On the morning of January 4, 2026, outgoing U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., delivered a blunt critique of President Donald Trump’s recent military intervention in Venezuela—a move that has sent shockwaves through Washington and far beyond. Just hours before her formal departure from Congress, Greene appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to voice her deep reservations about the operation that saw U.S. forces bomb Caracas, capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and effectively take control of the country’s vast oil reserves.
“I am not defending Maduro, and of course I’m happy for the people of Venezuela to be liberated,” Greene told NBC, as reported by multiple outlets including AP News and Washington Post. “But Americans celebrated the liberation of the Iraqi people after Saddam Hussein, they celebrated the liberation of the Libyan people after Gaddafi, and this is the same Washington playbook that we are so sick and tired of that doesn’t serve the American people.”
Her comments came in the wake of a dramatic weekend. In the predawn hours of Saturday, January 3, U.S. forces launched airstrikes on Caracas and swiftly captured Maduro and Flores. President Trump, speaking at a Florida press conference later that day, confirmed that the U.S. would temporarily run Venezuela, with plans to tap its oil reserves and sell to other nations. “We want to surround ourselves with good neighbors, we want to surround ourselves with stability, we want to surround ourselves with energy, we have tremendous energy in that country, it’s very important that we protect it,” Trump said, according to AP News.
Trump’s rationale, he insisted, was rooted in his longstanding “America First” campaign promise. “We need that for ourselves. We need that for the world,” he added, underscoring the strategic value of Venezuelan energy resources and regional stability.
But for Greene, once one of Trump’s most ardent congressional allies, the operation represented a betrayal of the very principles that had energized the Republican base. “My pushback here is on the Trump administration that campaigned on ‘Make America Great Again’ that we thought was putting America first,” she said on NBC. “I want to see domestic policy be the priority that helps Americans afford life after four disastrous years of the Biden administration… We don’t consider Venezuela our neighborhood. Our neighborhood is right here in the 50 United States.”
Greene’s criticism didn’t stop there. She took to X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday to vent her frustration more directly: “Americans’ disgust with our own government’s never-ending military aggression and support of foreign wars is justified because we are forced to pay for it,” she wrote. “This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end. Boy were we wrong.”
Her stance drew a sharp line between herself and the president she once championed. Greene’s break with Trump has been brewing for months, culminating in her resignation announcement in November 2025. The split, as reported by CBS News and Washington Post, was fueled by disagreements over the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, Obamacare subsidies, and what Greene saw as a failure to deliver on core campaign promises. “For an ‘America First’ president, the No. 1 focus should have been domestic policy, and it wasn’t,” Greene stated in a recent “60 Minutes” interview.
During her NBC appearance, Greene also challenged the administration’s justification for the Venezuelan operation on grounds of narcoterrorism. “If this was really about narcoterrorists and about protecting Americans from cartels and drugs being brought into America, the Trump administration would be attacking the Mexican cartels,” she argued. Greene pointed out that “the majority of American fentanyl overdoses and death come from Mexico. Those are the Mexican cartels that are killing Americans.”
Her remarks tapped into a deeper frustration among many Americans who feel that U.S. foreign interventions often come at the expense of domestic priorities. “I want to see domestic policy be the priority that helps Americans afford life after four disastrous years of the Biden administration,” she reiterated. Greene called for a renewed focus on jobs, housing, and health care, asserting that these are the issues that truly matter to the American people.
Meanwhile, Trump and his supporters have held firm that the move against Maduro fits squarely within the “America First” doctrine. “We want to surround ourselves with good neighbors. We want to surround ourselves with stability,” Trump said over the weekend, as reported by AP News. “We want to surround ourselves with energy.” In his view, the operation is not an abandonment of domestic priorities, but a necessary step to ensure American security and prosperity in an increasingly volatile world.
The reaction in Congress has largely fallen along party lines, with Republicans generally backing the president’s actions and Democrats voicing concerns about the precedent and potential for further destabilization. Still, Greene’s break with her party’s leadership has added an unusual wrinkle, exposing fissures within the Republican ranks over the future direction of U.S. foreign policy.
Greene’s critique also touched on the economic beneficiaries of such interventions. She accused the administration of serving “the big corporations, the banks, and the oil executives,” rather than the American people. “We are so sick and tired of that doesn’t serve the American people, but actually serves the big corporations, the banks and the oil executives,” she said, echoing a sentiment that has resonated with both left- and right-leaning critics of U.S. foreign policy for decades.
Despite her opposition to the operation, Greene did express relief that Maduro had been removed from power. “I’m happy for the people of Venezuela to be liberated,” she said. Yet, she maintained that the means did not justify the ends, especially when viewed through the lens of “America First.”
As Greene prepares to leave Congress, her parting shots underscore the ongoing debate over what “America First” truly means in practice. Is it about retrenching from foreign entanglements and focusing on the homeland, or does it require assertive action abroad to secure American interests? For Greene, the answer is clear: “Our neighborhood is right here in the 50 United States, not in the Southern Hemisphere.”
The coming weeks will reveal whether her warnings resonate with voters—or whether Trump’s vision of American power abroad continues to define the Republican Party’s agenda. Either way, the events of this weekend have left an indelible mark on the nation’s political landscape, with the fallout from Caracas likely to echo through the halls of Congress and the campaign trail alike.
Greene’s departure may close one chapter, but the questions she’s raised about America’s role in the world are far from settled.
