The New Republic's Virginia Heffernan has followed the MAGA breakup closely over the past year as President Donald Trump's broken promises has left the movement feeling "betrayed."
While speaking to Greg Sargent for his "Daily Blast" podcast, the two discussed the recent warning issued by former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.), who abandoned the president over the Jeffrey Epstein files. In a TikTok video, Greene warned that the era of MAGA success is done.
"The coalition came in. You want to know why ‘26 and ‘28 is going to be different? Because Donald Trump broke his big, big campaign promise of no more foreign wars, and actually has got us embroiled in a war with Iran, a war that should not be happening, and he’s not backing off of it. And it will probably get worse. So, that has the affordability crisis. That’s why people can’t afford gasoline. That’s why people’s bills keep going up. Food prices are still going up. Beef is at all-time high. It’s ridiculous. You know what you should have done? You should have stuck to your campaign promises, and you should have delivered for the people that put you in office, not the ones writing you the big fat checks," said Greene.
It comes after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confessed to the press, "I don't really understand" the spike in oil prices.
Sargent called Greene a kind of "oracle" when it comes to predicting that this would happen when she left Congress.
"When Marjorie Taylor Greene says the coalition is falling apart, all these voters feel betrayed by you, Mr. President, she isn’t just making a prediction. She’s essentially saying to these voters, you know, you shouldn’t show up for this guy because he f—— you, right? That’s what she’s really saying. And it’s true. She’s right about it," said Sargent.
Trump is quoted as saying he doesn’t care about his old voters. And she and lots of people took that very personally," she said.
Now, they argued, Trump is repeating the kind of foreign-policy overreach he once blasted. It comes as he's issuing threats of economic punishment against countries that trade with Iran. It's not something easily enforced and is designed largely to create the appearance of action while lacking a clear strategy for ending the conflict, they said.
Now MAGA is stuck in a messaging crisis where even Fox News personalities like Sean Hannity are avoiding most discussions about the war. The two think it's likely because audiences don't want to hear pro-war rhetoric. So, pro-Trump media is falling back on the same message that Trump is being unfairly persecuted.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was finally forced to say that the affordability crisis isn't a "hoax," as Trump claimed. On Thursday, Johnson acknowledged that the war has pushed gas prices higher. It has finally become a problem impossible for Republicans to ignore.
