USA After dispute with Trump: hardliner Greene resigns from office

SDA

22.11.2025 - 06:19

Republican Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (2nd from left) and Thomas Massie (right) react during a press conference on the Epstein Files Transparency Act in front of the US Capitol. Photo: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP/dpa
Republican Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (2nd from left) and Thomas Massie (right) react during a press conference on the Epstein Files Transparency Act in front of the US Capitol. Photo: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP/dpa
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From ardent supporter to fierce opponent: following a public rift with US President Donald Trump, right-wing hardliner Marjorie Taylor Greene has announced her resignation as a Republican member of the House of Representatives.

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She will resign her seat on January 5, 2026, she announced in a ten-minute video message on the X platform. In it, Greene criticized Trump - and settled accounts with the political establishment in Washington as a whole.

It remains to be seen whether Greene will also turn her back on her party. The 51-year-old did not comment directly on her future plans. However, she hinted that her days in politics may not be over. There was immediate speculation on social media that she might seek the Republican presidential nomination in the 2028 election.

Consequences of the Epstein scandal

The US President withdrew his support from his party colleague Greene a week ago and described her as "crazy". The background to this was a disagreement over the publication of investigation files on the case of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Greene took a confrontational stance towards the President and demanded a complete release. Trump had initially vehemently rejected the publication of the documents. However, he relented when it became clear that a bipartisan majority would be found in the House of Representatives.

Greene expressed her frustration in her statement: If she stood up for American women who had been abused, "I should not be called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, who I fought for, for doing so".

Trump wanted to support opposing candidates

After the rift, Trump also threatened Greene with supporting an internal party candidate with a view to the election for the House of Representatives in a year's time. Other conservatives had also become "fed up with her and her antics", Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform around a week ago. "I can't take calls from a rabble-rousing lunatic every day," he continued.

Greene has now declared that she will not expose herself to a "hurtful and hateful" internal party primary campaign instigated by Trump for her mandate in order to win and then watch the Republicans "probably lose the election".

Greene: Loyalty should go both ways

Referring to the president, Greene went on to write: "I fought harder than almost any other elected Republican to put Donald Trump and the Republicans in power." Loyalty should go both ways, she demanded. Greene has represented a constituency in the southern state of Georgia in Congress since 2021.

A right-wing hardliner

After entering Parliament, she quickly gained national recognition as one of the leading hardliners of the right wing of her party. For years, the MP stood out as an ardent supporter of Trump and advocated ultra-conservative positions - for example on abortion and gun rights as well as immigration policy. The MP also repeatedly glorified violence and made racist statements.

Most recently, Greene has increasingly positioned herself as a leading representative of the more isolationist "America First" wing of the Republican party, which primarily wants to address the problems of ordinary citizens - and not international crises such as those in the Middle East or the war in Ukraine.

Greene: I was always despised

In her statement, Greene claimed to have represented ordinary Americans in Congress, which is why she had always been despised in political Washington. She never belonged, she said.

With a view to the congressional elections in November 2026, she criticized the fact that Washington was already going into campaign mode. In the vote, all members of the House of Representatives and around a third of the senators will be newly elected.

Trump cannot run again in the 2028 presidential election. So far, he has indicated that his Vice President JD Vance would be the logical successor. However, Vance could also face opponents in the internal party struggle for the Republican presidential nomination.