Speaker Mike Johnson has insisted he has no “grudge” against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for trying to get him fired, but other Republicans are fed up with the chaos she and her firebrand minions have wrought in this Congress.
‘No hard feelings. I have to work with everyone. I told her last night before she left the track, ‘Let’s move on, Marjorie,'” Johnson told “Fox and Friends” on Thursday.
Johnson told Politico that he told Greene on the House floor after the vote: “I’m not angry about this.” We have to work together. And I want to work with you and with those ideas that we were talking about. “I’m still working on them, so I hope we can put this behind us and move forward.”
Johnson said Greene expressed a willingness to work with him.
Other Republicans have not been as kind to the Georgia firebrand, and some have quietly suggested she be removed from committees.
Speaker Mike Johnson has insisted he has no “grudge” against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for trying to get him fired, but other Republicans are fed up with the chaos she and her firebrand minions have wrought in this Congress.
‘No hard feelings. I have to work with everyone. I told her last night before she left the track, let’s move on, Marjorie,” Johnson told “Fox and Friends” on Thursday.
Johnson, however, has already signaled that removing committee members in retaliation could have consequences, and he is unlikely to heed those calls.
‘They probably want to kick me off the committees. They probably want a primary,” Greene acknowledged after Wednesday’s failed vote. “I say, go ahead.”
Ideas that have been floated include allowing the Republican conference to vote on removing a member from committees or even the conference itself if they force an override motion.
The biggest change that less problematic Republicans have demanded is the rule that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to allowing a single member to make a motion to override and force a vote in the House of Representatives. That rule change led to his final demise: Democrats did not jump in to help as they did with Johnson.
It is unlikely that they will be able to do this before the next Congress. With a one-vote margin and right-wing conservatives opposed, they would need Democratic help to change the rules. That will almost certainly be more than Democrats are willing to go to help the president.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said those who voted to table, or override, the motion to unseat Johnson would be the ones to face the consequences, predicting they would “take a beating from his base.”
In addition to two moves to recall speakers, Republicans have thwarted the leadership’s agenda by opposing typically mundane procedural votes that prepare for a final vote on legislation.
Members have already proposed removing Republicans who oppose priority legislation from the chairman of the Rules Committee, through which almost all bills pass.
‘Members who refuse to support the Speaker’s agenda must resign from the Rules Committee immediately. If they refuse, they must be eliminated immediately. They are there on behalf of the conference, not themselves,” wrote Rep. Mike Lawler in X weeks. He revived those calls after Wednesday’s vote.
Only 10 Republican colleagues joined Greene in voting to advance the override motion that would expel the president from office.
It only took 30 minutes for their effort to collapse in scenes reminiscent of the circus that led to the vote to get rid of Kevin McCarthy.
Only 43 House members voted to advance Greene’s motion.
A vote to “introduce” or delete, the motion succeeded 359 to 43.
The typically reserved Johnson let loose after the vote: “Hopefully, this is the end of the personality politics and frivolous character assassination that has defined the 118th Congress.”
Even former President Donald Trump spoke out against the motion.
Trump defended Greene, but said now is “not the time” for her motion, and she said yes. “his request” that Republicans vote to table the motion, even though the publication was after the vote to table the motion had passed.
‘I love Marjorie Taylor Greene. “She has spirit, she has fight and I believe she will be around and on our side for a long time,” she wrote.
‘With a majority of one, which will soon grow to three or four, we are not in a position to vote on an annulment motion. It is very possible that at some point we will be, but this is not the time.’
Trump continued: ‘If we show DISUNITY, which will be portrayed as CHAOS, it will negatively affect everything!’
He called Mike Johnson a “good man who is trying very hard.”
Only thirty-two Democrats voted against the attempt to override the motion, a spectacular reversal from months ago when all Democrats voted along with eight Republicans to oust McCarthy.
More Republicans (11) voted to unseat Johnson than McCarthy (eight), even though the Louisiana Republican had at one point been presented as the conservative alternative to his California counterpart.
Greene was met with boos and eye rolls when she introduced her motion during Wednesday’s votes.
GOP members accused her of throwing a “tantrum” and seeking attention when she brought her eviction motion to the House floor Wednesday night.
“Times like this need a bar in this place,” Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, murmured as he left the House chamber.
‘You are not the Republican Party!’ Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., interrupted Greene as he chatted with reporters after the vote.
“Moscow’s Marjorie has clearly gone crazy, perhaps as a result of a space laser,” said Rep. Mike Lawler, RN.Y.
Asked if he thought Greene should be punished, Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-D., said, “One dumpster fire at a time.”
Meanwhile, in the House, Greene criticized the two-part spending bill that funded the government for fiscal year 2024, a bill that reauthorized the warrantless FISA spy tool and a foreign aid package. which did not include border security.
