Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she will resign in January

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the onetime MAGA stalwart from Georgia who dramatically split with President Donald Trump in recent months, announced Friday evening  that she will resign from the House in January.

“I’m going back to the people I love, to live life to the fullest as I always have, and look forward to a new path ahead,” Green said in a video posted on social media. “I will be resigning from office with my last day being Jan. 5, 2025.”

Greene has represented Georgia’s 14th District in the state’s northwest corner since 2021. For most of her time in the House, she was a conservative firebrand and one of Trump’s fiercest defenders in Congress. 

But earlier this year, she publicly broke with the president over the release of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as over the direction of his “America First” agenda and what she saw as his undue focus on foreign policy.

Trump responded by saying she had “lost her way,” and, last weekend, blasted her on his Truth Social platform as “wacky” and a “disgrace” to the GOP. He also said he was withdrawing his endorsement of Greene and suggested the right primary challenger would have his “Complete and Unyielding Support.” 

In her video, which was accompanied by a four-page statement, Greene called the entire episode  “absurd and completely unserious.”

“I do not want my sweet district to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president that we all fought for,” she said.

Trump, in an early Saturday post on Truth Social, referred to Greene as “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown” and said she would’ve had “no chance of winning” against a primary challenger backed by him. But he extended an olive branch of sorts, saying, he would “always appreciate Marjorie, and thank her for her service to our Country!”

Greene had no political experience when she first ran for Congress in the 2020 cycle. She said she had been largely apolitical until 2016, when Trump’s approach to politics and his direct way of speaking caught her attention.

She quickly established herself as a MAGA star, speaking out against gun safety measures and embracing an isolationist approach to foreign policy. She had previously promoted QAnon, a wide-ranging conspiracy theory that alleges a “deep state” plot against Trump but later sought to distance herself from the fringe movement. 

Greene had tangled with House GOP leadership before. In 2024, she threatened to bring down Speaker Mike Johnson over a litany of complaints, including a military aid package for Ukraine. A year earlier, she’d been ousted from the hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus amid reports of disputes with certain members. 

But following Trump’s return to the White House in January, she grew bolder in her criticism and began speaking out against the president directly. She was one of the few Republicans to publicly rebuke him over the Epstein files, joining GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who led the charge to release the documents and has also been the target of Trump’s ire.

After a petition to compel the Justice Department to release the files received the necessary signatures to prompt a vote, Trump reversed course and urged lawmakers to support it. The bill was quickly enacted this week. 

On Friday, Massie said Greene “embodies what a true Representative should be.’’ 

“Everyone should read her statement; there’s more honesty expressed in these four pages than most politicians will speak in a lifetime,” he said on social media.

Greene’s willingness to buck her party’s most powerful figure drew her praise from Trump’s critics on the left. But as her Friday statement made clear, she isn’t walking away from her strong conservative views, such as opposing abortion access and gun control, ending gender-affirming surgery for minors and cracking down on undocumented immigrants.

“Through it all, I never changed or went back on my campaign promises and only disagreed in a few areas,’’ she said, citing her demand to release the Epstein files and several other domestic policies put forth by Trump and his advisers.

“Other than that, my voting record has been solidly with my party and the president,’’ she said. “Loyalty should be a two way street, and we should be able to vote our conscience and represent our district’s interests because our job title is literally representative.”

A special election to fill the remainder of her term will likely be held after Greene resigns from the House on Jan. 5. By then she will have completed five years of congressional service, making her eligible for a pension at age 62, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service.

Jackie Wang contributed to this report.

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