Marjorie Taylor Greene: The 2025 60 Minutes Interview

Marjorie Taylor Greene: The 2025 60 Minutes Interview

It was completely unforeseen, a shocker. Marjorie Taylor Green resigning. The warrior congresswoman so dogged and fierce leaving the field of battle. Her alliance with President Trump shattered. Her video resignation statement last month that she’ll be leaving Congress a year before her term expires came after President Trump said he would throw his support to someone else for her seat. She became famous, some would say infamous, with her incendiary insults and belief in conspiracy theories such as 911 was an inside job and that the shooting at the Parkland school in Florida was staged. At one time, the president had no more ardent defender. But things soured over Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender accused of trafficking girls as young as 14. Does Green’s defection signal a split in MAGA? Is she leaving politics for good? And exactly why is she leaving? It wasn’t a decision that I came to lightly, but it was an very important decision um for myself um and also for my family. It was sudden. It was sudden um but a lot a lot of things changed. I stood for women who were raped when they were 14 years old and the president that I fought for for 5 years called me a traitor for that. And so that changed the landscape of things. So, I’m going to ask you straight out. Did you surrender? Did Donald Trump run you out of town? No, not at all. Actually, Leslie, it’s more like this is I said in my statement, I will be no one’s battered wife. And I meant it. And I won’t allow the system to abuse me anymore. You really feel abused. You know, he did come after you pretty hard. He called you a lunatic. I’m quoting. He said, “All she does is complain, complain, complain in caps, and then he called you a traitor.” So he hit you, whacked you. Yes. He did this in the same time span where uh President Trump brought in the al-Qaeda leader that was wanted by the US government who is now the president of Syria. Then within a week, he brought in the crown prince, NBS, who murdered an American journalist. and then he brought in the newly elected uh Democrat socialist mayor of New York. That was the time span that he called me a traitor. You decided not to stay and fight. You decided to s give in. After President Trump called me a traitor, I got a pipe bomb threat on my house and then I got uh several direct death threats on my son. On your son? On my son. You say the president put your life in danger. You blame him. You say he he fueled a hot bed of threats against me. And that you blame him for the uh threats against your son. The subject line for the direct death threats on my son was his words. Marjgery Trader Green. Those are death threats directly fueled by President Trump. I And I told him I told JD Vance. I told them all. Sent those directly to them. and response. JD Vance replied back to me. We’ll look into it. I got response back from President Trump that I will keep private, but it wasn’t very nice. Give us a hint of what the president said. Uh, it was extremely unkind. Her life is in danger. Who’s that? Marjorie Taylor Green. She says Marjorie Trader Green. Uh, I don’t think her life is in danger. I don’t think, frankly, I don’t think anybody cares about her. Four more years. This new intense vitriel between them is jarring considering she’s been one of the president’s most passionate and loyal foot soldiers, often in a red MAGA hat. She voted with him 98% of the time. We’re going to reelect our favorite president, the greatest president in United States history, Donald J. Trump. Right, Georgia. One of the president’s biggest beasts with Green was about her harping on Jeffrey Epstein. 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. 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. What did he say? Um he said that it was going to hurt people. I had asked him, “These women are the ones that were hurt. They they were raped at 14. They were raped at 16.” I watched them stand in front of the press trembling, their bodies shaking as they were telling their stories, many of them for the first time. And I had told him, I said, “You know, you have all kinds of people come in the White House. Have these women come in the White House. These these women deserve to be heard. He said to you, “People will get hurt. People will get hurt. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know who they are.” There were other clashes with the president. She started publicly criticizing him in May on one issue after the next, accusing him of betraying his MAGA America First promises. You went after his I think you said trying to entangle us in foreign wars. You said Air Force One should be parked. No more foreign trips for an America first president. The number one focus should have been domestic policy and it wasn’t. And so of course I was critical because those were my campaign promises. Once we fix everything here then fine, we’ll we’ll talk to the rest of the world. She said in her resignation video that the president has gone establishment forsaking the base and her if I am cast aside by the president and the MAGA political machine and replaced by neocon’s big pharma big tech militaryindustrial war complex foreign leaders and the elite donor class. Are you saying that the president now is siding with those establishment powerful people and against MAGA? He passed a crypto bill that helped out all the crypto donors. He has served Israel’s interest even attacking Iran. He has served big pharma. He didn’t take away the co vaccines that we want to see taken away. So