Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene railed against President Donald Trump‘s advisers during an interview on Steve Bannon‘s War Room podcast airing on Monday, suggesting that some in Trump’s inner circle are “lying to him.”
Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment via email.
The Context
Greene has sharply criticized some of Trump’s policies in recent days, particularly in the foreign policy space, and warned that the president is risking alienating his base.
“I represent the base and when I’m frustrated and upset over the direction of things, you better be clear, the base is not happy,” Greene wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, last week. “I campaigned for no more foreign wars. And now we are supposedly on the verge of going to war with Iran.”
She went on to criticize a rare minerals deal the U.S. recently signed with Ukraine as well as what she characterized as a “rogue judicial system.” Greene added: “When you are losing MTG, you are losing the base.”
Francis Chung/Politico via AP Images
What To Know
Greene said in her War Room interview Monday that there are people “in the president’s ear” who are “lying to him.” She did not specify to whom she was referring.
The Georgia Republican‘s comments came as Bannon—who briefly served as White House chief strategist during Trump’s first term—downplayed speculation about a “wedge” forming between Trump and his base and asked her to elaborate on her X post from last week.
“It’s a lie,” Greene said. “There is no wedge between the base and President Trump. The wedge is between Congress and the establishment Republicans that are undermining the president’s agenda.”
She added: “And also anyone that gets in the president’s ear and is lying to him about what he should be doing, you know.”
Greene went on to say that when Trump won the 2024 election, he was given a “mandate” to reject “the old Republican Party‘s ways” and to embrace “MAGA, America First, [Make America Healthy Again], no more foreign wars.”
But “Washington, as usual, is tone-deaf and has not heard the message,” the GOP firebrand, one of Trump’s staunchest allies, continued. “What we saw is all these Republicans that rejected Trump, fought Trump, in his first administration, you know. Networks, even like Fox News, that did not support the president … and didn’t support him until they realized they had to support him.”
Greene’s criticisms of the Trump administration’s foreign policy and the possibility of war with Iran came shortly after the president removed Mike Waltz, widely seen as an Iran hawk, as national security adviser. Trump was reportedly upset with Waltz after learning that he held lengthy talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of an Oval Office meeting with the president.
Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have also publicly threatened the Iranian regime.
What People Are Saying
Greene wrote on X last week: “I don’t think we should be bombing foreign countries on behalf of other foreign countries especially when they have their own nuclear weapons and massive military strength.”
Bannon told Greene on his War Room podcast: “First off, Fox is making a huge deal of this, everybody’s making too huge a deal of this, that now you see a wedge coming between the base and President Trump. Nothing could be further from the truth. But you are a truth-teller of exactly what has been some of the focus or what needs to be the focus.”
What Happens Next
Iran said this week that it remains committed to diplomacy with the U.S. after a fourth round of nuclear talks originally scheduled for May 3 was recently postponed because of “logistical” reasons.
“We have announced our commitment to continuing the path of dialogue and diplomacy, and we have shown our full readiness by participating in several rounds of negotiations,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said.
Trump, meanwhile, said in a Meet the Press interview airing over the weekend that he would only accept the “total dismantlement” of Iran’s nuclear program.
