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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a Republican who rose to prominence with her combative defense of President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement before breaking with him over releasing the files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, is resigning from Congress.
Greene announced that she is leaving office on January 5, 2026. In a video and written statement to X posted Friday evening, Greene cited Trump’s recent attacks on her and indicated that he would likely back a primary challenge against her.
“I have too much self-respect and dignity, love my family way too much, and do not want my sweet district to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the President we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans lose the midterms. And in turn, be expected to defend the President against impeachment after he hatefully dumped tens of millions of dollars against me and tried to destroy me,” she wrote.
“It’s all so absurd and completely unserious,” she added. “I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes and gets better.”
Greene, elected to the U.S. House in 2020, was an early and vocal backer of Trump and drew controversy for her far-right views when she first got to Congress. In recent months, she has vocally criticized her party and Trump for not addressing voters’ concerns about affordability, particularly around health care. In her statement, she criticized both political parties and staked out positions opposing immigration and gender-affirming care for minors.
Greene also pointed to the recent government shutdown, during which Speaker Mike Johnson kept the House out of session while Democrats largely refused to vote for a funding deal that didn’t include an extension of health care subsidies set to expire at the end of the year.
“During the longest shutdown in our nation’s history, I raged against my own Speaker and my own party for refusing to proactively work diligently to pass a plan to save American healthcare and protect Americans from outrageous, overpriced and unaffordable health insurance policies,” she said. “The House should have been in session working every day to fix this disaster, but instead America was force fed disgusting political drama once again from both sides of the aisle.”
Greene was one of three House Republican women to sign a discharge petition on a bill to compel the release of the Justice Department’s files on Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019.
Trump, in turn, attacked Greene with epithets including “Marjorie Taylor Brown” and “Marjorie Traitor Greene.” In a news conference with Epstein’s survivors on Tuesday, Greene said Trump’s refusal to release the files had been “one of the most destructive things” to his movement.
“For people that stood hours, slept in their cars to go to rallies, have fought for truth and transparency, and to hold what we consider a corrupt government accountable, watching this actually turn into a fight has ripped MAGA apart,” she said. “And the only thing that will speak to the powerful, courageous women behind me is when action is actually taken to release these files.”
Greene has garnered condemnation and was even once stripped of her committee assignments for her long history of online postings spreading conspiracy theories, espousing anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and, in some cases, calling for violence against political figures.
In her recent statements and in the announcement of her plans to resign, Greene said she has faced increased threats following the president’s attacks on her. She’s not alone in Congress in having Trump’s words lead to threats. On Thursday, Trump attacked a group of congressional Democrats as having committed “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”; the lawmakers reported spikes in threats to their offices.
In a November 16 interview on CNN, Greene said it was “a fair criticism” of her that she did not denounce Trump’s attacks on social media until he attacked her. The September assassination of Turning Point USA founder and conservative leader Charlie Kirk, she said, had given her pause.
“I would like to say, humbly, I’m sorry for taking part in the toxic politics,” she told CNN’s Dana Bash. “It’s very bad for our country. And it’s been something I’ve thought about a lot, especially since Charlie Kirk was assassinated, is that I’m only responsible for myself and my own words and actions. I am going, I am committed, and I’ve been working on this a lot lately, to put down the knives and politics. I really just want to see people be kind to one another.”
Greene won reelection in 2024 by almost 30 points. Her replacement in the heavily Republican district will be chosen in a special election.
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