Sanders: Marjorie Taylor Greene is a ‘good’ Republican
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday defended Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) and referred to her as a “good” Republican at a CNN town hall.
The Vermont senator suggested that elected Republicans are “doing less of representing their districts and their states than just swearing allegiance to the President of the United States.”
“So I never thought that I would say this, but you have somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene saying, ‘You know what, I was elected by my constituents, that’s who I am beholden to, not the president or the United States,'” Sanders said. “So there are good Republicans out there.”
“If [President] Trump would leave them alone for five minutes and not threaten them with, with a primary if they stood up and did the right thing, I think we can make progress,” Sanders continued.
Along with Sanders, the town hall also directed questions at Sanders ally Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked her if she could find herself working with Greene in the House.
“On what?” Ocasio-Cortez said before she laughed.
Ocasio-Cortez added that “until [Republicans] actually support policy that helps people, I’m not particularly interested.” But she added that she’s worked with Republicans on health care legislation in the past.
“In terms of bipartisan legislation on health care, I’m more than open to doing that,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “But it’s not just about talking the talk, you’ve got to walk the walk.”
Greene has publicly clapped back at her party over not locking in a plan to keep Affordable Care Act premium subsidies from expiring at the end of the year. This has earned praise from Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
Greene has also criticized her party leadership by signing onto a bipartisan resolution to have the Department of Justice release files tied to Jeffrey Epstein.
“It does seem to many of us that she’s had a surprisingly enlightened few weeks in terms of her perspective on both the Epstein files” and the ObamaCare subsidies, Jeffries said Monday on MSNBC’s “Katy Tur Reports.”
“There’s a lot of weak Republican men, and they’re more afraid of strong Republican women,” Greene told The Washington Post in an article published Tuesday. “So they always try to marginalize the strong Republican women that actually want to do something and actually want to achieve.”