The New Republic's Virginia Heffernan has tracked the MAGA movement's breakup closely over the past year, as broken promises by President Donald Trump have left the movement feeling "betrayed."

Speaking with Greg Sargent on his "Daily Blast" podcast, the two discussed the recent warning issued by former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who broke with the president over the Jeffrey Epstein files. In a TikTok video, Greene warned that the era of MAGA success is over.

"The coalition came in. You want to know why ‘26 and ‘28 is going to be different? Because Donald Trump broke his big, big campaign promise of no more foreign wars, and actually has got us embroiled in a war with Iran, a war that should not be happening, and he’s not backing off of it. And it will probably get worse. So, that has the affordability crisis. That’s why people can’t afford gasoline. That’s why people’s bills keep going up. Food prices are still going up. Beef is at all-time high. It’s ridiculous. You know what you should have done? You should have stuck to your campaign promises, and you should have delivered for the people that put you in office, not the ones writing you the big fat checks," said Greene.

Her remarks came after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the press, "I don't really understand" the spike in oil prices, underscoring how the administration has struggled to explain the cost pressures now being cited by its own allies.

Sargent described Greene as something of an "oracle" for predicting that this would happen when she left Congress.

"When Marjorie Taylor Greene says the coalition is falling apart, all these voters feel betrayed by you, Mr. President, she isn’t just making a prediction. She’s essentially saying to these voters, you know, you shouldn’t show up for this guy because he f—— you, right? That’s what she’s really saying. And it’s true. She’s right about it," said Sargent.

Heffernan noted that Trump is quoted as saying he doesn’t care about his old voters, and that Greene "and lots of people took that very personally."

The two argued that Trump is now repeating the kind of foreign-policy overreach he once blasted. He is issuing threats of economic punishment against countries that trade with Iran — measures that are not easily enforced and appear designed largely to create the appearance of action while lacking a clear strategy for ending the conflict, they said.

According to Heffernan and Sargent, MAGA is now stuck in a messaging crisis in which even Fox News personalities such as Sean Hannity are avoiding most discussion of the war. The two suggested this is likely because audiences do not want to hear pro-war rhetoric. As a result, pro-Trump media is falling back on the message that Trump is being unfairly persecuted, a familiar frame that is easier to repeat than defending rising prices or foreign-policy escalation.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was finally forced to say that the affordability crisis is not a "hoax," as Trump had claimed. On Thursday, Johnson acknowledged that the war has pushed gas prices higher — a problem that has become increasingly difficult for Republicans to dismiss while they try to keep Trump’s coalition unified.