MTG throws GOP into flux with move to drop Speaker Mike Johnson

Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson, plunging Republicans into limbo ahead of Friday night's government funding deadline.

Green and other far-right Republicans have been irritated by President Johnson's agreement to a bipartisan bill aimed at averting a government shutdown. “No House Republican in good conscience can vote for this bill,” the Georgia representative said on the floor of the House. “It is a complete departure from all our principles. … This is not a Republican bill. This is a Chuck Schumer bill, controlled by the Democrats, coming from the House majority and supposed to be controlled by the Republicans.”

The House Freedom Caucus, of which Green is no longer a member, held a press conference earlier Friday morning to voice its displeasure with the bill. “This is a capitulation,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.). “This is tradition.” But the group's chairman, Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), wasn't interested in a motion to remove Johnson. “This is not a personnel discussion for us today,” he said, according to NBC News. “Today we are talking about the bill and politics.”

Green had other ideas, filing a motion to remove Johnson from the speaker's gavel. The House won't have a chance to vote on the proposal until after it returns from a two-week recess, but Green's colleagues are already speaking out against the measure.

“If we vacated this speaker, we would end up with a Democrat,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). “When I left the last one, I promised the country that we would not end up with a Democratic President. And I was right. I couldn't make that promise again.”

Gaetz was behind the motion to remove former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last October. McCarthy's ouster sent Republicans into a weeks-long stalemate as they repeatedly tried and failed to nominate a party-wide replacement. The GOP's narrow majority in the House meant they could afford to lose a few dissenters and elect a new Speaker, as Democrats block-voted Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (DN.Y.). Mike Johnson, then a largely unknown representative from Louisiana, was finally elected later in October.

Gaetz isn't the only Republican who isn't a fan of Greene's proposal to drop Johnson. “I don't know what this accomplishes,” said Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) according to Semafor. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) also said he would not move to oust Johnson. “No, he didn't lie to me,” she said, according to NBC News. Bursett was one of eight Republicans, along with Gaetz, who voted to oust McCarthy in October.

Greene's move could once again plunge the GOP into a dysfunctional mess — more than it already is, anyway — as the election season gets underway. He insisted, however, that the move is “more of a warning and a pink slip” and that he “does not wish to cause pain in our meeting and throw the House into chaos.”

We'll see. “We need to find a new Speaker of the House,” Green said addednoting that Johnson is “already in the arms of the Democrats.”