The party’s aspiration to appeal to America’s working class voters has clashed with Trump’s camaraderie with the billionaire class, the gilding of the White House, the lavishness of Mar-a-Lago.
President Donald Trump arrives in Palm Beach County
President Donald Trump will stay at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach from Halloween through Nov. 2.
Former President Donald Trump attacked Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling her a “traitor” and a “RINO.”Greene fired back at Trump, citing an “affordability crisis” and alluding to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.Trump remained silent on the specific issues of high grocery prices and the Epstein files that Greene raised.A pollster suggested the Epstein issue could be a “kryptonite moment” for Trump, noting a recent erosion in his support among some Republican voters.
He called former ally Marjorie Taylor Greene a “traitor, “a disgrace” and a “lightweight,” but President Donald Trump remained silent this weekend on the two issues that led to a toxic rupture with the Georgia congressperson: the “affordability crisis” and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
Trump concluded his 14th visit this term to Mar-a-Lago on Nov. 16 with an evening departure for Washington. But other than again ripping NBC late-night TV host Seth Meyers as having “no talent” and calling the 2010 Affordable Care Act the “Unaffordable Care Act,” the president kept out of public sight at Mar-a-Lago and Trump International Golf Club while sparingly commenting on his social-media platform.
The exception being the tirades against Greene, who Trump accused of having “gone far Left” and of becoming “the RINO that we all know that she always was.” Trump also reposted numerous missives from others who called Greene a “sellout” and warned that her “political future just ended.”
Trump accused Greene, known by her initials as MTG, of complaining incessantly despite “my creating Record Achievements for our Country” and then listing a myriad of what he called successes including on border security, tax cuts, DEI rollbacks and ending global conflicts.
The ugly break with Greene is reminiscent of prior falling outs with Elon Musk and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The schism with MTG has turned equally personal, but there is an underlying political context as well.
The rift also speaks to a clash of optics that’s emerged since Trump took office. Namely, the GOP’s and MAGA movement’s aspiration to appeal to and identify with America’s working class voters has uncomfortably juxtaposed with Trump’s camaraderie with the billionaire set, the opulent gilding of the White House and the lavishness of Mar-a-Lago’s galas and ambience.
Greene fires back at Trump on Epstein, high grocery prices
Greene was among the MAGA stars that had been cheered and welcomed at Mar-a-Lago when attending events, including the February 2024 Trumpettes gala.
At that black tie-gathering, Greene stoked the crowd by pledging to seek another vote in the U.S. House to impeach then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over U.S. border policy.
Greene also warned the audience — who paid between $850 and $2,400 for a ticket — who “have money,” a business or an inheritance to pass down to children or grandchildren that Trump’s tax cut from seven years ago is about to expire.
“You know what they say, ‘We don’t have a spending problem in Washington. They think it’s a revenue problem,’ ” she said of congressional Democrats. “That means they’re coming after your money.”
Now the target of Trump’s rage on social media, Greene did not hold back in retorting against the president’s broadsides.
In one post on X, formerly Twitter, Greene said she had received threats that “are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world.” The three-term congresswoman also reposted, in light of Trump’s call for a GOP rival to primary her, a statement by her congressional district’s Republican Party reasserting their “full and unwavering support of our duly elected Representative, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
She also fired this biting blow at Trump: “I now have a small understanding of the fear and pressure the women, who are victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his cabal, must feel.”
In another post, she included a chart showing a spike in grocery prices since 2017, when Trump first took office, and concluded the country is in an “affordability crisis” with “US grocery prices have never been more expensive.”
Before departing for Palm Beach on Nov. 14, Trump had retreated on tariffs on coffee, beef and some produce in an effort to lower consumer prices. That followed the president saying he did not want to hear about “affordability” and claimed Thanksgiving dinners would be far less expensive this year.
Pollster: Trump faces ‘kryptonite’ moment with some GOP segments
Greene was not the only Republican Trump took to task while in Palm Beach this weekend. He also said he was “disappointed” with Indiana’s GOP state senate leadership for not redistricting congressional boundaries to deliver more Republican U.S. House seats in 2026.
It’s not clear how the president’s fight with an erstwhile MAGA star will affect intraparty politics in Washington and beyond.
But pollster John Zogby said on his Real Polling and Real Time with Zogby podcast on Nov. 14 that the fight over releasing the Epstein investigative files could be Trump’s “kryptonite moment.”
In a subsequent interview with The Palm Beach Post, Zogby said he has watched Trump’s standing with Republican voters erode since the summer. Zogby said Trump generally enjoys support well above 90% among GOP voters, but most recently, his standing stood at 84%.
“Since that Epstein story broke, the president’s been throwing stuff against the wall nonstop, whether it’s tariffs, Big, Beautiful bill, Venezuela and so on, etc,, etc,” said Zogby, who writes a column for the conservative Washington Examiner. “And we saw the president’s numbers go back overall but, among Republicans, it’s not back to where he had been.”
Zogby’s polling had Trump’s approval rating at 46% in the September survey. But a Nov. 12 AP-NORC poll showed the president’s approval rating at just 36%. By contrast, 62% of respondents disapproved of the president’s performance.
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
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