Marjorie Taylor Greene, not one to make her colleagues’ lives easy, has threatened twice in the past three weeks to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson from the job he really doesn’t like doing. She gained an ally on Tuesday morning when Johnson brought three separate bills, for aid to Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine, to the House floor.
In response to one that could send as much as $60 billion to Ukraine, Kentucky representative Thomas Massie joined Greene in her call to get rid of Johnson. In a closed-door caucus meeting, Massie told fellow Republicans that he believes Johnson should resign and that he would co-sponsor Greene’s recent motion for Johnson to vacate the Speaker position.
“He should pre-announce his resignation (as Boehner did), so we can pick a new Speaker without ever being without a GOP Speaker,” Massie then posted on X. When asked on the platform whether the recent FISA bill or the aid packages were the final straw for him, Massie responded “all of the above” and “this camel has a pallet of bricks.”
Any sign of rebellion on the House right is bad for Johnson, who is struggling to maintain enough control to get anything done. But Massie’s participation in the cause to oust him does not seem to indicate any greater popular movement, at least for now. Axios reports that Massie was booed by a majority of the conference after laying out his plan, whereas Johnson drew cheers. “It is, in my view, an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply here trying to do our jobs,” Johnson said after the meeting.
Perhaps more important than Republican support, Johnson has the tacit backing of most Democrats in the House. When Kevin McCarthy was deposed last year, nearly all House Democrats voted for the motion to vacate the chair. With a much weaker caucus on the other side of the aisle, Democrats have publicly stated they will back Johnson if he is willing to pass aid bills to American allies at war. “I’ll make a common cause and an alliance with anybody in Congress who will try to save the Ukrainian people at this point,” Democrat Jamie Raskin said last month. So if Greene wants a new Speaker, she will need about 100 more Republicans to team up against Johnson. Right now, that’s not looking too likely.
