How Marjorie Taylor Greene went from Trump ally to quitting Congress

Marjorie Taylor Greene came to Congress as one of Donald Trump's staunchest defenders.

Taking the oath of office just days before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Greene supported the president — and repeated his claim that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” — as many in the Republican Party disavowed him.

Now, five years later, Greene will leave Congress after being branded a “traitor” by the man she once respected.

In just a few months, Greene broke with Trump in dramatic fashion.

While Greene criticized Trump's decision to launch airstrikes on Iran, his support for Israel during the Gaza War and the lack of sufficient regulation of big tech companies earlier this year, The final turning point began because of Jeffrey Epsteina late financier and convicted pedophile with connections to the rich and powerful.

She denounced Trump's reluctance to order his Justice Department to fully release the case and appeared alongside Epstein's victims – and Democrats – to force a House vote on the matter.

However, it didn't end there.

Greene also questioned Republican strategy during the recent government shutdown, siding with Democrats and calling on her party to address expiring health care subsidies for low-income Americans.

She publicly scolded Trump for what she called an overemphasis on foreign policy at the expense of addressing economic and affordability issues.

“The American people are not motivated by foreign wars or financial aid to other countries,” she wrote on X earlier this month. “They need leaders who show up, do the job and fight for them every single day!”

Greene continued to insist that she supported Trump, but it became increasingly clear that her views on the “America First” movement differed from the views of the US president.

The activist-turned-congresswoman who made a name for herself by railing against the political establishment now found that Maga's Make America Great Again movement, the movement she supported, had become the establishment.

And as the weight of Trump's power focused on her resignation – she broke through to the exit, firing several parting shots.

“I refuse to be a ‘beaten wife’ and hope that everything will go away and get better,” she said in her resignation letter.

“If Maga Inc discards me and is replaced by neocons, big pharma, big tech, the military industrial complex, foreign leaders and an elite donor class who may not even have anything in common with real Americans, then many ordinary Americans will also be discarded and replaced.”

Throughout her career, she often entered into controversy and was prone to conflict.

Working as a physical education instructor in Georgia, she became involved in politics in 2016 as Trump launched his successful campaign for the White House. She frequently traveled to Washington, D.C., where she berated Democratic members of Congress for what she said were their socialist and pro-Islamic policies.

She promoted baseless QAnon conspiracy theories, questioning whether US school shootings were “staged” and claiming that the Democratic Party was secretly run by a group of powerful pedophiles.

Once in Congress, she clashed with Democrats and members of her own party. Although she abandoned some of her earlier conspiratorial views, the House of Representatives voted in favor remove her from her committee assignments shortly after she took office.

When Republicans returned to power in Congress, she carried out a political rehabilitation of sorts, working with then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to consolidate conservative support in the chamber. When McCarthy was ousted, Greene fought with his successor, Mike Johnson, and made an unsuccessful attempt to remove him as well.

In 2023, she was expelled from the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

She has become a political symbol – she is still despised by many on the left, but viewed with suspicion by conservatives. She continued to have close ties to Trump, giving her influence in Washington.

And then she didn't.

In a brief interview Friday night, Trump told ABC News that Greene's departure from Congress was “great news for the country.”

He would later write on Truth Social that Greene had “gone bad” but that he would “always appreciate Marjorie and thank her for her service to our country.”

Greene said she would return to her home in Georgia and “have a new path ahead.” While she has reportedly expressed interest in the state's governor's race next year, she recently said she would not seek the office or try to unseat incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.

But her decision to resign on Jan. 5 leaves open the possibility that she could change her mind and run for office in a state where Republican politicians like current Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp have shown it is possible to win elections even without Trump's support.

The move also allows Greene to shift her political stance as the Republican Party begins to grapple with a situation in which public support for Trump – particularly his handling of the economy – appears to be deteriorating and a president constrained by the Constitution will never again appear on the presidential ballot.

At 51, Greene's term in Congress may be coming to an end, but her involvement in American political life may be far from over.