After threatening House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) for more than a month, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia) finally pulled the trigger on May 8, ousting House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana). I tried to expel him from.
But in a singular show of bipartisanship, most lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle banded together to accelerate the ouster movement by a vote of 359 to 43. Vote to raise the issue.
“The Unionist Party has spoken and Mike Johnson is the Speaker.”
Voting against the motion to address the issue were House Republicans Greene, Thomas Massey of Kentucky, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Alex Mooney of West Virginia, and Barry Moore. (Alabama), Victoria Spartz (Indiana), Chip Roy (Texas), and Paul Gosar (Arizona). , Eli Crane of Arizona State, Eric Burleson of Missouri State and Andy Biggs of Arizona State. Thirty-two Democratic members also voted against the motion, but seven Democratic members voted present.
“The Unionist Party has spoken and Mike Johnson is the Speaker,” Republican Rep. Thomas Massey of Kentucky declared in a written statement to Blaze News after Wednesday’s vote.
Johnson stepped into the speaker’s chair last year after former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted. After McCarthy was fired, House Republicans struggled to agree on a replacement and ultimately nominated Johnson to replace him.
Back in March, Greene fired a warning shot while filing an eviction complaint.
“The current Speaker has shown that he is unable to stand up to Democrats. I have filed a motion to resign. It’s time for Americans to have leadership in Congress that fights for their values and stops funding left-wing policies. That’s because it came.” Tweet With Greene’s @RepMTG X account declared at the time.
In April, Republicans Massie and Gosar co-sponsored a motion for Greene to resign.
Later, in a statement on April 30, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), and House Democratic Caucus Chairperson Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) announced that if Greene demands it, To oust Mr Johnson, he would likely vote on a motion to vacate his position.
“We will vote to pass Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to resign as Speaker. If she moves the motion, it will not succeed,” the Democratic trio declared in a statement. statement.
Green said she would seek to fire Johnson next week.
During an interview on “60 Minutes,” Jeffries Said“Even though we are in the minority, we continue to provide the majority of votes necessary to get things done, so we effectively continue to govern as if we were the majority.”
Green and Massey made four demands.
In a phone interview with Blaze News on Wednesday, before Greene later took to the House floor to call for Johnson’s ouster, Massey characterized the four points as “proposals” and said they were “proposals” that would undermine Republican, national and institutional interests. He suggested that this was because of the .
One of the demands was for Johnson to follow “the Hastert rule, which means no bill can come to the floor unless a majority of Republicans support it,” Greene said. Said During an appearance on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” show.
They also want to defund or eliminate special counsel Jack Smith’s “unwarranted prosecution” of former President Donald Trump, as well as cut off U.S. funding to Ukraine, Massey told Blaze. said in an interview with News.
Another demand was for a “government shutdown prevention plan,” Massey said, explaining that “instead of shutting down the government, we should have a 99% automatic plan.” [continuing resolution]“If the House fails to pass 12 separate spending bills.
“He has ignored all warnings. He continues to act as if he represents the United Party or is following orders from Chuck Schumer,” Massey told Johnson’s Blaze News, adding, “This week… We gave him an opportunity to show he is willing to fight for us.” He mentioned “conferences” and “principles,” but “I don’t see him doing that.”
Shortly after Blaze News spoke with Massey, Greene took to the House floor and called for Johnson’s expulsion, but boos could be heard in the chamber.
A new motion for removal filed by the lawmaker on Wednesday listed a long list of grievances against the speaker.
in post Massey shared with X what he said was the “full text” of Greene’s “motion to vacate the position of Speaker of the House.” The text included the following statement:
- “Mike Johnson cast the deciding vote against requiring a warrant to query Americans’ Section 702 data.”
- “A two-part omnibus divided into two minibuses was crammed down our throats and passed under a suspension of regulations, with only one day for a review of the regulations.”
- “By handcuffing the Republican Party’s ability to pass the Democratic agenda and influence legislation, elected Republican Party Chairman Mike Johnson has aided and abetted the destruction of our country by the Democratic Party and the Biden Administration.”
While Greene and Massey refer to Johnson as a “unified party chairman,” other Republicans see him very differently.
In a statement responding to a Blaze News question about whether he supports the effort to oust the Speaker and the four demands of Mr. Massey and Mr. Greene, Republican Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska said Mr. Greene’s motion He was one of 196 House Republicans to vote. Out — said Mr. Johnson is a man dedicated to “doing the right thing” for the country.
“I oppose the efforts of a few Republicans to remove Speaker Johnson from office. He is an honest man and dedicated to doing what is right for our country. , FISA, the budget bill, the Ukraine supplement, all of the things that I and Speaker Johnson have been attacked for passing.”The majority of the House supported all of them,” Bacon said in a written statement. “I will not make any concessions to the 1.5% of Republicans who are pushing these bills. These people had the opportunity to voice their opposition by voting for these bills, but that is not enough. They want to prohibit the majority of the House from introducing the bill.” ”
Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, who instigated McCarthy’s removal from the speakership last year, was among the majority of Republicans who voted to kill Greene’s effort, but Gaetz said his own In a tweet explaining the decision, he actually praised Greene, saying: “He has made a true and convincing case against Mike Johnson” and “deserves congratulations for this accomplishment.”
“The main reason I voted to file the motion is because we have a two-seat majority in an election year, and two or three Republicans are bribed to resign or vote for Democrats. If that happens, Democrats will immediately label Trump as an “insurrectionist.” To keep him off the ballot,” Gaetz said in the article. Tweet. “House Republicans must do better. We must be better led. We must get Trump back in the White House.”
President Trump highly praised Greene in a speech. post But he objected to her move to target Mr Johnson as a speaker, calling him a “good person who is trying very hard”.
“I love Marjorie Taylor Greene with all my heart. She has spirit and she has fight. She is and will be by our side for a long time to come. I believe,” the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee wrote. “But now the Republicans have to fight the radical left Democrats and all the damage they have done to our country. With a majority of one and soon to grow to three or four, we are not in a position to vote.” may file a motion to resign, but now is not the time to lead in presidential polls either nationally or in battleground states. ”
“Similarly, we have done well in the Senate and I believe we will do well in the House, but any display of discord that would be portrayed as chaos would have a negative impact on everything! Mike. Johnson is a good man who is working very hard.”I, too, would like to see certain things completed in the last two months, but we would like to ask all Republicans to “Motion to the Table.” Please vote. We will win big, and it will happen soon!” Trump concluded.
when talking to politiko In an interview on the Playbook Deep Dive podcast, Johnson insisted he did not violate the Hastert Rule during his speech. He said no additional funding requests from Ukraine were expected before the end of the year.
He said he believes Trump will win the election and plans to remain chairman.
“Will an ‘accidental’ speaker win the next Congress? Conservatives should ask themselves: Do they want a speaker who passed a lot of Democratic bills to be despised by the Republican majority? That’s winning. It’s hard to imagine a loss any worse than that,” said Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. tweetedget a retweet from Massey.
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