Trump's Trials - How Marjorie Taylor Greene's resignation is changing the Republican party

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's resignation is forcing the Republican party to reckon publicly with what the political landscape will look like when President Trump leaves the White House. A Republican strategist weighs in.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Steve Inskeep. What does it really mean when the president breaks up with one of his loudest supporters? Marjorie Taylor Green went to Congress from Georgia in 2021, just in time to promote President Trump's bid to overturn his election defeat. Her comments and conspiracy theories caused even her own party to shun her at times until she rose as a flamboyant Trump backer. That made it all the more striking when she resigned on Friday, saying the abandoned his own agenda. In a few minutes, a Republican strategist analyzes the debate over who gets to define the GOP. And NPR Stephen Fowler is listening to that conversation. Stephen, good morning. Good morning. How exactly does Green critique Republicans? Well, there was this nearly 11-minute video

she released Friday night that aired a wide array of complaints, including mentioning threats to her adult children and attacks led by President Trump calling her a, quote, traitor. But I think it's really important to listen to this point she made early on. Americans are used by the political industrial complex of both political parties, election cycle after election cycle, in order to elect whichever side can convince Americans to hate the other side more. And the results are always the same. No matter which way the political pendulum swings, Republican or Democrat, nothing ever gets better for the common American man or woman.

Green says that American politics are not great right now, and even though Republicans have complete control of Washington, Her argument is that party leadership isn't actually keen on leading. Well, I guess this has been building up for a while. She criticized the president over his foreign policy, like when the United States bombed Iran. She questioned some domestic policies. And above all, she wanted the release of the Epstein files a lot more quickly than Trump was willing to agree to. So did she change?

Well, in Green's view, she's not the one to change. It's Donald Trump and others in the Republican Party who have not maintained consistency when it comes to being Make America Great Again, First Conservatives. It's also important to note that Trump has never been a traditional conservative and his return to office was built on convincing a lot of different groups and demographics with different ideologies and priorities to unite under that America First banner, but defer to his interpretation of what being a conservative meant. There have been a number of instances where some of the Republican base voters this year have said, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not actually what we wanted, like the Epstein files, where Trump went from, I will release them to,

saying Republicans who want that to happen are stupid, to collaring Marjorie Taylor-Rina traitor for supporting the measure, to signing the bill. Indeed. So what's the president saying now about Green? Well, he told ABC News it was good for the country she was leaving, posted on his true social website that she was a traitor, again, who would have lost a primary. Then he told NBC News that he'd actually love to see her return to politics eventually, all in the span of less than a day or so. What? Okay. It does underscore what people have been saying about the president, both in public and behind the scenes.

There are some on the right who are echoing his attacks and say about Marjorie Taylor Green, good riddance. There are other Republicans and even Democrats in the House who say she's making some good points about things. And for what it's worth, Marjorie Taylor Green says she would have won her primary and thinks Republicans are set to lose the midterms. Some of that feeling is backed up by voters in the district and in the district. Georgia, expressing support for her and disappointment in what President Trump is doing. And unlike plenty of clashes with more moderate Republicans who've all but disappeared from Trump's GOP, her role as this conservative stalwart inside the MAGA movement is really forcing the party to reckon more publicly and more quickly with a question of what the post-Trump

GOP is going to look like. NPR Stephen Fowler, who's reporting from Atlanta. Stephen, thanks so much. Thank you. For more on this, we have Alex Conant. He is a Republican strategist with the public affairs firm, Firehouse Strategies. Alex, thanks so much for coming back to see us. Good morning.

So Marjorie Taylor Green is such a unique figure in politics, even in this era. But she's been such a strong loyalist for President Trump. Does her recent trajectory, like Steve pointed out, questioning the president's conduct, not just in the Epstein files, but on other policies, does that tell you anything about the state of the MAGA coalition? Yeah, I mean, there's been a simmering debate within not just the Trump administration, but the Republican Party as a whole over the last several years between the MAGA coalition, as you put it, and traditional conservatives.

And you see it bubble up on issues like Israel, where you have a lot of people, MAGA leaders like the congresswoman, like Steve Bannon, who don't want America to be very involved, don't want us to be as a support of Israel compared to the more traditional conservatives. You see it on issues like health care, on issues even like the Epstein files,

where you have the sort of the conspiracy theorists against the more traditionalists. And, you know, at the end of the day, these issues are starting to bubble up into the public. And I think what we saw over the weekend was the most vivid example of this coalition really has a lot of debate going on within it. And I think Trump is starting to struggle just really trying to keep it together. And what about her decision to resign? Does this strengthen or weaken or have any effect on the president's hold on MAGA? Well, she's always been a bit of an iconic class and, frankly, not all that popular within the Republican House caucus.

I think the most immediate challenge is that he already has a slim house majority is just how one vote less. And, you know, some of her colleagues look at her and say, geez, you know, being a member of Congress isn't all cracked up to be. And they start to retire, too. He could have a real crisis on the sense just in terms of keeping the majority over the next year. You know, I think beyond that, she quit in part because he was threatening to support a primary challenge against her and she didn't want to lose her primary. That is a tactic he has used many, many times to keep people online. if looking forward, him threatening primary challenges results in people just quitting, that doesn't necessarily help his cause either. You know, her online posts in her video, I'm sure you

watched it, it was also an indictment of the current GOP leadership, and she predicted that Republicans would lose the House in the midterms. And I'm just interested in your take on that. Well, we're still over a year out. I think it's going to be very close, closely fought race. Historically, the party in power would lose the majority, and even more so when, you know, people aren't happy about the direction of the economy. That said, we're a long way out. Republicans feel really good about a lot of their recruits. I think the president and the White House have been more engaged in recruiting strong candidates

this time than they were during his first term. So Republican insiders, I talk to, Republican running campaigns, they feel pretty bullish about our chances to keep the House. And, you know, the Congressman threw cold water on this idea that she might have resigned in order to set herself up to run for president. but can you envision a different leadership role for her in the party in the future? Well, look, she has a very high profile. The media loves to cover her.

We're talking about her right now. And I think anyone who can command media attention can command political support as well, especially in this environment. I think the 2028 Republican primary is going to be fascinating because it's going to be a real debate ultimately between do you have America First, MAGA-style present, continue, maybe somebody like J.D. Vance, or do you have a more traditional conservative, somebody who supports Israel, somebody like Ted Cruz, I think if either of those two candidates who are both talked about running,

if either of them falter, certainly somebody like MTG, could see Elaine, you know, whether or not she actually chose to around as anyone's guess. But I think we could end up seeing a much more competitive Republican primary than we're expecting right now, especially if Trump's political standing within the party deteriorates over the next 18 months. Before we let you go, what do you make of his kind of turnabout on her? I mean, yes, he tentally gets very upset when people, people criticize him, especially people he thinks are supposed to support him. Well, pretty much

everywhere. He becomes infuriated when people criticize him or say that he's not doing what he's supposed to do, et cetera. But then within the span of such a short period of time to sort of say, well, you know, I hope she'll think about a return to politics. How do you read that? I think it's classic Trump. I mean, we saw the same thing with the New York mayor on Friday last week. I worked for Marco Rubio in a previous life. You know, you talk about two guys who really went after each other and then became best friends afterwards. I think Trump is one who's quick to turn this page, especially when he wins the back and forth. That is Republican strategist. Alex, Alex, thank you so much.

Thank you. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics Podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor members. messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.

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