Global News Podcast - Marjorie Taylor Greene quits Congress after Trump feud

Episode Date: November 22, 2025

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has said she's leaving office after clashing with President Donald Trump over the release of the Epstein files. Also: The US president sets next Thursday as a deadline for Ukraine to accept an American plan for a peace deal with Russia, which appears to give Moscow much of what it wants; bitter disagreements at the COP 30 climate summit in Brazil continue as the talks run overtime; scientists reveal what triggered the Santorini earthquake swarm earlier this year; and a Superman comic becomes the most expensive ever sold.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. It's the coziest time of year on Britbox. Very cozy. That means basking in the ambience. I know the body's turned up. How often do people get murdered around here? Unboxing the unexpected. Well, we know it wasn't an accident.

And starting new traditions. Oh, so you telling me to behave myself. Oh, shut up. Stream Britbox's original series based on best-selling novels, including Linley and a new season of Karen Piri. Smashing, smushy, breakie. It's all a bit warm. with Britbox. See holidays differently when you stream the best of British TV with Britbox.

America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London. And this is the global story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Global News Podcasts from the BBC World Service. I'm Keith Adams and at 330 GMT, these are our main stories. Following a public fallout with President Donald Trump,

Republican Marjorie Taylor Green has announced her resignation from office. The US president has suggested next Thursday as a deadline for Ukraine to accept an American plan for a peace deal with Russia, which appears to give Moscow much of what it wants. And bitter disagreements at COP 30 Climate Summit in Brazil are continuing as the talks run over time. Also in this podcast, we'll hear a tragic story from Denmark. I never get to see his first steps, first word, his first school. hundreds of children taken away from families because of a parenting test and

is it a bird is it a plane is it a nine million dollar comic not long ago Marjorie Taylor Green was one of Donald Trump's closest allies in Congress Congress, a standard bearer for his Make America Great Again movement. But a rift started showing earlier this year over President Trump's foreign policy, and it's grown in the last few weeks over the Epstein files. Ms. Green has been demanding that the government released documents compiled by the Justice Department when investigating the late billionaire sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. And Mr. Trump, who until recently said there was no reason to make them public,

lambasted Ms. Green on social media. On Friday evening, she posted a video announcing her resignation from Congress. Loyalty should be a two-way street, and we should be able to vote our conscience and represent our district's interests because our job title is literally representative. Standing up for American women who were raped at 14 years old, trafficked in use by rich, powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the president. of the United States, whom I fought for. Well, President Trump has said Marjorie Taylor Green's resignation is good news for the country. This all comes after Congress voted overwhelmingly to release the Epstein files, and Mr. Trump approved it. So what's going on? I asked our North America correspondent, Sean Dilley.

It's either the biggest swing by a scorn's colleague, upset by being branded Marjorie traitor by Donald Trump on his truth social platform, also, by the way, we should say he branded her wacky and a ranting lunatic. Or a cynic might say, well, is it the start of a campaign? And if it is, what is that campaign for? Obviously, it now seems that she's not running next year's midterms in Georgia. But there were certainly some very direct messages that she had, not just to Donald Trump. She used an expression, which is really interesting. Common Americans, it's a term she used five times.

Despite sort of making an oblique reference to the Jeffrey Epstein issue, She didn't directly mention Jeffrey Epstein, but she was talking about the cost of living. She was talking about foreign policy, and she was talking about her loyalty to Donald Trump, which is obviously implying has not been returned. Yeah, I suppose her profile now has sort of shot through the roof because of the Epstein thing, and who knows where that will take her. But how bad is this for Trump himself? Is this the kind of Make America Great again split that could alienate a lot of his supporters?

He'll be sitting in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House, probably not really caring one way or another because he's already had the massive fracture last weekend with Marjorie Taylor Green. It's difficult to overstate just how crazily significant this is because they were the closest supporters. He was her most influential backer. She was his loudest advocate during very difficult times. To fall out so publicly, it's surprising, but it's not happened overnight.

