Marjorie Taylor Greene Files Motion to Oust Speaker Johnson

Another house speaker, as Nate mentioned, could be on the way out. Let’s bring in Steven Newcomb, congressional reporter with Axios. Steven, hard-right Republicans are just furious over this government funding package. Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is among them. She went from taking smiling selfies when she backed Mike Johnson for speaker in October, to now filing a motion to vacate less than a half a year later. Let’s listen to what she had to say today.

I do not wish to inflict pain on our conference and to throw the house in chaos, but this is basically a warning and it’s time for us to go through the process, take our time, and find a new speaker of the house that will stand with Republicans and our Republican majority instead of standing with the Democrats.

Now, Greene says she hasn’t put it to a vote just yet, but what kind of support does she even have to oust Johnson?

It’s unclear at this point how much support she would have even in the Republican Party. There is a talk amongst some Democrats we heard today that they would be willing to vote to keep Johnson in power, so that complicates things even further for Marjorie Taylor Greene and those who would want to get rid of Johnson. I think that there’s a ton of fatigue about the process that happened after the former Speaker McCarthy was ousted last year and they don’t want to go through that again. It was three weeks of nothing, trying to find another speaker. Where they’re at right now, I don’t think that there’s much of an appetite to go through that again.

Yeah, there’s quite the turmoil going down right now. You’d mentioned the ousting of Speaker McCarthy. We had recently elected Democrat Tom Suozzi. He discussed the turmoil here. Let’s play that sound.

Will you vote to keep Mike Johnson in as speaker?

Yes, I will.

Why is that?

Because it’s absurd. He’s getting kicked out for doing the right thing, keeping the government open. It has two-thirds support of the Congress and the idea that he would be kicked out by these jokers is absurd.

Will there be other Democrats who join you, you think?

I hope so.

That’s a Democrat there. What kind of leverage, if any, do Democrats get from all of this?

Yeah. We heard today that Speaker Johnson was talking to members on both sides of the aisle about moving quick on a package for Israel and Ukraine support once they get back after a two-week recess in April. Maybe there’s some leverage there to force the speaker who, thus far has not moved on Ukraine aid, Israel aid. There’s a lot of conservatives in his conference who do not want to go forward with that. In fact, Marjorie Taylor Greene said today when she was speaking to reporters that what would trigger her to trigger a motion to actually vote on this motion to vacate would be Speaker Johnson moving on Ukraine aid. So we’ll see if Democrats, and maybe moderate Republicans, have a little bit more leverage in terms of getting the speaker to move on on/those two things which are really important to a lot of lawmakers.

Yeah. Greene is also facing pushback from her own party. Many Republicans were unhappy with her actions, which she’s only able to take because of a rule that allows just one lawmaker to file a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair. How many Republicans want to change that rule now?

I think there’s a strong appetite to change that rule. I think if you talk to the speaker candidly and other Republicans and leaders, there would be an appetite to change that rule. That was a concession that former Speaker McCarthy made to holdouts who were keeping him from having the gavel last year. We saw what the outcome of that was. It was turmoil. It was him losing his job. Like I said, three weeks of thumb twirling and trying to figure out who could lead the conference next. So I think there is an appetite within the party to get rid of that margin or make that margin higher in some way.

So, house Republicans can only afford to lose one vote now. Congressman Buck, he’s gone. Gallagher is heading to the exits next. How will those developments shape what actually gets done on Capitol Hill in the months leading up to the election?

Well, it puts the speaker in two positions. He can lose one vote on a party line vote, or they’re essentially forcing him into a position like he did today on government funding to partner with Democrats to get legislation through the Congress. Before the election, we’re going to have to deal with fiscal year 2025 budget and funding and they’re going to have to deal with Ukraine funding and Israel and a number of other things that sort of have to get through the Congress. So they’re putting the speaker in a position where it’s either going to be an ultra conservative party line vote or he’s going to have to look and turn to Democrats for support to get legislation through the house.

Yeah, puts him in quite a bind. Axios congressional reporter, Steven Newcomb. Thank you for your time, sir.