Donald Trump has withdrawn support for Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene – which she claims is over her support for releasing files about Jeffrey Epstein.

In comments made on Truth Social, Mr Trump said he would support any challenger who wants to take Ms Greene’s seat in Georgia.

It comes after weeks of the MAGA ally breaking ranks from the president – and according to a post on X after his withdrawal, she believes it’s over a possible vote on releasing all of the Epstein files.

Read more: Marjorie Taylor Greene – the MAGA ally known for embracing conspiracies and insulting journalists

After the US government shutdown ended, a petition to vote on the full release of the files about disgraced pedophile financier Epstein received enough signatures – including Ms Greene’s – to bring it to a vote in the House of Representatives.

While such a vote does not yet have a date, Mr Trump has called the files a “hoax” and accused the Democrats of using them “to try and deflect from their disastrous SHUTDOWN”.

Earlier this week, thousands of documents from Epstein were released, which reference Mr Trump, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson, among others.

Read more: What do Epstein documents say about Trump, Andrew and Mandelson?

Trump attacks ‘Wacky’ Majorie

In his post on Truth Social overnight, Mr Trump said: “all I see “Wacky” Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!

“It seemed to all begin when I sent her a Poll stating that she should not run for Senator, or Governor, she was at 12%, and didn’t have a chance (unless, of course, she had my Endorsement – which she wasn’t about to get!).”

The president went on to claim “she has told many people that she is upset that I don’t return her phone calls anymore”, before adding: “I can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s call every day.

“I understand that wonderful, Conservative people are thinking about primarying Marjorie in her District of Georgia, that they too are fed up with her and her antics and, if the right person runs, they will have my Complete and Unyielding Support.”

Greene: Trump’s fight to stop files ‘astonishing’

Around an hour later, Ms Greene responded on X to say “President Trump just attacked me and lied about me”, and shared text messages to him and a White House aide about releasing information on the deceased pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

“Of course he’s coming after me hard to make an example to scare all the other Republicans before next weeks vote to release the Epstein files,” she added on social media.

“It’s astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level.”

Read more: Why this is dangerous terrain for Trump

She then said “most Americans wish he would fight this hard to help the forgotten men and women of America… that’s what I voted for”.

“I have supported President Trump with too much of my precious time, too much of my own money, and fought harder for him even when almost all other Republicans turned their back and denounced him,” she added.

“But I don’t worship or serve Donald Trump… I remain the same today as I’ve always been and I will continue to pray this administration will be successful because the American people desperately deserve what they voted for.”

Watch Sky’s Martha Kelner’s encounter with Greene from earlier this year…

Earlier this week, Mr Trump accused the MAGA loyalist of “catering to the other side” after she criticised his focus on foreign policy, which she described as “America Last”.

Epstein took his own life in prison in 2019 while awaiting a trial for sex trafficking charges and was accused of running a “vast network” of underage girls for sex. He pleaded not guilty.

Following a conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008, he was registered as a sex offender.

It comes after Democrats on the House Oversight Committee published several emails, which they said “raises questions about Trump and Epstein’s relationship, Trump’s knowledge of Epstein’s crimes”, and the president’s relationship to Epstein’s victims.

Mr Trump has consistently denied knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and called claims linking him to the financier a “hoax”.

Read more on Jeffrey Epstein:
Ghislaine Maxwell ‘wants Trump to commute sentence’
What Epstein’s right-hand woman said about Trump and Andrew

The White House also said the “selectively leaked emails” were an attempt to “create a fake narrative to smear President Trump”.

Republicans retaliated by releasing more than 20,000 pages from Epstein’s files and accusing Democrats of “cherry-picking” their documents.

Hard-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of the most aggressive spokespeople for the “Make America Great Again” movement.

The representative from Georgia has become infamous for her combative encounters with journalists and fellow politicians – including Donald Trump – and her susceptibility to conspiracy theories.

Here’s a look at how she rose to prominence and some of her most controversial moments.

Who is Marjorie Taylor Greene?

Ms Taylor Greene is, according to her bio on X: “Congresswoman for GA-14, Christian, mom, small business owner.”

She was elected to Congress in 2020 and quickly became a powerful – and vocal – player in the Republican Party.

Often known by her initials MTG, she also proclaims herself to be a “proud American, 100% pro-life, pro-gun, pro-Trump”.

