MTG wants to use her subcommittee perch to target U.S. funding for foreign wars

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she’s planning to use her new perch as chair of a government efficiency oversight subcommittee next Congress to target U.S. funding for foreign wars.

Beginning in the new year, Ms. Greene, Georgia Republican and a top ally of President-elect Donald Trump, will be heading up the Department of Government Efficiency’s subcommittee under the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.

The congressional panel is tasked with helping the DOGE office to identify ways to cut spending and reduce the federal bureaucracy.

Ms. Greene previewed her plans for the DOGE subcommittee on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast, saying she wants to “look hard” at funding for foreign wars, overseas military bases and defense contracts.

Those targets could pit Ms. Greene against many of her Republican congressional colleagues who maintain a more globalist approach to foreign policy and support America’s backing of allies, particularly Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Mr. Trump has also said he wants to cut U.S. spending on foreign wars, promising to negotiate an end to the nearly three-year Russia-Ukraine conflict. He has also said he doesn’t want national defense programs to be targets of his government spending cuts.

Ms. Greene, who has repeatedly voted against sending any U.S. money to Ukraine, said Mr. Trump won the presidential election in part on his promise to end foreign wars.

She was fired up when Mr. Solomon asked her about a report in The New York Times citing unnamed U.S. officials who suggested that President Biden, before his term ends, could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union.

“I truly think that endangers not only our country, our safety, our national security, it endangers the entire world,” Ms. Greene said, suggesting such action could start a nuclear war with Russia.

“If the outgoing administration, the Biden administration, the unelected bureaucrats that are making these decisions, provide nuclear weapons to Ukraine, in my opinion, I think they’re committing treason and they should be arrested,” she said.

Ms. Greene is planning to look at more than foreign war funding in her role as chair of the DOGE oversight subcommittee. She cited waste in the U.S. Postal Service, funding for National Public Radio and money going to sanctuary cities among other potential targets.

“These governors and mayors are coming out and saying they’re going to harbor illegal aliens and they’re going to fight President Trump’s administration,” Ms. Greene said of sanctuary cities. “I think that that’s a place we can take a massive spending cut if we’re going to have mayors and governors virtually committing treason against the administration, against the American people by harboring noncitizens that don’t belong in our country.”

Ms. Greene said no options are off the table for cuts within the federal government “because the list is honestly so expansive.”

“The best way to rein in the government spending is not just take big chunks out of some departments, but it’s actually to go after even all the little things,” she said. “So the way I see it is the entire federal government is going to have to take a spending cut across the board. And we are going to have to eliminate, you know, a good number of programs.”

Ms. Greene expects to face resistance from some of her Republican colleagues.

“I’m sure we’ll still have some people that really don’t want to cut spending, but the movement is — it’s really massive, and the American people are behind it,” she said.

The DOGE subcommittee will hold hearings with federal department heads and other “unelected bureaucrats” about their government programs and grants, Ms. Greene said.

“Why do you think the American people should continue spending on this?” she said she plans to ask witnesses. “And let them make their case.”

While Ms. Greene anticipates recommending the elimination of several government programs, she said she’s open to recommending against cuts “if it makes sense.”