MTG isn’t turning against MAGA. She’s trying to save it.
Key takeaways
Sorry, Elon Musk — it’s looking like the rupture between President Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) might actually be the messiest breakup of Trump’s second term.
If you haven’t heard, Greene — yes, of Jewish space lasers fame — seems to be turning against Trump over his hesitancy to call on the Department of Justice to release all of its files relating to Jeffrey Epstein. “MTG,” as she’s known, has long claimed to be a strong supporter of Epstein’s victims. And for a long time, she held that position while also defending Trump against any and all criticisms.
But as Congress moved closer to passing a bill to make the files public, things changed. According to available reports, Trump did not want the files released. But MTG did — so much so, in fact, that she was willing to incur his wrath in the process.
“Something happened to her over the last period of a month or two where she changed, I think, politically,” Trump said last Friday, before sending out Truth Social posts calling her “wacky,” a “ranting Lunatic,” and a “traitor” throughout the weekend. He went on to rescind his support for MTG and urged another Republican, presumably one more loyal to him and less focused on Epstein’s crimes, to replace her.
Of course, Greene fired back. Indeed, on Tuesday, the day the House and the Senate both overwhelmingly voted to have the files released, Greene responded: “I was called a traitor by a man that I fought for five, no, actually, six years for, and I gave him my loyalty for free,” she said. “I am not a traitor.”
This back-and-forth has, unsurprisingly, entertained much of the anti-Trump world. “Marjorie Taylor Greene is crushing Donald Trump right now,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries tweeted this week. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, suggested that MTG is on a “revenge tour” to take down Trump. And another top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin, even suggested that there could be room for MTG among Democrats, “if she wants to come over.”
As a regular consumer and observer of the various podcasts and alternative media ecosystems that MAGA and Trump allies inhabit, I had a feeling this level of triumphalism was at least premature, if not outright misguided. The truth, I’ve found, is more complicated — and in some ways stranger — than the “MTG vs. Trump” narrative suggests. Simply put, it seems that MTG isn’t trying to save MAGA from Trump so much as she’s trying to save Trump from himself.What liberals think MTG is saying
You can forgive the Trump critical world for getting a bit excited about this messy fight.
