MTG breaks with Trump one last time and claims US involvement in Venezuela ‘doesn’t serve’ American people
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, on her final day as congresswoman, was the president’s strongest Republican critic on the Sunday show circuit this week in the wake of a stunning U.S. operation in Venezuela that led to the capture of Nicolas Maduro.
The Republican firebrand was on NBC’s Meet the Press for the last time as a member of the House as she argued that President Donald Trump was once again turning away from the domestic agenda she has argued for months is a reason for the his decreasing popularity among his base.
Her comments come as MAGA Republicans online and on Capitol Hill have largely backed the president’s move, even with polls showing that most Americans do not support military intervention in Venezuela.
“I am not defending Maduro and of course I am happy for the people of Venezuela to be liberated,” Greene said. “[But] this is the same Washington playbook that we are so sick and tired of, that doesn’t serve the American people, but actually serves the big corporations, the banks, and the oil executives.”
“My understanding of America first is strictly for the American people,” she said, adding: “We don’t consider Venezuela our neighborhood.”
“The Trump administration that campaigned on ‘Make America Great Again’ that we thought was putting America First…I want to see domestic policies that prioritize jobs and affordable housing for Americans,” she said.
Greene’s public break with the president began in the fall over the vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files and has led to her taking more prominent stances against him in recent weeks. It extended to the issue of expiring Affordable Care Act health plan subsidies during the government shutdown.
She recently tore apart the president and the culture of Mar-a-Lago’s elite in a revealing profile for The New York Times, in which she said that she was “naive” to think that Trump truly cared about the lower- and middle-income voters he claimed to represent in his three runs for the presidency. Greene also told the paper of Trump’s cold response to a threat she received against her son’s life. The president responded that she supposedly had herself to blame for turning on him.
Her last day in Congress is Monday.
Many critics of the administration, including some conservatives like Greene, have likened the situation to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the mixed results that U.S. officials had in setting up stable governments during the War on Terror. Afghanistan’s government, after two decades of U.S. military and economic support, collapsed under a resurgent Taliban offensive in 2021.
Even Trump supporters, like War Room podcast host Steve Bannon and The American Conservative director Curt Mills, turned to ridiculing the evolving situation in Venezuela over the weekend and raised questions about the administration’s plans for the day after.
Reacting to snap YouGov poll on Sunday — which suggested 46 percent of Americans disapproved Trump’s handling of the situation in Venezuela — Mills wrote: “Catastrophic polling result for a frankly astonishingly effective tactical raid. From a pure amoral perspective, White House burnt political capital / public patience for literally nothing.”
“The president is getting very bad advice,” he added.
The White House and State Department have so far been unable or unwilling to enunciate what that vision for the immediate future of Venezuela will look like. Trump and his secretary of State have been on the same page regarding Venezuela’s requirement to do as the U.S. says and follow the administration’s demands but have been clear about little else, including who the U.S. recognizes currently as the leader of Venezuela with Maduro in custody and his vice president Delia Rodriguez reportedly in hiding in Russia, according to Reuters.
