MTG Says ‘Uniparty’ Win Saving Johnson’s Speakership Will Mean More Money for Foreign Wars
© AFP 2023 / DREW ANGERER
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House Democrats and Republicans joined forces on Wednesday to shoot down the congresswoman’s motion to oust the speaker over his efforts to secure tens of billions of dollars for wars abroad while overlooking the crisis at the US southern border, and to reauthorize measures allowing for warrantless surveillance of US citizens by the state.
Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene took to X on Thursday to issue a scathing attack targeting her fellow Republicans who joined with Democrats to block her push to vacate the House and prompt the selection of a new Speaker to replace Mike Johnson.
“All the scary bad things they all told you would happen if I called the motion to vacate didn’t happen. They said ‘Democrats would take control of the House and [Minority Leader Hakeem] Jeffries would become speaker because Republicans only have the majority with one seat’. Didn’t happen. Instead, Democrats voted to save Johnson because they knew it was impossible to take control of the House and they want to keep Johnson because he’s given them everything they want,” Greene wrote.
“They said ‘we should be focused on more serious issues! None of this does anything for the American people!’ Doing things for the American people and focusing on serious issues didn’t happen because the Uniparty reared its ugly head and voted to protect their Uniparty leader and to keep the status quo which has done nothing for the American people or solved problems on serious issues,” the lawmaker added.
“And you know what else didn’t happen? Congress, which is paid by the American people and sent to represent them, didn’t stop the border crisis, didn’t stop funding foreign wars, didn’t protect America’s energy industry, didn’t cut spending to reduce inflation, didn’t defund the weaponized government. Instead Congress protected itself and kept the Uniparty control over the People’s House,” Greene wrote.
Greene, 49, is one of a handful a new breed of Republicans calling for a radical review of the America’s domestic and foreign priorities, calling for a halt to US support for foreign wars, measures to clamp down on illegal immigration, and efforts to deal with America’s gargantuan $34+ trillion federal debt.
43 House lawmakers voted against tabling Greene’s motion to vacate the House on Wednesday, among them ten Republicans, including Paul Gosar, Thomas Massie, Andy Biggs and Chip Roy. Nearly three dozen Democrats also voted against killing the motion, which would have opened the door to Johnson’s removal, among them several members of the so-called Congressional Progressive Caucus, including Jamaal Bowman, Pramila Jayapal, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Democratic support saved Johnson’s speakership, but potentially puts the politician in an electoral tight spot among conservatives as a speaker propped up by the opposition.
However, former president and presumptive GOP nominee for president Donald Trump – whose 2016 election gave rise to the anti-neocon Republican movement, and ultimately Greene’s election in 2020, rushed to Johnson’s defense in a Truth Social post on Wednesday.
“I absolutely love Marjorie Taylor Greene. She’s got Spirit, she’s got Fight, and I believe she’ll be around, and on our side, for a long time to come,” Trump wrote. “However, right now, Republicans have to be fighting the Radical Left Democrats, and all the Damage they have done to our Country. With a Majority of One, shortly growing to three or four, we’re not in a position of voting on a Motion to Vacate. At some point, we may very well be, but this is not the time.”
Emphasizing in all caps that a motion to vacate would show “DISUNITY” and “be portrayed as “CHAOS,” Trump said that Johnson was “good man who is trying very hard,” and that while he wished “certain things were done over the last period of two months…we will get them done, together.”
Trump, whose backdoor negotiations with House Republicans reportedly included the idea of turning new Ukraine aid into a ‘loan’ to earn GOP support last month, did not elaborate on what these “certain things” were.
Greene, Gosar, Massie, Biggs, Roy, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Andrew Clyde, Eli Crane, Bob Good, Troy Nehls, Ralph Norman and Matt Rosendale, all Republicans, were the only House lawmakers to vote against all the legislation put before the floor on April 20, including aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, a TikTok ban and new sanctions against Iran after its retaliatory April 14 attack on Israel.
Johnson is the second Republican House speaker to have been targeted by an effort to oust him from his conservative flank, with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy ousted in October 2023 over what Rep. Gaetz alleged was a “secret side deal on Ukraine” to provide Kiev with more funding. McCarthy’s ouster was made possible after conservative Republicans secured the support of Democrats to force him out, with the move resulting in the blockage of nearly $100 billion in US military and economic support for foreign wars for more than six months.
