President Donald Trump on Monday delivered a sharp rebuke of Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a onetime ally who has become increasingly critical of the president in recent months.
“I don’t know what happened to Marjorie,” he told reporters at an Oval Office press conference. “Nice woman. But I don’t know what happened, she’s lost her way, I think.”
Greene emerged as a vocal opponent of Republican strategy during the government shutdown, accusing party leadership of failing to focus on healthcare as Democrats pushed in vain for an extension on expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Trump’s comments came in response to a question about a Monday social media post from the three-term lawmaker in which she said: “I would really like to see nonstop meetings at the WH on domestic policy not foreign policy and foreign country’s leaders.”
The president hosted Syrian leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa at the White House on Monday, the next step in his work on fostering diplomacy in the Middle East and shore up relations with Damascus, almost one year after Al-Sharaa’s forces took down authoritarian leader Bashar Assad.
“I have to view the presidency as a worldwide situation, not locally,” Trump said. “We could have a world that’s on fire where wars come to our shores very easily if you had a bad president.”
Greene has also pressured the White House to release more information about the files related to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and is one of several Republicans who signed a discharge petition to force a floor vote on their release. In July, she bucked the GOP establishment by calling out the “genocide, humanitarian crisis and starvation” in Gaza, accusing Israel of committing a genocide.
Trump accused her of “now catering to the other side.”
“When somebody like Marjorie goes over and starts making statements like that, it shows she doesn’t know,” he said.
Greene’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
