Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia delivered a sharp rebuke to President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday, using his own words to challenge recent comments that appeared to undercut a core tenet of the “America First” movement.
The dispute emerged after Trump’s Tuesday night interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, in which he defended the need to bring in more high-skilled foreign workers. The exchange quickly drew criticism from parts of his MAGA base, who saw the remarks as a departure from his long-standing populist message on protecting American jobs.
Ingraham pressed Trump on the potential harm to domestic wages from an influx of foreign labor, saying, “If you want to raise wages for American workers, you can’t flood the country with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.”
Trump initially agreed, but added, “You also do have to bring in talent, when a country—” before Ingraham interjected, “Well, we have plenty of talented people here.”
“No, you don’t,” Trump responded. “You don’t have certain talents and people have to learn. You can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, I’m going to put you into a factory where we’re going to make missiles.”
The remarks—particularly his insistence that the United States lacks sufficient talent—sparked backlash from conservative grassroots supporters, many of whom have long championed restrictions on immigration and foreign labor. Greene, who has increasingly distinguished herself from Trump on economic and cultural issues, seized on the moment.
“I believe in the American people. I am one of you. I believe you are good, talented, creative, intelligent, hard working, and want to achieve,” Greene wrote on X. “I am solidly against you being replaced by foreign labor, like with H1Bs.”
Her message went beyond the workplace. Greene also criticized what she described as the education system’s overreliance on foreign students, writing, “I am solidly against allowing foreign students into our colleges and universities, like 600,000 Chinese students, just to financially prop them up. If they fail, they fail. The system in place isn’t helping our young people anyways.”
The congresswoman, one of Trump’s earliest and most vocal allies in Congress, has recently broken with him over issues tied to cost of living and trade policy. On Wednesday, she reinforced her nationalist stance with a sweeping statement of priorities: “I am against foreign aid, foreign wars, and sending a single dollar to foreign countries. I am against bringing any foreign leader that is a terrorist or oversees killing innocent people into our country and into the Oval Office. They do not deserve our support.”
“I am elected to represent my district and the American people, no other country, and I only serve Americans,” she continued. “I am America First and America Only. This is my way and there is no other way to be.”
Trump further stoked criticism by reaffirming during the Fox interview his plan to bring 600,000 Chinese students to U.S. universities—a proposal that, to many in his base, echoed globalist policies they had once turned to him to reject.
Greene’s response marked a rare public rebuke from one of Trump’s most steadfast defenders, signaling a growing debate inside the Republican Party over what “America First” truly means as 2026 approaches.
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