Marjorie to Resign~Flying High on Trump's Wings Until Her Conscience Gave her Up and Trump Burnt Her
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| “Loyalty should be a two-way street, and we should be able to vote our conscience and represent our district’s interest,” Ms. Greene wrote.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times |
Reporting from Washington
New York Times
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the hard-right Georgia Republican, said on Friday night that she would resign from Congress in January.
Her announcement came days after President Trump branded her a “traitor” for breaking with him and helping compel the Justice Department to release its files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender.
Ms. Greene, who was elected in 2020 and positioned herself as a die-hard Trump supporter until a series of recent ruptures with the president on a variety of issues, made the abrupt announcement in a video and statement she posted online, filmed from her home in Georgia, her Christmas tree on display behind her.
“Loyalty should be a two-way street, and we should be able to vote our conscience and represent our district’s interest,” Ms. Greene wrote in a long post. She said that if she had been cast aside by “MAGA Inc,” it was indicative that “many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well.”
In a phone interview on Friday night with an ABC News reporter, Mr. Trump called Ms. Greene’s plans “great news for the country.”
It is extremely unusual for a member of Congress to up and leave in the middle of a term, barring an illness or some extenuating circumstance that makes it impossible to carry on.
But Ms. Greene said she had made the decision to leave because she did not want to endure a “hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms.”
She added: “I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better.”
Her impending departure will shrink the already slim Republican House majority, bringing it down to 218 members until her seat in a deep-red district can be filled.
Ms. Greene, who arrived in Congress in 2021 as something of a pariah in her own party, has tried out many different ways of doing the job. She carved out a singular space on Capitol Hill as part of a growing group of lawmakers who are less interested in legislating and building up seniority in leadership suites and more interested in influencing politics from the outside, using social media to troll adversaries, building brands and stoking outrage.
She briefly acted as a team player, forging an unlikely alliance with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy that brought her some internal standing in the Republican conference and landed her on prime committees that Democrats had removed her from.
But throughout her metamorphoses, Ms. Greene has remained deeply frustrated with her party and with the lack of any change in how Washington works. In her Friday evening post, she referred to “never-ending personal attacks, death threats, lawfare and ridiculous slander and lies” that she had endured in the public eye.
In recent months, those unpleasant aspects of the job had gotten worse as she challenged Mr. Trump on a variety of topics, including the release of the Epstein files, the war in Gaza, regulating artificial intelligence and U.S. involvement in Iran and Ukraine. She excoriated her own party’s leaders for failing to offer an alternative to make health coverage affordable, as Democrats pressed to extend expiring Obamacare subsidies.
It all marked her newest and most eyebrow-raising chapter: The lawmaker who once subscribed to QAnon conspiracy theories has in recent months been operating as a powerful free agent and the rare Republican in Congress willing to break with Mr. Trump.
But it was on the Epstein issue that her clash with the president reached its apparent breaking point.
Ms. Greene earlier this week spoke on the House floor, from the Democratic side of the chamber, laying out why she was fighting so hard on an issue that has animated her voters.
“These American women aren’t rich, powerful elites,” she said. “These are your average Americans.”
She added: “For far too long, Americans have been put last, and they’re sick and tired of it. This is why they don’t trust Congress. This is why they don’t trust the government.”
The sudden and stunning transformation of a MAGA true believer also landed Ms. Greene in places she would never before have been invited, and earned her strange, new respect from media outlets and lawmakers who had never before wanted to associate with her.
She has been at the table on “The View,” and a somewhat regular face, suddenly, on CNN, an outlet she once snarled at as part of the mainstream media she despised. It was during a recent interview on CNN that she apologized for contributing to the divisive and toxic political climate in America.
A week ago, Mr. Trump publicly withdrew his support for Ms. Greene, writing on social media that of late, “all I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!”
Ms. Greene appeared to take her colleagues, Republican leaders, and even members of her staff by surprise with her announcement on a Friday evening before a holiday week. Speaker Mike Johnson, a longtime political foe whom she tried and failed to oust from his post last year, did not immediately provide a statement on her announcement.
“The House is not big enough for her ambitions or personality,” Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House official and host of the podcast “War Room,” said in a text message on Friday night after learning of Ms. Greene’s announcement. “She had her committee assignments pulled by Pelosi in her first term — and rose to be a national figure. We haven’t seen or heard the last of M.T.G.”
In the Friday night post, Ms. Greene said her last day in office would be Jan. 5.
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