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You can tell something – or someone – is going to Donald Trump when his insults start to wear off. After former MAGA maximalist Marjorie Taylor Greene told CBS, she posted on Truth Social on Monday, “The only reason Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown (Green turns to Brown under stress) is bad is because she was insulted by the President of the United States.” 60 minutes Fellow members of Congress make fun of the President behind his back.
“This certainly isn’t the first time she’s been disrespected!)” Trump added, showing his trademark deferentiality toward women. “Her thoughts, now, are really bad – she reminds me of a rotten apple!”
Not his best work. But it’s probably easier for Trump to call the flamboyant Georgia congresswoman a rotten apple than to acknowledge what she really represents: a newly sprouted and very troubling thorn in his side who isn’t afraid to make him look bad in public (and indeed on television, the place he holds most sacred).
“I’m not going to be anyone’s battered wife,” Green said. 60 minutesRepeating the phrase she used in last month’s announcement that she would resign from Congress in January. Trump then withdrew his support for her and branded her a “torturous lunatic” who was calling him every day. “I will not allow the system to abuse me any longer.”
She did not hold back from criticizing Trump during the interview, revealing that his response to her receiving death threats was “extremely ruthless”, and saying that “people would be shocked to hear” how some Republicans talk about him when he’s not there. He called out her for passing a crypto bill that only “helped crypto donors”, branded her a “traitor”, listed all the people she was negotiating with, and accused her of favoring “neocons, Big Pharma, Big Tech, the military industrial war complex, foreign leaders, and the elite donor class”.
Greene used to be one of Trump’s most dedicated and fierce soldiers. He supported her claims that the 2020 election was stolen and compared her to Jesus Christ after she was convicted of paying hush money to a porn star. “The man I worship is also a convicted felon,” the devout Christian said at a campaign rally last year.
But his commitment to the Make America Great Again movement was always more enthusiastic than Trump’s, who treats MAGA more as a personal slogan to sell merchandise than a true principle requiring anything inconvenient like ideological purity. In fact, last year I argued that Greene was too much of a stickler for the president when she was criticized in Congress for trying to oust the Republican speaker over a bipartisan deal, then failing to stick up for him that he felt didn’t go far enough on conservative priorities like border security.
When CBS anchor Leslie Stahl asked Greene if she was still a MAGA, she replied that she was “America first”. But it is his steadfast dedication to some of the things the movement stood for – staying away from wars abroad, prioritizing domestic economic issues over foreign affairs, standing up for the common man rather than the wealthy elite – that has brought him to where he is now. He has proposed freezing military aid to Israel, criticized attacks on Iran and repeatedly called out Trump for his failure to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
You don’t have to forgive Greene for “toxic politics,” crazy conspiracy theories, or numerous anti-Semitic comments to acknowledge that she has the courage to publicly stand up to Trump. When Stahl asked whether Republicans’ deference to the president was driven by a fear that they too might receive death threats, he responded that “they’re afraid of stepping out of line and getting a Dirty Truth Social post on them”. This seems about right and says something about the miserable nature of the present moment.
Green has shown no such fear. Given Trump’s repeated sexist comments, as well as his promotion of a number of glamorous women, standing up to him like this seems especially bold on the part of a woman who doesn’t fit the Trumpian mold of former TV anchors and models. Jimmy Kimmel once called her a “Hulk Hogan-headed honey-baked ham and legs” (one can imagine the reaction if he had said the same thing about a Democrat woman).
You may not like his politics but you have to admire his thick skin and his boldness. Even if her resignation is a career move, as many have suggested, she is likely not alone in noticing that Trump only has three more years. Others could have performed similar maneuvers: MTG is the only one with balls.
jemima.kelly@ft.com
