MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Of all the extreme personalities in a political era with so many, Marjorie Taylor Greene still managed to stand out. The three-term Georgia congresswoman was not just an early supporter of Donald Trump. She matched his take-no-prisoners style, from social media postings trashing those she disagreed with to loudly heckling people on the street and at public events.
But something has changed. She broke with Trump over his reluctance to release the Epstein files, among other issues. She's begun appearing on legacy media outlets she previously shunned. And just last month, she decided to resign from Congress. Through it all, she began talking with longtime journalist Robert Draper, who wrote a piece about her for The New York Times Magazine. Draper told me the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk was a turning point for Greene.
ROBERT DRAPER: Kirk was shot on September the 10 of this year, and about a week later, there was this huge memorial service where all these luminaries were speaking. Greene was at home watching it, like a lot of people were, and was deeply moved by Erika Kirk's speech where she openly forgave her husband's killer.
But as moved as Greene found herself being by that, she was so filled with consternation by the follow-up speaker, President Trump, who, as a kind of counterpoint to Erika Kirk, said, I don't forgive my enemies. I hate my enemies and I wish nothing but the worst for them. And so Greene began to realize, you know, I'm a Christian, and I want to be much more like Erika Kirk. That, to me, seems like a true modeling of Christian behavior, while this guy, who I've been this leading proponent of, is now saying stuff that's antithetical to Christianity. And I think that's really when the worm began to turn for her.
MARTIN: One thing in your piece that struck me is that you described something that I have seen in other fervent Trump supporters, which is that you asked her about something the president said and has said repeatedly, which is that he was going to exact retribution against his opponents, and when you asked her about that, she seemed actually offended by it. Like, he's not going to do that. He's going to work for the American people. How do you understand that?
DRAPER: Well, I think, for one thing, President Trump is - he's a very astute reader of people and he's very good at presenting a face to people that they'd like to see. He's very good at flattering people. With the evangelical community, you would never hear him say anything profane or sexist. To veterans, he's very respectful. To Marjorie Taylor Greene, he's going to sound like he's always for the working class. And she really believed that he was a fellow true believer in how America First meant taking care of the folks at home.
And another factor, Michel, that we have not discussed is the matter of the left and how for any moment in which a person on the right might have reservations about Trump, all they need to do to remind themselves of why they are with Trump is to look at the other side. And this is what Marjorie Taylor Greene did constantly. She would look at the left and she would say, but these are the people who are really incorrigibly evil.
MARTIN: So how did it change?
DRAPER: Well, it began to change when she began to recognize that she was in an echo chamber. She began, months before she broke from Trump, to stop watching Fox News and start reading and watching mainstream news outlets. She found some of it objectionable, but not all of it. And so her pores, as it were, began to open, and she began to absorb things in a way that she had not before.
Look; to this day, she still has very far-right views when it comes to, say, transgender ideology, when it comes to immigration. I don't think anyone should expect any of that to cease. But she began to wonder, if really what the most important issues are are about taking care of folks at home first, is my party and is my president really doing something about that? She began to have doubts.
MARTIN: And when she voiced those doubts, the president turned on her.
DRAPER: Yes.
MARTIN: Started calling her Marjorie Traitor Greene. She started getting death threats. Her son was threatened. I mean, on her personal email, as has been reported, she recounted these concerns to the White House. They basically dismissed her. Is that a cautionary tale? How does she understand that?
DRAPER: Well, one thing that Greene said to me, and, you know, I think in a moment of self-awareness, was that, look, believe me, I understand. I am not the first person this has happened to. I don't want to make myself as being special. This is Trump. This is what he does. He attacks people...
MARTIN: And what she used to do.
DRAPER: Yes, yes. No, that's exactly right. And, of course, Dana Bash on CNN was the first to kind of call her out for that. And that's when Greene said, you know, humbly, I want to apologize for the role that I've played in our toxic politics.
And I pushed her on that when I spoke to her and said, what exactly were you referring to? And she wasn't, like, ready to do this fulsome apology. So I started bringing up matters of her harassing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Nancy Pelosi, David Hogg, the then-18-year-old gun activist. And she said, yes, you know, I'd come to Congress with a lot of anger, also emotionally raw because of things going on in my personal life, and I let my anger get the better of me. And those were the things that I was referring to when I was referring to toxic politics that I now wish to apologize for.
MARTIN: Robert Draper is a political reporter for The New York Times. We're talking about his big piece on Marjorie Taylor Greene, which appeared in The New York Times Magazine this week. Thanks so much for coming by.
DRAPER: It was really a pleasure, Michel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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