Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district is in disbelief at her resignation announcement

There are still shockwaves over the upcoming resignation of Republican Congressman Marjorie Taylor Green. That happens in January. Green made the surprise announcement online Friday night during this very show.

It's unclear what she'll do next after five years in office. She started as one of the president's staunchest supporters and will leave Congress branded as a traitor by him after their very public falling out.

Jeff Selany went to her district in Northwest Georgia to see how voters are reacting.

We wanted Marjorie to be Marjorie. We appreciate her. She doesn't blend into the curtains like other people do up in Washington.

Like so many others here in Georgia, David Goldenshue was talking about Marjorie Taylor Green and the bombshell announcement she will resign from Congress in January. But unlike most who only talk about her, he knows her well. And after finishing his weekly radio show today, he said three things, above all, explain why she's leaving.

DR. RONALD MCCRACKEN, Former U.S. Attorney General's Office Spokesperson, California State Department of Justice, said, she may be very, very, very conservative. At the same time, she wants to see things get done. The second factor, I think, was the Charlie Kirk assassination. That had a profound impact on her. And then the third thing, I think, was just the falling out with President Trump.

JOHN YANG, New York Times Journalist and Author, The New York Times Journalist and Author,

The New York Times Journalist and Author, The New York Times Journalist and Author, The New York Times Journalist and Author, The New York Times Journalist and Author, from one conversation to another. I'm very surprised. I didn't expect that. Sunny Knoss runs the Sunflower Community Bakery and had started to reconsider her view of green after she stood her ground against President Trump over the release of the Epstein files.

I disagreed with a lot of the stuff she did early on in Congress. I applaud her for breaking away from the pack because that's a really hard thing to do in politics. There's just a handful of people that are brave enough to do that. So I have got to handle that.

JOHN YANG, Washington, D.C., Presidential Candidate for Presidential Candidate for President

of the United States, Republican Candidate for President of the United States, Republican

Candidate for President of the United States, Republican Candidate for President of the

United States, Republican Candidate for President of the United States, Republican Candidate Congresswoman has long led the loyalty parade. Come on up, Marjorie. Come on.

Thank you, Mr. President.

All that a distant memory after she criticized the president and he turned on her.

Marjorie Trader Grin.

The remarkable feud that ultimately led to a resignation video on Friday night.

I refuse to be a battered wife, hoping it all goes away and gets better.

Was still fresh on the minds of many people here today, including these two Green supporters out for a morning walk. How was she as a congresswoman from the district?

REP.

RONALD REAGAN, New York City, Ohio, District Attorney 2 Well, I think she represented the people, what they felt. Not everybody felt that way, obviously. That's Trump. But he hits back if you hit him.

With 42 days now left in her abbreviated term, there is no shortage of opinions about Greene. Radford Bunker was among those expressing regret to be losing their firebrand in Congress.

I'm sorry that she resigned. I think that she's a thoughtful person. Like I said, I'm just sorry that politics has come to the sort of tribalism where you have to agree with everything on everybody.

JOHN YANG, New York City, Virginia, Public Radio Channel 1.0 Others, like Virginia McChesney, were far closer to saying good riddance.

VIRGINIA MCCHESNEY, New York City, Public Radio Channel 1.0

We, this district, really just want someone who represents us, instead of thinks of themselves and tries to promote a political point of view.

Are you sorry to see her go?

Not really. I think we've probably seen more of her as a real person in the past three days than we have ever.

And Jeff Zeleny is with us tonight.

Jeff, has Greene said anything about what she'll be doing next after she resigns from Congress? John, she hasn't. She said what she will not be doing and that is run for president. Why you may ask she would even be considering that. Well, there was a Time magazine

report over the weekend that said she's considering it according to friends of hers. She pushed back on that very strongly. She said she is not considering running for president.

She said she laughs at the idea if anyone brings it up. And the reality is that might be a bridge too far, obviously, going from the House to run for president. But the question is, what will she do? And even friends of hers that we talked to here are not sure what she will do.

Of course, there's a governor's race, a Senate race, but for now at least, she plans to spend a little bit of time of home and go sort of under the radar after January 5th when she leaves Congress.

Under the radar, Marjorie Taylor Greene, not phrases that have gone hand in hand for a few years. Jeff Zeleny, thank you very much.

