Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene criticized President Donald Trump in a televised interview Sunday, saying he had abandoned his MAGA followers to help “major industries” and “big donors.”
During her nearly 14-minute interview on the CBS news program 60 Minutes, the Rome Republican criticized Trump and gave one reason why she had decided to step down next month, a year before her term expires: safety.
After she had broken with the president over several political issues — the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files chief among them — Trump had publicly called her a traitor. Then, both she and her son had experienced threats of violence, a pipe bomb against her home and death for her son.
The subject line of the threat against her son bore the same words Trump had uttered: “Marjorie Traitor Greene,” she said, telling interviewer Lesley Stahl that the threat therefore was “directly fueled” by Trump.
Greene said that when she told Vice President J.D. Vance about it, he told her they would investigate. But when she told Trump, he responded with words she wouldn’t repeat, sharing only that the president “wasn’t very nice” and was “extremely unkind.”
Stahl and her crew visited Rome for the interview after Greene’s surprise announcement late last month that she would be leaving Congress Jan. 5, a year before her term expires. Greene said her decision was in part due to her vehement disagreement with Trump over the Epstein files.
She wanted them released. He did not.
She said Trump had told her the release of the files would “hurt people … . I don’t know what that means,” she said. “I don’t know who they are.”
Greene said she had been deeply moved by watching Epstein’s victims tremble as they gave their first media interviews, and she said they deserved the full release of the files that they had been seeking.
Greene also broke with Trump over his decision to bomb Iran for Israel, for his support of the cryptocurrency industry and for his administration’s decision to allow vaccinations for Covid-19, which she deemed to be a nod to the pharmaceutical industry.
Greene, who was an ardent supporter of Trump, often wearing a red MAGA cap, said she is not MAGA anymore. That term belongs to Trump, she said. She is “America First.”
When Greene criticized the toxicity of contemporary politics, Stahl interjected, noting that Greene herself had contributed. Greene pushed back, saying Stahl was being accusatory.
Greene said that Republican members of Congress were terrified of crossing Trump and of being targeted by a “nasty Truth Social” post from him, but she said they ridiculed him behind his back, openly siding with him only after he won the Republican nomination last year.
Greene said her decision to leave politics was a transparent one, noting that few believe it, giving her a wink when she says she has “zero” interest in running for president or for the Senate and that she is not running for Georgia governor.
But she said it is true. She has no grand designs.
“Surprise, surprise,” Greene said, “I’m not your politician with a whole itinerary of plans or political ambitions.”