She was a staunch ally of President Trump until he withdrew support for her in the next midterm elections.

She has downplayed and justified the 6 January Capitol insurrection, claiming the rioters would have “won” and “been armed” if she had organised it.

After the White House called her comments “dangerous, abhorrent”, Ms Taylor Greene said she had been joking.

In 2021, she was stripped of her committee assignments by House of Representatives managers over racist comments, her embracing of conspiracy theories and her past endorsement of violence against Democratic officials.

She was widely denounced for comparing COVID-19 masks and vaccinations to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.

On social media, she had made posts advocating violence against Democrat opponents and casting doubt on the 9/11 terror attacks and the school mass shootings at Parkland and Sandy Hook.

Read more:
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Marco Rubio: The secretary of state who once said Trump has small hands

And she had voiced loud backing for QAnon, the popular conspiracy that the Trump administration was waging a secret fight against an evil global cabal including a Democrat paedophile ring.

Before being kicked off committees, Ms Taylor Greene stated her case on the House floor, employing a mixture of back-pedalling and finger-pointing while wearing a dark mask emblazoned with the words “Free Speech”.

She told House members her support for QAnon was “words of the past” and that she no longer believes in it, but did not explicitly apologise for other controversial remarks.

Calling Trump ‘America Last’ and fighting over Epstein

In recent months however, Ms Taylor Greene had a new target for criticism – the president, and what she called his “America Last” foreign policy.

Among her points of contention were Mr Trump supporting Israel through attacks on Iran and on what she called a genocide in Gaza, providing $20bn to Argentina under its libertarian president Javier Milei, and working to support Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The president then accused her of “catering to the other side”, before a row exploded between him and the MAGA loyalist over the release of files relating to disgraced pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr Trump said on Truth Social that he withdrew support for the MAGA Republican, saying that “all I see “Wacky” Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN” before claiming her attacks were based on him telling her not to run for Senate and Governor in her state.

He added: “I can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s call every day… I understand that wonderful, Conservative people are thinking about primarying Marjorie… if the right person runs, they will have my Complete and Unyielding Support.”

In response, Ms Taylor Greene posted text messages on X to the president and aide defending her decision to call for the release of the Epstein files.

She also said: “Of course he’s coming after me hard to make an example to scare all the other Republicans before next weeks vote to release the Epstein files.

“It’s astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level.

“But really most Americans wish he would fight this hard to help the forgotten men and women of America… That’s what I voted for.”

She later said “maybe it was my bill to get rid of the H1B visas”, referring to her proposal to ban foreign workers from the US – which Mr Trump has spoken against.

Telling Sky News reporter to ‘go back to your own country’

Ms Taylor Greene snapped at Sky News’ US correspondent Martha Kelner after she was asked about the group chat that The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief was mistakenly added to, where top US officials discussed war plans in Yemen.

Asked by Kelner if she had seen the latest information on the leak, Ms Taylor Greene said she wasn’t willing to discuss The Atlantic.

Asked if she believed the information shared on the chat was classified, she said the Trump administration had said it “was not” and added: “I think this is a continuance of someone like you [Kelner] to try to push an issue that isn’t even relevant.”

Before Kelner could ask her next question, the politician interjected: “Wait, what country are you from?”

When Kelner said the UK, she responded: “Ok well we don’t give a crap about your opinion, or your reporting. Why don’t you go back to your country where you have a major migrant problem.”

You can watch the full exchange below, and see Kelner’s thoughts here.

David Cameron ‘can kiss my ass’

Ms Taylor Greene made comments aimed at former prime minister David Cameron that truly “put her on the map” in the UK.

They came in February 2024, after the then-foreign secretary wrote an article calling for the US to commit to funding for Ukraine and drew comparisons between the West’s treatment of Hitler and Putin.

Many Republicans – including Ms Taylor Greene – were against upping the US’s Ukraine funding.

Asked about his comments, Ms Taylor Greene told Sky News: “David Cameron needs to worry about his own country and, frankly, he can kiss my ass.”

She suggested that comparing a refusal to vote through the funding with appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s was “rude name-calling and I don’t appreciate that type of language”.

In a post on X later, she said the remarks would not “bully me into funding the war in Ukraine”.

