‘She’s got balls’: Republican delegates gush over Marjorie Taylor Greene’s extremism
MILWAUKEE — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)’s say-anything, trash-anyone style has earned her a dedicated fanclub here at the Republican National Convention.
And while Republican attendees from across the United States can’t vote for the bombastic second-term congresswoman, they can donate to her and buy her book, which was on display Wednesday as more than 100 attendees lined up at her convention-endorsed book signing.
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“I love her. She's the future of this country,” Jamie Ricci of Rhode Island told Raw Story after showing the congresswoman the MAGA tattoo on his shoulder when he went through the book line. “She's got balls.”
Ricci wanted to get that MAGA tat done when he was in Washington, D.C., for then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021.
Jamie Ricci of Rhode Island shows of his MAGA tattoo while attending a book event headlined by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). (Matt Laslo / Raw Story)
But, like much of that trip, things didn’t pan out as planned. He ended up not being able to get a slot in one of D.C.’s tattoo parlors before the rally he attended descended into a takeover of the U.S. Capitol, which he and his friend stopped just short of joining on Trump’s behalf.
“I said, ‘I'm not going in there. We don't belong,’ and I told him, and he's a lawyer, he's a smart guy. So God was with us, because we'd be in jail,” Ricci remembered.
As for Greene, she’s one of his contemporary political heroes, even if he recognizes she’s over the top sometimes.
“I mean, sometimes she goes a little extreme, but I don't blame any of these people for what they’ve seen on the other side, what they're doing or the way they're handling things. When she brought a hat at the State of the Union, I was like, ‘if they're breaking every rule, we can break the rules,” Ricci said. “Her ad with the targets with the guns was sick.”
Republican National Committee-appointed handlers tried to keep the media away from Greene at her public book signing.
“No interviews,” a man with an “operations” credential told reporters. “No interviews.”
But Greene, being Greene, ignored the memo and answered a couple questions.
“What’s the message of your book?” Raw Story asked.
“It’s about the policies for America First, and, basically, more about my story,” Greene replied.
While many in the line didn’t know what the book was about, they were eager to meet the bomb thrower from Northern Georgia.
“Here’s my business card. Contact me for a donation!” Shelly Garofalo, an alternate delegate from Tacoma, Wash., told the congresswoman.
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“I love her toughness,” Garofalo told Raw Story. “It's refreshing, because there's [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)] on the other side, and it sounds like there's so many talking points from AOC. We need somebody to balance and say, ‘Wait a minute, if you're calling us out on this, we're calling you out on this.’”
Still, Garafalo blushes while watching MTG’s antics sometimes.
“She calls people out, like she called Dr. [Anthony] Fauci out on some stuff. And she called him ‘Mr. Fauci’ instead of ‘doctor’ — I’m like, I don’t know if I’d go to that extreme, but she’s tough,” Garofalo said. “I love her toughness. I love her strength. I love the fact that she is calling the top leadership in our government, when there's corruption, she's calling them out. So that's what I like, because the top government officials should be working for the people and they're not working for the people.”
Cecilia Calabrese, a Region 3 Director for Massechuttes for Trump, arrived 40 minutes early to be one of the first in line.
“Thank you so much congresswoman for all you do,” Calabrese told Greene.
“We need her in the Congress so badly. I was very excited to get to meet her,” Calabrese told Raw Story. “I'm from Massachusetts, so I have no one in my congressional delegation that represents me.”