In this file photo, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) speaks alongside President Trump at a campaign event when he was a presidential candidate, in Rome, Georgia, on March 9, 2024.
Elijah Nouvelage/AFP via Getty Images
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Elijah Nouvelage/AFP via Getty Images
To the casual observer, President Trump’s withdrawal of his political endorsement of Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling her a “traitor” after she questioned his opposition to releasing Justice Department files on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, may have come as a surprise.
He did reverse course Sunday night, calling on the House to pass a measure to release the files “because we have nothing to hide.”
joining the House in 2021, has also recently apologized for “toxic politics,” warned Trump’s attacks have jeopardized her family’s safety and reiterated her support for Trump’s presidency.
Still, the public fight over the Epstein files is the culmination of months of criticism from some conservatives toward Trump’s policy agenda, as cracks in the MAGA coalition begin to show.
Other splits with Trump
Since Trump returned to office in January, there have been several moments in the background – and sometimes foreground – where some on the right say the president hasn’t delivered on domestic priorities that “Make America Great Again” like he promised on the campaign trail.
For almost every instance, Greene has been there to articulate the disconnect.
When the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear sites in June, Greene was among those who questioned how that fit with Trump’s promise to end wars.
“Six months in Steve, and here we are turning back on the campaign promises and we bombed Iran on behalf of Israel,” Greene said on Steve Bannon’s War Room show.
As some Republicans expressed concern over humanitarian conditions caused by Israel’s war in Gaza, Greene called Israel’s actions “genocide” on social media.
In October, the Trump White House authorized a $20 billion currency swap with Argentina in an effort to stabilize the South American country’s economy and suggested plans to increase Argentine beef imports.
U.S. cattle ranchers and a slew of Republican lawmakers pushed back to little avail.
Speaking to Tucker Carlson last month, Greene said the money the administration is shepherding to Argentina is “one of the grossest things” she has ever seen and “doesn’t understand how that is America First.”
“It’s honestly a punch in the gut to all of our American cattle ranchers and they are furious and rightfully so,” Greene said.
Then there’s Republican unease with things like mass deportations and tariffs, restricting tech visas and redistricting, as different pockets of the party’s big tent object to key pieces of Trump’s second-term agenda.
Marjorie Taylor Greene hasn’t changed
Unlike others who have criticized Trump and moved away from the Republican Party, Greene is still one of the most conservative members of Congress and her clash with Trump does not change her ideological consistency.
Although her apology for prior toxicity, conflict with the president and appearances on forums like The View and CNN might seem to some like a pivot, Greene isn’t actually changing anything about her conservative populist message – just noting ways that Republicans haven’t lived up to her views.
Over the last few weeks there were also signs that Trump would eventually lash out online and disown Greene politically.
“I don’t know what happened to Marjorie,” Trump said. “She’s a nice woman, but I don’t know what happened. She’s lost her way, I think.”
Some Republicans – including Greene – would argue that it’s Trump who’s lost his way.
“I think that the American people deserve to be put first,” she said on CNN Sunday. “That’s what ‘Make America Great Again,’ meant to me and I think that President Trump can do that if he refocuses his effort.”
At last year’s Republican National Convention, Greene called Trump the “founding father” of the “America First” movement. Now she’s asserting that “founding father” does not equal sole arbiter of what the movement looks like moving forward.
The president’s changing hold over the GOP
Trump has dominated the Republican Party for a decade by creating a big tent of many different – and sometimes conflicting – ideological groups and getting them to agree to his views and priorities. That’s starting to change, especially as he faces record unpopularity and continues to break with his base’s ideas of conservatism.
Trump will not be on the ballot in next year’s midterms, and it’s not clear how much influence he will wield over who Republican primary voters pick in the 2028 presidential contest.
In what would always have been a question of what a post-Trump GOP looks like, Greene’s criticism is forcing Republicans to confront that question much earlier than they had planned – and with much less certainty about the possible directions the party might go.
