Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s recent break with Trump on several key actions shows the rifts within the MAGA base.Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/ZUMA
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s fealty to President Donald Trump has, for the most part, seemed nearly unshakable.
She has compared him to Jesus Christ. She has repeatedly—and falsely—claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from him. And she reportedly wanted to be Trump’s VP, claiming to the Guardian that her name was “on a list” of potential contenders before JD Vance was ultimately crowned the winner.
But lately, Greene appears to be breaking with Trump on several key fronts: His decision to launch strikes on Iran, his renewed support for Ukraine, and now the Department of Justice’s and FBI’s conclusion regarding the Jeffrey Epstein files. Together, against the backdrop of mounting anger within MAGA’s ranks, Greene’s increasingly outspoken words underscore just how much the president has alienated some of his most loyal supporters through a slate of consequential decisions made over the last few weeks.
On Monday, Greene told the Times that she opposed Trump’s new plan to sell US military equipment to European countries that can be transferred to Ukraine, arguing that the so-called “America First” policy of getting the US out of conflicts abroad is “what we campaigned on.”
“This is what I promised also to my district,” she added. “This is what everybody voted for. And I believe we have to maintain the course.”
“I said it on every rally stage: ‘No more money to Ukraine. We want peace,’” Greene continued. And while Trump said that European allies will ultimately pay for sending the weapons to Ukraine, Greene isn’t buying it: “I remain firmly opposed to any U.S. involvement, including backdoor deals through NATO, which American taxpayers overwhelmingly fund,” she said in a post on X Monday. (In fact, the United States contributes only one-sixth of NATO’s overall budget.)
Greene is not the only MAGA isolationist to speak out against the move. A former Trump campaign official, who was granted anonymity, told Politico, “We still hate it. This is not our war, and escalation isn’t in America’s interest.” Steve Bannon has also railed against the president’s Ukraine flip on his podcast.
The Epstein files, though, are a different story: MAGA-world appears to be far more united and vocal in its uproar, with Greene among the most prominent of Trump’s base to publicly air their fury. As my colleague Anna Merlan writes in a new piece out today:
The MAGA base, especially its more QAnon-y quadrants, feel deeply betrayed and increasingly suspicious by what they see as an unforgivable level of inaction and obfuscation on Epstein from the Trump administration. “Please understand the EPSTEIN AFFAIR is not going away,” General Michael Flynn tweeted recently at Trump. (While Flynn has denied being a QAnon believer, he was an early promoter of elements of the conspiracy theory before disavowing it; he continues to make claims about a secretive group of evildoers engaged in child trafficking and sexual abuse.) “You’re going to lose 10 percent of the MAGA movement,” warned former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. At the Turning Point USA conference in Florida over the weekend, much of the crowd booed when asked if they were satisfied with Trump’s handling of the Epstein case.
Greene told CNN on Monday that the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files is “a red line” for many MAGA supporters. “Jeffrey Epstein is literally the most well-known convicted pedophile in modern-day history…this is something that’s been talked about by many people serving in the administration, myself, and many others on the right and the left of there needing to be transparency of the rich and powerful elites that were in his circle while he was one of the worst serial abusers of young women,” she said. “It has been a very serious situation for the administration, and many people are speaking out,” she added.
Then there were Trump’s strikes on Iran last month, which subsequent reports suggest did not entirely destroy the country’s nuclear sites as the White House has claimed. (The White House has disputed those reports, once again claiming “total obliteration.”) For Greene, the strikes, whether successful or not, betrayed Trump’s campaign promise to end wars. “A complete bait and switch to please the neocons, warmongers, military industrial complex contracts, and neocon tv personalities that MAGA hates and who were NEVER TRUMPERS!” she said on X.
The White House did not respond to questions from Mother Jones on Tuesday afternoon.
Is the anger of MAGA and Greene a sign of a more lasting break with the president? Even with all the drama, it’s highly unlikely. According to Greene herself, dissent within MAGA isn’t proof of its weakness, but its supremacy. “Contrary to brainwashed Democrat boomers think and protest about, Trump is not a king, MAGA is not a cult, and I can and DO have my own opinion,” she wrote last month.
About The Author
