Trump withdraws support for Marjorie Taylor Greene over Epstein file row

Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) arrives for President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025, at the US Capitol. Photo / Ricky Carioti, The Washington Post

President Donald Trump has stunned Washington after he turned his back on one of his staunchest allies in Congress, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling the Georgia Republican a “traitor” and withdrawing his endorsement over what the congresswoman says is a form of backlash over her support of the release of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump, in a Truth Social post on Friday night, wrote that he “can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s call every day”, and contended that Greene was upset because they had communicated less frequently. He indicated that he would support a conservative challenger to Greene in the next Republican primary, setting off a volley of social media messages between the two that continued into Saturday.

Greene had been more outspoken against Trump in recent weeks on several issues, including pushing efforts led by Democrats to include extended health care subsidies that drove the shutdown. But on Friday, the tensions between the two prominent figures in the MAGA movement broke down in public view after the House Oversight Committee released new documents provided by the Epstein estate that contain mentions of Trump.

On Saturday, Greene called out Trump’s insults and said that she received threats from what she called “his radical internet trolls (many of whom are paid)”.

“As a woman I take threats from men seriously. I now have a small understanding of the fear and pressure the women, who are victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his cabal, must feel,” Greene wrote.

Greene is one of four Republicans who joined with Democrats on a discharge petition to compel a House vote calling on the Justice Department to release more Epstein files. Trump did not reference the Epstein documents in his broadsides against Greene but has labelled the uproar over the files a “hoax”.

On Friday, Greene posted images online of what she said were text messages meant for Trump. One text suggests she advised the President to “lean into” the release of the Epstein files, claiming that the sex offender “was the spider that wove the web of the deep state”.

Trump was mentioned by Epstein and others frequently in the latest texts and emails released by the House. He has complained repeatedly that Epstein’s connections with other people and institutions deserve more scrutiny than his relationship with the deceased financier. On Friday, at Trump’s request, the Justice Department launched an investigation to examine the relationships between Epstein, several prominent Democrats, and many other people and institutions.

Greene has long been a polarising figure and a darling of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” brand of conservatism before it became the norm within the GOP while promoting various fringe theories over the years, but has recently stepped up criticisms of her party’s leaders.

In an interview with The Washington Post last month she called out “weak Republican men”, who she said sidelined female colleagues. She opposed the Trump administration’s decision to help bail out Argentina’s economy. And she has also been among the loudest Republican critics of US support for Israel and Ukraine.

Trump said Monday that Greene had “lost her way”, in response to a reporter’s question about Greene’s social media post earlier in the day that accused the President of focusing heavily on foreign affairs rather than domestic issues after Trump met with Syria’s leader in Washington.

Greene isn’t the only House Republican Trump went after on Friday in personal terms. He also repeatedly criticised Representative Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), who also voted in favour of releasing the Epstein files, calling him a “Republican in Name Only” and mocking him for remarrying this month about a year after the death of his wife of 31 years.

Trump’s online attacks against Greene continued into Saturday. In one post, he referred to her as “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Green” and called her a “disgrace” to the party.

He also shared a post from another user who claimed that Greene chose her political future “instead of helping President Trump fix this country”. The post contained images of Greene on ABC’s The View, including one of the congresswoman standing in a crowd outside the US Capitol next to signs displaying an image from an old photo of Donald and Melania Trump with Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

Greene wrote 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”.

“We can have our own differences and differing opinions but we can still love and respect one another,” she also posted.

Along with Greene and Massie, Republican Representatives Lauren Boebert (Colorado) and Nancy Mace (South Carolina) supported the discharge petition to compel a House vote to release more Epstein files. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said he plans to hold a vote next week on a measure mandating the full disclosure of Justice Department files related to Epstein. If the measure passes in the House, it would then have to pass the Senate and be signed by Trump to take effect.

During her campaign, Greene was best known for her embrace of polarising elements associated with the right, including openly supporting the extremist ideology known as QAnon, and for a now-infamous Facebook post in 2018 in which she posited that wildfires in California could have been caused by a laser beam from space to advance a high-speed rail project.

Greene posted a photo of herself holding a rifle with the caption “Squad’s worst nightmare”, a reference to a group of left-leaning Democratic lawmakers. In 2020, Trump called her a “future Republican Star” who was “strong on everything and never gives up - a real WINNER!”

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