Scoop: White House contacted Secret Service about MTG, sources say
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The relationship between President Trump and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene grew so poisonous that the White House told the Secret Service that Greene may have tipped off Code Pink protesters about his surprise visit last fall to a D.C. restaurant she recommended, two sources on Trump's team tell Axios.
- That episode — which involved a chaotic confrontation between anti-war activists and Trump — embarrassed the president and intensified concerns in the White House about his safety, a year after he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.
Why it matters: Trump aides view the Joe's Seafood debacle as a point of no return in his relationship with Greene, a Trump ally-turned-critic who left office this week.
- Greene told Axios that any suggestion she revealed Trump's dinner plans was "an absolute lie, a dangerous lie. I would never do that."
- She said she recommended the restaurant to Trump but didn't know when he would go there.
- Greene added that only the fancy lobbyist hangout — a few blocks from the White House, at 15th and H NW — and Trump aides knew of the reservation. She said: "The story you should be writing is why didn't the Secret Service sweep the restaurant," and have metal detectors at the door?
It's unclear whether Greene is being investigated by the Secret Service, which declined to comment. Greene didn't respond when asked whether the Secret Service had contacted her.
Zoom in: Trump's Sept. 9 outing to Joe's with Vice President Vance and several Cabinet members was part of an effort to show the president's deployment of National Guard troops had made D.C. streets safer.
- Protesters with the liberal group Code Pink got within feet of Trump's table and chanted: "Free DC.! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!"
- For weeks afterward, Trump aides say they tried to discern how the group knew about his unannounced dinner plans, which were known only to a few people. The media wasn't given a heads-up about Trump's plans.
The intrigue: Trump later called for an investigation of Code Pink, saying, "they should be put in jail."
- Trump's team met with Secret Service leaders to discuss the confrontation at the restaurant and his security.
- Code Pink spokesperson Melissa Garriga rejected the notion that Greene told the group about Trump's dinner plans.
- "That absolutely did not happen, to the point it is comical," Garriga told Axios.
White House officials didn't provide direct evidence that Greene alerted the protesters, but said their suspicions rest on two factors:
1. Her suggesting where Trump should dine
- Officials say that after recommending the president go to Joe's, Greene repeatedly called White House staffers the day of the dinner to confirm he was going.
- After Trump heard about Greene's calls, he called her shortly before leaving the White House and confirmed his planned visit, the sources said.
- Greene — who was a regular at the restaurant — didn't show up there when Trump and other officials were there, which struck some Trump aides as odd.
2. Greene's relationship with Code Pink
- White House aides note Greene is friends with Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin.
- Greene and the organization are aligned in their opposition to the U.S. providing military aid to Ukraine and Israel.
- Benjamin last year praised Greene for opposing Trump's bombing of nuclear sites in Iran and for calling to strip foreign aid from the Pentagon's budget.
Benjamin and other members of Code Pink visited with Greene after Greene announced in November that she would resign from Congress in the middle of her third term.
- "I have enjoyed a friendship with Medea for a few years now, even though politics says that's not allowed," Greene said later.
The backstory: Trump's relationship with Greene began to fray last spring, Trump allies familiar with the situation say.
- The president sent Greene some polling results from his political team indicating that she'd lose a prospective Senate race to a Democrat.
- Trump has said he sent Greene the polling to inform her about her standing in a possible Senate run, rather than dissuade her from running.
In the weeks afterward, Trump allies say, they began noticing an uptick in Greene's public criticisms of Trump.
- They focused on Greene's claims that Trump had abandoned his "America First" principles and her opposition to his "big, beautiful" tax and spending bill.
- Trump privately expressed frustration, telling people he didn't know what had happened to his one-time ally.
The other side: Greene felt slighted from the early days of Trump's second administration, according to a source familiar with her thinking.
- She believed Trump lieutenants didn't take her suggestions seriously and ignored her outreach even though she'd shown her loyalty to Trump for years, the source said.
