The relationship between President Donald Trump and one of his most fervent supporters grew so fraught Secret Service was alerted.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, MAGA’s top defector, is suspected of setting up the president to be protested at a restaurant Greene suggested he visit, White House aides told Axios. The White House then tipped off the Secret Service about the alleged betrayal.
Trump’s visit to the popular lobbyist hangout Joe’s Seafood, in Washington, D.C., in September was hijacked by activists who shouted “Free D.C! Free Palestine!” and “Trump is the Hitler of our time!” before they were hauled out.
Trump visited the joint, just minutes from the White House, to prove how safe D.C. streets were amid his crime crackdown in the capital. But his trip to the restaurant, where a tuna steak costs more than $45, became a public relations disaster—and some White House insiders believe MTG was the mastermind.
The White House reportedly told the Secret Service that Greene, once one of Trump’s fiercest allies, directly tipped off the anti-war activist group Code Pink that Trump would be at the restaurant, according to Axios. The claim is based on suspicion rather than evidence, though, and Greene vehemently denied it.
Greene told Axios that the claim she set the president up to be protested is “an absolute lie, a dangerous lie. I would never do that.”
Code Pink, too, shot down the suggestion. “That absolutely did not happen, to the point it is comical,” a spokesperson for the group told Axios.
But White House insiders say that something fishy went on down at Joe’s Seafood, basing their hunch on two factors: The fact that MTG recommended Joe’s, and her known relationship with Code Pink members.
Greene allegedly hammered the phones of White House staffers on the day of Trump’s surprise visit, in a bid to confirm that the 79-year-old was definitely going to show up. As a result, Trump allegedly confirmed he would, but MTG didn’t join, as expected. This “struck some Trump aides as odd,” Axios reported.
Greene, a Joe’s regular, has also publicly declared that she has an unlikely friendship with Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, with whom she shares an anti-war sensibility.
“I have enjoyed a friendship with Medea for a few years now, even though politics says that’s not allowed,” Greene said in December.
White House insiders said the first signs of trouble in the president’s relationship with Greene reared last spring, after he sent her polling which indicated she could lose a Senate race to a Democrat.
She was reportedly rankled by this. After that, her very public criticisms of Trump intensified both in regularity and fury, they said.
Greene conceded to Axios that she did indeed recommend the seafood spot, but only White House aides and restaurant management knew of the reservation. “The story you should be writing is why didn’t the Secret Service sweep the restaurant,” she added.
She went further in an angry X post, saying the story has come about because the White House is “mad at me for telling the truth about the President and forcing the release of the Epstein files.”
She blamed the saga on the Secret Service being lax and suggested that a White House insider or Joe’s staffer may have “tipped off” Code Pink. She said her relationship with Trump was good at the time, and he didn’t brand her “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene” until weeks later. “And even now, I would NEVER do what they are accusing me of!” she added.
Greene, who also attempted to distance herself from Medea Benjamin, said she will seek legal counsel. “Anyone saying this is true is absolutely lying!!!” she raged.
It remains unclear whether Greene is being investigated by the Secret Service. The agency refused to confirm when contacted by the Daily Beast. “Nothing is more important than ensuring the highest level of safety for those we protect, but we are not able to confirm or comment on matters of protective intelligence,” Anthony Guglielmi, U.S. Secret Service Chief of Communications, said.
The White House and Greene have also been contacted for comment.
