(Headline USA) Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said Wednesday she would call a vote next week on ousting House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., forcing her colleagues to choose sides in a difficult showdown after Democratic leaders announced they would provide the votes to save the Republican speaker’s job.
Speaking outside the Capitol, Greene ranted against Republican Party leaders at the highest levels and pushed back against their public entreaties, including from Donald Trump, to avoid another messy political fight so close to the November election. With her was Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., one of the few lawmakers to join her effort.
The Motion to Vacate the Speaker WILL be called for a vote next week.
Members have a weekend to decide whether to embrace the #Uniparty that became obvious in the U.S. House when Hakeem Jeffries and the entire Democrat leadership team announced they want to keep Mike Johnson. pic.twitter.com/PfgBhuQ7Kw
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) May 1, 2024
“We need leaders in the House of Representatives that are going to get this done,” said Greene, holding up a red “MAGA” hat from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign movement.
“Mike Johnson is not capable of that job,” she said.
In pressing ahead next week, she said that “every member of Congress needs to take that vote and let the chips fall where they may.”
The standoff with Greene, one of Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters, risks throwing Republican control of the House into a fresh round of chaos as rank-and-file lawmakers will have to choose between ousting Johnson, R-La., as speaker or joining with Democrats to keep him on the job.
Johnson, in his own statement, said Greene’s move was “wrong for the Republican Conference, wrong for the institution, and wrong for the country.”
Democrats see in Johnson as pushover who’s willing to lead his Republican Party away from the far-right voices who’ve opposed runaway spending and Biden’s proxy war in Ukraine.
The Democratic leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-NY, and his team issued a joint statement this week saying it was time to “turn the page” on the GOP chaos, announcing that the Democrats would vote to table Greene’s motion to vacate the speaker’s office, essentially ensuring Johnson is not evicted from office — at least on this attempt.
“From the very beginning of the Congress, House Republican have visited chaos, dysfunction and extremism on the American people,” Jeffries said Wednesday.
“Marjorie Taylor Green is the star of the show. The show is called Republicans Gone Wild,” he added. “It is undermining the well-being of the American people and preventing us from delivering real and meaningful results on the issues that matter.”
Johnson’s public opponents are few, at this point, and less than the eight that it took to oust now-former Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., last fall in the first ever removal of sitting speaker from the powerful office that is second in the line of succession to the president. Just one other Republican, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, has joined Greene and Massie in their effort.
Greene and Massie said they were giving their colleagues the weekend to weigh their options before calling for the vote on her motion to vacate next week. Or, they said, Johnson could simply resign, pointing to the example of a previous speaker, Republican John Boehner of Ohio, who stepped aside in 2015 when hard-liners threatened to oust him.
They listed a list of complaints against Johnson, including his leadership in securing the aid for Ukraine.
“Are you going to embrace Hakeem Jeffries like Mike Johnson has?” said Massie, before a poster-photo of Jeffries handing Johnson the gavel when the Republican first became speaker last fall.
“They’ve got a weekend to think about it, but more importantly, Mike Johnson has a weekend to think about it.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
