President Trump has publicly split with one of his most stalwart MAGA supporters, calling Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene “wacky” and saying he would endorse a challenger against her in next year’s midterms “if the right person runs.”
His attack on the Georgia Republican — who has been a leading champion of his “Make America Great Again” movement, sporting the signature red cap at President Biden’s 2024 State of the Union address and acting as a go-between for Trump and other Capitol Hill Republicans — appeared to be a resolute break in a dispute simmering for months as Greene has criticized some of the president’s policies and actions.
The three-term U.S. House member has increasingly dissented from Republican leaders, attacking them during the just-ended federal government shutdown and saying they need a plan to help people who are losing subsidies to afford health insurance policies.
Accusing Greene — one of the most right-leaning members of Congress — of going “Far Left,” Trump wrote that all he had witnessed from Greene in recent months is “COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!” adding, of Greene’s purported irritation that he doesn’t return her phone calls, “I can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s call every day.”
In a response on X, Greene wrote Friday that Trump had “attacked me and lied about me.” She added a screenshot of a text she said she had sent the president earlier in the day about releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, which she said “is what sent him over the edge.”
Greene called it “astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level,” referencing next week’s U.S. House vote over releasing the complete files related to the late convicted sex offender.
The Epstein saga has placed increasing pressure on the president. Epstein emails released this week named Trump several times and indicated that he knew about Epstein’s abuse of underage girls, a claim the president denies.
Greene wrote that she had supported Trump “with too much of my precious time, too much of my own money, and fought harder for him even when almost all other Republicans turned their back and denounced him,” adding, “I don’t worship or serve Donald Trump.”
Trump’s post suggested a firm break with Greene after fissures that widened following this month’s off-cycle elections, in which voters in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races and elsewhere flocked to Democrats in large part over concerns about the cost of living.
Greene told NBC News this month that “watching the foreign leaders come to the White House through a revolving door is not helping Americans,” saying that Trump needs to focus on high prices at home rather than his recent emphasis on foreign affairs. Trump responded by saying that Greene had “lost her way.”
Asked about Greene’s comments earlier Friday as he flew from Washington to Florida, the president reiterated that he felt “something happened to her over the last month or two,” saying that, if he hadn’t gone to China to meet leader Xi Jinping, there would have been negative ramifications for jobs in Georgia and elsewhere because China would have kept its curbs on magnet exports.
Claiming that people have been calling him wanting to challenge Greene in the primary next year, Trump added, “She’s lost a wonderful conservative reputation.”
Greene’s discontent dates back to at least May, when she announced she wouldn’t run for the Senate against Democratic incumbent Jon Ossoff, while attacking GOP donors and consultants who said they feared she couldn’t win. In June, she publicly sided with Tucker Carlson after Trump called the commentator “kooky” in a schism that emerged between MAGA and national security hardliners over possible U.S. efforts at regime change in Iran.
That only intensified in July, when Greene said she wouldn’t run for governor. Then, she attacked a political “good ole boy” system, alleging it was endangering Republican control of the state.
In recent weeks, Greene has embarked on a wide-ranging media campaign, doing interviews and appearances on mainstream programs aimed at people who aren’t hardcore Trump supporters. Asked on comedian Tim Dillon’s podcast if she wanted to run for president in 2028, Greene said in October, “I hate politics so much” and just wanted “to fix problems” — but didn’t give a definitive answer.
That continued with an appearance on Bill Maher’s HBO show, “Real Time,” followed days later by a Nov. 4 appearance on ABC’s “The View.” Some observers began pronouncing Greene as reasonable as she trashed GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana for not calling Republicans back to Washington to end the shutdown and coming up with a healthcare plan.
“I feel like I’m sitting next to a completely different Marjorie Taylor Greene,” said “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin.
“Maybe you should become a Democrat, Marjorie,” said co-host Joy Behar.
“I’m not a Democrat,” Greene replied. “I think both parties have failed.”
Kinnard writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed to this report.
