Fresh off her final day in Congress, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Wednesday that the breaking point came when President Trump publicly branded her a “traitor” — a label she says unleashed a wave of death threats that left her genuinely worried for her family’s safety.
The Georgia Republican’s hard‑charging, polarizing five years in the House ended this week with her resignation, capping a very public split with Mr. Trump. Ms. Greene, who spent years as one of Mr. Trump’s fiercest defenders, now says he drifted away from the America First agenda that helped propel him to power — and that her push to release the Jeffrey Epstein files was the final straw.
“The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was the president calling me a traitor for standing with women who were raped when they were teenagers,” Ms. Greene said on ABC’s “The View.” “One of MAGA’s big campaign pledges was to release the Epstein files, and then having to say, am I going to have to be the next Charlie Kirk? Is my son going to get murdered because I am trying to continue to do this job?”
“I think that is a bar that is too high for anyone,” she said. “Political violence is real, and it’s so sad, and the politics is so extreme and divisive, and I just don’t want to be a part of that anymore.”
Ms. Greene was among the four Republicans who voted with Democrats to force the release of the government files related to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — a move that further eroded her ties to Mr. Trump.
It is a stunning fall from grace.
For years, Ms. Greene was one of Mr. Trump’s most vocal supporters on Capitol Hill, a beloved figure in the MAGA movement, and a star attraction at his signature campaign rallies.
She steadfastly denied that Mr. Trump incited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — and did so again Wednesday on “The View” — and embraced his 2020 stolen election claims.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has forged closer ties with some of his former critics, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — who, unlike Ms. Greene, had been booed at Trump rallies, and stood against efforts to change the outcome of the 2020 election.
Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Graham’s reelection bid, and on the eve of Ms. Greene’s final day in Congress, the two men celebrated the administration’s decision to greenlight the military mission that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Ms. Greene has questioned the operation, arguing that Republicans should be focused on domestic challenges — particularly the affordability issues squeezing working‑class Americans. If the administration were truly intent on targeting narcoterrorists, she said, it would prioritize the drug cartels operating in Mexico.
“Americans’ disgust with our own government’s never-ending military aggression and support of foreign wars is justified because we are forced to pay for it and both parties, Republicans and Democrats, always keep the Washington military machine funded and going,” she said on social media over the weekend. “This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end.”
She added: “Boy were we wrong.”
Mr. Trump said the removal of Mr. Maduro fits squarely within the America First framework.
“We want to surround ourselves with good neighbors. We want to surround ourselves with stability,” he said. “We want to surround ourselves with energy.”
