Ilhan Omar reaches out to Marjorie Taylor Greene as former Trump allies break ranks

Representative Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat, said Tuesday that former allies of President Donald Trump who have spoken out against the war with Iran deserve credit, and singled out former Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and right-wing influencer Candace Owens by name. Omar made the remarks in an interview with Pod Save America co-host Tommy Vietor, calling on Americans across the political spectrum to work together against what she described as a presidency in crisis.

The overture is striking on its face. Greene was among the GOP members who pushed to oust Omar from her House seat just last year. Now Omar says she wants to embrace Greene and others who have, in her words, "gotten off the sycophantic train."

What this really amounts to is a familiar left-wing play: find a disaffected Republican, hold her up as proof that the right is fracturing, and use the moment to press a progressive narrative. Omar isn't extending an olive branch out of genuine bipartisan goodwill. She's leveraging Greene's public break with Trump to advance her own political argument, and doing so on a progressive podcast, not in a committee room or on the House floor.

Omar's pitch: credit for the "wake-up call"

Omar told Vietor that former Trump supporters who have criticized the administration's Iran policy should be acknowledged for changing course. Newsweek reported her full remarks, in which she framed the shift as a matter of national preservation.

"We should give them credit for that, the fact that they've had this wake-up call to finally seeing this con man, this corrupt, chaotic man for what he is."

She went further, describing the moment as an opportunity for collective action.

"I think as Americans, it is really important for us to work together for the preservation of everything that is good in our country, and to support leaders that we can trust to safeguard what is good of our country."

Omar also said she found Greene on the House floor before Greene's departure from Congress and thanked her for her support in ending the conflict in Gaza. That detail alone captures the oddity of the moment: a progressive Democrat seeking out one of the most combative Republicans of the last Congress to offer personal thanks.

Greene's break with Trump

Greene resigned from Congress earlier this year, capping a public falling out with Trump that began last year. In recent weeks she has criticized the president over his decision to strike Iran alongside Israel and expressed dismay at his posting of an AI image over the weekend that appeared to depict him as Jesus.

In a conversation with Infowars founder Alex Jones, Greene laid out her position bluntly.

"You may have supported President Trump for 10 years, like I did...but this is not the same man. The American people have to open their eyes and deal with reality and deal with truth. This is not the same man that we supported."

She added language that will resonate with critics and alarm supporters in equal measure.

"You don't have to be in a cult...It's turned into a cult where the Trump administration, the president himself, and everyone around him, demands cult-like worship."

Newsweek reached out to Greene for comment via her X account on Wednesday afternoon. No response was noted. The broader pattern of Trump clashing with prominent conservative voices over Iran has been building for weeks, and Greene's remarks fit squarely within that current.

Owens and the wider rift

Omar didn't stop at Greene. She also pointed to Candace Owens, the right-wing influencer who was once closely aligned with Trump but has grown more critical in recent months, particularly over the Epstein files and Middle East policy. Omar described both women as part of a wave of former Trump allies who had denounced the president in recent weeks.

The framing is deliberate. Omar cast the dissent not as a minor squabble but as evidence of a deeper collapse in Trump's coalition. She told Vietor that the moment proved something she had long believed.

"It was never about putting America first. It was never about having coherent policies."

That line is pure Omar, a sweeping dismissal of the entire MAGA project, delivered under the cover of praising a few people who left it. The political instinct is obvious. When your opponents fight among themselves, you don't break it up. You hand out megaphones.

What Omar is really doing

Strip away the warm language about working together and what remains is a calculated effort to widen fractures on the right. Omar is not proposing legislation with Greene. She is not building a bipartisan caucus. She is going on a progressive podcast and telling a progressive audience that even Trump's own people now see him the way she always has.

That framing serves Omar's political interests neatly. It lets her claim the moral high ground, generous enough to embrace former adversaries, while simultaneously reinforcing the narrative that Trump's base is crumbling. Whether the base is actually crumbling is a separate question, and one Omar has no particular incentive to answer honestly.

The backdrop matters, too. Democrats have been navigating their own internal tensions over how aggressively to challenge the Trump administration, with some conceding that impeachment efforts have no realistic path. Omar's pivot to coalition-building language may reflect a recognition that frontal assaults have stalled.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration itself has seen significant personnel turnover. Greene's departure from Congress came amid a broader season of shakeups, including the firing of Attorney General Pam Bondi and speculation about further cabinet changes.

The history Omar wants you to forget

It was only last year that Greene and her GOP allies were trying to strip Omar of her committee assignments and push her out of her House seat entirely. Trump himself promoted a theory that Omar had married her brother to obtain legal status in the United States. The personal and political hostility between these camps was not subtle.

Now Omar says she wants to "put our arms around" the very people who tried to end her career. The sudden warmth is not a sign of principled reconciliation. It is a sign that Omar sees political utility in Greene's disaffection, nothing more.

Greene, for her part, has not indicated any interest in joining forces with Omar or the Democratic caucus. Her criticism of Trump has been directed at what she sees as a departure from the movement's original principles, not an endorsement of the progressive agenda. The two women may agree that the Iran strikes were wrong. That does not make them allies on anything else.

Fractures within the Republican coalition are real, and they deserve honest examination. Reports of further potential departures from the administration suggest the turbulence is not over. But the way those fractures get used, and by whom, matters as much as the fractures themselves.

Internal GOP disputes, from campaign funding clashes in Louisiana to the Greene-Trump split, are policy disagreements among people who broadly share a governing philosophy. When a progressive Democrat shows up to "embrace" the dissenters, it isn't unity. It's recruitment.

A familiar pattern

Omar's move follows a well-worn playbook. Every time a Republican breaks publicly with party leadership, the left rolls out the welcome mat, not because they agree with the person's record, but because the spectacle is useful. Liz Cheney received the same treatment. So did Adam Kinzinger. The embrace lasts exactly as long as the political utility does.

Greene has given no indication she wants to be the next exhibit in that gallery. Her complaints about Trump are rooted in a belief that the movement lost its way, not that Ilhan Omar had the right idea all along.

Omar can talk about working together all she wants. But when the invitation arrives on a progressive podcast, wrapped in language about "con men" and "cults," it's not an olive branch. It's a press release.