Who didn’t see this coming? After his public statements of support for MAGA Mike failed to get Moscow Marge to back down from her destabilizing threat to push Johnson into the arms of the House Dems with her vacate the chair motion, Señor T finally called her over the weekend and told her to cut the crap. Another Trump crony, Ryan Zinke (R-MT), leaked the content of the call to Politico. Though Bannon is still encouraging her to keep up the fight despite Trump’s admonitions to stop, she backed down yesterday after meeting with Johnson for an hour. She says she'll give him more time to prove he's conservative enough for her.
Yesterday, PunchBowl managed to get some details of Monday’s help-me-find-an-offramp summit between MAGA Mike and Greene (who brought Thomas Massie along, though not Arizona Nazi Paul Gosar). Johnson wasted 2 hour with the two of them. Her demands, which sound like she was coached by Trump were:
No more aide for Ukraine
Defunding Special Counsel Jack Smith’s criminal investigation into Trump
A return to the dysfunctional “Hastert rule,” in which nothing gets put on the floor unless a majority of Republicans agrees— the most anti-bipartisan move ever made in Congress.
Punchbowl noted that “The White House won’t be coming back to Congress anytime soon for more [Ukraine] cash. The most important issue on Ukraine funding is who wins the contest for the White House in November. Johnson can feasibly say that he’s done sending money to Ukraine for the time being. Although the downside is Johnson would be painting himself into a box, never a great look for a party leader. Trump allies on Capitol Hill have long advocated cutting off funding for Smith’s investigation into Trump— both the classified document case and the Jan. 6 investigation. The FY2024 spending bills are already done, of course, so there’s no leverage there. But the FY2025 spending bills are early in the drafting process, meaning House Republicans could give it a run. Of course, the Senate would never take this up, and President Joe Biden would never sign any such bill including this provision if it somehow landed on his desk. Senior House Republicans privately admit this. Yet Greene doesn’t really see those political realities as hurdles— or care. She wants to cause legislative crises and get media coverage. Passing bills with the majority of the majority is always a goal for any speaker. Lucky for Johnson, there’s not much big-ticket legislating left this year.”
They noted that “Greene still may not get the answers she wants. She’s holding open the possibility of triggering the motion to vacate this week if Johnson doesn’t accede to these demands. Or Massie could do it… The reality is that much of this is cosplay for all of the players involved. Johnson is going to survive a motion to vacate with Democrats voting to table, so the threat from Greene, Massie and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) is mostly theater. But Johnson would certainly like to be spared the indignity of having to rely on House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to rescue his speakership. It costs Johnson very little to hear Greene and Massie out and try to help them understand the situation he’s in. With little left to do this year, it’s clear Johnson would prefer to not have to deal with a motion to vacate— even if he can beat it.”
The “Will-she-or-won’t-she?” routine is appealing to a certain kind of lawmaker. Greene is getting the attention that comes along with vowing to oust the speaker. Although Greene says she wants every Republican on the record as to whether they’ll vote with Jeffries to save Johnson, the reality is she is going to lose on the floor and find herself out of favor with nearly all of her GOP colleagues. We don’t see the win if Greene or Massie keeps pushing this.
House Democrats. If Greene does pull the plug, she’ll be doing Democrats a huge favor. The decision to save Johnson isn’t playing very well in the House Democratic Caucus. Most Democrats aren’t psyched to keep a Republican speaker in place— especially because the GOP would never return the favor under any circumstance.
