Trump Now Sees Her As An Embarrassment & An Annoyance
Moscow Marge now says she plans to trigger a vacate the chair motion next week— not because she thinks she can oust MAGA Mike— but because she wants to force a recorded vote on his speakership to embarrass her colleagues and put some of them in electoral jeopardy.
My best source in their conference told me she’s generally “almost as hated as Matt [Gaetz] right now and, as you know, everyone has knives out for him… If she goes through with this threat, her career in the House is basically over. She may be counting on a position in the Trump administration, although we're hearing even he's done with her now.”
According to Politico, Michael Whatley, Trump’s other hire to run the RNC, “had already briefed Greene’s fellow House Republicans on the importance of party unity that morning, but Greene didn’t show. He delivered his pointed message to her personally: Don’t move against Johnson. ‘He said, one, this is not helpful, and two, we want to expand and grow the majority in the House,’ said a person familiar with Whatley’s message to Greene. ‘He was clear that any disruption to the conference on these efforts— including filing this [motion to vacate], does not help the case for party unity.’ In another era, a directive from the top Republican party official certainly would not go unheeded by a House back-bencher. Even in this era, you would think Whatley’s status as Donald Trump’s handpicked RNC steward would mean something to a MAGA acolyte. But Greene disagreed with Whatley, arguing that the party had time to rebound from a leadership switch before the election. And she admitted she’d spoken to Trump himself earlier in the day— leaving the impression that the former president had told her much the same as Whatley had.”
The truth was, Greene had backed herself into a corner, and this morning [Tuesday], she’s facing a potential lose-lose situation: back down and look squishy or stand firm and risk a break with Trump.
… Already her threats have taken a toll on her standing within the House Republican conference, where more and more lawmakers are growing tired of her self-aggrandizing antics.
[Jordain Carney and Olivia Beavers wrote] that Greene’s latest push comes as the GOP tries to take advantage of the campus unrest to make a messaging push on antisemitism. But, they write, instead of “going on the offense by attacking Democrats for insufficiently condemning pro-Palestinian protests on campuses, Republicans are now bracing for Greene to drag them into another internal fight that most of them would rather delay until after Election Day.”
The bigger issue is that Greene is defying not just her House colleagues, but also Trump and his hand-picked deputy, who made yesterday’s unusual face-to-face appeal.
Whatley told Playbook in a statement that “nothing is more important than party unity and ensuring that we are focused on beating Joe Biden and Democrats in November.”
Others in the Trump-aligned orbit are annoyed, to put it mildly, at Greene’s lack of political discipline. Some noted that she’d kept quiet in recent days until House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other top Democrats made their backing of Johnson public yesterday morning— suggesting Greene got rope-a-doped into sparking another internecine fight.
“Fresh bait always finds a fish,” one senior GOP official told Playbook. “Jeffries throwing that out there, it’s chum in the water. Everyone knows what he did.”
A person close to Greene clapped back at Whatley and his calls for unity: “The only person destroying Republican unity is Mike Johnson,” the person said. “Republicans need a speaker who will deliver President Trump’s America First agenda when he’s back in the White House. Democrat-endorsed Mike Johnson isn’t it.”
But another senior GOP official suggested there could be consequences for Greene if she doesn’t start playing team ball, and fast. She could find herself iced out of some parts of MAGA world, where she’s long been adored.
“If she blows everything up… we’re not going to bring her in the fold on anything,” that person said. “She’s on her own.”
Yesterday she went ahead and announced she’s going to force the vote on her doomed motion to vacate anyway. Speaking before a sea of reporters just outside the Capitol, the delusional QAnon housewife from northwest Georgia said “I think every member of Congress needs to take that vote and let the chips fall where they may. And so next week, I am going to be calling this motion to vacate.” She still has only two supporters, Arizona Nazi Paul Gosar, another Republican no one wants anything to do with, and Kentucky oddball Thomas Massie.
Mychael Schnell and Mike Lillis reported that Moscow Marge’s “decision to finally trigger a vote on the resolution came one day after the top three House Democrats announced that they would vote to table a motion to vacate if it came to the floor, joining a number of rank-and-file Democrats who have said for months that they’d shield Johnson from a conservative coup. Greene suggested the Democrats’ support was the impetus behind her decision to force the floor vote, and it lends fuel to her argument that Johnson is a Democrat at heart. Photos of Johnson and Jeffries were displayed behind Greene’s press conference, and the podium was plastered with a sign that read: ‘Hakeem Jeffries endorsed Mike Johnson the uniparty Speaker.’”
Mainstream media coverage like this is not what the Trump campaign wants to see:
Conservative firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said on Wednesday she's calling up a vote next week to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson, setting up a high-stakes clash inside her own party and where Democrats are vowing to help avoid another lengthy vacancy in the job that is second in line of succession to the presidency.
Greene's move is unlikely to succeed but still is certain to roil internal GOP tension as she continues to target Johnson, the most powerful elected Republican in the country.
Johnson has been defiant in the face of the existential threat to his speakership, saying he has no intention of resigning from his post as a vast majority of his conference backs him. House Democrats on Tuesday promised to kill any effort from Greene to oust him from his speakership.
…The coming showdown has the potential to plunge the House into chaos once again after the lower chamber has already seen the ouster of its last GOP speaker, former Rep. Kevin McCarthy. Finding a replacement for the California Republican took three weeks amid significant GOP infighting, with former President Donald Trump demonstrating his power over the party by making public statements that undercut support for one of the leading candidates.
Another potential leadership crisis has raised significant concerns among Republicans about how it would reflect on the party in a critical election year. It's also not clear who could succeed Johnson if the speakership were to be rendered vacant, but eyes would immediately turn to those who sought the job last year, including House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN).
…House Republicans control the lower chamber with just a razor-thin majority and a one-vote margin, meaning with Greene, Massie and Gosar calling for Johnson's removal, that would be enough votes — assuming Democrats joined them — to topple the speaker. The conservative Republicans have hinted there are other members willing to force Johnson out.
Just one aggrieved lawmaker can initiate the process to remove a speaker thanks to a decision by McCarthy to change the lower chamber's rules. In his own pursuit of the speakership early last year, McCarthy agreed to allow for a vote on his ouster if it was called for by just a single member.
Johnson's allies pleaded with the speaker in April to change the rules to beat back Greene's effort and any other possible future removal threats. But Johnson has announced the House will continue to operate under it's existing set of rules.
Johnson and his fellow Republican leaders are almost certain to try to dismiss Greene’s push, and Democrats will support such a move.
"We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed," House Democratic leaders said in a joint statement on Tuesday morning.
But it's not clear whether Johnson could stay on as speaker with the help of Democrats. Conservatives and several other House Republicans have doubts publicly and privately at the prospects of a Republican speaker staying in power with Democratic support.
