President Trump is seeking to reassert his dominance while waging war with detractors like Marjorie Taylor Greene during the 2026 primary campaign.
President Trump cuts ties with Marjorie Taylor Greene over Epstein scandal
President Trump has said he will no longer support Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and encouraged people to challenge her in the Georgia Republican primary.
DALTON, Ga. — Carl Hunter sat alone, enjoying his breakfast (an omelet with toast and hash browns) at Perfect Cup, a neighborhood corner store that patrons say serves the best soup in downtown Dalton, Georgia.
Early voting just began at the Whitfield County Courthouse just down the street, where residents of a staunchly conservative Congressional district are seeking to replace former Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, once considered President Donald Trump’s chief ally in Congress.
“I didn’t like her character. I just thought she was over the top,” Hunter told USA TODAY. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I wasn’t happy with her. I’m sure she had some good points.”
Hunter, an 87-year-old Army veteran, moved to Dalton in the late 1950s to work in the rural area’s dominant carpet industry. He said it will take time to sort through the 16 candidates seeking to replace Greene, but her “sassy” attitude will not go unnoticed.
“I didn’t think she was the right person for the job,” Hunter added.
Trump and Greene were once close allies. The former congressman is a leader of the Make America Great Again movement and vowed during the 2024 campaign that Trump’s return to power would “make us wealthy again.”
But the relationship turned public over disagreements, including the release of Justice Department files on Jeffrey Epstein, a sex offender and friend of President Trump, that culminated in Greene’s resignation from Congress in January. The rift between the two threatens to split the MAGA coalition in the 2026 election.
At the start of the midterm primaries, Trump has been at war with detractors within the Republican Party, hoping for a dominant performance from his favorite candidate, state prosecutor Clay Fuller, on March 10 to remain the party’s kingmaker. Trump is leading a rally in his precinct on February 19th.
On the day a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed nurse Alex Preti in Minneapolis, Fuller said he wanted to triple the budget for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and nominate all ICE agents for the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“When I’m at the Capitol, I’ll be rooting for President Trump. I’m sure the ICE agents will be rooting for me too,” he said in a Jan. 24 X post.
“There are a lot of people trying to replace Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene,” President Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on February 16, the day early voting began. “There are so many candidates and I have to choose one, but they say the one I support will win.”
Georgia’s 14th Congressional District is located in the northwest corner of the state, skirting the suburbs of Atlanta and extending into the mountainous Appalachian region on the border with Tennessee. The country is rated 19 points more Republican than the nation as a whole, according to the Cook Political Report.
But polls show President Trump’s approval ratings are facing record lows ahead of the midterm elections, and Greene is just one of several notable defectors among conservative lawmakers.
Greene did slightly better than Trump in the district when she first ran in 2020, beating the president by about 1.5 percentage points. However, her approval rating was 8 points lower than Trump’s in the 2024 race.
“This very public altercation with Marjorie Taylor Greene is the Sumter fortress of the MAGA civil war, and it started with the Epstein file and the way the Trump administration mishandled this,” Tara Setmeyer, former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, told USA TODAY.
“The fact that she started out as a vocal supporter of Donald Trump and has long been seen as a torch bearer for MAGA, especially the fact that she spoke out and called those things out during the last shutdown, was a turning point.”
Which side of the split between Trump and MTG do MAGA voters think they are on?
Much of the campaign has been focused on the rivalry between Trump and Greene, but conservative activists and longtime politicians warn outsiders should be wary of overestimating the impact of her defection.
Chip Lake, a Republican strategist who was a senior adviser to former football player Herschel Walker’s 2022 Georgia Senate campaign, said it was “fair to view this as a political divorce” between the two, but that Trump remains beloved.
“Marjorie has been very public about the fact that she’s trying to change her political brand, and if she does that, she’s going to get new people, but she’s going to lose some of the people she’s got,” Lake said. “Even if voters have favorable opinions of both the president and Marjorie, they may choose Donald Trump in the event of a divorce.”
Trump’s endorsement of Fuller didn’t do much to clear the field, but it’s considered the best predictor of where MAGA voters will flock.
Only two of the 18 candidates withdrew after the president announced their support for Fuller, who has defended Trump’s economic record and strongly supported immigration enforcement efforts.
The remaining candidates include former state Sen. Colton Moore, who gained national attention last year when he was arrested at the state Capitol for allegedly insulting the late Georgia House speaker and resisting an order barring him from entering the statehouse.
Moore, who called Greene a “storm-wrecked yacht” on social media, has also received support from prominent figures in conservative circles, including gun rights activist Kyle Rittenhouse.
