Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) says that Republicans should take her vocal criticisms of the GOP — which she insists are not criticisms of President Trump — as a warning about coming troubles with their base.
"I'm an early indicator, and my complaints are felt and being said far and wide among your average American people who voted for the President and Republicans in 2024," Greene told me in a phone interview on Monday. "The Republican Party is the one drifting away from what we campaigned on."
Greene also expanded to me on being the only Republican in Congress to call Israel's actions in Gaza a "genocide." Far from backing away from the term, Greene said: "It's easy to call it a genocide." More on that in a moment.
I had reached out to the firebrand Georgia congresswoman in wake of her comments to the Daily Mail that the GOP had "turned its back on America First" and that she was unsure of whether "the Republican Party is leaving me, or if I'm kind of not relating to Republican Party as much anymore."
The comments surprised some, given Greene's ardent support of Trump, who is the leader of the GOP. She told me it is "ridiculous" to suggest she does not support the president.
But they are part of a pattern of Greene breaking with leaders in the GOP, including Trump.
In recent weeks, she called the crisis in Gaza a genocide; raised the alarm about U.S. strikes in Iran; critiqued the U.S. continuing to sell weapons to help Ukraine; and pushed for more Jeffrey Epstein disclosures despite resistance from Trump, among other gripes.
Just on Monday, Greene in a post lamented that there have been zero arrests in a number of MAGA-amplified scandals like the "Russian Collusion Hoax," "COVID," "Mar-A-Lago Raid," and "Epstein Pedophile Arrest," among others. She posted: "Don't talk about it if you aren't going to do it."
Who was she talking about in that post, and who needs to change? Greene declined to name specific names.
"That criticism is to everyone, literally everyone, and no one's left out of that," Greene said.
"If you're going to go on television — and this is for everybody — and point their fingers at all these people and call them criminals, say they committed treason, then do something about it," Greene said. "If they make these accusations, but yet hold no one accountable, they're going to lose everybody. They're going to lose a vast majority of people who really were told they had to care about this, and they cared about it, but yet nothing got done."
After Greene and I spoke on Monday, CNN reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi was directing federal prosecutors to start a grand jury probe into Obama administration officials over their role in the 2016 Russia election interference investigation.
The question is whether Greene is a canary in the MAGA coal mine, or whether her criticisms just put her on an island.
She is a giant figure in terms of followers and attention, but some could dismiss her concerns as representing only a minor faction on the right. Greene said she is reflecting what she is hearing in her deep-red Georgia district.
But there is clearly some annoyance with the criticism from Greene.
Asked about Greene's comments in the Daily Mail and on X, a White House official told me: "President Trump campaigned on securing the border, signing tax cuts, and ending the genital mutilation of minors. He's accomplished all three within the first 200 days. Those are all promises MTG campaigned for and should be happy about."
Greene in response told me that she had posted over the weekend praising zero crossings in the past three months, and noted that she voted for Trump's "One Big, Beautiful Bill" that locked in tax cuts. But she pushed back by saying Trump has not had the opportunity to sign her bill, the Protect Children's Innocence Act, to codify Trump's executive order to ban gender-affirming care for minors because it hasn't yet gotten a vote in the House or Senate.
"I'm not criticizing the President on this. I'm criticizing everyone around him. They're actually working against the president by making his executive orders, his accomplishments only temporary," Greene said.
Greene's "America First" critique of U.S. foreign policy — going as far as to call the crisis and conflict in Gaza a "genocide" — is perhaps the most notable break.
Greene said she dubbed the situation a "genocide" by "simply looking at the truth and being willing to speak," saying that there are "many others" who agree but "they're afraid to say it."
"I support Israel, and we want to see every single hostage released …. It was horrific what happened on October 7," Greene said. "But it's also horrific what's happening in Gaza and many innocent people are being killed, have been killed. Christians have been killed, and children have been killed and are being starved."
"It's easy to call it a genocide. And I think Israel has made clear what they want to do. They really want to, basically, move all the Palestinians out of Gaza, and that's what they're in the process of systematically doing," Greene said.
I noted that even many progressive Democrats critical of Israel have not used the term "genocide" to describe what's happening in Gaza, since the term implies targeted destruction of an ethnic group based on their identity. American Jewish groups, not to mention Israel itself, strongly reject accusations of "genocide."
"I think it's pretty easy to understand. It's targeted at who they are, so that's their identity," Greene said. "I mean, they've bombed it to the point where it's unlivable … They are in talks of trying to get other countries to take Palestinian refugees. So I don't think it can be any more clear."
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