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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene escalated her threat to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday, distributing a scathing letter advocating for his removal and calling on Republicans to accept his leadership. .
In a five-page memo sent to colleagues on Tuesday morning, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, Ms. Greene, a right-wing Republican from Georgia, attacked Mr. Johnson in a point-by-point takedown. His record as a speaker. She accused him of recklessly promoting President Biden’s policies and wasting an opportunity to advance Republican priorities.
Ms. Greene warned her colleagues that they risk alienating themselves from voters if they continue to accept what she called a “complete and total capitulation” by the Republican Party under Mr. Johnson.
The letter said Greene, who last month introduced a resolution calling for Johnson’s removal from office but said it was just a “warning,” intends to follow through on her threat to call for a vote on Johnson’s removal. There was little doubt.
“If these actions by our conference leaders continue, we are not the Republican Party. We are a party hell-bent on continuing down the path to self-destruction,” she wrote. “I’m not going to support or participate in anything like that, and neither are the people we represent.”
Her escalation of threats comes at a sensitive time for Mr Johnson, who has said he will soon propose an emergency national security spending package that includes aid to Ukraine, which has infuriated the far right. He also plans to hold a series of tough votes this week on a bill to renew warrantless surveillance programs that many in his party oppose.
In her letter, Greene said Johnson has negotiated with Democrats on major legislation since she took the gavel five months ago, including multiple federal spending bills to prevent a government shutdown and the government’s annual defense bill. A number of cases have been described in detail. She secured pay raises for U.S. soldiers and ended a deal she called a betrayal of Republican values. Her actions “deeply anger our nation’s Republican base and give them little reason to vote for a Republican House majority,” she wrote.
She also blamed party members, adding, “If we win the House this fall, it will only be because President Trump is on the ballot, not because we won.” Ta.
Much of the criticism of Greene stems from Johnson’s decision last month to push through a bipartisan $1.2 trillion government spending bill that passed with a majority of Republicans voting against it. This prompted Greene to introduce a resolution calling for Johnson’s removal from office. .
She said at the time that the move was “more of a warning than a pink slip”, and wondered whether she intended to call for a snap vote to oust Mr Johnson or was simply seeking the outsized attention that comes with threats. The question arose: The House of Representatives then left Washington for a two-week recess.
Johnson hoped the leave would help ease tensions that threatened his continued work. In his interview, he called Ms. Green a friend. He shared her frustrations with the spending bill, sent her a text message, and said she had made plans to meet when she returned to Washington.
Now the House is back together, and Greene has made clear she will not be easily appeased.
“Fully funding abortion, transgender issues, climate issues, foreign wars, and Biden’s border crisis will not ‘ensure freedom, opportunity, and security for all Americans,'” she said. , he wrote, quoting from Mr. Johnson’s list of priorities. post.
He also accused Trump of funding what Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting Trump on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents, called a “witch hunt.” Johnson was accused of failing to do so. Taken together, she said, Trump would receive a “death sentence.”
“They want him dead,” Greene said of Democrats. “We could have stopped it with our spending power, but Speaker Johnson didn’t even try to stop it.”
(It is highly unlikely that Democrats would have agreed to cut spending to prosecute Mr. Smith or that Mr. Biden would have signed a bill to do so.)
Ms. Greene also laid out her case against Mr. Johnson to voters Monday night at City Hall in Tunnel Hill, Georgia. Yes,” she said. “My question is, are you angry?”
Greene’s letter appeared to be aimed primarily at swaying the chair over the controversial Ukraine aid bill, which she initially refused to bring up, but in recent days, Biden has He is bowing to the pleas of Democrats, other Republicans, and world leaders to do just that. So.
“Mike Johnson, who opposed funding to Ukraine less than seven months ago, has now publicly stated that funding to Ukraine is his top priority,” Greene wrote. Ta. “The American people disagree. We believe our borders are the only borders worth fighting for. I agree with them.”
For months, Greene has argued that Ukraine’s actions are a “red line” that could lead to her ouster. In an interview with right-wing media host Tucker Carlson last week, Ms. Greene wondered aloud whether Mr. Johnson was bringing up the matter under duress, because “he is our Because it’s completely disconnected from what you want.”
Greene, a mob instigator who forged an unlikely alliance with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and was kicked out of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, called herself a “team player” in a letter. , he was someone who couldn’t do that. If the current leadership continues on its current trajectory, it will stand for it for much longer.
She scoffed at the idea that compromise was necessary now that the government was divided.
“Even if the Republicans had a very thin majority, they could have at least secured the border, which is the biggest issue in the country and the issue that is causing Biden to lose in poll after poll.” That’s why,” Green wrote. . “Nothing is more likely to shoot in their own tent than a Republican House speaker who gets rank-and-file members to vote to fund full-term abortions in order to pay soldiers.”
It’s unclear whether Greene’s claims will persuade her colleagues, including other far-right lawmakers who have voiced skepticism about a second move to oust the speaker. For example, Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who led the effort to remove Mr. McCarthy, said that when Mr. McCarthy took action in October, he “promised the country that we would not have a Democratic chairman.” Since then, as the Republican majority in the House has shrunk to a precarious one vote, Gaetz said, “Today we failed to deliver on that promise.”
Greene said in the letter that such a move would not occur unless more Republicans retire and the party loses its majority or Republicans vote for the minority leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat. Said it wouldn’t happen.
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