Speaker Johnson Responds to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Ouster Threat

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has tacitly responded to the motion filed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to strip him of the gavel.

Ms. Greene last month filed what is called a motion to vacate in response to Mr. Johnson’s introduction of a $1.2 trillion bill on the floor to fund most of the government.

“She’s [a] colleague. I’ve always considered her a friend, Marjorie and I don’t disagree, I don’t think, on any matter of philosophy. We’re both conservatives, you know, but we do disagree sometimes on strategy and with regard to what we put on the floor and when and those things,” Mr. Johnson told reporters on April 10.

Mr. Johnson acknowledged Ms. Greene’s frustration with the appropriations for fiscal year 2024 but noted that the GOP does not have much leverage even with its one-vote House majority, the only part of government they currently control.

“We are not going to be able to do big transformational changes that we’d like, that we know are necessary. And for example, the budget and then spending, we’re not going to get all of our priorities,” he said.

“We will never get 100 percent of what we want and believe is necessary for the country because that’s the reality,” he continued. “It’s a matter of math and in the Congress, the numbers, the votes that are available.”

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Mr. Johnson said it would not have been worth shutting down the government as doing so would mean that Border Patrol, troops, and TSA agents would not get paid.

Shutting down the government, he said, “would put a lot of pressure on the American people, the American economy at a very desperate time. We can’t have large sections of the border being totally uncontrolled.”

The motion to vacate “wouldn’t be helpful,” Mr. Johnson said. The pair will meet on April 10 morning to try to clear the air.

In addition to the appropriations issue, Ms. Greene has been frustrated with Mr. Johnson over his plan to introduce legislation that would provide assistance to Ukraine.

Nonetheless, she has not revealed if she will follow through with putting the motion on the House floor.

“Let me tell you, when he forces that vote, again, under suspension with no amendments, and funds Ukraine and people find out how angry their constituents are about it, that’s going to move the needle even more,” Ms. Greene told CNN.

Suspending the rules to pass a bill in the House would require a two-thirds majority, a threshold that a bill to send aid to Ukraine would likely surpass.

“I’m not saying I have a red line or a trigger, and I’m not saying I don’t have a red line or trigger,” Ms. Greene told CNN last week. “And I think that’s just where I’m at right now. But I’m going to tell you right now: Funding Ukraine is probably one of the most egregious things that he can do.”

Ms. Greene wrote a scathing letter to colleagues on April 9 regarding Mr. Johnson.

In it, she lamented Mr. Johnson breaking his policies such as allowing input from rank-and-file members and passing legislation through regular order that includes allowing amendments to be brought up on the floor.

Ms. Greene listed examples including Mr. Johnson pushing through cobbled-up government funding bills that she said gave Democrats all that they wanted, a lack of conservative victories, and a continuation of President Joe Biden’s agenda.

“As a matter of fact, there is little daylight between Nancy Pelosi’s omnibus in the 117th Congress and Mike Johnson’s omnibus in the 118th Congress, in spite of Americans giving Republicans the majority in order to stop the Democrats’ ‘America Last’ destructive agenda,” wrote Ms. Greene.

She refuted the notion that removing the gavel from Mr. Johnston would hand the role to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

Ms. Greene argued that this would not be the case if there were additional retirements and if no Republicans cast a ballot for Mr. Jeffries to become speaker.