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Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right congresswoman who has been relentlessly pilloried by the hosts of The View for years over her conspiracy-mongering and inflammatory rhetoric, was essentially given a hero’s welcome during her appearance on the ABC talk show Tuesday morning. With the MAGA firebrand increasingly breaking with Republican leadership in Congress over their approach to the ongoing government shutdown, the women of The View spent much of the lengthy sitdown coaxing Greene into railing against her GOP colleagues. At one point, liberal co-host Joy Behar even asked if she would jump over to the Democratic Party. Even when it appeared that Greene and the left-leaning panelists around the table were on the verge of locking horns, such as when Behar and Sunny Hostin pressed her on her past belief in QAnon conspiracy theories, the Georgia lawmaker shrugged it off and continued to seek out common ground with a show that has become anathema to the right. In the end, Greene and the women of The View engaged in a half-hour mutual lovefest, all while the pro-Trump congresswoman soaked up the cheers of the liberal New York studio audience for bashing House Speaker Mike Johnson and “weak and pathetic” MAGA influencers. Greene’s appearance on The View, which also fell on the day several crucial elections were being held across the nation, was preceded by the hosts cheering her on as “the surprising voice of reason” within the Republican Party. “She seems to be the only one responding to her constituents, because her constituents are saying, ‘Excuse me, we are being affected by what’s happening here,’” host Whoopi Goldberg said last month about Greene’s calls to extend Obama subsidies amid the shutdown. The GOP congresswoman also sat down for a highly civil interview on CNN a few weeks ago, ditching the friendly confines of MAGA outlets such as One America News and Newsmax for a network that the president frequently rails against as “fake news.” The appearance ended with anchor Wolf Blitzer describing Greene, who once warned about “Jewish space lasers” starting wildfires, as a “courageous politician” for bucking her party on the shutdown. Coming out on Tuesday to a warm round of applause, Greene kept winning over both the hosts and the crowd by leaning into populist rhetoric that prioritized the struggles of the working class over party loyalty. Though she repeatedly reiterated that she still “loves” Donald Trump, who has recently wondered “what’s going on with Marjorie,” she made it clear throughout that she is angry with the GOP’s leadership amid the shutdown. “I just can’t get over is we’re not working right now. And I put that criticism directly on the Speaker of the House, and we should be at work,” she declared. “All the people sitting in this audience – they go to work every day. People at home watching this show – they go to work every day. Ladies, you go to work every day [as do] the people on your set, and it is an embarrassment to me that we’re not in session.” After the hosts praised her for saying she wasn’t accepting a paycheck while the shutdown continues, she laid much of the blame for the impasse on her male colleagues in Congress – which received loud applause from the studio audience. “Look, I’m with women, so I feel very comfortable saying this, I’m really tired of the p*ssing contest in Washington, D.C. between the men. I really am,” she exclaimed to cheers. However, just moments later, the loudest applause was yet to come when the congresswoman revealed that she had torn into the speaker during a recent call and that she was actually missing another GOP conference call to do the show. “And I hope that Mike Johnson is finally giving a single healthcare policy because the country deserves it, and it shouldn’t be a secret. And I shouldn’t have to go into a SCIF to go find our Republican health insurance plan,” Greene proclaimed. “Maybe there is no plan,” Hostin retorted. “You wanna know something? That, I believe, is the truth,” Greene acknowledged. Even when Behar suggested that Greene should jump parties and join the Democrats after the congresswoman said she was “unapologetically America first” and would “do anything I can to work hard to save this country,” the lawmaker made sure to keep the focus on the GOP. “I’m not a Democrat,” she replied, before adding: “You want to know something. I say this, I think both parties have failed. Both parties have failed.” Before heading into the first of three commercial breaks in the interview, Hostin confronted Greene about Greene's past support for QAnon, suggesting the interview could devolve into contentiousness. Instead, Greene disarmed the hosts by claiming that all of them were “victims” of “media lies and stuff you read on social media,” and that now that they were speaking face-to-face, they could approach each other in a civil manner. “You all have attacked me many times on this show,” she added, prompting Hostin to reply “we have” to laughter across the table. The rest of the interview, which also saw questions from Sara Haines and resident conservative host Alyssa Farah Griffin, continued along a similar path. This also included Greene gaining more plaudits from the audience for saying that while the October 7 Hamas attack was “horrific,” she can “equally say starving children and killing innocent people and children in Gaza is also horrible.” That moment was then followed by her gushing over the show’s hosts and suggesting that any hard feelings in the past were water under the bridge. “I want to say that I think that all of us here are doing a great job of exchanging our ideas and things that we believe in, and we’re doing it in a very professional and kind way,” she said to more cheers. “In my opinion, I think we need more of that in America. I really do, and a lot of people wanted me to come on this show and say nasty things and, you know, all of us to fight. They wanted all of us to fight.” While the lengthy conversation had been convivial throughout, the interview ended with Greene bursting into laughter when Behar pointed out that she had blasted “pathetic Republican men” for criticizing her decision to come on The View in the first place. “There’s a lot of paid social media influencers, and I found it interesting that they were the MAGA accounts but they’re all paid and they all attacked me when I announced I was coming to join you ladies on The View. And I think that’s very weak and pathetic,” Greene maintained. Just for good measure, Greene made sure to get one last shot at Johnson before they wrapped up. “But when I talk about weak Republican men, I’m pretty much talking oftentimes about the leadership in the House and the Senate,” she added.
