We’ve known for some time now that Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has been on the warpath against House Speaker Mike Johnson. She has been threatening to work to give him the boot, recently repeating that she planned to file a motion to vacate the chair this week. She hasn’t pulled the trigger yet, however, and it’s possible that it might not even happen. Why? It’s being reported that Donald Trump spoke to her over the weekend and tried to talk her down from the ledge. Greene is a major advocate for Trump, but she has taken a very public position on this issue. Would she really back down now just because Donald Trump asked her to? (ABC News)
The Georgia congresswoman said last week she was moving ahead with her ouster effort despite pushback from many Republicans and a statement from Democrats that they would step in to help save Johnson. Trump has also weighed in on Greene’s move to oust Johnson.
Trump spoke privately to Greene over the weekend and urged her to drop her push to oust Johnson, a source close to the president confirmed to ABC News. During their discussion, Trump told Greene that the party needs to be unified, according to the source.
The former president’s team has mulled over how best to show support for Johnson. Trump brought Johnson on stage at the RNC spring retreat luncheon over the weekend and praised him “for his leadership and work in the US House,” emphasizing “the need for party unity, collaboration, and expanding the GOP’s House Majority,” according to the campaign.
Let’s first go over the list of four demands that MTG says she gave to Johnson recently. The first was a return to “the Hastert rule,” i.e. no legislation comes up for a vote without the support of a majority of the majority in the House. I don’t recall Johnson violating that one. The second demand was, “no more funding for Ukraine.” For better or worse, a lot of House Republicans supported the Ukraine aid.
Her third demand was to defund the special counsel’s probe into Donald Trump. Johnson was already looking into that and is expected to move on the proposal soon. Finally, MTG demanded that Johnson pass a continuing resolution to automatically enact a 1% spending cut. That’s probably going to be a tough sell. It’s a great idea, but we have a lot of members who are still addicted to spending our tax dollars.
Trump’s argument was focused on the need for party unity heading into the election and demonstrating that the GOP is capable of getting things done. That’s the same argument I’ve been making here and Mike Johnson has said almost the exact same thing. What would Greene be accomplishing by vacating the seat and throwing the House back into chaos and gridlock? Also, a number of Democrats have vowed to support Johnson if a motion to vacate comes to the floor so the effort could very well blow up in MTG’s face anyway.
Hopefully, they can move past this impasse and get back to work. If Greene is willing to listen to anybody it’s probably Donald Trump. But she would have to be willing to eat a bit of crow in doing so, given the spectacle she has created around her plan to vacate the seat. I’m not sure it’s in her character to do that.