Marjorie Taylor Greene Predicts A Gop Bloodbath In The Midterms

Republicans are going to get “slaughtered” in the midterms — losing the House and maybe even the Senate. This prediction isn’t coming from Hakeem Jeffries or Chuck Schumer but from former Republican Congresswoman and MAGA firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene.

For six years, Greene was one of President Donald Trump’s most loyal allies and became an influential and polarizing voice in the Republican Party. But the Greene-Trump relationship ruptured late last year over her push to release the so-called Epstein files, leading to her abrupt resignation from Congress. Now, she’s one of Trump’s loudest critics, calling his military action in Iran “evil and madness” and endorsing the use of the 25th Amendment to remove him for being unable to fulfill the duties of his office.

“I was so shocked by his statement of taking out an entire civilization of people,” Greene said in an interview with The Conversation. “To me, that displayed a severe mental state.”

Greene’s very public fallout with the president underscores a deeper fracture inside the MAGA movement and raises new questions about what “America First” actually means. In the short-term, however, the divide is likely to undermine the GOP in November.

In the special election to replace Greene this past week, Democrats cut deep into Republican margins in the ruby-red seat. It was a sign, Greene said, that Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff — perhaps the most vulnerable Democratic senator — would be reelected.

As for her own political identity, Greene said she didn’t know if she still considered herself a Republican. “I’m definitely leaning more [toward] calling myself an independent.” So, would she ever run as a third-party candidate?

“I have no idea, honestly. I’m very much enjoying life out of politics,” she said. “I can’t even begin to answer that.”

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. Listen here for the full conversation.

There are people in the movement who say you’ve changed, that you're not quite the same. I know you said you haven't changed any of your positions, but the evolution of Marjorie Taylor Greene has taken a lot of folks by surprise.

Well, I think everyone’s not used to someone that’s willing to criticize both parties. Everyone expected me to, when a Republican president came in and Republicans were in control, everyone expected me to continue my criticism of Democrats.

However, I’ve always been critical of both sides. For me, it’s just about being honest in what I see and places that I see are failures, and I took responsibility as a Republican member of Congress to call it out when our side, Republicans, were failing and we’re in charge.

I’m curious if you agree with this assessment: It’s less about your positions changing, but there’s something about the way that you communicate your message that has evolved. Do you agree with that? And if so, what’s behind that?

Yeah, I would agree with that. That probably did change over time. I would say that was learning the ways of Washington, probably some maturity, growing into the role. You have to remember, when I came in as a member of Congress, I had never served in any government capacity, not at the state level, not in any level. I had never even been to a GOP meeting until I walked into one and said I was running for Congress.

I would say when I came on the scene in 2021, I was the most naïve member of Congress. I was your very average American that had my lens of government, and I came from that perspective. I had to get in there and I had to learn some hard lessons, learn the ropes, figure out how it worked and it took me a while.

And you know, I had also been criticized so much. The press was not nice to me. Many of my own colleagues were not nice to me. And the Democrats hated my guts.

You weren’t too nice to the press or your colleagues either to be honest.

No, I wasn’t. Everything felt combative when I got to Washington D.C. It was microphones and cameras in your face with hard questions that were coming fast. I’d never done that before. And the dynamics of Washington D.C., the two political parties, it is just a constant war. And so that makes it hard to have any good dialogue.

Now there are several moments where you have taken the side of Democrats, including very recently you called for the president to be removed from office, joining Democrats in wanting to invoke the 25th Amendment. Do you think at this point that America would be better off without President Trump?

I was so shocked by his statement of taking out an entire civilization of people. That is rhetoric that we have never heard from any president of the United States and I don’t think any world [leader]. I was so, so disturbed by that. And to me, that displayed a severe mental state, that someone would say those words.

Would JD Vance make a better president than Trump at this point?

I believe so, yes.

Is Trump still the leader of the MAGA movement?

He claims that MAGA is whatever he says it is so I don’t associate with the new MAGA that he created once he became president.

The OG MAGA, who do you think is or should be the leader of MAGA as you see it?

I think it’s all divided right now. Obviously President Trump still has significant support, according to polls and anyone that identifies themselves as MAGA very much supports President Trump. However, the reality of what’s happened in that base is it’s very fractured.

There’s the “America First” lane of the Republican Party. There’s the Republican voter that calls themselves MAGA. Then there’s your traditional Republican voters. Then you’ve got more moderate voters.

The most interesting conversation to have is it’s a generational divide. The people 50, 55, and up that watch Fox News literally all day on their television, like a lot of elder people I know, I would say they are receiving propaganda news that they’re watching all day long. They’re being fed news that is framed and stories that reference only this rosy view of what President Trump is doing and the White House and MAGA. I think they’re being misled because if you watch all angles of news and if you watch international news, if you follow stories on the internet and you're pretty smart and try to figure out OK, that’s fake, OK, this story’s real, you get a completely different viewpoint than the people that watch Fox News all day.

