Greene booed as Republicans turn on her over bid to oust Speaker Johnson
They heckled her and shouted boos as she rose to speak, and some hissed at her – and those were the voices from the same side of the aisle as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
Greene tried to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) from leadership on Wednesday, but Republicans overwhelmingly opposed her bid. And that effort proved to be the final straw for many of her GOP colleagues who have expressed a growing distaste for her antics during her three years in Congress. It even led to a rare admonishment by one of her most ardent supporters – former president Donald Trump.
On Wednesday, 196 Republicans – most of the conference – rejected her bid and voted with 163 Democrats to procedurally block her motion.
She just had 10 GOP colleagues vote with her, and a half-dozen of them waited until the very end of the roll call to post their votes, mostly as a symbolic vote of warning toward Johnson but one that made clear they did not want to be associated with Greene.
“This was not a priority. I don’t know why she did this,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said after the vote.
After spending most of 2023 as a firebrand who changed course to work with her party’s leadership, Greene has found herself increasingly isolated.
“This is the uniparty,” she said, motioning with both hands to the full House chamber as she introduced the motion Wednesday with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) at her side. The term “uniparty” is something far-right Republicans have used when legislation passes with large numbers of Democratic and Republican votes, over the flank’s objections, a conspiratorial rejoinder intended to suggest the two parties are acting indistinguishably.
But as Greene railed against Johnson’s legislative actions, she was heckled from both sides of the aisle in an unusual display of bipartisan distaste toward a single lawmaker.
In a post on Truth Social just after Wednesday’s vote, Trump discouraged Republicans from ousting Johnson, saying that while he loves Greene, Republicans are “not in a position of voting on a Motion to Vacate.”
“At some point, we may very well be, but this is not the time,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee continued, adding that if Republicans “show DISUNITY, which will be portrayed as CHAOS, it will negatively affect everything!”
In recent days, Trump has continued to come to Johnson’s defense. At a luncheon on Saturday in Florida, Trump offered unequivocal praise for Johnson, who was in the crowd, telling him that “you’re doing a very good job.” He added that other Republicans should “leave him alone.”
And in his Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump wrote that Johnson “is a good man who is trying very hard.”
“I also wish certain things were done over the last period of two months, but we will get them done, together,” he added.
After the vote, Johnson told reporters that he appreciated “the show of confidence” from his colleagues to defeat the “misguided” effort. And without naming Greene, Johnson dismissed her actions as not a serious attempt at being a lawmaker.
“Hopefully this is the end of the personality politics and the frivolous character assassination that has defined the 118th Congress. It’s regrettable, it’s not who we are as Americans, and we’re better than this. We need to get beyond it,” he told reporters after the vote.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who had telegraphed his party’s support for blocking Greene after Johnson recently helped pass a $95 billion national security spending bill, said “the vote clearly speaks for itself.”
“It was a vote of conscience. It was overwhelming. It was decisive. And we need to move forward as a Congress to solve problems for everyday Americans,” he continued, adding that “the only thing” Democrats ask of House Republicans “is for traditional Republicans to further isolate the extreme MAGA Republican wing of the GOP, which has visited nothing but chaos and dysfunction on the American people.”
House Republicans’ agitation with Greene was palpable following the vote.
“I’ve been frustrated for quite some time,” said Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), who voted against tabling the motion to vacate. “While I don’t believe that the timing was great and I certainly have doubts about whether or not we could find somebody better, I just could not stomach voting with Democrats to avoid a vote.” Burlison said he wasn’t sure if he would have voted to vacate Johnson if the motion to table failed.
Rep. Marcus J. Molinaro (R-N.Y.) told reporters after voting to block Greene’s motion that there are “some people in this House who think that they’re more important than the other members, and I think the message today is that they are not.”
And when Rep. Dusty Johnson (S.D.), the chairman of the governing-focused Republican Main Street Caucus, was asked whether Greene should be punished, Johnson responded, “One dumpster fire at a time.”
“This doesn’t fundamentally change any of the power dynamics of the House,” said Johnson, who voted to table the motion. “You’re always going to have somewhere between 10 and 25 members … that are a difficult vote to get on most any governing vote. That’s the way it was last week. That’s where it’s going to be next week.”
Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (R-Fla.) told reporters outside the Capitol after he voted to block the bid that Congress “has said enough is enough.”
“We don’t need to hear from her anymore. She is there just for the attention. She just wants to raise money off of this. And again, she doesn’t represent the Republican Party,” he continued.
Succeeding Gimenez in speaking to the media on the Capitol steps, Greene said Americans who voted Republicans into the House “want a Republican Party that’s ready to fight for our agenda. They want a Republican Party that’s ready to pass President Trump’s agenda. And this Republican Party is not ready, and they proved it today.”
Gimenez interjected, shouting at Greene: “You’re not the Republican Party.”
Greene defended her push to oust Johnson, which threatened to send the House into a leaderless disarray.
“It’s chaos for the American people every single day,” Greene said. “While members of Congress whine that they don’t want to be cast into chaos, I think it’s time for our Congress here to grow a backbone and a spine and actually work for the American people for change.”
Departing the news conference, Greene confirmed that she briefly spoke with Johnson after Wednesday’s vote. She declined to share the details of their exchange.
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Video: On May 8 the House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to kill a move by Republican hard-liners aimed at ousting House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).© 2024 , The Washington Post
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