In a high-profile interview, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia accused her former political ally-turned-enemy, President Donald Trump, of inciting death threats against her and her son and failing to fulfill the president’s campaign promise to focus on improving the lives of Americans.
“For an ‘America First’ president, the No. 1 focus should have been domestic policy, and that hasn’t been the case. So, of course, I was critical, because that was my campaign promise,” Greene said in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” “If we settle everything here, we’ll be fine. We’ll tell the rest of the world.”
CBS News’ Leslie Stahl then asked Green, “Are you a MAGA?”
Greene referenced President Trump’s signature motto, “Make America Great Again,” and said, “I’m America First. … MAGA is President Trump’s phrase. It’s his policy.” “I call myself America First.”
Other Republicans, both inside and outside of Capitol Hill, have expressed frustration that Trump and the Republican Party are not doing enough to address Americans’ concerns about affordability. But in recent days, President Trump has cited falling gas prices and issued an executive order directing his administration to investigate anticompetitive practices that could impact the food supply chain.
“In a short space of time, President Trump has already delivered on many of the promises he was elected to make, including securing our borders, tackling Biden’s inflation crisis, lowering drug prices, eliminating taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security, curbing inflation, deporting criminal illegal aliens, and enacting important reforms that put American workers first,” White House press secretary Abigail Jackson said in a statement Sunday night.
“As the architect of the MAGA movement, President Trump always puts America first. He works hard every day to continue to deliver on the many promises he has made, and he will continue to deliver on them,” she said.
Greene spoke to “60 Minutes” last month, shortly after making the shocking announcement that she would step down in January, a full year before her term was set to expire. Her decision came after she broke with Trump and other party leaders and signed a bipartisan expulsion petition forcing a vote in the House to force the release of government files on Jeffrey Epstein.
President Trump has denounced Greene, a conservative hardliner who was once one of her most vocal defenders on Capitol Hill, as “Marjorie’s traitor Greene.” When Greene complained of receiving death threats because of Trump, he dismissed her concerns, saying, “I don’t think her life is in danger. … I don’t think anyone cares about her.”
In an interview on “60 Minutes,” Greene said she has been meeting with controversial foreign leaders and New York City Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani as Trump resists releasing the Epstein files and calls him a traitor.
“He did this at the same time that President Trump brought in an Al Qaeda leader wanted by the U.S. government, now the president of Syria, and then within a week he brought in Crown Prince MBS, who killed an American journalist,” Green said of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed. “And he brought in the newly elected Democratic Socialist mayor of New York. It was during that period that he called me a traitor.”
When Stahl asked if President Trump drove her out of town, Greene replied, “No, not at all. … I’m not going to be anybody’s battered wife … and I’m not going to let the system abuse me any more.”
Greene described a phone call in which President Trump tried to persuade her to withdraw her request for release from Epstein.
“We talked about the Epstein files and he was very angry that I signed a release petition to release the files,” she told Stahl. “I truly believe those women deserve everything they’re asking for. They’re asking for everything to come out, so they deserve it. And he was furious with me. … He said it would hurt people.”
In the end, Greene and three other House Republicans did not bow to Trump’s pressure. The Epstein bill was put to a vote, with all but one member of the House voting in favor of releasing the files from the Trump Justice Department. The Senate passed the bill unanimously, and President Trump quietly signed it into law.
But Greene said she and her son received multiple death threats because of President Trump’s outrage. She said she sent Trump a message threatening her son’s life and called his response “extremely unkind.”
She detailed an exchange on Sunday’s X thread, saying Trump “gave a harsh response and an unsympathetic response.”
“I also sent these threats to (FBI) Director Kash Patel, and thankfully he responded, ‘Yes, sir.’ I sent these threats to Vice President J.D. Vance, who immediately responded with kindness and compassion,” Greene posted on X.
In an interview with “60 Minutes,” Greene denied speculation that her public breakup with Trump was because she wanted to run for president in 2028.
“I have no plans or aspirations to run for president. I hate the Senate. I will not run for governor,” Greene said. “But Leslie, it doesn’t matter how many times I say it. I’ll talk to people to their faces, I’ll tell them straight to their faces, and they won’t believe me.
“And they’re like, ‘Oh, sure.’ Wink, wink. And I don’t know how to make it any clearer.”
