Trump says he’s withdrawing support for Marjorie Taylor Greene, may back primary opponent
President Trump said he will no longer support Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling her “wacky” and a “traitor” to the GOP, making a dramatic break with a longtime loyalist who has increasingly criticized the president and her party’s leadership in recent weeks.
In an almost 300-word missive on Truth Social Friday night, the president said Greene “has gone Far Left,” and wrote that “all I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!”
“She has told many people that she is upset that I don’t return her phone calls anymore, but with 219 Congressmen/women, 53 U.S. Senators, 24 Cabinet Members, almost 200 Countries, and an otherwise normal life to lead, I can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s call every day,” he wrote.
The president said he’s withdrawing his endorsement of Greene and will support a primary challenge against her “if the right person runs” in her deep-red northern Georgia district.
Greene, on Saturday, said in a post on X that she never thought that “fighting to release the Epstein files, defending women who were victims of rape, and fighting to expose the web of rich powerful elites would have caused this, but here we are.”
And it truly speaks for itself,” she wrote, in part. “There needs to be a new way forward. The toxic political industrial complex thrives on ripping us all apart but never delivers anything good for the American people, whom I love.”
The congresswoman also said later Saturday that she has been receiving threats since Mr. Trump began openly criticizing her.
“Aggressive rhetoric attacking me has historically led to death threats and multiple convictions of men who were radicalized by the same type rhetoric being directed at me right now,” Greene said. “This time by the President of the United States.”
In her back-and-forth with Mr. Trump which began Friday, Greene said that she “will continue to pray this administration will be respectful” despite the fact that the president “just attacked me and lied about me.”
“I have supported President 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,” she wrote on X. “But I don’t worship or serve Donald Trump. I worship God, Jesus is my savior, and I serve my district GA14 and the American people.”
Mr. Trump escalated his attacks on Greene on Saturday, saying in a Truth Social post: “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene is a disgrace to our GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY!”
“Lightweight Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Brown (Green grass turns Brown when it begins to ROT!), betrayed the entire Republican Party when she turned Left, performed poorly on the pathetic View, and became the RINO that we all know she always was,” the president said in part in another post on Saturday.
First arriving in Congress in 2021, Greene aligned herself closely with Mr. Trump for years, defending the then-former president as he faced a slew of criminal investigations.
“I didn’t intentionally style myself after President Trump, but I can see how people draw those similarities,” the often pugnacious and sharp-elbowed congresswoman told “60 Minutes” in a 2023 interview. “We both come from the same industry, construction. I also have pretty much a plain speaking style, and so does he.”
In recent weeks, however, Greene has regularly criticized Republican congressional leaders. She’s accused them of not paying enough attention to the cost of living and failing to grapple with rising health insurance premiums — drawing rare plaudits from Democrats, who made health care a core part of their message in the government shutdown fight that ended this week.
And she’s clashed with Mr. Trump. She was one of four House Republicans to sign a petition that will force a vote on a bill to release Justice Department records on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, helping to breathe new life into an issue that Mr. Trump has repeatedly urged Republicans to drop.
In an interview Friday with “CBS Mornings,” Greene called the president’s opposition to releasing the files a “huge miscalculation,” arguing he has nothing to hide.
In her post on X after the president withdrew his support for her, Greene accused Mr. Trump of trying to “make an example” out of her and “scare all the other Republicans” ahead of a vote on releasing the Epstein records that is expected to take place next week. She posted a screenshot of a text that she said she sent Mr. Trump earlier Friday, encouraging him to “lean into” the Epstein controversy.