Lauren Boebert calls Marjorie Taylor Greene “unhinged” as divide deepens

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) had some choice words for fellow extremist and anti-LGBTQ+ Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), calling her”unhinged” and pointing to her past statements about space lasers owned by prominent Jewish people starting wildfires in California.

“I have been asked to explain MTG’s beliefs on Jewish space lasers, on why she showed up to a white supremacist conference…. I’m just not going to go there,” Boebert told the AP. “She wants to say all these things and seem unhinged on Twitter, so be it.”

Boebert and Greene may seem like two peas in a pod from a distance: both are white, cisgender, straight women with no prior political experience just starting their second terms in the House; both are anti-LGBTQ+ extremists; both have stated their support for the QAnon conspiracy theory; and both have worked to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

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But the personal animosity started in their first terms in Congress. Last year the two nearly came to blows at a meeting of the far-right Freedom Caucus over Greene’s public appearance with prominent white supremacist Nick Fuentes. The confrontation got heated and one witness later said that they thought Greene and Boebert were going to get physically violent until another Freedom Caucus member “stepped in to de-escalate.”

The division was put on full display last week as Boebert joined her MAGA colleagues, Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Bob Good (R-VA), and Paul Gosar (R-AZ), in voting against Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) bid to be speaker of the House, while Greene was one of McCarthy’s most prominent allies, arguing since late last year for her colleagues to vote for him in order to avoid the chance of a bipartisan compromise speaker.

One criticism Boebert faced many times throughout last week was that she almost lost her 2022 election, so maybe she isn’t in a position to dictate to her fellow Republicans how to run the House. She shrugged it off.

“A lot of those on the left have said: ‘Look at your election, are you going to tone it down, little girl?’” said Boebert. “I’m still going to be me.”

“In the minority, all I had was my voice, the only thing I could do was be loud about the things I’m passionate about. We have to lead right now, we have to show Americans that we deserve to be in the majority.”

Meanwhile, Greene seems to be reveling in her proximity to GOP House leadership at the start of her second term.