Marjorie Taylor Greene Accuses Senate of 'Power Play' Over Water Bottles

Marjorie Taylor Greene accused the Senate of "a water bottle power play" during a meeting of the full conference committee appointed to discuss dueling versions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Wednesday, after members of Congress from the upper chamber were given noticeably bigger water bottles than their House counterparts.

The House-Senate conference committee is trying to figure out a compromise NDAA, which authorizes funding levels for the U.S. military each year, after the two chambers produced rival versions, with the Republican dominated House looking to restrict abortion access and slash diversity programs which is opposed by the Senate.

During the meeting, Senator Eric Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, shared a photo of the venue showing senators have been given substantially larger plastic water bottles than their counterparts from the House.

Posting on X, formerly Twitter he said: "At NDAA conference committee. The Senate water bottles are much larger than the House water bottles. Seems like an aggressive power play cc: @RepMTG @NancyMace."

The end of this post copied in Representatives Greene and Nancy Mace, both Republicans serving on the conference committee.

Greene responded by posting a photograph of her own on X, showing her plastic water bottle was substantially smaller than those of the senators on the committee. She added: "Senate coming in with a water bottle power play. Nancy Mace and I are not intimidated."

The post received substantial attention on X, pulling in more than 121,000 views and receiving over 660 likes from other social media users. Newsweek has reached out to Greene for comment by telephone and voicemail message.

The NDAA is typically passed each year with bipartisan support, though it is not unusual for some lawmakers from each party to be opposed. Greene voted against the 2022 NDAA which passed the House by 329 votes against 101.

National defense has become increasingly politically partisan over the last few years, with much of this connected to ongoing social policy disputes between liberals and conservatives.

Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville has for months been blocking hundreds of military promotions to protest against the Pentagon reimbursing travel expenses for members of the military forced to travel for an abortion, after the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe vs. Wade which guaranteed abortion access across the United States.

In September, three military service chiefs, Secretary of the U.S. Navy Carlos Del Toro, Secretary of the U.S. Air Force Frank Kendall and Secretary of the U.S. Army Christine Wormuth, wrote a joint piece for The Washington Post claiming the policy was "putting our national security at risk."

In an interview with Newsmax's Eric Bolling this week, Tuberville claimed the American military is the weakest its been in his lifetime, which he attributed to "wokeness."

The Alabama Republican said: "We've got the weakest military that we've had in probably my lifetime. Infiltrating our military is all this wokeness, and it's coming from the top, coming from Joe Biden, coming from Secretary of Defense [Lloyd] Austin. It's coming from [former Joint Chiefs Chair General Mark] Milley, who is recently gone. It's a disaster.

"They can't get anybody to join the military. They're begging people to come back that left because they didn't take the vaccine. We're in huge trouble. Our country is in huge trouble."