I’ll say this: This pro-war, the neocon whatever this new gross version of MAGA is, it’s not going to last because the younger generations just don’t support it.

Given all of the fractures that you're talking about, what do you think the outlook is for Republicans in the midterms this year?

Oh, I’ve been saying, I think I said it early in 2025, Republicans are going to get slaughtered in the midterms and —

Does that mean losing the House or the House and the Senate?

I think right now it’s definitely losing the House and potentially the Senate.

This week, there was kind of a bellwether actually in your district.

Uh-huh.

The election to fill your seat, the Republican won. Clay Fuller won, but not by the margins you won by, certainly not by the margins that the president won the district by.

Uh-huh.

What do you make of that outcome?

I was never worried about my seat slipping blue. That was never a concern. And of course, I’ve congratulated Clay Fuller. I’ve talked to him. I wish him the best and hopefully he serves the district. I think the graver warning sign is the gigantic drop in Republican votes in that special election. Clay Fuller, he was [up] around 11 or 12...

12 points, yeah. Trump won by 37 in ’24.

Right. And I was close to 30. And so that gigantic drop is really a danger, a big warning sign for statewide elections in 2026. Of course, it matches what we’re seeing nationwide where Democrats are flipping Republican seats all over the country. But I think the danger zone in that one is very much the potential that Georgia could flip blue.

Did you vote for Fuller?

I support Republicans. Yeah, I supported the Republican candidate.

Do you think Jon Ossoff is going to win Georgia in November?

Yes, I think Ossoff’s going to win.

Wow.

Yeah, his polling numbers have repeatedly showed it over and over again. And again, I’ll point out, if [Democratic congressional candidate] Shawn Harris was able to dig in that deep into a red district like my former district, that is definitely something to watch for in these other key races.

And voters’ frustration with Congress, and this is on both sides of the aisle. Voters are not thrilled.

No.

For Republicans, Mike Johnson is the leader in the House right now. Should he be in 2027?

No, absolutely not. I don’t think he should be the speaker right now. He’s been a terrible speaker, very unsuccessful.

Let’s talk about your own future for a minute because you’ve retired from Congress. You’ve said pretty intently that you don’t plan to run for office again. But here you are. You’re still very public and you seem intent on maintaining a voice in the party and in the movement. Why is that?

Because I do care deeply about the country. And I care about my children’s generation, Gen Z. And I think there’s a lot of changes that can be made, and I hope to be impactful in that way. I think both parties are a complete failure and the results prove it, right?

You’ve said that both parties need to be burned down to the ground.

Yes.

I know you said you vote for Republicans, but do you still consider yourself a Republican?

I don’t really know if I do consider myself one right now. I would say I’m definitely leaning more [toward] calling myself an independent.

Have you gone so far as to change your registration yet?

I haven’t. Not yet. But I will probably think pretty deeply about doing that. I think that’s where many Americans are finding themselves.

I had tweeted at Ro Khanna this morning. He’s mentioned pulling together a coalition from the left and the right and trying to find a new center because the current center has got us where we are. I am very interested in going to a whiteboard and going “OK, let’s come together and what does this even look like and how can we reimagine a new coalition going forward? And I think that’s what the younger generations want. I think that could be the future. And so I’m interested in that conversation.

Would you ever run as a third-party candidate?

I have no idea, honestly. I’m very much enjoying life out of politics. So I can’t even begin to answer that.

Would you consider voting for someone that calls themselves a Democrat?

Well, it’s hard for me because I have some issues that I very much care about, like I’m pro-life. I’m very much against [gender] transitioning for children. I don’t care what adults do. Honestly, adults can do whatever they want. If a man wants to get a boob job, fine; go get your boob job. But for me, it’s kids and how kids are affected by that. So those are issues that are important to me.

I’m conservative also. I care about the debt. I care about what happens to our tax dollars. I’m very concerned about Social Security. I don’t think you and I are ever going to see a Social Security check even though we’ve been paying into it all of our adult working lives. I foresee serious problems there. I can’t say I can see myself voting for a Democrat candidate.

But I am interested in looking for candidates that are willing to put these special interest issues aside and find new common ground issues that can truly serve America, America first. That’s what I care about. America first. No more foreign wars, no more money to foreign countries, let’s keep our money here and figure out how to help Americans.

So we could see a Majorie Taylor Greene and Ro Khanna team up potentially down the line?

Well, we teamed up on the Epstein files with Thomas Massie, and Ro Khanna was the leader on the Democrat side that really helped make that happen. And it was impressive.

It’s really something to think about you two in a room with a whiteboard trying to figure out a new political party. That says a lot about the political moment we’re in right now.

I think it’s needed, and hopefully we would have some other smart people in the room. But it’s a conversation that I think is at least worth having.