So for several weeks, actually back to August really, Marjorie Taylor Green had been criticising foreign policy and the cost of living. So this potentially is just the natural and logical extension. Sean Dilley in Washington. Ukraine has just six days to accept the US peace plan. Or what? President Trump has given Keev until next Thursday, the American Thanksgiving holiday,

to agree to the 28 points that he says could end the war. But President Zelensky isn't giving thanks yet. In an address to the nation on Friday, he warned that this was one of the most difficult moments in Ukraine's history and that the country might face what he called a very difficult choice, either losing its dignity or risk losing a key partner, an apparent reference to the U.S. Later at the White House, President Trump faced repeated questions on the topic of Ukraine. President Zelensky said today that his country would risk either giving up a partner or giving up its dignity.

There's been criticism that this deal... Even he doesn't like it? It's unclear. He was sort of tenuous... He'll have to like it. And if he doesn't like it, then, you know, they should just keep fighting, I guess, you know? The suggestion that you made, though, was that if he doesn't accept it, that the U.S. would pull back its support for Ukraine. Well, at some point he's going to have to accept something.

You know, he hasn't accepted. You remember right in the Oval Office not so long ago. I said, you don't have the cards. And I thought he should have made a deal a year ago, two years ago. Well, rumors about the peace proposal started to surface on Tuesday, but it's taken Vladimir Putin three days to confirm that he'd seen the plan. We have this text of the proposed peace plan. We received it through existing channels of communication with the U.S. administration.

I believe it can be used as the basis for a final peaceful settlement, but it has not been discussed with us in detail. And I can guess why. The reason is the same. The US administration has so far failed to secure Ukraine's consent. Ukraine is against it. The deal is being characterized by many as one in which Russia gets much of what it wants.

So what is the assessment of our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg? He spoke to me from the streets of Moscow. The peace plan contains lots of things that Russia, has been demanding for a long time, for example, that Ukraine-seed territory in the Dombas, in eastern Ukraine territory, that it still controls, territory that in four years of war, Russia has been unable to seize, and that the Ukrainian army be reduced in size, and Ukraine has to renounce its intention of joining NATO. These are all things that Russia has been demanding.

Now, there are reports that the Russians are not happy about all the points in the 28th draft peace plan, but I think there are lots of pluses for Moscow. But the other reason why President Putin is confident, aside from the peace plan, is the situation on the battlefield, which he believes is going his way. And so the message coming out of the Kremlin and out of Moscow generally is, you know, we're more than happy to carry on fighting to carry on the war because we think it's going Russia's way.

We are open, though, to a peace deal, but a peace deal on Russia's terms. And in the deal, I saw reference to that term. root causes of the conflict again. Could you just remind us, what does that mean? It means many things. Very often when Russian officials talk about the root causes of the Ukraine conflict, they mean NATO expansion in the 90s and in the 2000s. They mean Western efforts to turn Ukraine into an anti-Russia, as they put in.

There's a whole list of things that the Russians use when they talk about root causes. But Western officials, and certainly Ukraine, would say this is simply an excuse. And that when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 22, the objective was to force Ukraine back into Russia's sphere of influence, back into Russia's orbit. And the Russians thought they could do that in a matter of days or weeks with this special military operation, which went badly wrong. And four years later, this war is still going on. And four years of war for ordinary Russians, I mean, are they aware of this deal?

What's the mood among them? There is a general fatigue in Russia after four years of this conflict. Most people we speak to tell us they want the war to be over, you know, especially people who know other people who are fighting in Ukraine, people who have fathers or sons or brothers fighting there. And certainly back in August when we had the Alaska Summit, of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, there was a lot of hope and expectation here that that would lead to some kind of deal. When it didn't, there was disappointment. So any possibility, any prospect

of a deal, a breakthrough, an end to this war, yeah, Russians support that. Steve Rosenberg in Moscow. The final day of the COP 30 climate summit has gone into extra time as officials try to hammer out a final agreement after two weeks of meetings. The United Nations and hosts Brazil had hoped they'd be a commitment to cut the use of fossil fuels. But that's been blocked by some oil-producing countries. Our climate editor, Justin Rowlatt, is at the conference in Baleem. The COP 30 hosts had laid on a welcoming committee for delegates as they arrived, but the atmosphere inside was more sombre.

