In a high-profile interview, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., bashed President Donald Trump, accusing her onetime political ally-turned-foe of inciting death threats against her and her son and failing to live up to his campaign pledge to focus on improving the lives of Americans.
“For an ‘America First’ president, the No. 1 focus should have been domestic policy, and it wasn’t. And so, of course, I was critical, because those were my campaign promises,” Greene said in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” “Once we fix everything here, then fine, we’ll talk to the rest of the world.”
Later, CBS News' Lesley Stahl asked Greene: “Are you MAGA?”
“I am America First. ... MAGA is President Trump’s phrase. That’s his political policies," Greene said, referring to Trump's signature motto, "Make America Great Again." "I call myself America First.”
Trump said Monday morning on Truth Social that Greene was "not AMERICA FIRST or MAGA, because nobody could have changed her views so fast, and her new views are those of a very dumb person."
Other Republicans, on and off Capitol Hill, have expressed frustration that Trump and the GOP aren't doing enough to address Americans' concerns about affordability. But in recent days, Trump has pointed to lower gas prices, and he issued an executive order directing his administration to investigate anti-competitive behavior that could affect food supply chains.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement Sunday night that Trump "has already delivered on many of the promises he was elected to enact," including border security, inflation, drug prices, taxes on tips, overtime and seniors, immigration, and other areas.
"As the architect of the MAGA movement, President Trump will always put America First. Every single day he’s working hard to continue fulfilling the many promises he made and he will continue delivering," she said.
Greene spoke to "60 Minutes" on the heels of her shocking announcement last month that she will resign from office in January, a full year before her term ends. Her decision came after she broke with Trump and other party leaders and signed a bipartisan discharge petition that forced a successful vote in the House to compel the release of the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump slammed Greene, a conservative hard-liner who at one point had been one of his most vocal defenders on Capitol Hill, as “Marjorie Traitor Greene.” When Greene complained that she was receiving death threats because of Trump, he dismissed her worries: “I don’t think her life is in danger. ... I don’t think anybody cares about her.”
In the "60 Minutes" interview, Greene said that as Trump was fighting the release of the Epstein files and calling her a traitor, he was taking meetings with controversial foreign leaders and New York's mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani.
“He did this in the same time span where President Trump brought in the Al Qaeda leader that was wanted by the U.S. government, who is now the president of Syria. Then, within a week, he brought in the Crown Prince MBS, who murdered an American journalist,” Greene said referring to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “And then he brought in the newly elected Democrat socialist mayor of New York. That was the time span that he called me a traitor.”
When Stahl asked whether Trump had run her out of town, Greene replied: “No, not at all. ... I will be no one’s battered wife ... and I won’t allow the system to abuse me anymore.”
Greene recounted a phone call in which Trump tried to persuade her to back off the discharge petition effort involving the Epstein files.
“We did talk about the Epstein files, and he was extremely angry at me that I had signed the discharge petition to release the files,” she told Stahl. “I fully believe that those women deserve everything they’re asking. They’re asking for all of it to come out; they deserve it. And he was furious with me. ... He said it was going to hurt people.”
In the end, Greene and three other House Republicans didn’t cave under pressure from Trump. The Epstein bill got to the floor, and all but one House member voted for Trump’s Justice Department to release the files; the Senate passed the bill unanimously, and Trump quietly signed it into law.
But because of Trump’s ire, Greene said, she and her son faced numerous death threats. She said she sent Trump messages she had received threatening her son’s life and described Trump’s response as “extremely unkind.”
She elaborated about their exchange in a thread on X earlier Sunday, saying Trump “responded with harsh accusatory replies and zero sympathy.”
“I also sent these threats to [FBI] Director Kash Patel and thankfully he responded with ‘on it’ and I sent these threats to Vice President JD Vance who responded promptly with kindness and sympathy,” Greene posted on X.
In the “60 Minutes” interview, Greene rejected speculation that her very public break with Trump is because she wants to run for president in 2028.
“I have zero plans, zero desire to run for president. I would hate the Senate. I’m not running for governor,” Greene said. “But, Lesley, it doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I’ll have face-to-face conversations with people, and I’ll flat-out tell them to their face, and they won’t believe me.
“And they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, sure.’ Wink, wink. And I’m, like, I don’t know how to make it more clear.”
