House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks with reporters at Statuary Hall after meeting with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie on May 6.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks with reporters at Statuary Hall after meeting with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie on May 6.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The House voted overwhelmingly to overturn a motion by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., to call for a vote to impeach House Speaker Mike Johnson. The vote was 359-43, with seven voting members present. Democrats provided a large portion of the votes.
The vote was the culmination of weeks of threats from Greene. Although that measure failed, Greene and other Republicans remain angry over Johnson’s reliance on Democratic votes to pass major legislation.
“Mike Johnson worked with (Senate Majority Leader) Chuck Schumer rather than the conference and gave Joe Biden and the Democrats everything they wanted – it’s no different than what ‘Would have made Hakeem Jeffries a president,’ Greene said, reading a litany of criticisms against Johnson. .
“This is the united party that the American people look to,” Greene said as the House chamber erupted in boos as she made the evacuation motion.
Johnson has labored for nearly two months with the constant threat that any action could trigger a vote to remove him from office.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Thomas Massie arrive here for a meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson on May 7.
Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Thomas Massie arrive here for a meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson on May 7.
Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
How Greene got here
Greene has been weighing whether to call a vote to oust Johnson since she filed the motion in March, after opposing his negotiations with Democrats over a $1.2 trillion spending package that ultimately failed. passed the House with more Democratic support than Republican support.
Last week, Greene threatened to move forward with the motion to rescind after the House voted on a Ukraine aid bill.
She has two Republican co-sponsors of the resolution: Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie.
Greene met with Johnson twice this week, including a meeting lasting more than two hours on Monday.
“Everyone was listening, it wasn’t an argument,” Massie said of Monday’s meeting. “(Greene) and I decided to give President Johnson one last chance to say that he would be on the side of the Republicans and not on the side of the Democrats, and there are litmus tests on that,” he said. declared.
Greene and Massie said those litmus tests included no additional funding for Ukraine, no funding for the special counsel’s investigation of former President Donald Trump, and that Johnson was only introducing legislation that had support of the majority of the GOP conference.
In a Tuesday appearance on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, Greene said she also wants twelve separate appropriations bills and not another Schumer-led omnibus “shoved down our throats.”
“This will no longer be tolerated,” she said, adding that if House Republicans don’t get the twelve separate bills, she wants to see a 1 percent reduction in spending.
Although hard-line members of the House Freedom Caucus have expressed displeasure with Johnson’s actions during his short tenure as speaker, most say they still do not want to subject the conference to another fight of president.
Greene also faced pressure from former President Trump. Greene and Trump spoke over the weekend and Trump urged her to back off, according to a source familiar with the conversation.
NPR News