If no candidate receives a majority, the election will proceed to a runoff between the top two candidates. Experts say that’s likely given the large number of candidates, including the lone Democrat, Sean Harris.
“I’m disappointed that they called my name,” Patrick Carell, 71, said outside the Whitfield County Courthouse where early voting began on Feb. 16. “I think we’ve lost respect for the office. Maybe it’s time for reform.”
Greene walked out, saying she was “a little happy,” adding that while she is a Republican, she would not have voted for the congresswoman, who is known for making inflammatory comments, such as comparing the COVID-19 mask mandate to the 2021 Holocaust (she later apologized).
Some Republicans in the district who supported Greene expressed regret at her falling out with Trump.
“She seemed like a very ardent supporter of President Trump, which I was very happy about. And then she was here in Georgia and suddenly she quit,” said Michael DePaolo, a 62-year-old Air Force veteran who lives in Rome, Georgia. “I’ve always been taught to never quit.”
Conversely, Democrats in GA-14 are happy to see their opposition divided.
Sandra Spong, 78, said she came to the Rome election center on Feb. 17 to “do the right thing” and pull the lever for Harris, a retired brigadier general who lost to Greene in the 2024 election by about 29 percentage points. The longtime Democrat said Trump used to praise Greene, but “now he’s calling her really bad names.”
The Epstein file is not a top priority for voters
Despite being at the heart of the split between Greene and Trump, the Epstein file was not highlighted as an important issue by many voters.
Gregory Washington, 28, who works in Dalton’s public defender’s office, said, “I would like to see the files released, but there were more important issues to focus on.” The U.S. government said it is more focused on the economy, tariffs and immigration.
President Trump is expected to tout his economic policy agenda during his Feb. 19 visit, part of a massive national rally tour aimed at mobilizing his support base for the 2026 congressional elections.
For example, a Pew Research Center poll released on January 29 found that 56% of Republicans said they approved of all or most of Mr. Trump’s ideas, down from 67% who said the same last year.
“The numbers look good,” Karel said, citing economic indicators such as the stock market. “But I’m retired and from a personal perspective, my monthly expenses, mainly food and insurance, are going through the roof.” .
DePaolo said he voted for Moore. Moore is described on his website as running as Trump’s “number one defender,” with the slogan “God, Guns, Trump.” He said the former state lawmaker is “picking up where (Greene) left off” but not with the Epstein file in mind.
Rather, I like that Moore is focused on “getting[illegal immigrants]out of here,” gun rights, and countering growing global influence.
“You’re Brainwashed”: Where Does MTG Go From Here?
On February 17, Greene slammed Trump’s insults, accusing the Trump administration of deliberately using the conspiracy theory group known as QAnon to manipulate its supporters. She argues that advocates are rightly focused on the ongoing Epstein scandal.
In a post on X, Greene told a woman who said she worked on Trump’s campaign to “wake up.” “You’re brainwashed.”
Asked about Greene’s proposal on X, the White House blamed her former Congressional ally.
“President Trump is the undisputed leader of the Republican Party,” White House press secretary Davis Engle told USA TODAY. “Marjorie Taylor Greene is a former member of Congress, a traitor, and a resignant.”
Mr. Green, who could not be reached for comment, said he would not support a candidate to replace him. Several Republican operatives in Georgia told USA TODAY that supporting Greene would hurt the candidate after her clash with Trump.
Brian Robinson, a longtime staffer to former Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, said the spat did nothing to dent Trump’s popularity, but said Greene’s stock suffered.
“While her district’s polling numbers certainly plummeted as people saw her posting about President Trump, I think there’s still a lot of good feeling toward her locally,” he said.
Some argue that the beef stems from the White House reportedly removing Greene from her race against Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia’s 2026 election.
The Wall Street Journal reported in May 2025 that Trump’s political team commissioned a poll that showed Greene losing to Ossoff by a double-digit margin. The president is said to have shared the results with Greene and urged her not to run.
Robinson campaigned in the 2020 Republican primary for neurosurgeon John Cowan, who lost to Greene in the runoff by 15 percentage points and easily won the general election. He said the White House is being realistic about Greene’s chances.
“Her profile works very well in a district that is overwhelmingly Republican,” Robinson said. “She can make big statements, she can make sharp statements, she can take sharp positions. She can do all that and people might like it. She’s not the kind of person who’s going to do well statewide in the Georgia general election.”
This overwhelmingly Republican profile means the district will likely soon have a lawmaker with the same pro-Trump fervor that Greene had six years ago.
