🤯 WTF MTG!?

Peter Rothpletz on Marjorie Taylor Greene’s war on MAGA, the knives out for Chuck Schumer, the legal threat to gay marriage, and the soon-to-be skyrocketing price of pasta??

🪖 On this day in 1918, the Allied powers and Germany signed an armistice document in the railway carriage of Ferdinand Foch, the commander of the Allied armies, and six hours later, World War I came to an end. This Veterans Day, countless Americans who served in uniform are planning to protest against the Orange Man as he sics troops against US citizens.

Good morning! Peter here, reflecting on how valiantly so many of our ancestors fought to defeat the Nazis in World War II. As I came of age as a wannabe journalist, I never imagined I’d dedicate so much of my career to documenting the resurgence of such a vile, evil ideology. The ‘First Draft’ team is taking a short break, in observance of Veterans Day, so there will be no edition tomorrow, but we’ll be back in your inbox come Thursday morning.

In today’s ‘First Draft,’ Marjorie Taylor Greene ostensibly positions herself for a post-Trump future, the growing calls for Chuck Schumer to step aside, Democrats may be days away from releasing the Epstein files, and America’s same-sex couples can breathe a sigh of relief.

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Is MTG Crazy? Or Crazy Like a Fox?

Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene at an LIV golf invitational on July 31, 2022, in Bedminster, New Jersey. Photo by Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images.

“I don’t know what happened to Marjorie,” President Trump lamented to reporters at an Oval Office gaggle yesterday. “Nice woman, but I don’t know what happened. She’s lost her way.”

The pathos of the scene was gripping… Or, well, it was gripping right up until the moment you realized that by ‘losing her way,’ the commander-in-chief was referring to how the former high priestess of the MAGA movement is no longer musing about laser beams starting wildfires, no longer harassing school shooting survivors, and no longer expressing support for executing Democrats in cold blood.

As Mehdi laid out in 2021, “Marjorie Taylor Greene has been a supporter of Pizzagate, of Frazzledrip, of QAnon, and has said she wants to take out ‘the global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles.’”

Back in the day, the congresswoman co-signed nearly every conspiracy involving liberal lawmakers and satanic child murder on the dark web. She was the standard bearer of Looney Tunes, right up there with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.

But of late? She’s… the GOP’s voice of reason?

Here’s just a short list of the ways in which MTG has recently, radically shape-shifted:

• Once a staunch ally of Israel, Greene in July became the first congressional Republican to use the word “genocide” to refer to the Israeli military’s assault on Gaza.

• A prior “Obamacare” critic, the congresswoman broke with her entire party when she raised alarms about the expiration of the enhanced premium ACA tax credits.

• After musing about sentencing Nancy Pelosi to death in 2019, MTG said this past weekend that the retiring congresswoman “had an incredible career” and that she was “very impressed at her ability to get things done.”

• A one-time government spending hawk, Greene tweeted on Saturday about taking an Amtrak from Washington, DC, to Georgia – and not only surviving the experience, but enjoying it. “The sweetest people run the train,” she gushed, in what could’ve doubled as a Biden (“Amtrak Joe”) reelection ad.

• Previously a fierce critic of the “fake news,” lamestream media, the congresswoman just last week yucked it up with the ladies of ‘The View’ about male “pissing contests” in Washington.

Considering all this, we must ask ourselves… is Marjorie Taylor Greene in the midst of yet one more manic episode… is she spiraling ever further into madness? Is Marjorie Taylor Greene truly cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs? Or is she far more canny than we’d like to admit? Is she, perhaps, crazy like a fox?

Given Trump’s historic unpopularity, given the fact he’s done effectively nothing to address inflation or the cost of living crisis or the nigh-existential threat that AI poses to both blue-collar and white-collar workers, it’s not absurd to think MTG may be positioning herself for a post-Trump presidential run.

Perhaps she sees herself as precisely the figure who can appeal to the base as an equal parts MAGA loyalist and populist maverick?

If you ask me, she’d beat fake populist, Big Tech frontman JD Vance at that game. She’s even been willing to take on AIPAC!

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t fully buy the 4-dimensional chess of it all; she took to social media last week to claim Greene has been on a “revenge tour” of late, skewering the Trump administration at every turn after they reportedly pressured her out of running for Senate in Georgia earlier this year. In AOC’s mind, it’s just petty politics.

Maybe that’s right.

Or maybe we’re all kidding ourselves… Maybe she’s just who we always thought she was.

Yesterday, just when you thought she MAYBE turned over a new leaf, MTG praised Trump’s pardoning of dozens of men and women who conspired to overturn the 2020 election and end American democracy as we know it.

So perhaps the simplest explanation is the right one: She’s a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

🗞️ What You Need to Know

• Shutdown status: The Senate yesterday passed a bill to reopen the government after eight members of the Democratic caucus caved to Republicans to support the measure without extending Affordable Care Act subsidies – the Democrats’ key demand. The bill now moves to the House.