I'm outside committee room 22 in one of the vast tents that has. house this huge makeshift conference centre. The heads of the delegations of all 194 countries here are meeting to thrash out this agreement. Yes, the words fossil fuels and much else has been taken out of the document, but remember, this is a negotiation. The Brazilian hosts are low-balling, judging a compromise can be reached that brings a more ambitious agreement. Rachel Kite is the UK's climate envoy. You've got 194 countries all trying to protect our forests, protect waters and soils, transition away from fossil fuels, and provide for people in a world which is ravaged by climate change, 194 countries trying to deal with these critical

issues at the heart of the global economy and global society, and make that a process which is just inequitable. It's hard. And it's consensus. And it's consensus. What's more, it comes as the multilateral process. Countries coming together to solve collective problems is being challenged as never before. And the big shadow over these talks has been the absence of the US, an issue I raised with UN chief Antonio Guterres. Secretary General, what message do you want this conference to send to Donald Trump? We are waiting for you. Hope is the last thing that dies. He and the rest of the UN team are hoping for an ambitious agreement that shows this huge

time-consuming process can still deliver meaningful action on climate. Justin Rowland. Now, you never know what treasures might be hidden in your attic. Some have been lucky enough to find a Van Gogh or a Rembrandt stored in some dusty, forgotten space. But when three brothers cleaned out their late mum's attic in California, they found a box of comics instead, including a rare first edition of Superman dated June 1939. And on Friday, Lon Allen from Heritage Auctions, who went to San Francisco to value the collection,

sold that comic for a whopping $9.1 million. I asked him if he expected to reach such a high price. Not originally, and maybe not even leading right up to it. You know, it's hard to assess something through a picture. I could tell that the comic books were going to be nice, but you really never know until you get there in person. And a rating of 9 out of 10, is that perfect practically? I mean, could you get 10 out of 10?

There would never be a 10. They really don't even exist. I mean, even something that's just coming right off a printing press, hardly ever gets a 10. We sort of consider 9.8 to be the very, very, very best. Near Mint is considered 9.4. So this is almost near mint. And tell us about these brothers.

I mean, they must have been thrilled. Oh, absolutely. So it's three brothers in their 50s and 60s, and their mother had said to them when they were kids that there were some old comic books kicking about somewhere and that they were valuable, but they never saw them. From what I understand, she passed away quite a while ago, and the time came to finally, you know, clean everything out, and it was actually a loft above the garage where they had to get a ladder out and climb up there. And they really just thought, well, we should just make sure there's nothing up there, family heirloom, family photos, just before we sell the house, let's make sure there's nothing valuable up here. And there was something valuable up there. I mean, it could have been eaten by mice or something.

It's extraordinary, isn't it? It's survived. It really, it really is. Because if they were here in Dallas or any part of the, like the southern United States, hot, human, it would have just been ruined. but it's very moderate, never gets hot there, cool, dry temperatures, just preserved it perfectly. Now, who's the kind of person who buys this? I imagine that when you saw this comic, you thought, okay, someone's going to just freak out when they see this comic. How important is this comic?

It really is important because, you know, so it's Superman number one, and Superman really is the first superhero. That's why we call superheroes superhero. It did not exist before the invention of Superman. And he was in a few comic books before this one, but this is the first comic book ever devoted to one character, and Superman really is the gold standard, and this is the finest known one.

So I knew there would be a lot of collectors, a lot of investors just scrambling, fighting, falling over themselves trying to get this. And you said they're collectors and investors. I mean, do these people read the comics, or are they too valuable for that? Well, when you get to this point, they're too valuable for that. You can easily pick up a $5 reprint.

And these are in plastic and they're encapsulated so nobody's going to ever read this particular comic book again. But most of these people really are collectors and investors combined, but most of them are collectors first. That was the auctioneer, Lon Allen. Still to come. It's the second lowest. denomination bill. So it was supposed to be very usable. But it hasn't been the case. People

are keeping it. So it could become a problem because it should be used as money, not as a pressure. The Mexican banknote being hauled by collectors. America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is the global story. Every weekday will bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. But the relationship between the two can be complicated.

