Marjorie Taylor Greene threatens dramatic breakup with Trump over a core base frustration that could upend entire Republican Party
The conservative firebrand who surged onto the political scene in 2021 and has been an ever-present figure in the House GOP and MAGA orbit ever since told the Daily Mail in a 45-minute call this week that it may be time for her to walk away.
'I don't know if the Republican Party is leaving me, or if I'm kind of not relating to Republican Party as much anymore,' she revealed. 'I don't know which one it is.'
Her fidelity to the president is still strong, she insists, but she sees flashing red lights warning that the GOP is out of step with the MAGA base.
It's the audience she feels most in-tune with, considering her seven million social media followers.
'I think the Republican Party has turned its back on America First and the workers and just regular Americans,' she said.
MTG senses that the GOP is reverting to its 'neocon' past, and its leaders, the 'good ole boys,' are a formidable opponent for the true MAGA agenda.
'I'm not afraid of Mike Johnson at all,' she said candidly.
When it comes to women in the Republican party, Greene occupies a unique space. She has the largest social media following of any Republican woman, boasting close to 7.5 million followers on X alone.
Donald Trump stands with Marjorie Taylor Greene as he prepares to leave Columbus Airport, Columbus, Georgia, Saturday June 10th 2023. Greene often touts her close ties to Trump
The 51-year-old lawmaker wants to stop foreign aid, continue to use DOGE to shave down government expenditures and waste, stop adding to the national debt and be on the look out for inflation.
'Like what happened all those issues? You know that I don't know what the hell happened with the Republican Party. I really don't.'
'But I'll tell you one thing, the course that it's on, I don't want to have anything to do with it, and I, I just don't care anymore,' she said sounding frustrated.
She has told the Daily Mail she senses the Georgia GOP is not adequately reading the voters in the state. MTG said she's happy to not be on the ticket for the upcoming Senate race.
'Georgia is very much controlled,' she explained. 'I call it the good ole boys network. It's the donors of the state, they're good hearted people, but they are very low risk takers, so they end up always being talked into ... really very weak moderate candidates.'
'It's a very lukewarm, not exciting Republican ballot, you're just not going to get the turnout there that's needed, especially when we came off the last election and only won the state by 115,000 votes.'
Without Trump on the ballot in the upcoming 2026 Senate race, the GOP could struggle to overcome Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff, she said.
Most polling of the race shows the Democrat with a double-digit lead, even in a potential match up against Greene.
She's used this large platform to publicly split with her party and call Israel's actions in Gaza a 'genocide.' MTG has also used it to condemn U.S. involvement in conflicts abroad and question where the Jeffrey Epstein files are and why they aren't public yet.
Republican women, she says, have a finger on the pulse of the party that the 'good ole boys' in the party don't.
'I think there's other women in our party that are really sick and tired of the way men treat Republican women,' she said.
'I think there's other women - Republican women - and I'm just giving my opinion here, who are really sick and tired of them,' she continued. 'And the one that really got shafted was Elise Stefanik.'
Stefanik was originally nominated by Trump to serve as ambassador to the United Nations but her bid was later rescinded by the White House. It's thought that her nomination was pulled due to the narrow majority in the House of Representatives.
'I mean, she got screwed by Mike Johnson, and she got screwed by the White House. I'm not blaming Trump, particularly. I'm blaming the people in the White House.'
Mike Waltz, a former congressman from Florida who briefly served as national security advisor before losing his job after including a journalist in a Signal group chat, was later reassigned to fill the UN ambassador post.
'How does he get awarded after 'Signalgate?'' Greene wondered. 'Isn't that weird ... who awarded him that?'
Greene has recently put forward a slew of legislation that focuses on areas not typically touched by the GOP.
In recent months she's introduced bills to prevent cloud-seeding and releasing chemicals in the sky, make English the official language of the U.S. and to cut capital gains taxes on homes - a move she hopes will help make houses more affordable.
Greene told the Daily Mail that she doesn't find herself with close GOP allies, particularly woman, that are championing causes she's most interested in.
'I'm going alone right now on the issues that I'm speaking about,' she admitted.
Greene has not faced a serious political threat since getting elected to Congress. She regularly clears her primary contests by double digits and runs away with the general election.
The last election she dominated winning with 64 percent of the total vote.
Still, her statewide polling is shaky. Greene would get trounced in a theoretical head to head matchup against incumbent Democrat Sen. Ossoff, polling shows.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll from earlier this year showed Greene losing to Ossoff by 17 points, hardly good news. Greene reaffirmed to the Daily Mail she's staying out of the Senate race.
