Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the Republican Party’s most famous lawmakers, will resign from office in January, she said in a statement on Friday night. She says she is done working in a legislative branch that has been “sidelined” by the president, whom she no longer wishes to fight. 

President Trump wasted little time reacting to her surprising decision, saying, ‘I think it’s great news for the country. It’s great,’ he said.

Mr. Trump began criticizing Ms. Greene in recent weeks after she started raising concerns about the cost of living, foreign entanglements, and her party’s lack of commitment to putting Americans — and Americans only — first. Ms. Greene now says that she is ready to leave Washington, D.C., in the wake of that infighting. 

“I’ve always represented the common American man and woman as a member of the House of Representatives which is why I’ve always been despised in Washington DC and never fit in,” Ms. Greene said in a statement posted to X on Friday evening. 

She says that Congress has been “sidelined,” seemingly in favor of ceding power to the executive branch, though she does not blame Mr. Trump explicitly. 

“I have fought harder than almost any other elected Republican to elect Donald Trump and Republicans to power, traveling the country for years, spending millions of my own money, missing precious time with my family that I can never get back, and showing up in places like outside the New York Courthouse in Collect Pond Park against a raging leftist mob as Trump faced Democrat lawfare,” Ms. Greene says. 

“Meanwhile most of the Establishment Republicans, who secretly hate him and who stabbed him in the back and never defended him against anything, have all been welcomed in after the election,” she added. 

Ms. Greene — who was elected in her deep-red district in 2020 and quickly became one of the party’s most prolific fundraisers and spokeswomen — says her constituents are struggling, contrary to the president’s statements. 

“No matter which way the political pendulum swings, Republican or Democrat, nothing ever gets better for the common American man or woman,” she said Friday. 

Ms. Greene wrote that she never changed, despite the pressures of Washington — including the very pressures that came from Mr. Trump himself. She said that she stood by him in order to codify his executive orders, pass his agenda, and defend him from her Democratic colleagues in Congress. 

Still, she says that Mr. Trump has not returned the kind of loyalty that she has offered him over the last five years. 

“Loyalty should be a two way street and we should be able to vote our conscience and represent our district’s interest because our job title is literally, ‘Representative,’” Ms. Greene says. 

She says that while the president’s criticisms are “hurtful,” Ms. Greene says her “heart remains filled with joy” for the work she has done and the family that she has. 

“I have never valued power, titles, or attention in spite of all the wrong assumptions about me. I do not cling to those things because they are meaningless and empty traps that hold too many people in Washington,” Ms. Greene says. 

She says she has “too much” self-respect and dignity to continue serving in the House. Ms. Greene says her last day will be January 5, 2026. 

“It’s all so absurd and completely unserious. I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better,” she writes. 

Once Ms. Greene resigns in January, the math in the House of Representatives could tighten significantly. Voters in Tennessee’s seventh congressional district will go to the polls in December to choose a new representative after their congressman resigned over the summer. Democrats have high hopes that they can win that race, bringing their House minority up to 214 members. 

In January, a deep-blue Texas district will elect a new representative. The runoff primary earlier this month saw two Democrats advance, meaning that it is certain that a Democrat will fill the seat once the special election occurs on January 31, 2026. That election will bring the House Democratic caucus up to 215 members strong, should they prevail in Tennessee. 

If that scenario plays out, then Speaker Mike Johnson will have a one-seat margin of error for the rest of the 119th Congress to pass the president’s legislative agenda.