Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is escalating her threat to remove Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)
On top of that, many of the conservatives most frustrated with Johnson’s leadership style are opposing a motion to vacate, leaving Greene with only the barest GOP support for her removal resolution.
And Greene over the weekend called on Johnson to resign, or she’s vowing to boot him from power.
If he doesn’t do so, he will be vacated.” Yet Greene’s position is a lonely one in the House GOP.
Yet Johnson backed away from that rule change, keeping the single-vote threshold for launching a motion to vacate in place.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told The New York Times in February that “a reasonable number” of Democrats would rescue Johnson.
Complicating Greene’s effort even further, Trump recently hosted Johnson at Mar-a-Lago, where the former president praised the Speaker’s performance since taking the gavel.
“He’s doing a really good job under very tough circumstances,” Trump said, just days before Johnson unveiled his strategy for passing Ukraine aid.
Rep. Greene, Marjorie Taylor (R-GA). ) is intensifying her call to have Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) removed. ) from power, but she has a long way to go before she can accomplish that.
Not only has the presumed GOP presidential nominee, former President Trump, given the Speaker a glowing endorsement recently, Democrats are still prepared to save Johnson from a conservative takeover. Furthermore, a motion to resign is being opposed by a number of conservatives who are extremely displeased with Johnson’s leadership style, giving Greene the slimmest backing from the GOP for her removal resolution.
This is not the time to do that, in my opinion and estimation,” Rep. Bob Good (Republican, Virginia). ), leader of the radical right Freedom Caucus.
Not that Johnson is no longer in danger.
By reaching across the aisle to strike a number of deals with President Biden on contentious issues like federal spending, government spying, and, most recently, billions of dollars in new military aid to Ukraine — funding opposed by the majority of his GOP conference — the Speaker has been infuriating conservatives like Greene and Good for months.
Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ultimately brought down by precisely those kinds of bipartisan agreements. ), who was overthrown in October by irate hardliners. Furthermore, Greene threatened to remove Johnson from office if he did not step down over the weekend.
In an interview with Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” she declared, “Mike Johnson’s Speakership is over.”. “.
“He must take the appropriate action, which is to step down, and permit us to proceed through a regulated procedure. He will be removed if he doesn’t comply. “.
Greene does, however, hold a unique position within the House GOP.
Although two other Republicans, Reps. The Republican from Kentucky, Thomas Massie. as well as Paul Gosar (R-Ariz. ) — conservatives generally agree that Johnson should stay in office despite their dissatisfaction with his ability to broker bipartisan agreements. Some of these voices are those of Freedom Caucus leaders like Good, who backed McCarthy’s ouster but are eager to point out that, in the six months since then, things have changed politically for Republicans.
The GOP’s majority in the House has not only decreased as a result of former Rep. George Santos (Red-N. Y. ] and the resignation of five other Republicans, among them McCarthy; however, Johnson’s successor is still up in the air, and November is quickly approaching. Simply put, a lot of Republicans don’t want to experience the turmoil that accompanied McCarthy’s removal, when they frantically tried to find a suitable successor.
“I believe we make the best effort we can with the Speaker we have: we try our best to sway him, we call attention to actions we believe are wrong—not just by the Speaker, but by all those who are voting to support them—and we hold a competition to see who the conference can unite behind as the best candidate for November,” Good stated.
The support for Greene’s move to vacate the House appeared poised to surge last week when Johnson toyed with the idea of pushing a change in House rules that would make it more difficult to remove a Speaker. Conservatives, including Reps. Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida. (R-Colo.) and Lauren Boebert. ) hinted at joining the group.
Johnson, however, withdrew his support for that rule change and maintained the one-vote requirement for filing a motion to vacate. Furthermore, just three lawmakers continue to publicly support Greene’s resolution.
Gaetz stated, “I won’t support a motion to vacate right now because I think it would almost certainly turn the House over to Democrats.”.
Greene’s threat to fire Johnson has somewhat diminished due to conservative backlash, in part because it now appears that a mere handful of Democrats, if any, would be needed to save the Speaker in the event that a vacate motion is put to a vote.
Numerous Democrats have already stated in public that they would vote against Greene’s resolution to save the Speaker; their support had been contingent on Johnson’s willingness to hold votes on expanding federal surveillance authority and increasing aid to Ukraine, two measures that received overwhelming bipartisan support in recent days.
Minority Leader of the House, Hakeem Jeffries (D-N. You Y. ] predicted that “a reasonable number” of Democrats would save Johnson, according to The New York Times in February. He claimed that the math remained the same last week.
Jeffries told reporters, “That statement still stands.”.
The fact that Trump hosted Johnson at Mar-a-Lago recently and the former president commended the Speaker for his work since assuming office further complicates Greene’s efforts.
Trump remarked, “He’s doing a really good job under very tough circumstances,” a few days before Johnson revealed his plan to approve aid for Ukraine.
Not in a rhetorical sense, anyway. None of those things have deterred Greene. The firebrand from Georgia stepped up her attacks on Johnson on Monday, telling former Trump adviser Steve Bannon that Republicans feel “betrayed” by the Speaker because he is supporting new aid to Ukraine and that they prefer a new generation of leaders who will stand up for Trump’s “America First” agenda.
“They are overly tired of Republican leaders like Mike Johnson, who completely betrayed us to the Democrats, became the fastest member of the uniparty in history, and changed everything in a matter of months,” the speaker stated.
More moderate Republicans, who back Johnson and find it hard to believe that a tiny minority of disgruntled conservatives could demand that he be removed, have retaliated against the internal criticisms.
Rep. said, “He did the right thing, followed his compass, and she speaks for three or four people.”. Don Bacon (Republican, Nebraska). ). “Three people cannot rule over the others. “.
