Few allies can remain in Donald Trump’s good graces forever.
Just ask his former lawyer-turned-critic Michael Cohen; or his first-term vice president Mike Pence, targeted by members of the January 6 mob who called for his hanging; or the president’s on-again, off-again “first buddy” Elon Musk, with whom Trump waged a very public online flamewar this summer over Jeffrey Epstein.
For a while, it seemed like far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene might be the one who bucked the trend, but now it seems her time has come, too.
The president has branded Greene, once one of his fiercest allies in Washington, D.C., a “traitor.” He said he’s open to endorsing a primary challenger against the Georgia Republican.
So where did it all go wrong?
How Trump lost Greene on Epstein
The most immediate cause of the split is the Epstein scandal.
Greene is among several Republican members of Congress who have backed an effort to force the government to release more files on the late sex offender, a longtime former friend of the president’s who died in prison while awaiting trial on charges that he trafficked young girls. The House will vote on the effort next week.
Worse still, in a Republican party that virtually never openly criticizes Trump, Greene accused Trump of a “huge miscalculation” in his continued dismissal of the scandal and the Republicans pushing for more information.
“Just being very honest with you, it’s something that I don’t understand,” the MAGA rep told CBS, arguing that releasing more Epstein information in the hands of federal law enforcement sends a powerful message that the government “will not protect the predators,” even if they are tied to rich and influential people.
The president, who denies being involved in any wrongdoing tied to Epstein, has called Republicans pursuing the Epstein scandal “stupid” and accused them of distracting from GOP achievements.
Greene accuses Trump of abandoning ‘America First’
But the tension between Greene and Trump’s inner circle has been building for months.
Greene, once better known for spouting conspiracy theories and demonizing her progressive colleagues when she entered Congress in 2021, has recently turned her considerable bully pulpit towards major parts of the Republican agenda.
She has hammered the GOP across the board, taking aim at its continued dithering on lowering health care costs.
During the recent government shutdown, she broke from her party to join Democratic members in calling for action to keep expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies in place, though she was ultimately ignored.
She has also accused the president of abandoning Trump’s “America First” agenda by focusing too much on foreign intervention, emerging as an outspoken critic of the bipartisan support for the Israeli war effort in Gaza, and becoming one of the few American lawmakers from either party to agree with a consensus among human rights groups and a United Nations commission that have labelled the conflict a genocide.
Last year, she mounted a failed attempt to oust her former ally Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House, and she has accused the top House Republican of fostering an environment that sidelines powerful women in the party, a charge she applied to the president on Saturday amid her ongoing feud.
“Republicans don’t have support from women and this right here is a perfect example of why,” she wrote on X, linking back to a series of posts from Trump and allied GOP Rep. Troy Nehls dismissing the Epstein scandal as a Democratic “hoax.”
The rise of Trump’s ‘future star’
The weekend blow-up is a dramatic change from Greene’s rapid rise through MAGA world.
Greene said she was inspired to seek office because of Trump, and the president praised her as a “future Republican star” and “real winner” after she won her first primary in 2020.
Once she took office, the two moved in lockstep. She wore a “Trump won” mask on the House floor at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as she unleashed a months-long campaign against vaccination efforts and public health guidelines.
Trump defended Greene after her colleagues moved to strip her from committee assignments over past inflammatory comments, while she backed the president as he and his allies in Congress sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election on baseless conspiracy theories that the results were rigged against him.
Greene would go on to be the first of Georgia’s congressional delegation to endorse Trump for re-election in 2022, a time when the president’s political stocks were at a low ebb following a brutal round of impeachment trials and committee investigations that examined in detail how he nearly toppled a rightful election.
Greene’s split with Trump is certainly notable, but those who go against the president have a way of burning brightly then fading to irrelevance within the party.
Former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, who supported the second Trump impeachment and helped lead the January 6 committee, lost her primary in 2022 then decided to back Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
Pence is now a marginal figure in the party, while Musk – despite a brief handshake with Trump in September at the funeral of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk – is no longer the omni-present fixture he was in Washington during the first months of the second Trump administration.
Greene may have provoked Trump’s fury, but some in the Republican camp remain supportive of the Georgia rep.
“I respect President Trump but I stand with my Congresswoman,” Emory Roy, Georgia-based activist for the conservative group Turning Point Action wrote on X, calling Greene “an America First fighter in D.C.”
Jim Tully, chairman of the local Republican party in the district Greene represents, wrote on X that the congresswoman enjoys the district’s “unwavering support.”
“Her willingness to speak candidly on behalf of her constituents, even in the face of political pressure, underscores her courage and her fidelity to her oath,” he added.