'I had to beat eight men and had to really whoop one in the primary, and I did, and the primary is everything in my district, and I did that by myself. I didn't do that with anybody's help, not President Trump, Mike Johnson,' she told the Daily Mail.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
17 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump critic turned ally Nancy Mace announces run for South Carolina governor
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) – a former critic of President Donald Trump who became one of his most outspoken defenders on Capitol Hill while also becoming one of the most virulent voices against transgender people – announced she would is running to be governor of South Carolina. Despite having a thin legislative record, Mace has largely built a name for herself for bombastic stunts such as pushing to ban Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, from using the women's restroom and voting to eject Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House. 'I don't answer to the establishment,' she said during her speech. 'I don't know those in the back room a single thing. I answer to the people.' Mace made her announcement at the Citadel, South Carolina's military college, where she became the first woman to graduate. That came after she had initially dropped out of high school following being raped as a teenager, an ordeal she has publicly recounted. During her announcement, Mace mentioned a series of hardline policies, mostly focusing on immigration and cutting the state's income tax to zero in five years. 'They are all here, and we will work with ICE better than ever to ensure that anyone who is here illegally gets deported immediately, we will work with ICE in every respect,' she said of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 'If we need housing price we have it, if we need to have boots on the ground to help ICE, we will do it everything in our power, and we will not let another sanctuary share it dictate who gets to stay here when they're here illegally.' Unsurprisingly, Mace also said that she would oppose what she called the 'gender cult,' citing how she called out Clemson University for having 15 gender options. 'I hold the line on women and kids, Insanity and education by vetoing any funding to any college that pushes gender ideology and refuses to define what a woman is,' Mace said. 'If a school erases women, it erases its right to your tax dollars.' But Mace faces a crowded primary. Fellow Rep. Ralph Norman, who endorsed Nikki Haley during the 2024 preisdential primary, is also running. Another opponent is state attorney general Al Wilson, whom Mace accused on the House floor of ignoring her report of sexual assault, though Wilson said that Mace's report never made it to his office. Mace first came to Washington after serving in South Carolina's state legislature. In 2014, she staged a primary challenge to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) at the peak of the Tea Party movement. She later worked on the 2016 Trump campaign in the Palmetto State. In 2020, she beat former Democratic congressman Joe Cunningham in South Carolina's 1st district. Initially, after the January 6 riot, Mace criticized Trump and said she held him responsible for the riot, though she voted against impeaching him. That led to Trump endorsing her Republican primary opponent Katie Arrington in 2022. In response, Mace posted a video of herself infront of Trump Tower in New York. Mace initially billed herself as a moderate Republican who was part of a 'Caucus of One,' telling The Independent in 2023 that she was ' pro-baby, pro-gun, pro-pot, pro-gay.' She initially worked on legislation to decriminalize cannabis and voted with Democrats to legalize protections for same-sex and interracial married couples. But after her primary win, she moved significantly to the right. After initially voting for McCarthy as speaker, when former congressman Matt Gaetz filed a motion to vacate, Mace joined Gaetz and six other Republicans to eject McCarthy alongside every Democrat present at the time. Given many of her opponents within the GOP, Mace would likely need to win the support of the president. While Trump has not made an endorsement in the race yet, her announcement ad features Trump praising her.
The Independent
17 minutes ago
- The Independent
The Trump administration is using ‘fascist propaganda' to promote its mass deportation campaign, experts say
The Department of Homeland Security is accused of sharing thinly-veiled nativist propaganda on social media through art as it pursues a sweeping campaign of mass deportations. Throughout July, the X account of the department run by Kristi Noem posted a steady stream of paintings exemplifying a very particular version of the 'homeland.' That has included posting the 1872 work American Progress by John Gast, in which an ethereal Lady Liberty floats above the Western landscape, as white settlers advance across the frame with stage coaches and rail lines, while Native Americans and buffalo run to the margins. Another X post features the contemporary painting A Prayer for a New Life, by Morgan Weistling, a close-up of a white pioneer couple clutching a baby in the back of a covered wagon, along with the caption, ' Remember your Homeland's Heritage.' A third such post includes Morning Pledge, a nostalgic mid-20th century scene of kids in a small town walking towards an American flag, as painted by Thomas Kinkade. The creators and guardians of these works have expressed outrage over being drafted into DHS publicity — and history and politics experts have also raised concerns over this art being used as 'propaganda'. Weistling said he wasn't consulted prior to the Trump administration using his work. The Kinkade Family Foundation, meanwhile, said Morning Pledge was also being used without permission, perverted to 'promote division and xenophobia associated with the ideals of DHS.' The foundation told The Independent that Kinkade, who died in 2012, struggled in life with poverty as a child and substance abuse as an adult. He viewed his paintings, known for their soft, glowing light, as a way to 'imagine a different kind of world, where warmth, safety, and belonging are human rights for all.' Beyond the canvas, Kinkade helped raise millions for the poor, while his foundation has handed out thousands of therapeutic art kits, including in farmworker communities. 