Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene remembered the explosion of noise on the House floor days after she forced a vote to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson, noting that the boos were “deafening.”
Ms. Greene, Georgia Republican, pulled the trigger on her motion to vacate the chair on Wednesday after weeks of speculation. The move ultimately failed on a landslide bipartisan vote. But before lawmakers decided whether to save Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, they let Ms. Greene know exactly how they felt.
“It was deafening,” Ms. Greene told Steve Bannon on his War Room podcast on Friday. “Imagine walking into an arena where everyone hates you in that moment.”
Indeed, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle erupted into boos the moment Ms. Greene announced that she was forcing a vote.
“But inside that room, the boos were deafening,” Ms. Greene said. “I mean, absolutely, deafening. That was all I could hear.”
Their fervor was so loud with boos and side conversations, Ms. Greene said she struggled to hear when she read her measure aloud. The lawmaker rattled off a series of disappointments with Mr. Johnson’s performance as speaker, often accusing him of prioritizing the Democratic agenda over the GOP’s policy.
Some of her issues were with Mr. Johnson passing Ukraine aid, passing a warrantless reauthorization of the government’s chief spying power, and blasting a last-minute spending package through the House. Many of those instances required the support of Democrats to pass.
While most lawmakers in the room groaned, jeered or laughed, some spoke up during Ms. Greene’s reading of her lengthy resolution.
Rep. Steve Cohen, Tennessee Democrat, mockingly called for order, “Mr Speaker the house is not in order, and it’s about to fall into chaos.”