Marjorie Taylor Greene Spent $100K for Kevin McCarthy's Chapstick

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene may have paid six figures to own a tube of Chapstick once used by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

During a Republican conference meeting Tuesday morning, the Georgia Republican congresswoman apparently bid $100,000 in an auction for a tube of lip balm created as swag for Representative Aaron Bean's election campaign that had allegedly been McCarthy's.

Newsweek confirmed the lip balm's existence through a spokesperson for Bean when reached for comment Tuesday: "Yes, that is Congressman Bean's campaign Chapstick," they wrote in an email.

The auction outcome, first reported by Politico's Olivia Beavers, came during a break in negotiations between the House GOP and the White House over an impending deal on the federal budget before the government is expected to go into default sometime in the coming weeks.

While McCarthy and the White House have so far been unable to come to an agreement after talks stalled Monday night, McCarthy called the meeting with President Joe Biden "productive."

McCarthy allegedly bid up the price on the Chapstick by offering a number of perks to the winning bidder, according to Beavers, including an invitation to a dinner attended by top donors and supporters for whoever bid the most money, the proceeds of which would supposedly go toward House Republicans' campaign arm.

Greene, whose campaign still owes $550,000 in outstanding debts against more than $966,000 in cash-on-hand, according to campaign finance reports, told Beavers that the auction was, indeed, for campaign purposes. Newsweek has reached out to McCarthy's office to confirm.

"I'm honored to be able to donate $100,000 to the NRCC to help Republicans increase our majority in 2024 and defeat the Democrats," Greene later said in a statement. "My constituents will be honored to host a visit with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who we all think is doing a great job."

Greene has supported McCarthy in the past. During his 15-round vote to become speaker, Greene was a notable defection from the party's far-right by endorsing his candidacy, at one point calling her colleagues "destructionists."

While the custom Chapstick—which most websites show could cost as little as 50 cents when ordered in bulk—received quite the markup from face value, the eye-popping total is tiny compared to some of the priciest political memorabilia ever sold at auction.

A one-and-a-quarter-inch pinback campaign button for 1920 Democratic presidential candidate James Cox and his then-running mate, future President Franklin D. Roosevelt, garnered $185,850 at an auction last March, for example.

Four years earlier, an original George Washington inaugural button set the buyer back by nearly a quarter-million dollars, while Washington's personal copy of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights once sold for nearly $10 million—proof deep-pocketed patriots are willing to go to great lengths to own a piece of history.

Tuesday's auction, however, should not be viewed as an example of hero worship: Greene, in Beavers' telling, did not bid on the chapstick until McCarthy offered up the donor visit as part of the deal.