The Far Right Is Dumping Marjorie Taylor Greene

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was once a darling of the far-right. Apparently not anymore. 

Republican Rep. Greene disavowed white nationalist livestreamer Nick Fuentes, who’s now getting cozy with disgraced rapper Ye (formerly known as Kanye), “and his racist, anti-semitic ideology” in a tweet last month. Ever since, Fuentes’ followers—known as “groypers”—have viciously turned on her. 

Greene’s tweet was prompted by backlash to a dinner hosted last month by former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-lago featuring Ye, who is in the midst of a very public antisemitic meltdown, and Fuentes.

The dinner catapulted Fuentes into national headlines and exposed him—and his friends in high places—to an unprecedented level of scrutiny. 

But Greene’s condemnation of Fuentes came about 10 months too late. She was widely criticized for speaking at his America First Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, earlier this year but brushed off the criticism, claiming simply that she didn’t know who he was. (Trump used the same excuse following the controversial dinner). 

While Fuentes and his army of groypers might have been OK with Greene claiming not to know him, they were not at all happy about her recent disavowal of him—and say it’s the latest evidence that she’s sold out her far-right fans and betrayed their white nationalist “America First” movement. Only weeks earlier, she rebuffed her far-right colleagues in Congress by calling on them to back Rep. Kevin McCarthy in his bid for re-election as House Speaker. 

McCarthy is viewed as an establishment “RINO”—Republican in name only—by many in the far-right, but Greene knows she needs him on-side if she wants to regain her committee assignments, which were stripped from her in 2021 after her statements on social media encouraging violence against her Democrat colleagues. So palling around with white nationalists, as she’s done in the past, may not be the best idea if she wants to claw back political cachet—especially given the rebuke of far-right candidates during the midterms. 

“She’s just weak. She goes and says something edgy to get attention, and then when the pressure comes, she buckles,” said Fuentes on a podcast after Greene’s disavowal of him. “You know, she’s gonna be a MAGA-mom and QAnon and all that, and then the second Kevin McCarthy reprimands her and she loses her committee, she goes and apologizes.” 

Fuentes also mocked Greene’s dreams of becoming the face of “Christian nationalism” in the U.S. “How are you going to be the face of Christian nationalism when you’re a divorced woman, girlboss,” said Fuentes. “I’m so glad I don’t have to pretend to support that anymore.” 

He’s also taken to calling Greene “Large Marge” and is encouraging his followers to heckle her at events. 

Far-right activist Laura Loomer also announced that she was done with Greene. “MTG is no longer an ally to America First,” Loomer declared on Telegram. “She may have claimed to be so that she could climb the political ladder, but she has shown she is all talk and zero action, unless of course the action is selling t-shirts and wine glasses.” 

“You are their slave Marjorie, a slave to the Democrats and the Media that you constantly talk about,” wrote Holocaust denier Vince James. “By that statement [disavowing Fuentes] it just got to show you're living according to the rules of their game, that they've completely rigged against us."

“Here’s my take: grifters are gonna grift, and it’s just sad that we have to go through that kind of betrayal,” said far-right groyper Dalton Clodfelter about Greene on his podcast. 

Greene has only doubled-down on her condemnation of Fuentes and his ilk since her initial tweet. Last week, Fuentes and Ye appeared on Alex Jones’ show for an hours-long broadcast featuring unbridled anti-semitism. Greene said that she’d watched some of that and described Fuentes as “immature young man” and “racist.” “What has he ever done in his life?” asked Greene. “He knows nothing more than anyone else.” ​​

“I was concerned about some of the statements being made, Nick Fuentes being there as well,” she said. “The antisemitism, that has got to stop. It’s out of control, and we have no place for that anywhere in our politics or anywhere in our country.” 

Greene then undermined her own statement with some “whataboutism” and tried to deflect blame by accusing Democrat congresswoman Ilhan Omar of antisemitism. (Similar accusations have followed because of her criticism of the Israeli government. She has apologized and has spoken out against rising antisemitism in the U.S.). 

Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.