House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Monday addressed the rift between President Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) after Greene said the president’s attacks regarding her stance on files related to late child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein put her life in danger.
“The president has called Marjorie Taylor Greene a traitor. She says it’s impacting her security and safety. Would you advise the president to stop calling her a traitor?” CNN correspondent Manu Raju asked Johnson on Monday in the U.S. Capitol.
“I don’t — look, it’s not surprising the president is frustrated because of some of the criticisms that Marjorie had been out stating to the media,” Johnson replied.
Noting that “[Greene] criticizes me all the time,” the speaker added, “but I work on unity in the party, and my encouragement of everybody is to get together.”
Trump has downplayed Greene’s concerns, telling reporters Sunday that he doesn’t “think anybody cares about her.”
Greene and Trump’s feud hit a new level of contention after the president withdrew his support for her in a heated Truth Social post on Friday, then followed with a post calling her a “traitor” on Saturday.
Greene slammed Trump’s name-calling and argued that “those are the types of words used that can radicalize people against me and put my life in danger.” She also called Trump’s repeated attacks against her “a dog whistle to dangerous radicals that could lead to serious attacks on me and my family.”
Speaking at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Greene responded to Trump’s use of the word “traitor.”
“Let me tell you what a traitor is. A traitor is an American that serves foreign countries and themselves,” she said. “A patriot is an American that serves the United States of America and Americans like the women standing behind me now.”
Greene previously decried that Trump’s foreign policies are “not America first positions” — a reference to Trump’s go-to political and foreign policy slogan.
Elsewhere in her speech, Greene also said Trump “called me a traitor for standing with these women and [for] refusing to take my name off the discharge petition,” noting that the Epstein drama “has ripped MAGA apart.”
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