Marjorie
Taylor Greene Criticizes Senate Republicans for Government Shutdown
In a
social media post, the far-right Georgia congresswoman called on Senate
Republicans to eliminate the filibuster, lowering the threshold on future
legislation to a simple majority.
Chris
Cameron
By Chris
Cameron
Reporting
from Washington
Oct. 3,
2025
Representative
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia Republican who has grown
increasingly disillusioned with the G.O.P. and President Trump, said on Friday
that her own party was at least partly to blame for the government shutdown,
and that it had the power to unilaterally reopen the government.
“If
Republican Senators wanted to pass the C.R.,” Ms. Greene said on social media,
referring to the funding bill, “and reopen the government they could, by using
the nuclear option.”
The
“nuclear option” that Ms. Greene referred to is a proposal for Senate
Republicans to lower the threshold for advancing legislation from 60 votes to a
simple majority of 50. Senate Democrats and Republicans have lowered that
threshold for specific votes in previous terms, chipping away at longstanding
legislative precedent by making it easier to advance judicial nominees.
In her
social media post, Ms. Greene called for Senate Republicans to change the rules
for all future legislation, asserting that doing so would allow Republicans to
pass laws, including additional cuts to federal agencies, that would be more
difficult to reverse under a future Democratic administration.
She
pointed to a similar move by Senate Republicans just weeks ago to speed
approval of Mr. Trump’s government nominees, lowering the existing 60-vote
threshold for considering some presidential nominees to a simple majority. It
was the latest in the yearslong back-and-forth that has eroded the filibuster,
a once-potent Senate tool to protect the rights of the minority and force
consensus.
Ms.
Greene is not the only Republican to have floated the idea of eliminating the
filibuster, and Democrats have also mused at the possibility. Senate Democrats
tried in 2022 to eliminate the filibuster for a series of election measures in
what would have probably been the death knell of the procedure. But two
holdouts in the party — Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten
Sinema of Arizona — would not join them, and the effort collapsed.
But
Senate Republicans are unlikely in this moment to take that final step to
eliminate the filibuster entirely at the request of Ms. Greene, known more for
making bigoted remarks and amplifying QAnon conspiracy theories than opining on
parliamentary rules.
“Did you
all really vote for a temporary president with temporary policies that can just
be switched off with a Democrat election victory?” Ms. Greene said on social
media. “You should be demanding Congress do its job that the Constitution
requires. Legislate!!!”
Ms.
Greene has frequently clashed with Republican leadership, and has in some cases
gone as far as to directly criticize Mr. Trump — nominally a fatal taboo in a
party that the president has molded in his image and wielded to quash internal
dissent. She is one of just three Republicans who have signed onto a petition
to force a floor vote on the release of the Epstein files, and has aligned on
other issues with Democrats — for example, the war in Gaza.
Chris
Cameron is a Times reporter covering Washington, focusing on breaking news and
the Trump administration
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