Spencer Platt/Getty Images (L)/Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images (R)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) went scorched earth on President Donald Trump in a New York Times profile on Monday, trashing the president’s claim to Christian faith and stressing her stand on the Epstein files as what sent her over the edge.
Greene, who spent years as a staunch Trump loyalist, recounted her stay with the president to the Times reporter Robert Draperand claimed that she was “naïve” for being part of what she called a “toxic” political culture that she said she found to be in contradiction with her Christian faith.
After now finding herself branded a “traitor” by the president and his most uncomfortable Republican critics, Greene explained that her break with Trump increased after the killing of a conservative activist in September. Charlie Kirkwhich she recalled as a pivotal moment.
Watching Kirk’s memorial service, Greene said she was struck by the contrast between Kirk’s widow’s forgiveness, Erika Kirkand Trump’s remarks on stage that, unlike Kirk, he chooses to “hate” his “opponent”.
“It just shows where his heart is,” she later sent to Draper, adding: “It just shows where his heart is. And that’s the difference, because hers has a sincere Christian faith, and it proves that he has no faith.”
Greene told the Times the episode forced calculations with the person brawler who said that Trump helped to normalize and that she had participated in it.
“Our side has been trained by Donald Trump to never apologize and to never admit when you’re wrong,” she said. “You keep beating your enemies, no matter what. And as a Christian, I don’t believe in doing that. I agree with Erika Kirk, who did the hardest thing possible and said it out loud.”
“Afterwards Charlie died,” Greene told Draper on another occasion. “I realized that I am part of this toxic culture. I really started to look at my faith. I wanted to be more like Christ.”
From Trump’s perspective, Greene insisted, the real rupture was her position on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
“It was Epstein. Epstein was everything,” she told the Times.
Greene pushed to force the release of investigative material, arguing that it symbolizes elite impunity: “Rich and powerful elites do horrible things and get away with it. And women are the victims.”
The break gave way to broader criticism of what she believes was Trump and congressional Republicans’ divergence from America First policymaking, which angered fellow Republican lawmakers and resulted in the president branding her a “traitor.”
“Will he be killed, or one of my children, because he is calling me a traitor?” she said she asked herself after a pipe bomb threat and an anonymous email targeting her son.
Shortly after she announced that she was going to retire from Congress, but all the while she insisted that she had not changed – MAGA did.
“Everybody’s like, ‘She’s changed,'” Greene told Draper. “I haven’t changed my views. But I’ve matured. I’ve developed depth.”
She added: “I learned in Washington, and I came to understand the brokenness of the place. If none of us are learning lessons here and we can’t evolve and mature with our lessons, then what kind of people are we?”
The post Marjorie Taylor Greene Goes Burnt Earth on Trump in Splashy NYT Feature — She Claims ‘He Has No Faith’ and Her Epstein Stand Was the Last Straw first appeared on Mediaite.