Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the right-wing Republican from Georgia, did not appreciate being threatened by the White House over her backing for a bill ordering the release of the Epstein files.
So after a Trump official put out word that doing so would be viewed as a “very hostile act,” she called a top West Wing aide to push back.
“I told them, ‘You didn’t get me elected. I do not work for you; I work for my district,’” she recounted recently during a wide-ranging interview in her office on Capitol Hill. “We aren’t supposed to just be whipped on our votes because they’re telling us what to do with this scary threat, or saying ‘We’ll primary you,’ or that we won’t get invited to the White House events.”
“Me personally? I don’t care,” Ms. Greene went on. These days, when she encounters tactics like that from Mr. Trump’s team, she added, “I’m like, ‘[Expletive] you.’”
After arriving in Congress in 2021 as something of a joke and a pariah in her own party, known for making bigoted remarks and amplifying QAnon conspiracy theories, Ms. Greene evolved into a team player. She still sometimes spouted groundless claims and racist remarks, but also wielded some measure of influence by aligning herself closely with former Representative Kevin McCarthy, then speaker of the House, who in turn reined in her more extreme impulses.
But those days are all now behind her. Ms. Greene is no longer a team player for Republicans in Congress. And she is no longer seen as a joke.
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The post Greene, Straying From Trump, Reflects an Emerging MAGA Split appeared first on New York Times.
