All the ways Marjorie Taylor Greene has shifted her approach lately — and why Trump is 'surprised at her'
All the ways Marjorie Taylor Greene has shifted her approach lately — and why Trump is 'surprised at her'

Starting in 2019 with her rookie run for Congress, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — a former general contractor and CrossFit gym owner — made a national name for herself as one of America’s most pro-MAGA voices.

But in recent months, Greene, who represents a deep-red district in Georgia’s northwest corner, seems to have spent more time and energy bucking the president — on the government shutdown; on health care; on inflation; on Israel; on Ukraine; on mass deportations — than promoting his policies.

The congresswoman’s latest Trump tussle came Wednesday, when she was one of only four Republicans who joined with Democrats to force a full House vote on releasing all the files connected to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — a move the president and his allies on Capitol Hill tried to block.

“I honestly believe it’s not only the right thing to do for the victims but it’s also the right thing to do for the country,” Greene wrote on X. “Americans deserve transparency.”

Greene’s new approach has not gone unnoticed at the White House. Asked Monday about her recent criticisms, Trump told reporters, “I don’t know what happened to Marjorie.”

“She’s a nice woman, but I don’t know what’s happened,” the president said. “She’s lost her way, I think.”

Trump went on to accuse Greene of “catering to the other side" and suggest that “she’s got some kind of an act going."

“I’m surprised at her,” he added.

Greene immediately denied Trump’s claim — “I haven’t lost my way,” she said in a statement. “I’m 100% America first and only!” — but that hasn’t cleared up the confusion surrounding her recent shift.

Here are all the ways Greene has changed her approach lately — and a few theories about why she’s sounding so different.

MTG’s long list of recent breaks with the GOP

  • Unlike other Republicans, who solely blamed Democrats for the recent, record-breaking government shutdown, Greene held the leaders of her own party responsible, arguing that they should have stayed in Washington to resolve the impasse rather than calling an indefinite recess. “It's an embarrassment,” Greene said on “The View.” “The worst thing that 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. We should be at work."

  • Greene also sided with Democrats on how the shutdown should end, saying the opposition was right to push for an extension of key Obamacare subsidies set to expire in January. “I’m going to go against everyone on this issue because when the tax credits expire this year my own adult children’s insurance premiums for 2026 are going to DOUBLE, along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people in my district,” Greene wrote on X. “I’m not towing the party line on this, or playing loyalty games.”

  • Greene then lashed out at the Republican leadership for not articulating an alternative path on health insurance. “I shouldn't have to go into a SCIF [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility] to go find our Republican health insurance plan,” she said on “The View.” "There’s no consensus, and I think that’s a failure."

Asked this week if he found any Republican allies during the 43-day shutdown, Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries replied, “Three words — Marjorie Taylor Greene."

"She's been very clear that this health care crisis is not made up, it's real. Republicans have no health care plan, and that Democrats are correct in fighting to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits," Jeffries told CBS.

  • Earlier this month, Greene railed against high inflation, claiming that “costs have not come down” in part because Trump has been too focused on foreign policy. “We didn’t elect the president to go out there and travel the world and end the foreign wars,” Greene told NBC News. “Watching the foreign leaders come to the White House through a revolving door is not helping Americans. It’s not reducing the cost of living. It’s doing nothing about health insurance premiums. It’s doing nothing to solve the problems that are really plaguing vulnerable segments of our population, especially young people.”

  • In July, Greene criticized Trump for agreeing to send “billions of dollars” worth of weapons to Ukraine, accusing him of continuing the very aid that Republicans spent years blocking under former President Joe Biden. “MAGA did not vote for more weapons to Ukraine,” Greene wrote on X. “MAGA voted for no more US involvement in foreign wars.”

  • In August, after a U.N.-backed report warned of famine in Gaza, Greene deviated from the GOP’s staunch support for Israel by describing the humanitarian crisis as “genocide and bemoaning U.S. involvement. “Every U.S. tax payer is contributing to Israel’s military actions,” Greene wrote on X. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to pay for genocide in a foreign country against a foreign people for a foreign war that I had nothing to do with. And I will not be silent about it.”

  • In October, Greene spoke out against Trump’s mass deportation push, citing her experience in the construction industry. “We have to do something about labor, and that needs to be a smarter plan than just rounding up every single person and deporting them,” Greene said on “The Tim Dillon Show” podcast. “I’m going to get pushback on that, but I’m just living in reality from here on out.”

  • And when former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced her retirement last week, Greene went out of her way to praise the Democratic leader, saying she was “very impressed at her ability to get things done” — unlike Trump, who called Pelosi “an evil woman who did a poor job.” Greene added that she wished “we could get things done for our party like Nancy Pelosi was able to deliver for her party.” (In 2019, Greene was filmed saying Pelosi was “guilty of treason,” which she described as “a crime punishable by death.”  “We want her out of our government,” Greene said in the video.)

Greene also told CNN last week that she is “very tired” of the “toxic nature” of politics in Washington and across the country.

“I’m trying to lead by example, and I can only do my part, and that is to talk to everyone, and to talk to everyone in kindness,” Greene said. “We don’t all have to agree, but that’s being an American, and thank goodness for that.”

What changed?

Speculation has swirled in Washington, D.C. about Greene’s motives. In May, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had “helped ease” Greene out of a 2026 Senate bid in Georgia by commissioning a poll that showed her losing to Sen. Jon Ossoff, the Democratic incumbent, by 18 percentage points. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently cited that report to claim Greene has been “on a revenge tour ever since.”

In response, Greene denied any Senate ambitions and accused AOC of being “really jealous that I came into her home state, stomped around and actually had a great conversation with the ladies on ‘The View.’”

Elsewhere, sources “close to Greene” told NBC News the congresswoman was “disappointed she didn’t get a job in the Trump administration” after openly expressing interest in serving as secretary of homeland security — and that “she has felt ‘ignored’ by GOP leadership and the White House” in recent months.

NOTUS, a nonprofit news outlet recently launched by Politico cofounder Robert Allbritton, even reported that Greene has confided to colleagues that she wants to run for president in 2028, citing “four sources familiar with the matter, including one who has spoken with her directly about it.” (Greene dismissed the report as “baseless gossip.”)

For her part, Greene insists that she is “100% the same person today as I was when I ran for Congress.” The problem, she says, is that she’s “sick and tired of Republicans in Congress not passing the agenda, not doing what they say they’re going to do, not governing the way they campaign.” She has always been a populist, America First conservative opposed to foreign entanglements, she says — and she’s not afraid to call out her own party, and Trump, when she disagrees with what they’re doing.

“I’m not some sort of blind slave to the president, and I don’t think anyone should be,” Greene recently told NBC News. “I’m elected by my district. That’s who I work for, and I got elected without the president’s endorsement, and, you know, I think that has served me really well.”

“I’m very much an average American,” she continued. “I don’t see things through the party polls and the talking points; I look at the real problems and analyze them that way. ... So I think that helps me have a different viewpoint.”


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