1 week ago
21
Opinion|The Three G.O.P. Women Who Broke Trump’s Grip on Congress
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/opinion/trump-epstein-greene-boebert-mace.html
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
Today’s Republican Party is big on manliness and masculine virtues. The MAGA right in particular is forever obsessing over who is the biggest, the strongest, the most fearless among them.
This is why, watching President Trump’s fight to keep a lid on the Epstein files, I have been struck, delighted even, that among the vanishingly few Republican lawmakers with the courage to defy him have been three fire-breathing congresswomen: Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina.
Love ’em or hate ’em, these House troublemakers bucked their party leadership, stared down their president and made possible Tuesday’s vote to compel the administration to come clean about the web of degeneracy surrounding Jeffrey Epstein. In the end, all but one Republican joined every Democrat to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act. This victory speaks to the value of having women’s voices, and strength, inside the Republican echo chamber, a place that can still be tough for women to navigate.
Aside from Representative Thomas Massie, the Republicans’ chief crusader for Epstein transparency, Representatives Boebert, Greene and Mace did more than the rest of their conference combined to keep the heat on Mr. Trump by signing the discharge petition to force a vote on Mr. Massie’s bill, sponsored with Ro Khanna, a Democrat. No other Republicans dared cross the president, who, in characteristic mob-boss fashion, made clear that support for the measure would be considered a “hostile act.”
Image
Image
True to his word, Mr. Trump worked to bully the rebels into submission. For months, he tried a variety of carrots and sticks on Ms. Boebert. His top aides even called her into the Situation Room for … a friendly chat. He has repeatedly torn into Ms. Greene, calling her a “traitor” and expressing eagerness to support a primary challenger against her in next year’s midterms. His toxic tirades have resulted in Ms. Greene receiving death threats from his followers, she has said. And, yes, she recognizes the irony, Ms. Greene told CNN.