• Sneaky Senate move: Quietly placed in the spending package to reopen the government is a provision allowing senators to sue if federal investigators search their phone records without notifying them. This would allow eight GOP senators to sue the government for up to $500,000 for having their phone records seized in the Jan 6 investigation.

• Love is love: The Supreme Court denied the request to consider overturning Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark decision that legalized same-sex marriage.

• Epstein update: Speaker Mike Johnson has vowed to finally swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, who was elected seven weeks ago, per NBC News. The Arizona Democrat’s start in Congress means there will be enough signatures on a petition to force a vote to release the Epstein files.

• Hamdi released: British journalist Sami Hamdi is set to be released from ICE custody after agreeing to leave the US voluntarily. Just over two weeks ago, Hamdi was detained by ICE for overstaying his visa, the Trump administration said. However, the truth is that the US had quietly revoked his visa without informing him, according to Hamdi’s legal team.

• Mamma mia: Italy’s biggest pasta exporters are prepared to pull out of US grocery stores as soon as January in response to Trump’s tariffs.

🧠 Pop Quiz!

Which US president is widely credited with popularizing macaroni (and other pasta dishes 🍝) in America?

Keep your eyes out for the answer below!

Dems Mostly Mum on Calls to Oust Schumer

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer leaves the Democratic caucus lunch at the US Capitol on March 13, 2025, in Washington, DC. Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

As the shutdown fight nears its end, Zeteo’s Andrew Perez, Asawin Suebsaeng, and Prem Thakker have the latest on the mounting calls for Chuck Schumer to step aside.

Multiple Dem sources on Capitol Hill tell Zeteo that many lawmakers – even if they’re furious about the deal – believe that any intra-party power struggle would only help Trump and the right, and are holding their tongues. Other liberal senators have privately voiced sympathy for Schumer’s situation, believing there was no good option here. Some are simply waiting to see if a critical mass of Democratic legislators calling for Schumer to step down emerges, and only then would they feel comfortable joining in.

Elsewhere in the Democratic Senate caucus, lawmakers and their aides insisted that whatever happened over the weekend, the Democrats came out of this shutdown stronger politically than they did going into it, armed with the ability to constantly bludgeon Republican opponents with perhaps liberals’ best issue – healthcare – between now and Election Day 2026.

Behind closed doors, some Democratic senators, sources familiar with the matter say, concede that from a purely political standpoint, it is better to keep the issue of surging health insurance premiums alive for the coming election year. The right – as numerous politicians and pollsters, including top Trump and GOP ones, warn – is likely to get the lion’s share of voters’ blame on the matter, and that could help contribute to a blue wave in the critical midterm elections.

Check out their full reporting here.

🚨 Don’t Miss It!

Later today, check your inboxes for an announcement about Zeteo’s newest contributor, who will write a monthly politics column on the rise of the left, the Democratic Party’s internal battles, and the future of progressive politics!

🌏 Anywhere But America

• 🇵🇸 Don’t forget Gaza: The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza renewed calls for more support and aid to cope with the some 6,000 amputation cases that have been registered in the Strip. Children make up at least 25% of the cases, the ministry noted.

• 🇵🇰 Suicide bombing hits Islamabad: A suicide bomber killed at least 12 people in Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad today, local authorities say. No group has claimed responsibility.

• 🇮🇳 Delhi blast: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that “conspirators behind” yesterday’s deadly blast near the historic Red Fort in New Delhi “will not be spared.” Authorities have not given a reason for the explosion, which killed at least eight, but are investigating it under an antiterrorism law.

• 🇧🇷 Rio raid: The governor of Rio de Janeiro called the Brazilian city’s deadliest police raid targeting organized crime and drug trafficking a success. Of the 117 people killed by police, none were among the 69 suspects that prosecutors had named as a basis for the Oct. 28 operation.

• 🇱🇧 Hannibal Gaddafi walks: Lebanese authorities released the son of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi after he spent 10 years behind bars without trial in connection with the disappearance of a Lebanese cleric.

• 🇲🇱 Killed over TikTok posts: A woman in Mali was abducted and executed in a public square by armed men after having posted TikTok videos expressing support for the Malian army, according to state TV and local sources.

🧠 Trivia answer: Thomas Jefferson! While in Europe in the 1780s, he fell in love with the carby dishes. He was so taken with the cuisine that he brought back pasta-making equipment to Virginia; he even served “macaroni pie” at a state dinner in 1802!

ICYMI From Zeteo

Mehdi and Prem Go Off on ‘Feckless, Useless’ Democrats

It's the Exact Right Time to Fix the Democratic Party

‘A Baseless Case’: NY Attorney General Letitia James Tells Mehdi Trump is ‘Weaponizing’ the DOJ Against Her

Zeteo’s Melanie Riehl, Akshay Gokul, and Minnah Arshad contributed to this newsletter.

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