Marjorie Taylor Greene knocks Trump for not focusing on domestic issues

In a high-profile interview, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., criticized President Donald Trump, accusing his former political ally turned enemy of inciting death threats against her and her son and failing to keep his campaign promise to focus on improving the lives of Americans.

“For an ‘America First’ president, the number one priority should have been domestic policy, and it wasn’t. And so, of course, I was critical, because those were my campaign promises,” Greene said in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” “Once we get everything sorted out here, then fine, we’ll talk to the rest of the world.”

Later, CBS News’ Lesley Stahl asked Greene, “Are you MAGA?”

“I am America first. … MAGA is President Trump’s phrase. It’s his political policy,” Greene said, referring to Trump’s signature motto, “Make America Great Again.” “My name is America First.”

Other Republicans, on Capitol Hill and elsewhere, have expressed frustration that Trump and the Republican Party are not doing enough to address Americans’ concerns about affordability. But in recent days, Trump has highlighted falling gasoline prices and issued an executive order directing his administration to investigate anticompetitive behavior that could affect food supply chains.

“In a short period of time, President Trump has already delivered on many of the promises he was elected to make. He has secured the border, tackled Biden’s inflationary crisis, lowered drug prices, ended taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security, cooled inflation, deported criminal illegal aliens, implemented important reforms putting American workers first, and much more,” said White House Press Secretary Abigail Jackson, in a statement Sunday evening.

“As the architect of the MAGA movement, President Trump will always put America first. Every day, he works hard to continue to deliver on the many promises he has made and he will continue to deliver on them,” she said.

Greene spoke to “60 Minutes” following her shocking announcement last month that she would resign from office in January, a year before her term ends. Her decision came after she broke with Trump and other party leaders and signed a bipartisan discharge petition that forced a successful vote in the House to compel the release of government files on Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump referred to Greene, a hard-line conservative who at one point had been one of his staunchest defenders on Capitol Hill, as “Marjorie Traitor Greene.” When Greene complained that she was receiving death threats because of Trump, he dismissed her concerns: “I don’t think her life is in danger. … I don’t think anyone cares about her.”

In the “60 Minutes” interview, Greene said that while Trump opposed the release of the Epstein files and called her a traitor, he met with controversial foreign leaders and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.

“He did it at the same time that President Trump brought in the al-Qaeda leader wanted by the U.S. government, who is now president of Syria. Then, in less than a week, he brought in Crown Prince MBS, who murdered an American journalist,” Greene said, referring to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “And then he brought in the newly elected democratic socialist mayor of New York. That’s when he called me a traitor.”

When Stahl asked if Trump had run her out of town, Greene replied, “No, not at all…I’m not going to be anyone’s battered wife…and I’m not going to allow the system to mistreat me again.”

Greene recounted a phone call in which Trump tried to persuade her to drop the request for release over the Epstein files.

“We talked about the Epstein files, and he was extremely angry with me because I had signed the release petition to release the files,” she told Stahl. “I fully believe that these women deserve everything they’re asking for. They’re asking for this to be made public; they deserve it. And he was furious with me… He said this was going to hurt people.”

Ultimately, Greene and three other House Republicans did not buckle under pressure from Trump. The Epstein bill was introduced and all but one House member voted for Trump’s Justice Department to release the records; the Senate passed the bill unanimously, and Trump quietly signed it.

But because of Trump’s anger, Greene said, she and her son faced numerous death threats. She said she sent Trump messages she received threatening her son’s life and called Trump’s response “extremely nasty.”

She expanded on their exchange in a thread on X earlier Sunday, saying Trump “responded with harsh accusatory responses and no sympathy.”

“I also sent these threats to [FBI] Director Kash Patel and thankfully he responded ‘on that’ and I sent these threats to VP JD Vance who responded quickly with kindness and sympathy,” Greene posted on X.

In the “60 Minutes” interview, Greene dismissed speculation that her very public breakup with Trump is because she wants to run for president in 2028.

“I have no plans, no desire to run for president. I would hate the Senate. I’m not running for governor,” Greene said. “But, Lesley, no matter how many times I say it, I’ll have face-to-face conversations with people, and I’ll tell them straight to their face, and they won’t believe me.

“And they say, ‘Oh yeah, sure.’ Wink, wink. And I don’t know how to make it clearer.