Editor’s notice, November 22, 2025, 9:06 AM ET: On November 21, Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced that she would resign from Congress in January. President Donald Trump responded by saying it was “nice information for the nation.” This text was initially revealed on November 19.
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and President Donald Trump actually have break up over the Epstein information.
- Democrats and liberals are unsuitable to suppose this implies Greene is disowning MAGA.
- Greene’s feedback recommend that she thinks she’s saving Trump from unhealthy advisers.
Sorry, Elon Musk — it’s wanting just like the rupture between President Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) may truly be the messiest breakup of Trump’s second time period.
For those who haven’t heard, Greene — sure, of Jewish area lasers fame — appears to be turning towards Trump over his hesitancy to name on the Division of Justice to launch all of its information referring to Jeffrey Epstein. “MTG,” as she’s identified, has lengthy claimed to be a robust supporter of Epstein’s victims. And for a very long time, she held that place whereas additionally defending Trump towards any and all criticisms.
However as Congress moved nearer to passing a invoice to make the information public, issues modified. In response to out there studies, Trump didn’t need the information launched. However MTG did — a lot so, in truth, that she was prepared to incur his wrath within the course of.
“One thing occurred to her over the past interval of a month or two the place she modified, I believe, politically,” Trump mentioned final Friday, earlier than sending out Fact Social posts calling her “wacky,” a “ranting Lunatic,” and a “traitor” all through the weekend. He went on to rescind his assist for MTG and urged one other Republican, presumably yet another loyal to him and fewer centered on Epstein’s crimes, to switch her.
In fact, Greene fired again. Certainly, on Tuesday, the day the Home and the Senate each overwhelmingly voted to have the information launched, Greene responded: “I used to be referred to as a traitor by a person that I fought for 5, no, truly, six years for, and I gave him my loyalty at no cost,” she mentioned. “I’m not a traitor.”
This back-and-forth has, unsurprisingly, entertained a lot of the anti-Trump world. “Marjorie Taylor Greene is crushing Donald Trump proper now,” Home Democratic chief Hakeem Jeffries tweeted this week. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in the meantime, recommended that MTG is on a “revenge tour” to take down Trump. And one other prime Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin, even recommended that there might be room for MTG amongst Democrats, “if she needs to come back over.”
As a daily client and observer of the assorted podcasts and different media ecosystems that MAGA and Trump allies inhabit, I had a sense this degree of triumphalism was at the least untimely, if not outright misguided. The reality, I’ve discovered, is extra difficult — and in some methods stranger — than the “MTG vs. Trump” narrative suggests. Merely put, evidently MTG isn’t making an attempt to save lots of MAGA from Trump a lot as she’s making an attempt to save lots of Trump from himself.
What liberals suppose MTG is saying
You may forgive the Trump-critical world for getting a bit enthusiastic about this messy combat.
For the previous few weeks, MTG has been sounding a bit completely different than the model we bought to know over the past 5 to 6 years. She’s apologized for her position in creating “poisonous politics,” claiming she was duped by the QAnon conspiracy. She had no concept, she has insisted, that there was one thing antisemitic about suggesting a “Rothschild” funding financial institution, and area lasers, had been behind California’s wildfires.
“It’s been one thing I’ve thought of rather a lot, particularly since Charlie Kirk was assassinated,” she mentioned of her earlier rhetoric throughout an look on CNN this week. “I’m solely liable for myself and my very own phrases and actions, and I’m dedicated — and I’ve been engaged on this rather a lot these days — to place down the knives in politics.”
The rebrand appears to be working, at the least a bit; even main Democrats are saying she’s had a “surprisingly enlightened few weeks.”
That, in flip, has led to some raised eyebrows and real curiosity — might MTG be a helpful ally now to take down Trump and splinter his MAGA motion?
“I believe she’s going by an ‘aha’ second,” Ana Navarro, one in every of The View’s co-hosts who interviewed Greene on the present final month, puzzled after it. “I hope this…means she turns into a voice of purpose, an impartial voice…not simply toeing a celebration line.” Her co-hosts appeared to agree, saying it was “heartening” to see her sticking up for the Epstein victims.”
In the meantime, others are framing this pivot as an indication that MTG is fleeing “Trump’s sinking ship” — that she’s merely ditching a “frail” authoritarian whose motion is about to “crumble.”
However this “strange-new-respect therapy,” as one conservative author put it, could be lacking one thing a bit extra difficult.
What MTG is truly saying
Having a look at Greene’s interviews and feedback from the late summer time and into the autumn, I seen a pattern.
When she advised The View co-hosts that “nothing has modified about me,” she appeared to be talking earnestly. And in at the least this respect, I imagine her: She is a real believer within the core precepts of the MAGA motion, and feels just like the president has been led astray by advisers who solely faux to know and worth MAGA the best way she does. For a time, at the least, she appeared to suppose she might carry Trump again on observe, and she or he blamed the social gathering institution — and parts of the conservative media — for misguiding him.
It could be useful to stipulate what these core beliefs are. Fortunately, she and Tucker Carlson not too long ago outlined the 5 pillars of MAGA in an October dialog: America First, Safe Borders, No Pointless Wars, Finish Globalization, and Defend Free Speech.
These had been the rules that, MTG advised Carlson in late October, had been what led her to change into a Trump foot soldier. “I really like that man,” she remembered pondering. “These are all the explanations I supported him from the very starting when he stood on that stage amongst 17 Republican presidential candidates. And the remainder of them, I assumed, had been slimy politicians. However Donald Trump spoke the language that I understood, and he was the one which made sense to me.”
The remainder of this dialog, and one other October interview she gave to the podcaster and comic Tim Dillon, exhibit the arc that led MTG to feud with Trump.
“I’m MAGA by and thru. No person can problem my credentials. I used to be by no means a by no means Trumper. I used to be at all times 100% Donald Trump, 100% America First. However right here we’re,” she advised Dillon.
“I’m an motion particular person. Don’t inform me you’re gonna do this stuff and never do them. And that’s what I’ve at all times been upset over, proper?” she mentioned. “I’m actually grateful to plenty of the issues the president is doing, however I’m actually upset with the route Congress goes.”
These different points she’s criticized the administration and her social gathering on — not ending the conflict in Gaza, continued overseas support to Ukraine and Israel, monetary help to Argentina — have been compounding. Nevertheless it appears the Epstein information problem is what precipitated her to take the subsequent step and immediately problem the president.
Nonetheless, it’s vital to acknowledge that none of this appears to recommend that she needs a everlasting rift with Trump. She’s already mentioned, in truth, that she’s going to proceed to assist him and his agenda. She even raised the opportunity of a extra formal apology — however solely as soon as the Epstein information had been made public first. She needs the MAGA motion to have the ability to ship for its voters and believers. And she or he nonetheless appears to imagine Trump is essential to doing that.
“I really like Donald Trump, and I get to say this stuff as a result of I really like him a lot,” she advised Carlson. “I get to say this stuff, and I get to inform the reality as a result of when the MAGA practice left the station, I used to be on it the whole time.…I get to say when issues are going sideways and after they’re going unsuitable. …Excuse my language, however I’m so pissed off at Republicans proper now.”
Do these phrases sound like a newly minted Trump-hater? Not fairly. However they’re not the phrases of the previous MTG, both. The place the connection between these two MAGA leaders will go is unsure. What’s truly within the Epstein information may scramble this dynamic. However at the least one factor will stay true: The previous MTG-Trump romance is lifeless, even when a brand new one reemerges.