Marjorie Taylor Greene's surprise decision to leave Congress has set off House Republicans, many of whom are reportedly frustrated with how the Trump team and Speaker Mike Johnson are behaving. Now, there is concern that her exit could prompt others to step aside. A senior Republican lawmaker tells Punchbowl News, quote, more explosive early resignations are coming.

It's a tinderbox. Morale has never been lower. Mike Johnson will be stripped of his gavel, and they will lose the majority before this term is out. And adding to the tensions, new CNN reporting tonight that the president's healthcare plan, which was originally expected this week,

has been delayed due to backlash from his party. Maybe we'll see it in two weeks, am I right? Okay, so Jamal, this is actually, I think, one of the more significant things. I mean, covering Trump in the first term and now in this term,

I don't think that we have heard this kind of discontent coming from inside the party's ranks and people thought that Marjorie Taylor Greene resigning was like oh she's just giving up but she was also making it harder for Mike Johnson to have the votes that he needs and if many others follow her they'll be doing the same thing. You know Marjorie Taylor

Greene wasn't as popular inside the caucus it turns out as we thought But out in Republican land in Magalan She was sort of as popular as a quarter zip in a matcha, right? Like people thought that maybe she was somebody that she was able to raise money She was the second most power second most popular fundraiser in the Republican Party That's got to be a difficult thing for you to manage if you're the speaker. So what we're seeing now is the wall is cracking around Donald Trump and people are now starting to realize

that maybe you can oppose him, whether it's Marjorie Taylor Greene or is dealing with the filibuster or it's opposing him on this healthcare bill. Maybe you can oppose him, you can push back. And if that begins to be the norm,

I think we may see Trump 2.0 start faster than we thought it was going to start.

I will tell you, I wish she had stayed and served out her term, because I think that I think the significance of being a MAGA, Trump-loving Republican, she's voted with Donald Trump over 90% of the time, speaking out against some of the abuses of power and calling a spade a spade. Pissing from inside the tent is a lot more effective than doing it from outside.

So I wish she had served out her term, which is she's got another year until January, 2027. I also think a lot of Republicans logically are reading the writing on the wall and they saw the consequences, the effects. They saw the results of the elections a few weeks ago.

And the idea of going from being in the majority to being in the minority, frankly, is painful. Because it's a lot... it's very different.

And they're not being treated well. That's part of the problem. Here's one GOP source saying, the entire White House team has treated all members like garbage, and that they blame Mike Johnson for letting it happen, because the Trump team,

they don't think Congress matters. And so they have basically ignored them, they've stepped all over them, and now some of these members are speaking up. So I think it goes even deeper than this, her resignation. So first of all, I'm from Georgia,

and it surprises exactly zero people in Georgia that she resigned because Jon Ossoff has been fundraising off of potential challenge for Marjorie Taylor Greene for like a year. So that's obviously a potential, but I really think that there is a potential

for her to be the head of this new Republican movement, the one that is perhaps being created by Tucker and Nick Fuentes. I think that they're, I know it sounds crazy, but think about it, it makes sense, right? They're both America first, anti-Israel,

which is a whole big movement there, and she's made lots of anti-Semitic comments in the past.

They're both-

She wouldn't walk away from them when she was on CNN.

She's like, oh, she's like, see, I told you Jews control the weather. They're both great replacement theory. They both don't like LGBT people and they're both Christian nationalists. And as the Republican Party breaks apart,

as we're seeing right now, and there's another faction, being a lame duck in the office. I truly think that she's saying, you know what? There's an opportunity for me here. Because I've been saying these things that people are just now

catching on to for a long time.

Are you saying you think she's going to run in a Republican primary for Senate in Georgia?

I think that that's possible. And I think that she's going to be the head of this new movement. I think she andie Taylor Greene, and who knows, maybe she has a few other defectors with her, they've gone rogue.

But I think what most of the GOP in Congress, which to your point, Abby, they want to recover their agency and actually start legislating, which is a really good idea, because that's what the three, you know, branches of government are supposed to do in harmony. I think what they realize is that this is what happens when someone takes a movement and turns it into an ideology that's divorced from reality. Trump never said America first means America alone.

But if Marjorie Taylor Greene had her way, it means that we would isolate from the world stage, retreat fully, we'd have no alliances. stage, retreat fully, we'd have no alliances. But Trump said, look, that leaves no room for statesmanship or pragmatism or prudence.