Former President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign is kicking into full gear this weekend, with rallies planning in the critical primary states of South Carolina and New Hampshire.
As the first major candidate to declare for 2024, the speculation surrounding his pick for a running mate has grown considerably loud.
Insiders say there’s one clear favorite… and she’s pulling out all the stops to win the job.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is a rising star among the “America First” caucus and hardliner conservatives.
Now she wants a new title: Madam Vice President Greene.
Once shunned as too conservative by the Republican establishment, the Georgia congresswoman who spent her first term in the House stripped of institutional power by Democrats has since been celebrated by Republicans and welcomed into the GOP fold.
After Republicans won the House majority in the November election, Greene became an influential player shaping the GOP agenda: A Washington outsider with clout.
“No. 1, we need to impeach Joe Biden. No. 2, We need to impeach Secretary Mayorkas. And No. 3, we should impeach Merrick Garland,” Greene said about her agenda heading into 2023. Alejandro Mayorkas is the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and Garland the attorney general.
Those inside the Trump orbit say Greene has serious ambitions.
“This is no shrinking violet. She’s ambitious,” said Steve Bannon, a former top Trump advisor and conservative commentator. “She’s not shy about that, nor should she be. She sees herself on the short list for Trump’s VP.”
“When MTG looks in the mirror, she sees a potential president smiling back,” Bannon said.
“She’s both strategic and disciplined,” Bannon later told NBC News about Greene’s decision to back House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
“She made a power move, knowing it would run up hard against her most ardent crew,” he said. “She was prepared to take the intense heat and hatred short-term for the long-term goal of being a player.”
When contacted directly by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Greene brushed off the rumors and said she was focused on her job as a Congresswoman.
“It’s not something I’ve been thinking about,” she reportedly said Wednesday. “I’ve just been wanting committees for two years.”
Greene added that she hasn’t spoken with Trump about the issue.
“I don’t even think he’s talking about it,” she said. “It’s pretty early.”
Greene swept onto the national stage in the 2020 election, catapulted forward even before she took office. As the lawmaker-elect from northwest Georgia, she attended a key organizing meeting at the Trump White House as lawmakers laid plans to object to the certification of Joe Biden’s election on Jan. 6, 2021. When she arrived to be sworn into Congress, she wore a “Trump Won” face mask.
In many ways, Greene’s arrival in the House traces the arc of the Republican Party’s evolution from the Newt Gingrich revolution that brought conservatives to power in the 1994 election, to the “tea party” Republicans that regained the House majority in 2010.
Jack Kingston, a former Republican congressman who rose during those earlier eras, said McCarthy was smart in welcoming Greene to unfurl the House GOP’s “Commitment to America” over the summer.
“He’s got to work with her, and he knows that,” Kingston said. “Getting Marjorie Taylor Greene on board is very important.”
Will Trump do the same?
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article