Donald Trump expressed his disappointment with the once-loyal Marjorie Taylor Greene after the Republican lawmaker criticized the president’s foreign policy focus.
“I don’t know what happened to Marjorie,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, making it clear that he was aware of her defection. “Nice woman, but I don’t know what happened. She’s lost her way, I think.”
Greene, who represents Georgia, had been a Trump loyalist for years until recently, when some of her positions put her at odds with the White House and other members of her party.
The same day as Trump’s outburst, Greene tweeted about Trump’s meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whom she called “a former Al Qaeda terrorist,” saying that she would like to see “nonstop meetings at the WH on domestic policy, not foreign policy and foreign country’s (sic) leaders.”
While most Republicans have remained fiercely loyal to the president, Greene’s vocal criticism has set her apart from the rest of the party. However, she has, for the most part, avoided directly criticizing Trump.
Greene’s dissent
In recent months, Greene has called the war in Gaza a “genocide” and praised former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “incredible career” after the Democrat announced her retirement. In contrast, Trump has called Pelosi “evil.”
While appearing on The View last week, Greene said it was an embarrassment that the Republican-led House wasn’t in session during the historic government shutdown.
“I just can’t get over is we’re not working right now. And I put that criticism directly on the Speaker of the House, and we should be at work,” she said.
“All the people sitting in this audience – they go to work every day. People at home watching this show – they go to work every day. Ladies, you go to work every day [as do] the people on your set, and it is an embarrassment to me that we’re not in session.”
Perhaps her biggest point of contention with the GOP is her belief that the Trump administration should release any records related to the case of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump has said the supposed “Epstein files” were a hoax pushed by Democrats.
“I’m not some sort of blind slave to the president, and I don’t think anyone should be,” Greene told NBC last month.
