Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is pushing back hard against new reporting by the Wall Street Journal that President Donald Trump personally intervened to talk her out of running for Senate.
For weeks, Greene had publicly entertained the idea of a run conditional on Gov. Brian Kemp not running, which he confirmed earlier this month. Shortly thereafter, Greene issued a lengthy statement saying she would not run after all, even though she felt confident she could win, because the "uniparty" controls the Senate and she wouldn't be able to get anything done there.
But the new report suggests something else happened behind the scenes.
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Trump's poll, conducted by longtime GOP strategist Tony Fabrizio, "showed that Greene would lose to Ossoff in a general election by 18 points ... even as she could win a primary election," reported Josh Dawsey, Jasmine Li, and Olivia Beavers. "It also showed that Greene was a less competitive candidate than Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp or Kelly Loeffler, administrator of the Small Business Administration. Kemp, who said earlier this month he wouldn’t pursue the seat, was the strongest candidate, one of the people familiar with the poll said."
But Greene denied Trump pushed her out of the race, telling the Journal in a statement, “to my knowledge, a lot of this was private conversation, and apparently is being leaked,” and that Fabrizio “has refused to work for me because he says he has a conflict, which means he’s working for someone against me.”
After the article dropped, Greene took to X to further deny the story.
"I have never spoken with President Trump about running for Senate or any other race," Greene wrote. "But for some reason, some consultants and aids are leaking to the usual tools in the media in order to promote the narrative they want to tell about me."
"I have always supported President Trump for FREE and actually spent hundreds of thousands of dollars campaigning with him all across the country!!" she added. "You would think these people would be embracing me because I’ve fought the hardest for him, but the problem is they are not on my payroll."