One of MAGA’s most outspoken proponents is turning on the White House over its handling of the Epstein files.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene—a longtime ally of the president and a standout feature of his sweeping national ideology—was reportedly infuriated by the Trump administration’s hostility toward legislation supporting the unfettered release of the files. But it was a direct threat from the White House over her own support for their release that prompted her to phone a West Wing official.
“I told them, ‘You didn’t get me elected. I do not work for you; I work for my district,’” Greene recalled to The New York Times. “We aren’t supposed to just be whipped on our votes because they’re telling us what to do … or saying, ‘We’ll primary you,’ or that we won’t get invited to the White House events.”
“Me personally? I don’t care,” Greene continued. She explained to the Times that, these days, when the Trump team attempts to corral or control her, she’s “like, ‘[expletive] you.’”
Greene has publicly broken with Donald Trump several times since his inauguration, differing from her “favorite president” on issues ranging from artificial intelligence to Russia’s assault on Ukraine. Viewed as something of a joke when she first arrived on Capitol Hill in 2021, the renowned conspiracist has since become a powerful independent agent, apparently beholden to no party and no man.
“I didn’t get elected with a President Trump endorsement,” Greene told the Times. “It felt really bad at the time, but honestly it’s been the best thing for me. I get to be very independent.”
Meanwhile, the botched rollout of the Epstein files has continued to plague Trump. Instead of simply disclosing the contents of the files, the Trump administration has expended vast resources to reportedly strip the president’s name from the documents. The White House also tapped Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell to produce a new list of the deceased financier’s associates, which presumably already exists in the Epstein files. The plot granted Maxwell improved living conditions, moving her to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas, and gave her time on the national stage to ask Trump for a pardon.
The Epstein story has remained an anomaly in Trump’s political career. For the better part of a decade, the MAGA leader became adjusted to an undyingly loyal base that rarely skews from or challenges his political vision. But Trump’s proximity to Epstein and his heinous crimes has been an outlier, prompting doubts that have undercut Trump’s influence with large swaths of his followers.
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