From ardent supporter to bitter opponent: After a public falling out with US President Donald Trump, right-wing hardliner Marjorie Taylor Greene has announced her resignation as a Republican member of the House of Representatives. She announced in a ten-minute video message on the X platform that she would be resigning from her mandate on January 5, 2026. Greene criticized Trump – and took issue with the political process in Washington as a whole.
It remained unclear whether Greene would also turn her back on her party. The 51-year-old did not comment directly on her future plans. But she hinted that her days in politics may not be over. There was immediate speculation on social media that she might want to seek the Republican presidential nomination in the 2028 election.
Consequences of the Epstein scandal
The US President withdrew his support from his party colleague Greene a week ago and described her as “crazy”. The background was a rift over the publication of investigation files into the case involving sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Greene went on a confrontational course with the president and demanded a complete release. Trump initially vehemently refused to publish the documents. However, he gave in when it became clear that there would be a bipartisan majority in favor of it in the House of Representatives.
Greene expressed frustration in her statement: If she stands up for American women who have been abused, “I should not be called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, for whom I fought.”
Trump wanted to support opposing candidates
After the falling out, Trump also threatened Greene with supporting an internal party opponent in the House of Representatives election in a year. Other conservatives are now “fed up with her and her antics,” Trump wrote about a week ago on his Truth Social platform. “I can’t answer the calls of a ranting lunatic every day,” he continued.
Greene has now declared that she will not subject herself to a “hurtful and hateful” intra-party primary campaign for her mandate instigated by Trump in order to win and then watch as the Republicans “will probably lose” the election.
Greene: Loyalty should go both ways
Referring to the president, Greene continued: “I fought harder than almost any other elected Republican to bring Donald Trump and the Republicans to power.” Loyalty should go both ways, she demanded. Greene has represented a constituency in the southern state of Georgia in Congress since 2021.
A right-wing hardliner
After entering parliament, she quickly gained national prominence as one of the leading hardliners of the right wing of her party. For years, the representative stood out as an ardent supporter of Trump and represented ultra-conservative positions – for example on abortion and gun law as well as on immigration policy. The MP repeatedly made comments that glorified violence and were racist.
Recently, Greene has increasingly positioned herself as a leading representative of the rather isolationist “America First” wing of the Republicans, which wants to focus primarily on the problems of ordinary citizens – and not on international crises such as the Middle East or the Ukraine war.
Greene: I was always despised
Greene claimed in her statement that she represented ordinary Americans in Congress, which is why she was always despised in political Washington. She never belonged, she said.
With a view to the congressional elections in November 2026, she criticized the fact that Washington was already going into election campaign mode. During the vote, all members of the House of Representatives and around a third of the senators will be re-elected.
Trump cannot run again in the 2028 presidential election. So far he has indicated that his vice president, JD Vance, would be the logical successor. However, Vance could also face opposing candidates in the internal party struggle for the Republican presidential nomination.
