Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security and TN Rep. Mark Green's pedigree is quite impressive. Green is also Dr. Green, an emergency room physician who was also a West Point cadet and is an Army veteran, and former Tennessee State Senator. Before being elected to the United States House of Representatives in Tennessee's District 7, President Donald Trump nominated him for Army Secretary, but his confirmation was stalled. Green went on to serve in Congress, and even after District 7 was redistricted in 2022 to incorporate parts of blue Nashville, Green won re-election handily against Democrat Odessa Kelly and was expected to win again in 2024. Which is why his announcement in mid-February that he would not seek re-election came as a shock. 

At the start of the 118th Congress, I promised my constituents to pass legislation to secure our borders and to hold Secretary Mayorkas accountable. Today, with the House having passed H.R. 2 and Secretary Mayorkas impeached, it is time for me to return home. In the last few months, in reading the writings of our Framers, I was reminded of their intent for representatives to be citizen-legislators, to serve for a season and then return home. Our country–and our Congress–is broken beyond most means of repair. I have come to realize our fight is not here within Washington, our fight is with Washington. As I have done my entire life, I will continue serving this country–but in a new capacity. 

Speculation abounded as to why Green, considered a prominent party member and an ultimate shoo-in for higher office, would wish to shift gears. Green battled both thyroid and colon cancer — the diseases were traced to the time Green was deployed to Karshi-Khanabad, Uzbekistan, with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment as a special operations flight surgeon. There, he (and many other Gulf War veterans) were exposed to "black goo" on the base, which has been linked to a number of debilitating health problems among veterans, including cancers. 

March is #ColonCancerAwarenessMonth. After a colonoscopy, my colon cancer diagnosis was confirmed in 2015. Colon cancer is life threatening if left untreated.

Treating and curing cancer is personal to me, and something I will always fight for. Early detection is critical.

— Rep. Mark Green (@RepMarkGreen) March 1, 2024

Candidates had already started to line up to replace Green, including Republican Brandon Ogles, who served in the state House from 2018 to 2022, and former Democrat Nashville Mayor Megan Barry.

On Thursday, former President Donald Trump took to his social media platform to post endorsements of Republican candidates, and included this message to Green.

Mark Green has had lots of options because of his political talents, and the great job he has done as a Congressman, but given the fantastic work he’s doing as Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, I hope he runs for Re-Election to the U.S. House of Representatives. If he does, he has my Complete and Total Endorsement!

Apparently, this may have been the tipping point for Green to reverse course. In a statement to the Tennessee Star, Green announced he would indeed be seeking re-election for his House seat.

Congressman Mark Green (R-TN-07) announced on Thursday that he has reconsidered his decision to retire from Congress and will now run for re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2024 election.

“While my strong desire was to leave Congress at the end of this year, since my announcement, I have received countless calls from constituents, colleagues, and President Trump urging me to reconsider,” Green said in a statement released by his office to The Tennessee Star.

“I was reminded of the words of General MacArthur on a statue at West Point: ‘Duty, honor, country.’ I realized, once again: I had a duty to my country to fulfill,” the statement continued.

“I will be running for re-election so I can be here on Day 1 next year to help President Trump end this border crisis once and for all,” Green concluded.

Brandon Ogles hardest hit. Democrat Megan Barry is talking trash.

Barry slammed Green's reversal, saying he's decided to run for a job that "just two weeks ago he said he didn’t want - just because his party bosses told him to."

"Green said himself what his bosses know, that my campaign is mounting a serious threat to flip this seat blue," Barry said. "Green’s flip-flop is just more of the same chaos and incompetence that has marked his time in Congress. As I said when I announced my campaign for this seat: Mark Green has failed to address the most pressing problems our families are facing. Green said he was leaving behind a broken Congress - dysfunction that he and his fellow extremists in the House Freedom Caucus are responsible for."

With the influx of illegal immigrants now flooding the southeast and the horrible murder of nursing student Laken Riley by an illegal criminal, the crisis at our southern border is fresh on American's minds. Despite Democrat Barry's bluster, public sentiment is in Green's favor, and it is his race to lose. In the fight to keep the southern border at the forefront, Green has been a champion. He led the charge to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and had blistering words for President Joe Biden's "photo op" at the southern border in Brownsville, Texas.

MUST-READ: Chairman @RepMarkGreen's statement on President Biden's border photo-op today:https://t.co/b7A52joZ2n pic.twitter.com/r2zFeKg8wa

— House Homeland GOP (@HomelandGOP) February 29, 2024

“President Biden’s choice to visit one of the slowest sectors of our Southwest border makes it abundantly clear that he cares far more about optics than actually addressing this historic, self-inflicted crisis. 
 
“According to reports, the White House canceled a trip to the Tucson Sector earlier this week, where Border Patrol agents are encountering upwards of 2,000 inadmissible aliens every single day. This is far more than the 300 encounters on average in Brownsville, and double what former President Obama’s DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson called a ‘crisis.’ It’s easy to see why the administration relocated the visit.
 
“In a transcribed interview last year, Chief Patrol Agent John Modlin of the Tucson Sector told our Committee that large groups of illegal aliens in his sector are turning themselves in to Border Patrol because ‘they believe they’re going to stay in the United States.’ If President Biden cared about the men and women on the frontlines of the crisis he helped create, he would start there, rather than engaging in desperate photo-ops that fool no one.

Joe Biden’s visit to the Southern Border is nothing more than a photo-op and everyone knows it. pic.twitter.com/qIP2Dt1t6D

— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) February 29, 2024

With a number of House Republicans choosing to retire, the need becomes more critical for the party to hold onto its House majority, if for nothing else than to hold the line on the southern border. So, Green's reversal is a welcome one, especially to Trump and Republican Party leadership.