Marjorie Taylor Greene escalates pressure on Speaker Johnson as ouster threat looms

Originally Published: 09 APR 24 08:00 ET

By Annie Grayer, CNN

(CNN) — GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia issued a searing indictment of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership in a new letter sent to her Republican colleagues on Tuesday, according to a copy shared with CNN, in a significant escalation of her rhetoric as she tries to build support for potentially ousting Johnson.

While Greene does not indicate if or when she plans to force a floor vote on Johnson’s removal, the scathing rebuke marks her first direct pitch to the House GOP conference to join her push and indicates she is not backing down from her threat as lawmakers return to Washington following a two-week recess.

For his part, Johnson has tried to downplay the threat and attempted to ease tensions. “I respect Marjorie. She will always have an open door to the speaker’s office. We do have honest differences on strategy sometimes but share the same conservative beliefs,” the Louisiana Republican told CNN in a statement last week.

While the pair had said they would connect last week, it did not happen, a source familiar told CNN.

CNN has reached out to Johnson’s office for comment.

In the letter, Greene laid out a detailed case against the speaker, accusing Johnson of failing to deliver on promises he ran on and breaking legislative procedural rules. She even blamed him for jeopardizing the House Republican majority by not doing more to prevent some retiring GOP members from leaving Congress early.

“Mike Johnson has unfortunately not lived up to a single one of his self-imposed tenets,” Greene wrote.

“He is throwing our own razor-thin majority into chaos by not serving his own GOP conference that elected him,” she added.

While serving as speaker, Johnson has faced a number of constraints as a result of the historically narrow House majority he presides over and has had to contend with a Democratic-controlled Senate and White House, leaving him little room to maneuver.

In a sharp warning, Greene also claimed she would “not tolerate” Johnson’s expected upcoming push to provide more aid to Ukraine, something he had voted against before he became speaker, and push for reauthorization of a law that permits warrantless surveillance of foreign nationals.

Greene has not said how much support she has, but with upcoming resignations scheduled to give House Republicans their narrowest majority yet — just a one-vote advantage — there is no margin for error, particularly in a Congress where any single lawmaker can force a vote seeking his ouster and where governing has proved to be near-impossible at times. A number of House Republicans have voiced frustrations with Johnson, including GOP Reps. Thomas Massie, Chip Roy and Warren Davidson, but none have echoed Greene’s official call to remove the speaker.

At the same time, a significant number of House Republicans do not want to see Johnson removed from the speakership and fear a return to the chaos that engulfed the House GOP conference for weeks after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted in an unprecedented vote last year.

Johnson has cautioned that triggering a vote over the gavel would not be in the best interest of House Republicans or efforts to expand their majority, saying in his statement to CNN last week, “a shutdown would not serve our party or assist us in our mission of saving the republic by growing our majority, nor will another motion to vacate.”

Sending the letter on the day the House returns from a two-week recess escalates the warning that has been looming over Johnson since Greene filed the motion to unseat him and adds fuel to the inter-party divisions that have grown increasingly contentious since Johnson took over the speaker’s gavel last year following McCarthy’s ouster.

Greene ticked through a number of grievances she has with the Louisiana Republican and argued that Johnson has hurt the chances of Republicans holding onto the House majority in November.

“This has been a complete and total surrender to, if not complete and total lockstep with, the Democrats’ agenda that has angered our Republican base so much and given them very little reason to vote for a Republican House majority” Greene wrote. “As a matter of fact, if we win the House this fall, it will only be because President Trump is on the ballot, not because we have earned it.”

As is stands, Greene’s motion to oust Johnson remains a symbolicthreat as the clock to force an actual vote has not been started. Shortly after she filed the motion, Greene was swarmed by her colleagues who want to avoid another dysfunctional process that created a leadership vacuum last year and brought House floor action to a standstill for weeks.

Part of the argument to try and dissuade Greene from moving forward with the process, according to sources, is that ousting Johnson would only deliver Democrats the House majority.

Greene dismissed that argument in her letter to her colleagues on Tuesday.

“And no, electing a new Republican Speaker will not give the majority to the Democrats. That only happens if more Republicans retire early, or Republicans actually vote for Hakeem Jeffries. It’s not complicated, it’s simple math” she wrote.

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