President Trump responds to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s foreign policy criticism
President Donald Trump said Marjorie Taylor Greene had “lost her way” by questioning his foreign policy priorities.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she hopes she and President Donald Trump can reconcile amid intense public conflict over the controversy surrounding sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
“I certainly hope they can reconcile,” Greene told CNN’s Dana Bash on Nov. 17 when asked if there was a path forward for the president and the Georgia Republican. “I can only speak for myself. I’m a Christian, and one of the most important parts of our faith is forgiveness, and I value that.”
Greene noted that she was once one of President Trump’s top allies in the “Make America Great Again” movement. But a rift developed between the two when she pushed the House of Representatives to vote to release all government files on Epstein. The Trump administration blocked its release, contrary to a campaign promise, and now calls the situation a hoax.
“I stand with rape victims, I stand with children who are in situations of severe sexual abuse, I stand with survivors of human trafficking, I stand with people caught in the trap of sex trafficking, and I will not apologize for that,” Greene told CNN.
“I believe that this country deserves transparency in these files, and I don’t believe that the rich and powerful should be protected when they do something wrong. That’s why I stand with the women,” she said.
CNN host Dana Bash referenced Greene’s post to X in an interview in which the congressman said the exchange “really makes you wonder what’s in the file.”
“Are you saying there’s something in the Epstein file that President Trump doesn’t want the American people to see?” Bash asked Greene. Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in his relationship with Epstein, and the two had a major falling out in the 2000s.
“That’s the part that confuses so many people. The women I talked to themselves said over and over again that Donald Trump did nothing wrong,” she said. “A good number of them even said they voted for him. Those are the women I want to support and see in the Oval Office.”
Green noted that Virginia Giuffre, who has accused Epstein of widespread abuse, wrote in her recently published book that she met Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, and that Trump “could not have been friendlier and told me it was great that I was there.”
Although the Georgia conservative firebrand said she was willing to reconcile, she criticized President Trump’s meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Shalah and accused him of raising political temperatures.
Here’s what you need to know:
Greene says U.S. military personnel have been hurt in Syria negotiations
After his landmark meeting with al-Shara last week, President Trump vowed on Monday to do everything in his power to make Syria a success. This will be the first visit to Washington by a Syrian president, and Green noted that al-Shara is a former al-Qaeda commander who was until recently sanctioned by Washington as a foreign terrorist.
- “There are times when I disagree with the president, especially this Monday, on the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Marine Corps, when I praised the new president of Syria, an al-Qaeda terrorist who was wanted by our government for many years,” Greene told CNN.
- “I’m totally against it. I think it’s very hurtful to the great men and women who served and were sent there in the Middle East, and to the many who were killed or injured in the fight against al-Qaeda and who still live with PTSD,” she added.
President Trump said earlier this year that he would order the lifting of sanctions against Syria to give the country a “great chance” of normalizing relations with the new government after the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Greene says President Trump is putting her at risk
The Georgia lawmaker, a longtime right-wing firebrand who has promoted widely condemned conspiracy theories, said he now wants Americans to “end toxic conflict in politics.” She said the most “hurtful” thing Trump said during their divorce was calling her a “traitor.”
- “These words could radicalize people against me and put my life in danger,” Green said.
- The comments came after Ms. Greene claimed in a Nov. 15 post on X that she had “received a call from a private security company warning me of my safety as a hotbed of intimidation against me is fueled and fueled by the most powerful man in the world.”
But Mr. Bash pressed Mr. Greene with harsh political rhetoric about his history, saying, “With all due respect, I’ve never heard you say anything about that until it was directed at you.”
- “Dana, I think that’s a valid criticism,” Ms. Green said. “And I humbly say that I am sorry for participating in politics that is very bad and harmful to our country.”
Contributors: Zach Anderson, Joey Garrison, Erin Mansfield, USA TODAY. Reuters
