Last month, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s GOP colleagues responded to her calls to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson by saying things like, “Don’t bother us,” and stop “airing your grievances,” and “Nobody cares what Marjorie Taylor Greene says or thinks.” Unfortunately for Greene (or maybe unfortunately for her coworkers), she did not appear to get the message, and rather than moving on, decided on Wednesday to dig in.
Speaking to reporters in Washington, the far-right congresswoman announced that she will officially raise a “motion to vacate” Johnson next week, i.e. try to boot him from his leadership position. Claiming Johnson “is not capable” of doing his job, Greene said she was giving Republicans the weekend to “prepare,” adding, “I care about my conference.” It also seems likely she‘s hoping people will change their minds over the next several days, because currently she appears to have little support—on either side of the aisle. As The Washington Post reports, representatives Thomas Massie and Paul Gosar are the only Republicans who’ve publicly backed Greene’s effort to remove Johnson, while Democrats, who helped oust Kevin McCarthy last year, have said they won’t do the same this time around.
On Tuesday, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats would vote to table Greene’s motion, which would effectively kill it. Not because they think Johnson is great—as a reminder, he’s antiabortion, anti-gay-marriage, and in favor of overturning the 2020 election—but because they want Congress to be able to operate. (And maybe also because they’re sick of Greene’s shit.) Representative Becca Balint told Axios Wednesday that Johnson’s “positions and actions on LGBTQ rights and reproductive rights are abhorrent,” but added, “My constituents and I want a functioning Congress. I will vote to end the chaos and to strip MTG of her power and influence.” Referring to the chances of Greene’s efforts being successful, a senior House Democrat told the outlet: “She is about to realize her inevitable irrelevance.”
Greene has claimed her attempt to boot Johnson is, in part, about defending Donald Trump, saying the House leader made a grave error when he funded the Justice Department because said DOJ, according to Greene, wants to imprison Trump “for life.” Yet Trump has endorsed Johnson publicly. Johnson’s other sins, according to the Georgia congresswoman, were reauthorizing a government surveillance bill, and sending $61 billion to Ukraine.
While Greene’s attempt to dump Johnson currently appears futile, and the work of an attention-seeking chaos machine, as my colleague Eric Lutz pointed out last month, Matt Gaetz’s attempt last year to boot McCarthy seemed similarly fated at first—until it was successful. “Matt Gaetz’s pursuit to oust Kevin McCarthy began as grandstanding too,” Lutz wrote. “It ended with McCarthy losing his gavel and giving up his seat.”
Is he making a list and checking it twice?
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Narrator: He did not appear to know he was not president three years ago