'That vision wasn't meant for a select few, but for everyone,' the foundation said in an email. 'Throughout his life, Thomas sought to respond to moments of hardship with compassion and solidarity, standing with communities made vulnerable.T o see his work used in ways that promote exclusion and division betrays the very heart of what he stood for.' The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the agency 'honors artwork that celebrates America's heritage and history, and we are pleased that the media is highlighting our efforts to showcase these patriotic pieces.' 'If the media needs a history lesson on the brave men and women who blazed the trails and forged this Republic from the sweat of their brow, we are happy to send them a history textbook,' Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the statement. 'This administration is unapologetically proud of American history and American heritage.' According to Richard White, a distinguished historian of the West and professor emeritus at Stanford University, DHS's use of works like American Progress is as ironic as it is revealing. The painting depicted a highly nostalgic, mythologized version of the country even at the moment it was created. In reality, instead of the peaceful scene, violence was everywhere, with the U.S. Army (not pictured in the painting) involved in violent, dispossessing wars with indigenous tribes across the West, and groups like the KKK carrying out racist terror campaigns against newly emancipated Black people after the U.S. Civil War. 'It's not about history,' White said of American Progress, but rather a 'mythic narrative' of America. 'The original picture erased the reality around it.' White suspects the Trump administration is using the painting now for a similar purpose. The historian lives in Los Angeles, where masked federal immigration agents and military troops spent weeks conducting dragnet immigration operations, an effort he compares to the Nazi regime's Gestapo secret police. 'The real problem is what's actually happening on the streets of Los Angeles and other cities,' he said. Journalist Spencer Ackerman, author of Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump, sees similar far-right currents in DHS's images, strains of nativism he argues have existed just below the surface at the department since its founding in 2002 after the 9/11 terror attacks. 'It was definitely a crypto-right wing move from the start after 9/11 to use a word like 'homeland' in particular in the context of security,' he told The Independent. Prior to this point, he said, the term 'homeland' was not in mainstream use in this way in the U.S. It had the ring of European-style nationalism (and worse) back then, a poor fit for a pluralist democracy in which most of the population, at some point in history, came from somewhere else. Trump's DHS, however, has taken this implicit ideology to the explicit extreme, Ackerman argued, using the tools of 'far-right internet culture' to provoke people by using jarring memes plus the 'classic fascist propaganda' of armed agents kicking in doors to arrest mostly non-white people. 'This is a turn. This is different,' he said. 'This is very racialized, very essentialized propaganda that DHS did not previously explicitly traffic in, even if this probably reflects the id of the Department of Homeland Security that whole time.' The administration's immigration PR efforts have extended beyond the DHS X account and its selection of pioneer paintings. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has earned the derisive nickname ' ICE Barbie ' from critics for her frequent photo-ops in cowboy oufits and combat-ready gear matching with the various agencies under her purview. Both Trump and Noem have featured in wartime-style recruiting posters urging viewers to 'Defend the Homeland, Join ICE Today,' as the administration offers $50,000 sign-on bonuses for new ICE officers. Trump has long leaned into a nostalgic aesthetic as a notable part of his politics. One of his final executive orders in 2020 involved a demand that all new federal buildings in Washington be built in the ' beautiful ' neo-classical style, with marble and columns meant to evoke the temples of ancient Greece and Rome, while his signature political slogan, 'Make America Great Again,' includes an unmistakable nod to a heroic past. Government officials have long trafficked in tropes and propaganda about disfavored groups, too, White said, pointing to the virulently racist popular depictions of the Japanese during WWII. What stands out in this present era, however, is the seeming commitment of whole government departments to producing such images. In time, however, White said even these purposely exclusionary images of national propaganda reveal their limitations. 'In myth, nothing ever changes,' he said. 'In history, things do change.'
Reuters
18 minutes ago
- Reuters
Netherlands to start NATO's new Ukraine weapons finance scheme with $578 mln payment
AMSTERDAM, Aug 4 (Reuters) - The Netherlands will be the first contributor to NATO's new "Priority Ukraine Requirements List" (PURL) financing mechanism for Ukraine weapons with a 500 million euros ($578 million) payment, the Dutch defence ministry said on Monday. U.S. President Donald Trump said last month the U.S. would supply weapons to Ukraine, paid for by European allies, but did not provide details on how this would work. Reuters reported on Friday that NATO countries, Ukraine, and the U.S. were developing a new Ukraine weapons financing mechanism. ($1 = 0.8649 euros)