The vast majority of Greenland's population is made up of indigenous people, the Greenlandic Inuit. And thousands have moved to Denmark over the years, seeking better opportunities. But many say they've been subjected to systemic discrimination. Now Greenlandic parents across Denmark are fighting to be reunited with their children, who were taken into care after authorities used what they called parenting competency tests. Our global health reporter Sophia Batica reports. A newborn baby taken from her mother just two hours after she gave birth in northern Denmark. For Kira, this isn't the first time.

Three of her children have been removed from her care. I felt like everything became black. Kira is from Greenland but lives in Denmark. Here, hundreds of Greenlandic families have faced similar heartbreak. In the capital, Copenhagen, they have gathered outside Parliament. They say their children were taken from them, partly because of the use of so-called parenting competency tests. I ask a psychologist, why do I have to take a test?

She answered me, if you see, if I am civilized enough. These tests are used is a scandal. It's dehumanizing. Tina co-founded CILA 360, an NGO challenging the system. The Danish authorities think that Greenlandic people are uncivilized. They are just less privileged. We have another picture when he was one day old. Many families we spoke to were made to take the Rochak test, which analyzes personality through abstract inkblots. Yohane faced it while eight. months pregnant.

I said I could see a Greenlandic woman cutting a seal and removing the intestines. The psychologist gave me a look and said, are you serious? You're such a barbarian. The parenting assessment described her and her husband as narcissistic and lacking empathy. Their son was taken away 17 days after he was born. This is the last time we were together in one picture. I never get to see his first steps, first word, his first school day. The parenting tests that were part of those decisions have now been banned on Greenlandic people

and the Danish government launched a review promising to reassess hundreds of cases. But we found that six months on, only ten cases involved. in parenting tests have been examined. Hello. Hi, Minister. Nice to meet you. We put those findings to Denmark's social affairs minister, Sophie Anderson. The government review has not led to a single Greenlandic child being returned to their family. Why is progress so slow? I can't recognise those numbers, I must say.

Those numbers come from the units that you've set up to review the cases. So they come from a government agency that you're in charge of. I'm not satisfied that we have only reviewed 10 cases at the moment. We want to make sure that we look into every placement where this test was used to place a child with Greenlandic background. It is a work in progress, yes. For Kira and many other parents, that work in progress feels too little, too late.

She's building a traditional Greenlandic slave to give to her daughter for her first birthday, she still hasn't been told if her daughter will be returned. I was never Danish enough. I was never good enough. That report by Sophia Petita. Earlier this year, the Greek island of Santorini was rocked by tens of thousands of earthquakes.

Thousands of local residents and tourists fled the island at the time. Now a scientific study has discovered what triggered the quakes. Our science correspondent Victoria Gill has been looking at the findings. About 28,000 tremors shook the ground around Santorini. Locals feared that a nearby underwater volcano might be about to erupt or that this was a build-up to a much bigger earthquake. These scientists used each quake as a virtual sensor to work out what was happening in the Earth's crust.

With the help of artificial intelligence, they mapped the pattern of seismic activity, and calculated that the swarm of tremors was driven by magma or molten rock moving through a channel 10 kilometres beneath the seafloor. The researchers estimated that the volume of magma that moved could have filled 200,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. For now, the unrest appears to be over, but they say that this type of analysis,

using the data from every single quake around an active volcano, could be used in the future to forecast eruptions and help keep local communities informed and hopefully safe. Victoria Gill. Now to the Eurovision Song Contest and there's to be an overhaul of the voting system for next year's competition taking place in May in Austria.

That's after this happened in 2025. Now Israel, the audience have awarded you. That means we have a new leader on the scoreboard. Israel was catapulted to the top after the public vote, coming second place overall. Some countries, such as Belgium and Spain, couldn't quite believe the score and asked for an investigation. Their professional juries in the first round had given Israel zero points. Our entertainment correspondent Colin Patterson told Ankur Desai more about the reasons for the changes.

