In the wake of House Democratic Party leadership coming to the defense of Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene now says that she will force a vote on removing Johnson from the speaker’s chair.
Rep. Greene appeared on C-SPAN2 from the steps of the Capitol Building and told the nation that she intends to force the House to vote on Johnson’s suitability for the chair as soon as next week.
“I think the American people need to see a recorded vote,” she said. “Does the members of Congress support the uniparty? Is this what they support?”
“I think every member of Congress needs to take that vote,” she continued, “and let the chips fall where they may. And so next week I am going to be calling this motion to vacate — absolutely calling it.”
“I can’t wait to see Democrats go out and support a Republican speaker and have to go home to their primaries, and have to run for Congress again, having supported a Republican speaker — a Christian conservative,” she said. “I think that’ll play well. I’m excited about it.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene says she will call the motion to vacate next week pic.twitter.com/tOavApRpz0
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 1, 2024
Greene is reacting to the letter sent by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, and caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar of California, in which the top Democrats said that they will vote to defeat any attempt to remove Johnson from the speaker’s office.
Do you agree with MTG?
In their letter, the leaders insisted, “We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed.”
Greene posted her entire press conference, also featuring Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, to her X account.
Congresswoman MTG Holds a Press Conference on Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ Endorsement of Mike Johnson for Speaker https://t.co/Cw74H4X0Lf
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) May 1, 2024
On her own X account, Greene lashed out at the “uniparty” that she says stands for “Make Ukraine Great Again.”
“The uniparty is ‘Make Ukraine Great Again,’” she said holding up a blue ball cap with the letters M-U-G-A emblazoned across it. “The uniparty is all about funding every single foreign war. They think this is the business model that needs to be done.”
The Uniparty hates MAGA. They don’t want to Make America Great Again.
The Uniparty is MUGA. Make Ukraine Great Again.
Another forever war spending hundreds of BILLIONS of your dollars brought to you by Uniparty Speaker Mike Johnson. pic.twitter.com/e2MnJXQO0V
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) May 1, 2024
Greene filed her motion to vacate Johnson from his seat in March, but has not pushed for a vote on the motion.
But she has been a harsh critic for months. Early last month after the Easter break, she also blasted Johnson for constantly caving in to the demands of the Democrats on key legislation, and said, “I will not tolerate our elected Republican Speaker Mike Johnson serving the Democrats and the Biden administration and helping them achieve their policies that are destroying our country.”
Speaker Johnson has been at odds with conservatives since only weeks after he replaced Kevin McCarthy as speaker, and last month fed up conservatives confronted him on the House floor over his push to get billions in funding for Ukraine.
In the end, though, with the GOP’s extremely slim majority, it seems highly unlikely that Greene will be able to succeed in taking Johnson out of the speaker’s chair. But it appears that her main goal here is not to actually remove him, but to get members of Congress on record as to whether they support Johnson or not. This, she feels, will elucidate just where they stand on Johnson’s caving in to the Democrats, his support for foreign wars, and his wild spending sprees.
