By week’s end, MTG said, “I truly just stand with the women.”
Oddly, though not citing MTG, in roughly 48 hours, Trump reversed course on holding up the release of the Epstein files, announcing that the U.S. Justice Department was now investigating Democrats involved with Epstein, and several more thousand pages of documents would soon be released.
Can’t quite call this a win for MTG, but DJT did cave.
I have never lived in Georgia’s 14th District, nor have I been an MTG voter or supporter, but I have to admit I will now be watching this 2026 re-election effort with more than mild interest.