those are the areas that are still getting everything they want while the people we’re still out here saying we want to see action on on areas for the American people, not for the major industries and the big donors. Green has built her reputation on feisty combat and inflammatory insults like calling President Joe Biden a liar during the 2023 State of the Union. It’s been 5 years of almost constant drama. I I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what with her adding fuel to the nation’s loss of civility. Then three weeks ago, she went on CNN with a surprise, a Maya Kalpa. And I would like to say humbly, I’m sorry for taking part in the toxic uh politics. But it became clear to us that she hasn’t entirely lost her appetite for combat. It’s the most toxic political culture and um it’s not helping the American people. But you contributed to that. You you you were out there pounding, insulting people. Leslie, you’ve contributed to it as well with your own program. Yes. You’re accusatory just like you did just then. I know you’re accusing me, but I’m smiling. You’re accusing me. I am accusing. We don’t have to accuse one another. I want you to respond to what you have done in terms of insulting people, yelling at people and then saying I’d like for you to respond for that. No, you can respond to that. I don’t insult people. You do and the way you question and you are you’re accusing me right now. One thing she did want to talk about, Congress’s failure to pass spending bills, meaning that she has found it hard to get funds for projects in her district. It’s an utter failure, not just to the people in my district, but the every district across the country. We met Green, 51, in her district in Georgia. Before Congress, she ran her family’s construction company, then opened up her own CrossFit gym. Affordability is a real issue. President says it’s not. Says it’s a hoax. Affordability. It’s one of the top issues not only in my district, it’s across the country. The affordability of health insurance caused Green to side with the Democrats during the government shutdown to support extending healthc care subsidies. Did you ever imagine that you would be standing with the Democrats on the Epstein files and on healthc care subsidies? No, I never imagined that. She’s not afraid to be an outlier. She’s the only Republican member of Congress to call the war in Gaza a genocide. And why did you vote against the Anti-semitism Awareness Act? Since I’ve been a member of Congress, we’ve had several resolutions that constantly denounce anti-semitism. I’ve already voted denouncing anti-semitism many times before. It becomes an exercise that they force on Congress and I simply got tired of it. Is there no value in having the United States Congress reaffirm the fact that they denounce anti-semitism in the face of a growing issue, a growing problem? We don’t have to get on our knees and say it over and over again when we get on our knees. Yes, we do not have to get on our knees. Well, most members of Congress disagree with you. Well, most members of Congress take donations from Apac and I don’t. Apac is an American pro-Israel lobbying group. Green’s perspective indicates a growing rift within MAGA over support for Israel. Are you MAGA? I am America first. And that’s not the same as MAGA. MAGA is President Trump’s um uh phrase. That’s his his political policies. Um I call myself America first. But you’re you’re not saying you’re a maggot. America first. Yep. God bless you, President Trump. Almost overnight, she’s gone from a close Trump friend to foe. One of the few Republicans willing to take him on. I’m going to ask you about this almost solid support he has among Republicans in Congress. Is there in that support fear? Does the support come about because they’re afraid that they’ll get death threats? I think they’re terrified to step out of line and get a nasty truth social post on them. Yes. And they’re watching what happened to you. Yes. Behind the scenes, do they talk differently? Yes. How? Oh, I it’s it it would shock people. Well, let’s shock people. Okay. I watch many of my colleagues go from making fun of him, making fun of how he talks, uh, making fun of me constantly for supporting him to when he won the primary in 2024, they all started, uh, excuse my language, Leslie, kissing his ass and decided to put on a MAGA hat for the first time. And let’s break it down real simple. This past week, when we saw Green at a public hearing in her district without a MAGA hat, it didn’t appear that her break from President Trump and MAGA has cost her popularity. Thank you. People want to know, is this a true conversion, a true change of heart, or is it kind of a shrewd political calculation? A lot of people think you’re doing it and that you in a year or so are going to run for some other office. I have zero plans, zero uh desire to run for president. I would hate the Senate I’m not running for governor, but Leslie, it doesn’t matter how many times I say it. I’ll have face-toface 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.” And they wink at me and I’m like, “Okay.” I was just like, I don’t know how to make it more clear. You mean you just jumped off the cliff and you don’t know where you’re going to swim to? Uh, surprise surprise. I’m not your politician with a whole itinerary of plans or political ambitions.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a dogged supporter-turned-critic of President Trump, tells 60 Minutes about her fractured relationship with the president and why she decided to resign from Congress.

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