Marjorie Taylor Greene's Puzzling Political Turn, Explained
Fresh Air
NPR
4.4 • 34.4K Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2026
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Once a fierce advocate for Trump and his MAGA base, Marjorie Taylor Greene has broken with the president and resigned from Congress. ‘New Yorker’ staff writer Charles Bethea discusses Greene's past — and what may lie ahead. He spoke with Fresh Air contributor Dave Davies.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Support for NPR, and the following message come from Yarl and Pamela Mohn, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen. |
| 0:10.5 | This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies. Since she was elected to Congress five years ago, no one has been a more combative advocate for Donald Trump than Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Green. |
| 0:23.0 | No one that is, until lately. Green defied the president by joining Democrats on legislation to force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. |
| 0:32.0 | And she's criticized Trump's policies on tariffs, Israel, cryptocurrency, and not extending subsidies for the Affordable Care Act policies, a key issue in the government shut down. |
| 0:43.3 | And on Sunday, a day after President Trump announced the U.S. military assault in Caracas to arrest Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro and his wife, |
| 0:52.5 | Green appeared on NBC's Meet the Press and condemned the operation as exactly the kind of foreign military intervention he and the MAGA movement have campaigned against. |
| 1:02.7 | I am not defending Maduro, and of course I'm happy for the people of Venezuela to be liberated. |
| 1:08.1 | But Americans celebrated the liberation of the Iraqi people after |
| 1:12.6 | Saddam Hussein. |
| 1:13.7 | They celebrated the liberation of the Libyan people after Gaddafi. |
| 1:18.0 | And this is the same Washington playbook that we are so sick and tired of that doesn't serve |
| 1:24.4 | the American people, but actually serves the big corporations, the banks, and the oil executives. |
| 1:31.3 | That was Marjorie Taylor Green on Meet the Press. |
| 1:34.4 | Trump has condemned Green calling her a traitor to the MAGA movement, and he's rescinded his endorsement of her. |
| 1:40.5 | In November, Green made the surprise announcement in an 11-minute video that she would resign from her congressional seat in the middle of her term. |
| 1:48.5 | Green's last day in Congress was yesterday. |
| 1:51.5 | Her turnabout is so drastic it's giving political pundits whiplash as they see her appearances on CNN, 60 Minutes, Bill Maher, and the ABC daytime show The View. |
| 2:02.6 | For some insight into Green's defection and what it means for Washington politics and the MAGA |
| 2:07.8 | movement, we turn to Charles Bethay, who's been writing about Marjorie Taylor Green since she |
| 2:12.7 | first ran for office in 2020. |
| 2:15.3 | Bethay is a staff writer for The New Yorker who focuses on the South in his reporting. |
| 2:19.9 | Before joining the New Yorker, he wrote for a variety of publications and was an editor |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 18 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.