The New York Times reports:

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the right-wing Republican from Georgia, did not appreciate being threatened by the White House over her backing for a bill ordering the release of the Epstein files.

So after a Trump official put out word that doing so would be viewed as a “very hostile act,” she called a top West Wing aide to push back.

“I told them, ‘You didn’t get me elected. I do not work for you; I work for my district,’” she recounted recently during a wide-ranging interview in her office on Capitol Hill. “We aren’t supposed to just be whipped on our votes because they’re telling us what to do with this scary threat, or saying ‘We’ll primary you,’ or that we won’t get invited to the White House events.”

“Me personally? I don’t care,” Ms. Greene went on. These days, when she encounters tactics like that from Mr. Trump’s team, she added, “I’m like, ‘[Expletive] you.’”

After arriving in Congress in 2021 as something of a joke and a pariah in her own party, known for making bigoted remarks and amplifying QAnon conspiracy theories, Ms. Greene evolved into a team player. She still sometimes spouted groundless claims and racist remarks, but also wielded some measure of influence by aligning herself closely with former Representative Kevin McCarthy, then speaker of the House, who in turn reined in her more extreme impulses.

But those days are all now behind her. Ms. Greene is no longer a team player for Republicans in Congress. And she is no longer seen as a joke.

She is now operating as a powerful free agent with considerable self-regard and a big chip on her shoulder. She appears to feel no obligation to anyone in Washington — certainly not to Speaker Mike Johnson, whom she tried to oust last year for allowing a vote on continued U.S. aid to Ukraine, and increasingly not even to Mr. Trump.

On a variety of topics including the release of documents related to the case against the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the war in Gaza, artificial intelligence and America’s involvement in Iran and Ukraine, Ms. Greene has broken sharply with the man she still calls “my favorite president.”

But Mr. Trump in recent months has tested the limits of the unflagging loyalty that his base has previously shown him. And Ms. Greene’s stalwart positions have revealed a fraying at the edges of the MAGA movement.

“From where the base is, she’s right on every issue — and pushing things, going where the puck is going,” said Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump adviser and host of the “War Room” podcast.

Many Republicans in Congress still act giddy when Mr. Trump calls them by their first names, and dutifully fall in line with his every pronouncement. But Ms. Greene, long one of Mr. Trump’s most loyal allies, no longer appears to have stars in her eyes about the president.

“It changes when someone goes into office,” Ms. Greene said, choosing her words carefully to avoid criticizing the president directly. “Any president — they’re in a cone of information that they’re being provided. That’s a serious factor happening.”

She added: “If I can move President Trump out of there, I think he’s on the right page. I think it’s a matter of who is talking in his ear.”

But recently Ms. Greene has been willing to point out when Mr. Trump has strayed from the MAGA messages and positions that got him — and her — elected, leading to high-profile breaks with a president to whom she has displayed loyalty that has not always been returned.

“I didn’t get elected with a President Trump endorsement,” she said, noting that she had won her 2020 primary “on my own.” Mr. Trump eventually endorsed her in the general election, but by that time, Ms. Greene was already coasting to victory.

“It felt really bad at the time, but honestly it’s been the best thing for me,” she said. “I get to be very independent.”

On a recent Thursday morning in her Capitol Hill office, where a giant portrait of Ms. Greene hangs over the receptionist’s desk, her boyfriend Brian Glenn, the Real America’s Voice correspondent known for asking President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine why he was not wearing a suit in the Oval Office, was visiting her at work, as he often does.

Ms. Greene, her white-blonde hair pulled back in a tight, high ponytail, was rushing back from House votes and finishing up a call with Sergio Gor, who runs the presidential personnel office. She settled in to chat about her evolution in Congress under a wall of framed photographs of the most important people in her life: her children, herself and Mr. Trump.

“I have sincerely tried to do my job in different ways,” she said. “I tried everything from fighting leadership to working with the speaker. I think over time I’ve earned respect maybe because I haven’t changed. And they’re finding out, ‘She has real convictions.’”

Mr. Glenn, who has close relationships with top officials in the White House, said “there is no moving her” on the issues she cares about. “It doesn’t matter what I say. She’s very strong in her beliefs,” Mr. Glenn said, describing Ms. Greene as a “modern-day feminist.”

Ms. Greene’s stance on the Epstein files — she is one of just three Republicans who have signed onto the petition to force a floor vote on the issue — and other issues like the war in Gaza have earned her strange new respect from Democrats who have been somewhat horrified to find themselves agreeing with Ms. Greene on, well, anything. [Continue reading…]