In the thick of a bitter government shutdown that’s left federal workers scrambling and essential services teetering, firebrand Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene unleashed a bold rallying cry Friday: Senate Republicans should slam the “nuclear option” button to ram through funding and get the lights back on.
Greene, the Georgia congresswoman known for her unfiltered MAGA bravado, took to X to lambast her party’s upper chamber for dragging its feet.
“If GOP senators wanted to pass the CR and reopen the government they could, by using the nuclear option to override the 60 vote rule,” she posted, attaching a handy explainer graphic for the uninitiated.
For those not steeped in Senate arcane lore, the “nuclear option” is parliamentary dynamite—a procedural maneuver that lets the majority party bulldoze a filibuster with just a simple majority vote, ditching the usual 60-vote supermajority hurdle.
As Greene’s screenshot laid out, it’s dubbed “nuclear” for good reason: It’s a scorched-earth, last-ditch play that torches bipartisan bridges and invites long-term retaliation.
But Greene? She’s got zero patience for such hand-wringing.
“Let’s be real, that ship has sailed a long time ago,” she fired off.
“There are no partisan relations.”
It’s classic MTG—blunt, defiant, and dripping with the kind of frustration that’s defined the shutdown blame game since the clock struck midnight Wednesday. At this point MTG is speaking her mind on all the nonsense going on, never afraid to go up against her own party.
The Shutdown Spark
The mess unfolded when Congress blew past a midnight deadline to pass a stopgap funding bill, or continuing resolution (CR), plunging the government into its first full shutdown since 2019.
Non-essential operations froze, from national parks to IRS processing, while Democrats howled that House Republicans’ demands for spending cuts were the real culprits.
Republicans, in turn, accused the opposition of stonewalling a clean bill to protect pet projects.
Greene didn’t mince words on the stakes.
By invoking the nuclear option, she argued, the Senate could swiftly unlock billions in taxpayer dollars for local districts—funding schools, roads, and community programs that everyday Americans rely on.
“This isn’t just about D.C. drama,” her post implied.
“It’s about getting real help to real people.”
Her urgency ties directly to the man in the Oval Office: President Donald Trump.
With a CR in place, much of his second-term agenda—from border security overhauls to economic stimulus—rides on temporary patches.
Greene dropped a stark warning: “If Congress is never allowed or fails to pass new legislation… everything [President Donald Trump] is doing will remain temporary.”
It’s a not-so-subtle jab at Senate holdouts wary of escalating the partisan bloodbath.
Whispers in GOP circles suggest some senators fear the nuclear fallout could doom future cooperation on must-pass bills like debt ceiling hikes or Supreme Court confirmations.
But in Greene’s world, that’s yesterday’s news.
With Democrats dug in and public approval for Congress scraping historic lows, she sees hesitation as outright surrender.
Greene’s Nuclear Gambit
Greene’s push isn’t her first swing at Senate sacred cows.
The 51-year-old former CrossFit trainer turned congressional lightning rod has made a career out of prodding her party toward harder-line tactics, from challenging Speaker Mike Johnson on spending to amplifying Trump’s “America First” echo chamber.
Her X feed, with over 2 million followers, is a megaphone for unvarnished takes that thrill the base but rattle the establishment.
Critics, including some moderate Republicans, view the nuclear pitch as reckless.
“This would make the Senate just another House—pure majority rule, no deliberation,” one anonymous GOP aide told reporters off the record.
Democrats, meanwhile, pounced: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it “extremist fantasy” that would “paralyze governance for generations.”
Yet Greene’s logic resonates in a polarized era where gridlock is the norm.
The nuclear option has been deployed before—most notably in 2013 under Harry Reid to fast-track Obama nominees, and again in 2017 by Mitch McConnell for Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court seat. Each time, it widened the chasm, but neither side blinked.
As negotiations limp into the weekend, all eyes are on Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
Will he heed Greene’s siren call, or opt for the slow-burn diplomacy that’s kept shutdowns short in the past?
With furloughed workers lining up for unemployment and Trump’s team fuming over stalled priorities, the pressure’s mounting.
For now, Greene’s post has racked up thousands of likes and retweets, fueling the MAGA fire.
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Also Read: Trump Now Turns Government Shutdown into Strategic Weapon
