Marjorie Taylor Greene Backtracks on Immediate Vote to Remove House Speaker Johnson While Seeking Deal

WASHINGTON — After a nearly two-hour meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson, far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., emerged from her office and said the two will continue their discussions Tuesday morning. fair, amid her threats to force a vote to depose him.

“We will reconvene tomorrow based on the discussion we had,” Greene said, standing in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall, although she did not go into detail about what she and the speaker discussed.

She did not respond to any questions about whether she was backing down, forcing a vote on a supposed motion to vacate the speaker’s seat.

But ongoing talks between Johnson and his biggest critic in Congress suggest the two could reach a deal to avoid a vote on Johnson’s future that would embarrass the party six months before the November election.

“I have been patient, I have been diligent, I have been firm and I have focused on the facts. And none of that has changed,” said Greene, surrounded by a phalanx of photographers and reporters. “So I just had a long discussion with the speaker of the House in his office about ways to move forward to a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. We will speak to him tomorrow based on our discussion today.”

The Monday afternoon meeting took place at Greene’s request, GOP sources said. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, one of only two Republicans publicly supporting his effort to oust Johnson, also attended the meeting.

Speaking to reporters moments after Greene, Johnson called the meeting “productive” and said they discussed several ideas.

“I told them, and I said it repeatedly, that I understand the frustration; I share it,” Johnson said. “I’d really like to advance our conservative politics a lot more on a daily basis here, but the reality is we’re working with the smallest majority in U.S. history, by a one-vote margin.”

“That makes it very difficult for us to use my football metaphor, like I usually do, of throwing touchdown passes on every play,” he added.

At a press conference last week, Greene promised to introduce a motion to vacate the House speaker’s seat this week — a move that would effectively force every member of the House to take a stance on Johnson’s future.

It would be the second time during the past year that a Republican has acted to force a vote to remove the president of his own party; in October, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., forced a successful vote to oust then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., paving the way for Johnson, R-Fla., to succeed him.

If brought to a vote, Johnson and his allies are expected to defeat Greene’s efforts, given that Democratic leaders said last week that many of their rank-and-file members will support a motion to “introduce” or cancel her motion to vacate. .

Both Greene and Johnson are allies of their party’s presumptive nominee, Donald Trump. But the former president signaled his support for Johnson; the two appeared together during the speaker’s recent trip to Mar-a-Lago and he joined Trump on stage over the weekend at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania.

Speaking to reporters and posting on the social media site X, Greene repeatedly disparaged Johnson as a “Democrat speaker.”

“House Speaker Johnson is under the control of Jeffries and Schumer,” Greene wrote on X on Monday, referring to House and Senate Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, both of New York. “Do you want your son or daughter to fight against Russia in Ukraine? Keep supporting Johnson.”

Johnson has explicitly said he supports aid to Ukraine, in part because he does not want to send American fighters to Ukraine; President Joe Biden also rejected such an idea.

Jeffries, during an appearance on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday did not disagree with Greene that Democrats are in charge even though they have fewer votes than Republicans.

“Even though we are in the minority, we have effectively governed as if we were in the majority because we continue to provide the majority of votes needed to get things done,” Jeffries said in the interview. “Those are just the facts.”