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The resignation comes as Mace is seeking the governor’s seat in South Carolina and tension is growing between President Donald Trump and some of his Republican allies
Josh Marcusin San FranciscoMonday 01 December 2025 21:31 GMTComments
CloseNancy Mace says she has no friends in DC and doesn't get invited to parties
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An official on Rep. Nancy Mace’s South Carolina gubernatorial campaign announced his resignation on Monday, accusing the Republican firebrand of having decided to “turn her back on MAGA” by aligning with Trump-critical Republicans including Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Thomas Massie.
“I am 100% breaking with her campaign out of loyalty to the President,” J. Austin McCubbin, who has served on past Trump and Mace campaigns, wrote on X.
Paul has been a vocal critic of the administration’s “extrajudicial killings” of alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean, while Massie has been a leading voice pressuring Trump to release the Epstein files.
McCubbin said the “straw that broke the camel’s back” was an alleged claim by Mace that she was directing a “personal friend” to fund a “7-figure check” to Protect Freedom PAC, a Paul-aligned PAC that has supported Mace.
The PAC has spent $456,000 on ad buys in South Carolina to benefit Mace, the South Carolina-based newspaperThe State reports.
open image in galleryThe Mace campaign drama comes at a time when issues such as foreign policy and the Epstein files have driven a wedge between the president and some of his past supporters in Congress (Getty Images)“My advice to the President, my friends in the White House, and South Carolina Trump voters: scratch her name from the list,” McCubbin added, claiming the South Carolina Republican had been drafted into furthering an alleged Paul 2028 presidential campaign.
“Mr. McCubbin didn’t raise a dime for the campaign or better yet, never even bothered showing up,” the Mace campaign told Politico. “When he demanded $10,000 a month for ‘services’ and was told no, he ran straight to X.”
The Independent has contacted McCubbin for comment.
The resignation comes as Mace is angling for Trump’s endorsement in her gubernatorial campaign at a time of growing tension between the president and some of his most loyal Republican allies in Congress, including the South Carolina rep.
open image in galleryMace is surely hoping to avoid the fate of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, another occasional Republican critic of the president who had a spectacular public falling out with the president over the Epstein files and has announced she will resign from Congress rather than face a Trump-backed challenger (AFP via Getty Images)Mace was part of a handful of Republicans in the House who voted to trigger a process that would force the administration to release the Epstein files.
The president reportedly phoned Mace to persuade her not to go along with the effort, but the South Carolinian stayed the course, citing her experience as a survivor of sexual violence as a core reason to push for the release of the files.
“I think we ran out of patience a long time ago,” she later said of her decision.
Tensions over the Epstein vote were already a catalyst for the president’s dramatic public falling out with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who will resign from Congress early next year, avoiding a primary where the president had vowed to endorse a challenger.
More Republicans are reportedly weighing whether to resign, citing what they see is dismissive treatment from the White House and congressional leadership.
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