Last Wednesday, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (also known as MTG) brought a vote to the House floor to remove Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana). Although the vote failed, the motion needed the support of nearly the entire Democratic caucus to fail.
And why did House Democrats help the Republican speaker? To answer that, just look at what’s happened since Mike Johnson became speaker just six months ago. Not long after Mr. Johnson’s inaugural celebrations, signs quickly began to emerge that the Louisiana Republican was no longer a staunch conservative.
The first important test is stopgap funding bill, just three weeks after Johnson became Speaker. When the vote was taken, 209 House Democrats and 127 House Republicans supported the bill, while 93 conservative Republicans supported it. opposed This is because it did not include spending cuts or policies to secure the U.S. border. Rather than use his own majority to achieve a victory for the conservative wing of the American people, Chairman Johnson allowed the Democratic Party to win.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) held a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol on May 1, 2024, and announced that she would move forward with a motion to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc, via Getty Images)
For many Republicans, this is the first sign that the conservative they chose for speaker is polling roughly the same Democratic-led vote that Mr. McCarthy received just a month before he was fired. It might have been.
Two months later, on January 19, 2024, Johnson forced another vote. Another stopgap funding bill With overwhelming support from House Democrats. The bill was opposed by half of House Republicans because it also contained nothing to resolve the border crisis.
During negotiations in March, $1.2 trillion omnibus bill, conservative House Republicans pushed for spending cuts and attached border bills. But again, Johnson pushed the bill through because of overwhelming support from Democrats.
Just a month later, in April, Speaker Johnson agreed to extend the controversial agreement. FISA bill Once again, it received overwhelming support from the Democratic Party. Sensible Republicans wanted the bill to include a requirement that the government obtain a warrant before spying on Americans, but Johnson ignored this common sense measure and pushed the bill through. .Exactly one year ago in 2023, Reuters report US court finding that the FBI fraudulently used the FISA database 278,000 times.
From left to right: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-KY) in December. (New York), Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), December 12, 2023, Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The following week, after two years of congressional hearings and investigations, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) Threw President Joe Biden has released articles of impeachment against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
So how was this historic insult to the House received? Just two weeks later, Prime Minister Johnson rewarded Mr. Schumer by repackaging the Ukraine aid bill by supporting it. foreign aid bill, including funding from Israel and Taiwan.Despite the fact that US debt is out of control and Taiwan is not currently at war, Johnson and Schumer Gave Taiwan’s tax bill exceeds $8 billion.
Instead of tying the money to the passage of HR2, the bill that would eventually close the southern border, Chairman Johnson chose to commit $300 million in American taxpayer funds to this bill. Ukraine drug programMeanwhile, more than 400,000 people in the United States have been affected. death from fentanyl Since Joe Biden became president.
Johnson said the unconditional $95 billion bill was “the right thing to do,” and Biden summed it up. decided to withhold Funding for Israel. While Americans are struggling to buy groceries and gas, Johnson believes the right thing to do is fix the problem for other countries, not our own. Again, the bill did not include measures to: Safe US border.
Marjorie Taylor Greene knew her motion to vacate would not pass, but she chose to act in the interest of the American people to put America first.
Lee Rizzuto is the former U.S. Consul General to Bermuda and former Vice President of Conair Corporation.