Lord Cameron laughed her comments off during a speech at the Munich Security Conference, in which he said he had met Ms Taylor Greene.

“We met,” he told the audience in Germany. “I went to the Republican study group lunch, talking about exactly this issue.”

“We didn’t get anatomical at that stage, it was very early in our relationship,” he joked.

‘Why don’t you f*** off, how about that?’

Kelner wasn’t the first British reporter Ms Taylor Greene took issue with.

In March 2024, she ended a conversation with Emily Maitlis by responding: “Really why don’t you f*** off, how about that?”

In a video clip posted to podcast The News Agents’ social media channels, Maitlis started the line of questioning by asking Ms Taylor Greene why “so many people that support Donald Trump love conspiracy theories, including yourself?”

She added that he “seems to attract lots of conspiracy theorists”.

Ms Taylor Greene replied: “Well let me tell you, you’re a conspiracy theorist and the left and the media spreads more conspiracy theories.

“We like the truth, we like supporting our constitution, our freedoms and America first, so…”

As Ms Taylor Greene started to walk away, Maitlis asked: “What about Jewish space lasers? Tell us about Jewish space lasers” – a reference to a conspiracy theory the politician had peddled.

The Republican right-winger replied: “Why don’t you go talk about Jewish space lasers, and really why don’t you f*** off, how about that?”

The other half of ‘MAGA America’s favourite couple’

Ms Taylor Greene is in a relationship with Brian Glenn, who is the host of Real America’s Voice.

Mr Glenn referred to himself as the other half of “MAGA America’s favourite couple” in an interview with Politico.

He is chief White House correspondent for the right-wing streaming channel, which grants him access to the White House press pool.

Real America’s Voice has supported numerous conspiracy theories in the past and helps distribute former Trump adviser Stephen K Bannon’s War Room podcast, after he was barred from YouTube, Spotify and other mainstream platforms.

Before joining Real America’s Voice, Mr Glenn was programme director of the Right Wing Broadcasting Network – a media company founded by Joe Seales in 2015

Donald Trump has said he will sue the BBC for between $1bn and $5bn over the editing of his speech on Panorama.

The US president confirmed he would be taking legal action against the broadcaster while on Air Force One overnight on Saturday.

“We’ll sue them. We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion (£792m) and five billion dollars (£3.79bn), probably sometime next week,” he told reporters.

“We have to do it, they’ve even admitted that they cheated. Not that they couldn’t have not done that. They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth.”

Mr Trump then told reporters he would discuss the matter with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer over the weekend, and claimed “the people of the UK are very angry about what happened… because it shows the BBC is fake news”.

The Daily Telegraph reported earlier this month that an internal memo raised concerns about the BBC’s editing of a speech made by Mr Trump on 6 January 2021, just before a mob rioted at the US Capitol building, on its flagship late-night news programme.

The concerns regard clips spliced together from sections of the president’s speech to make it appear he told supporters he was going to walk to the US Capitol with them to “fight like hell” in the documentary Trump: A Second Chance?, which was broadcast by the BBC the week before last year’s US election.

Following a backlash, both BBC director-general Tim Davie and BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness resigned from their roles.

‘No basis for defamation claim’

On Thursday, the broadcaster officially apologised to the president and added that it was an “error of judgement” and the programme will “not be broadcast again in this form on any BBC platforms”.

A spokesperson said that “the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited,” but they also added that “we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim”.

Earlier this week, Mr Trump’s lawyers threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn unless it apologised, retracted the clip, and compensated him.

Legal challenges

But legal experts have said that Mr Trump would face challenges taking the case to court in the UK or the US.

The deadline to bring the case to UK courts, where defamation damages rarely exceed £100,000 ($132,000), has already expired because the documentary aired in October 2024, which is more than one year.

Also because the documentary was not shown in the US, it would be hard to show that Americans thought less of the president because of a programme they could not watch.

Read more from Sky News:
Key findings in 20,000 pages of documents in the Epstein files
Banksy art theft lands burglar with 13-month prison sentence

Newsnight allegations

The BBC has said it was looking into fresh allegations, published in The Telegraph, that its Newsnight show also selectively edited footage of the same speech in a report broadcast in June 2022.

A BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC holds itself to the highest editorial standards. This matter has been brought to our attention and we are now looking into it.”

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