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U.S. President Donald Trump has publicly called it quits with one of his most stalwart MAGA-world supporters, referring to Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as “Wacky Marjorie” and saying he would endorse a challenger against her in next year’s midterm elections “if the right person runs.”
Greene was once the epitome of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” efforts, sporting the signature red cap for Joe Biden’s 2024 state of the union address when Biden was president, and acting as a go-between for Trump and other Capitol Hill Republicans.
Trump’s new dismissal of Greene appears to be the final break in a dispute simmering for months, as Greene has seemingly moderated her political profile.
The three-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives 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 the Georgia Republican of going “Far Left,” Trump wrote on social media 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 social media platform X, Greene wrote on 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,” referring to next week’s U.S. House vote over releasing the files.
Writing 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,” Greene added, “I don’t worship or serve Donald Trump.”
Trump’s post seemingly tied a bow of finality to fissures that widened following this month’s off-cycle elections, in which voters in the New Jersey and Virginia governor races flocked to Democrats in large part over concerns about the cost of living.
Greene says Trump needs to focus on U.S. issues
Last week, Greene told NBC News 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.”
U.S. President Donald Trump is ducking press questions about newly released emails connecting him to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal activities ahead of an expected vote on releasing all Epstein case files by the U.S. House of Representatives as early as next week.
Asked about Greene’s comments earlier Friday as he flew from Washington to Florida, Trump reiterated that he felt “something happened to her over the last month or two.” He said if he hadn’t gone to China to meet President Xi Jinping, there would have been negative ramifications for jobs in Georgia and elsewhere because China would have kept its curbs on magnet exports.
Saying that people have been calling him, wanting to challenge Greene, Trump added, “She’s lost a wonderful conservative reputation.”
Greene’s discontent dates back at least to May, when she announced she wouldn’t run for the Senate against Democratic incumbent Jon Ossoff, while attacking Republican donors and consultants who 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. Greene embarked on a charm offensive in recent weeks, with interviews and appearances in media 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 she didn’t give a definitive answer.
That climaxed 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 Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana for not calling Republicans back to Washington and coming up with a health-care plan.