This is all because of what? happened this year. It was reported the Israeli government used cross-platform advertising and state social media accounts to encourage people right across Europe to vote for their song. And when you look at the results, Israel won the public vote by a long way. But when you actually dig down and look at the countries where Israel won the public vote, if you look at the most played songs on Spotify that were in the Eurovision song contest, doesn't make the top 15 in most of them. There was a lot of people around the Eurovision world saying something was not right and now Eurovision have acted. What they have done, they have made it illegal for

participating acts to take part in third party campaigns, especially if those belong to national governments. The number of times someone can vote has been reduced from 20 to 10 for each method. Now different countries have different numbers of methods you can vote on. In the UK, we can only vote through the app. In some countries, they can vote through the app, through text or phone votes. So if it's 10 maximum each, that still means you could vote 30 times. And on a slightly different track, what they've also done, juries are returning to the semi-finals for the first time since 2022. The reason for that, well, I think Eurovision's actually trying to eliminate the novelty songs that they think besmirch the contest, but which most of us in TV absolutely

love. You want your men sitting in your sonnas. You want your Polish milkmaids. Absolutely. That's what we want the colour and the hysteria of Eurovision. I guess a big question will be, though. Will these changes be a positive change? Will they be full proof as well? Because there'll be criticism coming in from all quarters? Well, what this is about is about a general assembly that is taking place on the 4th and 5th of December and the EBU are worried that countries are not going to participate if Israel are participate. and they're hoping that they've made enough changes that the members will be happy

and will agree to Israel taking part without a vote. But, and it's a huge but, four countries have already said they are going to boycott next year's contest if Israel take part. That's Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia and their complaints around what's happened in Gaza, not because of phone votes.

And Colin, and it's also big year. for Eurovision it's 70th birthday. Absolutely, and it's being held in Austria, the home of the sound of music. If they don't go for it, where the hills are alive, something is sadly wrong. Colin Patterson. Finally, it's become the must-have collectible in Mexico.

Nearly 13 million citizens are holding on to the country's 50-Peso note, a bill that's become far more than everyday currency. The stylish purple note features Gorda, the axolotle. That's a type of salamander. It won banknote of the year in 2021 and four years on, the Bank of Mexico says people are now hoarding the notes. Economist Valeria Moy told Andrew Peach why it's become such a collector's item. It's a purple pink note. It has a little circle that is transparent that has a security brand. That's important. And then you have this sochumilco lake that maybe You have heard of it, but it's a very important part of Mexico City where you have water and

agriculture, and it's a very traditional part of the country. And then you have a very small design of an axolotl. And the axolotl is a very cute and very rare and very traditional animal in Mexico. And it's actually originally from Sochimilco. So you have the axolotel there in Sochimilco swimming. That's the image that you can have. And on the other side of the note, you have the traditional Mexican Eagle. So it's a very nice note.

And since it's a very recent bill, you can have them very new, very new bills. And that's something that's very likable for people. And suddenly in Mexico for the past, I don't know, maybe 10 years, the Axolodle has become the traditional icon. It wasn't before, let me tell you. When I was a kid, nobody talked about the Axolodle. We knew it existed, but of course it wasn't an issue. And now you can find the axolet print in t-shirts and in bags in supermarkets and small plush toys. So the axolotl has become a very iconic figure.

It sounds like a very well-designed bank note. But in order for it to be collectible for people to want to keep them, surely there has to be some kind of shortage. From the monetary policy perspective, when you design a bill or a coin, it's intrinsic value. shouldn't be more than the value of the things that you can purchase with it. So when people court these bills, they are not being used as money. And of course, when Bank of Mexico or the Bank of Mexico put out these bills, it wasn't its intention. I mean, its intention was just to put a nice bill that, you know, circulated in the economy and it's the second lowest denomination bill.

So it was supposed to be very usable, but it hasn't been the case. People are keeping it, so it could become a problem because it should be used as money, not as a treasure, you know. Valeria Moy, and Axelotl news that we've got in the pod today, isn't it? And that's all from us for now. But there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is Global Podcast at BBC.com.com. This edition was mixed by Abby Wilcher

and the producers were Nicky Verico and Peter Goffin. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Keith Adams. Until next time, goodbye.