(WASHINGTON) – Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Wednesday she would call a vote next week on whether to recall House Speaker Mike Johnson, forcing her colleagues to choose sides in a difficult showdown after Democratic leaders announced that would provide the votes to save the Republican president. work.
Speaking outside the Capitol, Greene railed against Republican Party leaders at the highest level and rejected their public calls, including from Donald Trump, to avoid another messy political fight so close to the November election. With her was Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., one of the few lawmakers to join her efforts.
“We need leaders in the House of Representatives who can get this done,” said Greene, R-Ga., holding a red “MAGA” hat from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign movement.
“Mike Johnson is not capable of this job,” she said.
As she continued next week, she said “every member of Congress needs to take this vote.”
The standoff with Greene, one of Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters, risks throwing Republican control of the House into a new round of chaos as rank-and-file lawmakers will have to choose whether to remove Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, as speaker of the House or join him. Democrats to keep him in office.
Johnson, in his own statement, said Greene’s move was “wrong for the Republican Conference, wrong for the institution and wrong for the country.”
Democrats see in Johnson a potential partner, a hard-line conservative who is nevertheless willing to move his Republican Party away from far-right voices that obstruct the routine business of governing, including government funding and, more recently, , support for Ukraine and other US countries. allies abroad.
The Democratic leader, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, and his team issued a joint statement this week saying it was time to “turn the page” on the GOP chaos, announcing that Democrats would vote to advance Greene’s motion to vacate the position of president of the Chamber. , essentially ensuring that Johnson is not thrown out of office.
Johnson’s public opponents are few at this point, and fewer than the eight needed to unseat now-former Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., last fall, in the first removal of a sitting president from the powerful office of second. in the line of succession to the president. Only one other Republican, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, joined Greene’s effort.
Greene and Massie said they were giving their colleagues the weekend to weigh their options before calling for a vote on their motion to vacate office next week. Or, they said, Johnson could simply resign, citing the example of a previous president, Republican John Boehner of Ohio, who stepped aside in 2015 when hardliners threatened to remove him.
“Are you going to hug Hakeem Jeffries like Mike Johnson did?” Massie said, before a poster photo of Jeffries handing the gavel to Johnson when the Republican became speaker of the House last fall.
“They have a weekend to think about it, but more importantly, Mike Johnson has a weekend to think about it.”
Turbulence took over a Chamber that was already essentially paralyzed. Johnson was unable to marshal his slim majority to work together on party priorities and was forced into the arms of Democrats to get the votes needed to pass most major bills — and now, to keep his job.
Johnson was chosen by Republicans as the last consensus candidate after McCarthy’s ouster, but he courted the ire of the far right when he led the way in passing the $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine and the U.S. allies it joined. oppose.
Trump gave a nod of support to Johnson, who rushed to the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida last month to bolster his support.
Other Republican leaders, including Trump’s handpicked head of the Republican National Committee, Michael Whatley, have urged House Republicans to delay the removal effort before fall elections that will determine which party controls the White House and Congress.
In a private meeting Tuesday, Whatley urged House Republicans to unite around their common priorities. He delivered the same message later in the day to Greene, telling her that trying to remove Johnson had not helped, according to a person familiar with the conversations who was not authorized to discuss them publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
While Democratic leaders have said they would cast the votes to advance Greene’s motion when it is introduced, essentially shelving it, it is unclear whether all Democratic lawmakers would join that effort.
In their private meeting this week, some Democrats opposed helping Johnson, especially after he helped lead Trump’s legal challenges in the 2020 presidential election, which Democrat Joe Biden won. Party leaders said their support for sidelining Greene’s resolution is not the same as voting for Johnson.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
