Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is no longer a bit player in the House Republican caucus. She may still be a backbencher, but not many lawmakers in their second term land a sit-down interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” like the one that aired on Sunday.
I understand why interviewer Leslie Stahl was interested in speaking with Greene. Between her bond with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and her fundraising prowess, Greene has real clout within the GOP. But the resulting package was the worst kind of faux objectivity, offering Greene an undeserved chance to mainstream and sanitize her image.
Greene’s “60 Minutes” profile was just one piece of a very deliberate attempt to win over journalists after years of negative coverage. “It was just a shift in my thinking,” she told Semafor’s Kadia Goba. And if anyone watching Sunday’s broadcast — which included B-roll of Stahl watching the congresswoman do a CrossFit routine — was getting their first glimpse on Greene, it seems unlikely that they got a full understanding of just how far-right she truly is.
The resulting package was the worst kind of faux objectivity, offering Greene an undeserved chance to mainstream and sanitize her image.
Yes, as Stahl makes clear in her introduction, the interviews with Greene took place before former President Donald Trump’s indictment last week. That means the piece doesn’t address her planned protest in New York City scheduled for Tuesday ahead of Trump’s arraignment in a Manhattan courthouse. But it’s not clear how much including those details would have mattered, given Greene’s determination to position herself as the new normal for the GOP.
Stahl did bring up some of Greene’s more “controversial” views, including her false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and that Democrats are “pedophiles” for supporting trans rights. But there was only the mildest of pushback on either claim from Stahl. Most damning was when,…
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